和訳お願い致します。
The reduction of the earth into the state in which we now behold it has been the slowly continued work of ages. The races of organic beings which have populated its surface have from time to time passed away,and been supplanted by others, introduced we know not certainly by what means, but evidently according to a fixed method and order and with a gradually increasing complexity and fitness of organization , until we come to man as the crowning point of all. Geologically speaking, the history of his first appearance is obscure, nor does archaeology do much to clear this obscurity. Science has, however, made some efforts towards tracing man to his cradle, and patient observation and collection of facts much more may perhaps be done in this direction. As for history and tradition, they afford little upon which anything can be built. The human race, like each individual man, has forgotten its own birth, and the void of its early years has been filled up by imagination, and not from genuine recollection. Thus much is clear, that man's existence on earth is brief, compared with the ages during which unreasoning creatures were the sole possessors of the globe.
