Changes of conditions in geological time will not meet this difficulty. They might lead to migrations, as they have done in the case of both plants and animals, but not to anything further. The hyena, whose bones are found in the English caves, has been driven by geological changes to South Africa, but he is still the same hyena. The reindeer which once roamed in France is still the reindeer in Lapland; and though under different geological conditions we might imagine the creature to have originated in the south of Europe, a country not now suitable to it, this would neither give reason to believe that any animal now living in the south of Europe was its progenitor, nor to doubt that it still remains unchanged in its new habitat. Indeed, the absence of anything more then merely varietal change in man and his companion-animals, in consequence of the geological changes and migrations of the Modern period, furnishes, as already stated, a strong if not conclusive argument against derivation; which here, as elsewhere, only increases our actual difficulties, while professing to extricate us from them. * * * * * The arguments in the preceding pages cover only a small portion of the extensive field opened up by this subject. They relate, however, to some of the prominent and important points, and I trust are sufficient to show that, as applied to man, the theory of derivation merely trifles with the great question of his origin, without approaching to its solution. I may now, in conclusion, sketch the leading features of primitive man, as he appears to us through the mist of the intervening ages, and compare the picture with that presented by the oldest historical records of our race. Two pictures of primeval man are in our time before the world. One represents him as the pure and happy inhabitant of an Eden, free from all the ills that have afflicted his descendants, and revelling in the bliss of a golden age. This is the representation of Holy Scripture, and it is also the dream of all the poetry and myth of the earlier ages of the world. It is a beautiful picture, whether we regard it as founded on historical fact, or derived from God Himself, or from the yearnings of the higher spiritual nature of man. The other picture is a joint product of modern philosophy and of antiquarian research. It presents to us a coarse and filthy savage, repulsive in feature, gross in habits, warring with his fellow-savages, and warring yet more remorselessly with every living thing he could destroy, tearing half-cooked flesh, and cracking marrow-bones with stone hammers, sheltering himself in damp and smoky caves, with no eye heavenward, and with only the first rude beginnings of the most important arts of life.