4 A MILLION YEARS OF CHILDHOOD 



mark on the bodily frame we have inherited. It 

 would be a remarkable triumph if man had, during 

 the short and constantly interrupted period of civiliza- 

 tion, entirely tamed a nature that had run wild for 

 more than a million years. It would seem still more 

 remarkable when we reflect that during nearly the 

 whole of the period little or no attempt was made to 

 educate the overwhelmingly greater part of the human 

 race. 



That is the social value of knowing something 

 about the early story of man. One of the first and 

 surest conclusions we draw from it is that we are 

 only just beginning to be civilized ; that we men 

 and women of the twentieth century are only now 

 stumbling on the threshold of the adult life of 

 humanity. The real story of civilization lies in the 

 millions of years which still remain for man on this 

 planet, if some great cosmic catastrophe does not 

 bring it to a premature end. 



The next point of importance in approaching our 

 subject is to understand the reasons for the long stag- 

 nation, or appallingly slow development, of humanity 

 before the dawn of history. First, perhaps, it is well 

 to say a word about the length of time which I have, 

 in the title of this chapter, assigned to the childhood 

 of our race. All such figures are uncertain, because 

 they are very difficult to estimate, and it must be 

 distinctly understood that the round number which 

 I give is merely the lowest figure that is consistent 

 with our present knowledge. Sir Arthur Keith, one 

 of the leading authorities on the remains of pre- 

 historic man, gives us (in his Antiquity of Man, 1915) 

 a diagram representing the tree of life from which the 

 human stem branched off. He places this branching 



