438 TEADITION AND HEREDITY 



have seen to be common to all species in a state of nature and that, 

 therefore, if we are to speak of history at all, history was at this 

 time an expression of germinal change alone. We know nothing 

 directly as to what happened within this period, but from such 

 hints as we can get we must apparently make certain deductions. 

 We know that within this long period — many times as long as the 

 whole period which has succeeded it — there was accomplished by far 

 the greater part of the evolution of the human intellect. This is 

 the conclusion we draw from the fact that the intellect of primitive 

 races, which must be taken as representing man in the first period, 

 differs in a small degree from that of modem man relative to 

 the difference which we must suppose to have existed between 

 the intellect of man in the first period and that of the pre-human 

 ancestor. Again the picture we must draw of our ancestors in 

 the intermediate period is that of a species acquiring domination 

 almost solely by its intellect. Further we have seen that the advance 

 to the stage of primitive society was only made possible by an 

 important step in mental evolution — so important a step that 

 none of our ancestors who did not take it have survived. The 

 deduction to be drawn is clearly that in the intermediate period 

 history was founded in the main on germinal change. If we find 

 reason to conclude that germinal change has ceased to play so 

 important a part in the following periods, it should be remem- 

 bered that the sum of all these latter periods represents but a frac- 

 tion of the length of the intermediate period. If we regard human 

 history as a whole and date the beginning at the time when our 

 ancestors began to move away from those conditions which govern 

 the existence of all species in a state of nature, then we must 

 conclude that germinal change has been the explanation of what 

 has happened during far the greater part of history as defined 

 above. 



3. The course of history from the beginning of the first period 

 to the present day presents certain remarkable features. It 

 has to be remembered that the course of events in the first and 

 second periods has been reconstructed from evidence gathered 

 almost solely in Europe, and even then in large part from one 

 country, namely, France. Europe was not the centre of progress, 

 and it may be that the abrupt replacement of one stage of culture 

 by another, of which we find evidence, would not be what we should 

 find nearer the centre of progress. There the evolution of culture 



