xvi THE EARTH BEFORE HISTORY 



the interests of geography, ethnography — or the psychology of 

 peoples — and logic. The pre-occupation with the whole as such, 

 with human evolution, will no doubt be constantly in evidence : 

 mid from the very nature of things this will become increasingly 

 Prominent since, as we remarked before, human solidarity becomes 

 more and more manifest as we proceed : but light will be 

 ■thrown, in the course of our work, at the opportune moment and 

 in the measure desired, upon those portions of the earth and upon 

 those peoples whose influence makes itself felt, and becomes 

 preponderant. As to logic, if our conception of causality occupies 

 too large a place it will yet be admitted that it has been entirely 

 freed from its metaphysical and a priori nature : it has become 

 merely one of the positive elements of history whose role is to be 

 determined. Moreover, is not the fundamental principle of 

 division here of an internal nature ? Is it not derived from the 

 complex nature of historical causality ? As we have already 

 indicated, our principal care will be to lay particular stress on the 

 effect of great events, the pressure of social necessities, the profound 

 influence of psychic factors, of needs and ideas, and thus to 

 ■bring into relief not the continuity of progress but the three-fold 

 play of the permanent causes and the results of their continuous 

 operation. 1 



Our work, although it will have all the utility of an 

 Encyclopaedia, will, as we shall see, be something quite different. 

 If it is true that a little science sterilizes history, a good deal of 

 science ought to endow it with life. The pre-occupation with 

 general and permanent causes, which enhances the worth of even 

 the most modest research, will give our synthesis not only its full 

 dignity but its full interest, and an element of dramatic attraction. 

 We are concerned, in other words, with reconstructing the road 

 along which humanity has travelled ; the path which a blind 

 instinct, obscure influences, and a variety of circumstances have 

 forced it to take ; and in so doing we are attempting to understand 

 why this path has been pursued. Along the ages, through the 



1 After the main outlines of the plan had been sketched, I submitted it to the 

 judgment of friends, and I have also sought the advice of specialists in assigning 

 the various volumes. Although firmly adhering to the initial lines laid down, 

 I have profited by the experience of numerous scholars and the suggestions of 

 the most diverse types of men. I would like to mention among those who have 

 been most intimately associated in the work of elaboration my friends Paul 

 Lorquet, L. Barrau-Dihigo, Lucien Febvre, and Abel Rey. To these and others 

 the plan owes some of its merits : for its defects I alone assume full 

 responsibility. 



