If it be objected to this conclusion that absence of derivation in the Post-pliocene and Modern does not prove that it may not previously have occurred, the answer is, that if the evolutionist admits that for a very long period (and this the only one of which we have any certain knowledge, and the only one which concerns man) derivation has been suspended, he in effect abandons his position. It may, however, be objected that what I have above affirmed of species may be affirmed of varieties, which are admitted to be derived. For example, it may be said that the negro variety of man has existed unchanged from the earliest historic times. It is carious that those who so often urge this argument as an evidence of the great antiquity of man, and the slow development of races, do not see that it proves too much. If the negro has been the same identical negro as far back as we can trace him, then his origin must have been independent, and of the nature of a creation, or else his duration as a negro must have been indefinite. What it does prove is a fact equally obvious from the study of Post-pliocene molluscs and other fossils, namely, that new species tend rapidly to vary to the utmost extent of their possible limits, and then to remain stationary for an indefinite time. Whether this results from an innate yet limited power of expansion in the species, or from the relations between it and external influences, it is a fact inconsistent with the gradual evolution of new species. Hence we conclude that the recent origin of man, as revealed by geology, is, in connection with the above facts, an absolute bar to the doctrine of derivation. A second datum furnished to this discussion by geology and zoology is the negative one that no link of connection is known between man and any preceding animal. If we gather his bones and his implements from the ancient gravel-beds and cave-earths, we do not find them associated with any creature near of kin, nor do we find any such creature in those rich Tertiary beds which have yielded so great harvests of mammalian bones. In the modern world we find nothing nearer to him then such anthropoid apes as the orangs and gorillas. But the apes, however nearly allied, cannot be the ancestors of man. If at all related to him by descent, they are his brethren or cousins, not his parents; for they must, on the evolutionist hypothesis, be themselves the terminal ends of distinct lines of derivation from previous forms.