1866. | ( 333. ) 
IiI. ON THE HABITS AND CONDITION OF THE 
TWO EARLIEST KNOWN RACES OF MEN. 
By W. Boyp Dawxtys, M.A. Oxon, F.G.8. 
In this age of steam-engines, and electric-telegraphs, and printing- 
presses, surrounded by all the appliances of modern civilization, with 
the hum and stir of commerce in our ears, and with our eyes 
accustomed to the rich cultivated fields, or the densely-populated 
towns, we find it very hard to realize to ourselves the England or 
the Europe of 500 years ago, when all these things were not, and 
when the habits of life which these things have naturally developed, 
were altogether different. So difficult is it, that with all the old 
chronicles at hand to furnish a true picture of the life and modes of 
thought of those times, Lord Macaulay is the only English historian 
who has attempted to give them even in outline. Still further back 
the materials for the social history of Western Europe grow more 
and more scant, and anterior to the time when the Romans con- 
quered Gaul and obtained a foothold in Germany, there are none 
whatever. Of the social condition of the people who dwelt in 
Britain, from Cesar’s landing down to the invasion of the Saxons, 
we know historically next to nothing ; the accounts left by Tacitus 
and other writers recording merely the movements of the Legions, 
and the establishment and maintenance of the Roman Imperium, with 
but incidental notice of the habits and customs of the vanquished. 
But where History is silent, Archeology steps in and wrests from 
the “speechless past ” evidence of the existence, and an outline of 
the habits of races of mankind that have disappeared. The caves 
and rock-shelters of Dordogne afford the first traces of the dawn of 
sculpture and engraving in Western Europe; the tumuli of Scan- 
dinavia, Germany, France, and Britain rival the tombs of Etruria 
in the knowledge they yield of their makers; the Pile-dwellings of 
Switzerland tell their own story, as well as the buried cities of Her- 
culaneum and Pompeii. In a review of history we realize that 
nations, like individuals, die, and that from time to time great migra- 
tions have destroyed the very existence of certain European peoples. 
In the Pre-historic times we also see that tribe drove out tribe, and 
race succeeded race, each bringing with it peculiar customs and 
habits. In both there is a gradual progress traceable in the arts 
and sciences, and in all that now makes life worth the living. In 
carrying man back into the most remote past to a poimt where 
Archeology dies away—so to speak—into Geology, we shall be 
compelled to acknowledge the truth of the saying of the great 
Pascal, that “‘the entire succession of men through the whole 
course of ages must be regarded as one man always living and 
incessantly learning.” The very first man who lifted himself above 
