38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



by which they are received, remain in their typical make-up the same from 

 generation to generation. So at least biology seems to have decided. Hence 

 the " primitive " mind is that with which each of us begins in life, over 

 which we have been laying a sort of veneer from nursery to school, and 

 from school to college. 



The history of culture is that of the gradual massing of the materials, 

 language, literature, customs, and institutions, from which the individual may 

 draw his education, or not, according to his will and his capacity. It is not 

 a history of any change, or at least any appreciable change in the nature of 

 the mind itself; although as a result of it the finished mind, that of the 

 educated man, becomes progressively more and more remote in many directions 

 from its own starting point. But as we begin to assimilate those materials in 

 our earliest years, we never have the adult primitive character, which, after all) 

 is what we seek to know about. What this was we can only infer from a 

 varied but scanty assortment of facts. 



The sources of information about primitive man, man of the stone age 

 are : (I.) The remains which have been unearthed and are now available in 

 museums, or, as with the " standing stones," &c., in the fields. These include 

 (1) bones, especially skulls, the size or capacity of the latter and their shape 

 indicating the relative or comparative intellectual powers ; (2) the houses or 

 temples, cave dwellings, barrows, mounds, menhirs, dolmens, &c. ; (3) utensils, 

 throwing light on the occupations the hunting, household life, preparation 

 of food, &c. ; (4) ornaments personal and other decorated weapons, paintings 

 or engravings on rocks, on bones, &c. ; (5) from the refuse heaps comes infor- 

 mation also as to the animals which were hunted for food or for their skins 

 or as enemies to man ; (6) the tombs or burial grounds with their indications 

 of belief in a supernatural world. (II.) The myths, legends, superstitious 

 observances and customs of all kinds which have been handed down from 

 one generation to another to our own day ; many of these have been proved 

 to contain or to represent the beliefs of prehistoric man, and an analysis of 

 some of them is what is attempted in this paper. (III.) The customs, in- 

 stitutions, myths, &c., of primitive men now living, such as the lower groups 

 of savages in Ceylon, Australia, South America, and elsewhere. 



The term " psychology " as applied to a particular person or group of 

 persons may moan either (1) the views, theories, beliefs in general held by 



