THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY 339 



never be maintained again in our century. The earliest work 

 of art wrought By the human mind — more ancient than any 

 literary document, and prior even to the first whisperings of 

 tradition — the human language, forms one uninterrupted 

 chain, from the first dawn of history down to our own times. 

 We still speak the language of the first ancestors of our race ; 

 and this language with its wonderful structures, bears witness 

 against such gratuitous theories. The formation of language, 

 the composition of roots, the gradual discrimination of mean- 

 ings, the systematic elaboration of grammatic forms — all this 

 working which we can see under the surface of our own speech 

 attests from the very first the presence of a rational mind, of 

 an artist as great at least as his work." ("Essays," vol. I, 

 p. 306.) History and philology are far more solid and certain 

 as a basis for inference than are '4ndex fossils" and prehis- 

 toric archaeology ; and the lesson taught by history and philol- 

 ogy is that primitive man was not a savage, but a cultured 

 being endowed with an intellect equal, if not superior, to 

 our own. 



But, even if we grant the priority, which evolutionists claim 

 for the Old Stone Age, there are not absent even from that 

 cultural level evident tokens of artistic genius and high intel- 

 lectual gifts. Speaking of the pictures in the caves of Altamira, 

 of Marsoulas in the Haute Garonne, and of Fonte de Gaume 

 in the Dordogne, the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans says: 

 "These primeval frescoes display not only consummate mas- 

 tery of natural design, but an extraordinary technical resource. 

 Apart from the charcoal used in certain outlines, the chief 

 coloring matter was red and yellow ochre, mortars and palettes 

 for the preparation of which have come to light. In single 

 animals the tints varied from black to dark and ruddy brown 

 or brilliant orange, and so, by fine gradations, to paler nuances, 

 obtained by scraping and washing. Outlines and details 

 are brought out by white incised lines, and the artists availed 

 themselves with great skill of the reliefs afforded by con- 

 vexities of the rock surface. But the greatest marvel of all 



