SKETCH OF GABRIEL BE MORTILLET. 551 



of using several different eras, such as the Foundation of Rome, the 

 Flight of Mohammed, and the Proclamation of the French Republic, 

 he suggested that ten thousand years before the Christian era be 

 adopted as a general starting point. This would include all Egyptian 

 chronology as known at the present day, and would leave five thou- 

 sand years at the disposal of future discoverers. 



" A spirit always youthful, a man of progress," says Dr. Capitan 

 in his eulogy, " our dear master kept himself fully in the current 

 with all work relating to prehistoric archaeology. He knew how 

 to profit by whatever would contribute to perfect his own work. He 

 therefore, on different occasions, modified his classification so as to 

 keep it up to date, realizing that a classification is an admirable in- 

 strument of study, which ought to go through the same evolution as 

 the science to which it is applied." This high quality of his mind 

 appears clearly in his last book, published in 1897 — Formation de la 

 Nation frangaise (Formation of the French Nation). This book 

 comprised the substance of his lectures of the term 1889-'90. In 

 publishing it he disavowed all intention of producing a new history 

 of France. There were enough of these in all shapes and sizes, 

 written in the most varied styles, with diverse tendencies, and from 

 the most different points of view, and there were some most excel- 

 lent works among them, particularly that of M. Henri Martin, which 

 seemed to him to contain all the historical information known. But 

 all these histories, even that of Henri Martin, although he had been 

 president of the Anthropological Society of Paris, appeared to M. 

 de Mortillet to be at fault in their starting point. They gave too 

 much place in their beginnings to the legendary and the imaginary, 

 and not enough to natural history and palseethnology. It was M. de 

 Mortillet's purpose to follow an inverse method — to regard direct ob- 

 servation alone; and he would rest only on the impartial and precise 

 discussion of texts and facts. " Texts, documents, and facts," he said, 

 " become more and more rare as we go back in time. I shall col- 

 lect and examine them with the greatest care in order to make our 

 origins as clear as possible, and to enlarge the scale of our history. 

 I shall appeal in succession to all the sciences of observation, and 

 when I have recourse to the texts, I shall subject them to the closest 

 criticism and the most complete analysis." The texts on which his- 

 torians had so far relied did not go back far enough. They told of 

 events three thousand or, including the Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, 

 seven thousand years old, but what was this compared with the im- 

 mense lapse of time during which man has lived, going back into the 

 Quaternary epoch ? On this vast period the texts furnish no informa- 

 tion. They were, besides, inaccurate, tinged with fable and poetry, 

 with local and personal prejudice and ignorance, even as to the times 



