HISTORY FROM A BIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 495 



interpretation the beginnings of history are coincident 

 with the awakening of the specific powers of man, and 

 do not depend upon the existence of records. The wild 

 men of certain remote regions of the Amazon are still 

 in the prehistoric period. 



7. The fact of social inheritance that is to say, of Tradition 

 tradition complicates in many ways the historian's 

 problem. He must always be asking, is a certain trend 



of events, a certain way of doing things, due primarily 

 to tradition or to the nature of the human mind ? Thus, 

 for example, the remarkable Maya monuments in Cen- 

 tral America, dating from a period long before Colum- 

 bus, appear to show Asiatic influence. They certainly 

 possess characters in common with the monuments of 

 Oriental lands, though in detail quite distinct. Is the 

 degree of resemblance such as may be traced to the 

 common mental characteristics of humanity, or must 

 we explain it by postulating an early discovery of Amer- 

 ica by Asiatics crossing the Pacific Ocean ? Or again, 

 certain stories and legends, such as those of Uncle 

 Remus, appear in various forms on opposite sides- of 

 the world, among peoples who have apparently not 

 been in communication. Are they the naive imaginings 

 of man, in the presence of the universal facts of exist- 

 ence, or have they their root in a widespread tradition 

 having a single place of origin ? 



8. History being concerned primarily with the phe- intra- 

 nomena of human progress, it follows that events within 



the tribe or nation are more important than struggles factors 

 between nations. It is within the group that true de- 

 velopment occurs, and it is rarely that the beginnings 

 of important advances are spectacular. Wars are de- 

 structive and retrograde, but the reconstruction periods 

 following them, or even during their progress, may 



