446 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 2 



world from the P^a^enees to Patagonia. He can even forecast the 

 probable existence of strata, which, without the map, would forever 

 have remained unknown. (Thus was the Kentish coal field dis- 

 covered.) These results have all been achieved within the last cen- 

 tury or two, and they are made possible by the fact that we can travel 

 in space. 



But we can not travel in time. We can not live in ancient Greece 

 or in Ur. It is impossible to compile a chart or chronological table 

 of the past as complete and accurate in its own way as was our 

 world map. The most we can do is to laboriously piece together 

 such fragments as survive, in written records or in the rubbish heaps 

 of buried cities. It must necessarily be a long time before generali- 

 zations can be built up on such foundations, before we can see the 

 pattern of history plainly. 



There is the added risk of seeing a pattern where none exists. 

 With so many mere scraps of knowledge, the historian of mankind 

 may be tempted to select only those which suit his purpose. But 

 some kind of selective treatment is demanded. If the explanation 

 suggested is the right one, all the facts — both those first selected and 

 the rest — will eventually find their place in the scheme, or at least be 

 found not inconsistent with it; and the theory will come to be 

 accepted. The theory of evolution was formed in this way, and it 

 is, of course, still universally accepted. If the explanation here put 

 forAvard can be used as the basis of forecasting, it will acquire 

 additional merit. 



Complete originality is not claimed for the ideas here suggested. 

 Neither the organic concept of society (the view that it is a living 

 organism) nor the rhythmical or wave theory of civilization is a 

 recent invention. The one has been developed by many philosophers, 

 by Comte, Spencer, Lilienfeld, and Scliiiffle for instance. The other 

 has been developed by Petrie ^ and Spengler — and doubtless by 

 others. No one, however, except Spengler, has brought the wave 

 theory of civilization into relation with the organic concept of 

 society and shown that the two are really inseparable. That is what 

 I propose now to do, so far as that is possible within the limits of 

 an article. To elaborate the theory, to clothe the skeleton with 

 flesh, would demand a far greater knowledge of human history and 

 of biology than I can possibly claim. It would be well worth doing. 

 Meanwhile I feel impelled to say something about it, however 

 inadequate, for, if the theory be true, it is obviously of very far- 

 reaching importance. 



" Sir Flinders Petrie's Revolutions of Civilization (Harper's Library of Living Thought, 

 3d ed., 1922) was first published in 1911; hut the author informs me that the main 

 thesis was worked out by him many years before this date. 



