VI. 



THE AEYAN QUESTION AND PRE- 

 HISTORIC MAN. 



[1890.] 



The rapid increase of natural knowledge, which 

 is the chief characteristic of our age, is effected in 

 various ways. The main army of science moves to 

 the conquest of new worlds slowly and surely, nor 

 ever cedes an inch of the territory gained. But 

 the advance is covered and facilitated by the cease- 

 less activity of clouds of light troops provided with 

 a weapon — always efficient, if not always an arm 

 of precision — the scientific imagination. It is the 

 business of these en f ants perdus of science to make 

 raids into the realm of ignorance wherever they 

 see, or think they see, a chance; and cheerfully to 

 accept defeat, or it may be annihilation, as the 

 reward of error. Unfortunately, the public, which 

 watches the progress of the campaign, too often 

 mistakes a dashing incursion of the Uhlans for a 

 forward movement of the main body; fondly im- 

 agining that the strategic movement to the rear, 

 which occasionally follows, indicates a battle lost 

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