But we beg pardon for holding the reader so long by the button, while Sir Charles Lyell and his book have been kept in the background. These thoughts have been upon our mind for many months, and we have felt impelled to give utterance to them here. The publication of this work we regard as an eventful matter in the history of modern thought. The time could not have been far distant when what we may call the geological history of man on this planet, must have come before the popular mind; and it is certainly a matter of congratulation that one of the most venerable, indefatigable, cautious, and successful investigators of modern times has undertaken the task of giving to the public a full and labored _resume_ of the evidence which has accumulated on the subject. Not unfrequently are the bigotry and prejudice of well-meaning religious people intensified by the imprudent zeal of the Hotspurs of science. True science can always afford to bide its time, and make haste slowly. Respecting the work itself, we begin by saying that the theme proposed is a perfectly legitimate one for science. It is entirely pertinent to science to undertake to search for the hidden traces of man's former history, if there be any. It is no dreamland or cloudland which it proposes to explore. It is no Quixotic adventure which it has gotten up to astonish and alarm the vulgar. If our human ancestors have lived fifty or one hundred thousand years longer on this planet than was generally supposed, it is quite likely they have left some traces behind them. And if so, it is perfectly legitimate for science to gather, collate, and interpret those traces. And from what we know of her past achievements, we may assure ourselves that if man has had such a pre-historic existence, science will most undoubtedly prove it. She has proved beyond all sane contradiction the great age of the earth. She has proved in like manner the vast extent of the universe in space. She has proved the existence of manifold forms of animal life on this planet for countless ages before the incoming of man, according to the popular chronology. She has proved, approximately, the order and succession of animal life as it arose, and the forms it assumed as the long cycles of ages rolled on. All these were legitimate themes for science; and all of them were opposed to the popular belief at the time--as much so as is the antiquity of man now. And further, we say that the mere suspicion that any such thing may be--the mere surmise of any such fact--the merest inkling which scientific men may get of a secret yet hidden beneath the veil, and waiting to be revealed--is a sufficient justification of those _tentative_ efforts of science which often result in the attainment of some grand discovery. Let no timid religionist charge upon scientific men that they are conspiring with malice prepense to undermine the popular creeds and overthrow the Bible. This is sheer nonsense. They follow where nature beckons them.