January 27, 1921] 



NATURE 



699 



An inaugural address was delivered by the 

 Prince of Monaco, in which he defined eloquently 

 the broad aims of human palaeontology. It was, 



plaything in the hands of the forces of Nature; 

 on the other, it helped us to surmount the bounds 

 of a narrow philosophy which would reject all 



Fig. 2. — i'he Inhtjiute of Human falseontology. Sculptured group. Negresses and dead orang-uun. 



he said, the prehistory of humanity. Only a few 

 years had elap.sed since men of science had recog 

 niscd human handiwork in flints embedded in geo 

 logical strata, and had seen in 

 them man's first attempts at 

 fashioning weapons for the cha.se 

 and for defence. On these stones 

 had been based a science which 

 revealed our past and freed our 

 judgment from the power of ba.se- 

 le.ss philosophies and superstition. 

 Investigation which traced the 

 human .species back to remote 

 epochs revealed its relation to the 

 animal world, from which it 

 seemed slowly to have evolved. 

 The prehistory of man began at 

 that point when the human family 

 was distinguished from other 

 animals by a development of the 

 brain which enabled it to diminish 

 the part played by the mu.scles, 

 and to employ moral force to 

 carry on the struggle for exist- 

 ence : an artificial weapon took 

 the place of the natural weapon, 

 whi(e, as shown by the paintings 

 and drawings of the caves of 

 Spain and Southern France, man 

 was already capable of testhetic 

 emotion and sentiment. 



The lesson of the history of mankind was. on the 

 one hand, that man, though favoured by the 'aws 

 . of the universe, was still nothing more than a 

 NO. 2674, VOL. 106] 



idea of relationship between man and the other 

 members of the living world, and would wish to 

 debar us from a study which placed mankind in 



Flo. ).— Tk* Inuiiui* of Human Pakeontologir. View of library shoiriDg kitoa killed by ih< 

 Prince of Monaco. 



an appropriate rank in the life of the globe. In 

 the Prince's own words: "C'est pour aider 

 1 'Anthropologic ii franchir les barriircs qui la 



