rHE COMING OF SAVAGE MAN 51 



his dreams being wiser than his thoughts, as seems often 

 the case with primitive people, and sometimes with us, re- 

 mained to goad and stir his mind. He awaked and gazed at 

 the fire. It was a strange creature, devouring fuel, licking 

 up the drops of water on the hearth, sending smoke and sparks 

 skyward. He could not understand it; it teased, puzzled, and 

 burned him. 



Nature was full of enigmas, rain and hail, frost and ice, 

 storm and lightning, sunshine and moon, accidents, diseases 

 and death. There must be in it more of a something like his 

 own inner self, which knew what he was doing and would 

 punish him for certain acts and might help him, if he did 

 others. He was not yet at home in it. 



There were many things about which he could think, and 

 probably talk; far more about which he could only wonder, 

 for the world was full of mysteries. We have ceased to won- 

 der, but the wise old Greeks knew that wonder was the mother 

 of wisdom. And all the time in the harsh climate and home 

 of fierce beasts Nature, " no fairy godmother," was always 

 buffeting him and goading him to use his few wits to the ut- 

 most. 



The hundred or m.ore millennia of lower Palaeolithic time 

 rolled slowly away. Upper Palaeolithic time covering the final 

 retreat of the glaciers ushered in a new people and race which 

 seem.s to have very largely replaced the Neanderthal folk. 

 The new Cro-Magnon race was of a different physical and 

 mental type and represented the noble savage. It is the 

 wonder and admiration of all students of prehistory. They 

 were tall, agile and vigorous, with high foreheads and strong 

 features, and would have made fine models for the sculptors 

 of to-day.^^ 



Apparently they had entered Europe from the east, per- 

 haps by the most northerly route. They produced a school of 

 painters v/ho covered the walls of caves with drawings and 

 paintings representing animals with a lifelikeness and spirit 

 not excelled by the most successful modern painters. Was 



11 



13. 272. 



