BIOLOGY OF MAN 1169 



to outline, comprehensive practical* measures. For the time is not 

 merely approaching, but actually beginning, when, if the evolu- 

 tionary sciences cannot soundly advise, hasty policies — by turns 

 revolutionary and reactionary, and with disastrous rebound either 

 way — must each be pushed to their extremes instead — as already 

 we have seen in neighbouring countries: and with sympathisers 

 with each type of extremist in our own. 



Let us see, then, how far a brief review of our knowledge of human 

 origins may be outlined. 



With but few broken and scattered bones and skulls, the anatom- 

 ists have done wonders of reconstruction for us; so that we can 

 wellnigh see these far-away kinsfolk as they walked the earth. 

 Indeed, for their later phases especially, the close association of 

 anatomy with sculpture and painting since the Renaissance, and 

 so ably pioneered by Leonardo, Diirer, and their followers, has here 

 for a generation past been productive; witness striking busts and 

 statuettes of various early types, and dramatic pictures, by Cormon 

 and others. And since such endeavours began, we have discovered 

 how vivid and skilled an artist was early man himself, and not only 

 as graver, but painter, and even sculptor. These discoveries are 

 reacting strongly upon the modern artistic mind so that we have 

 now better and better modern illustrations of these early peoples. 

 The accelerating progress of archaeological explorations and excava- 

 tions has yielded such wealth of material towards understanding 

 their ways of life that we are now obtaining a better acquaintance 

 with these remote and early men than we yet have of some important 

 peoples and civilisations of comparatively recent and even approxi- 

 mately historic date, like the Hittites, if not even the Etruscans. 

 Early in what Alfred Russel Wallace justly called "the Wonderful 

 Century" of scientific and technical advance, archaeology developed 

 primarily from two main initiatives. First, that scientific expedition 

 to Egypt which has proved one of Napoleon's best achievements; 

 and next the more arduous victory of M. Boucher de Perthes, in 

 demonstrating to an incredulous world the vast antiquity of man, 

 with that of his advancing civilisation too; the antiquity from the 

 geological position of his implements, and the record of advance 

 from the nature and progress of these. British investigators ably 

 followed; Danes and Swedes also greatly contributed; and there 

 were soon good workers in all western countries; so old museums 

 found space, yet even special ones had also to arise. Material proved 

 unexpectedly abundant, for caverns and "kitchen-middens" to 

 excavate were more numerous than we knew; and, most encouraging 

 and educative of all, flint implements great and small from heavy 

 axe-heads and hammers even to daintiest "fairy arrows" were found 

 to reward any observant rambler over the fields, as indeed one of 

 the newer boy-scout organisations is actively verifying. 



VOL. II FF 



