4 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



" Anthropology/' is of special interest because its author, E. B. 

 Tylor, was the founder of the science and is still living (in 1916). 1 



THE CHILDHOOD OF THE RACE. There is reason to believe 

 that the human race, in its long and slow development, has passed 

 through periods of essential childhood and youth, very much as 

 the individual human being passes slowly through infancy onwards ; 

 and that, precisely as the individual begins his intellectual life in 

 wonder, questioning, and curiosity, so the race has advanced from 

 a condition of childish wonder, questionings, and interpretations of 

 mankind and the external world, sun, moon, and stars, thunder 

 and lightning, wind, rain, and snow, which have gradually 

 developed into more mature and more scientific explanations. 

 This principle of an essential parallelism between individual 

 development and racial, named by Haeckel " the biogenetic 

 law," will be found especially pertinent at many stages in the 

 history of science. 



PRIMITIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF NATURE. As the child thinks 

 he sees in almost everything some living agency, because most of 

 the things that happen about him are obviously connected with 

 himself, or his parents, or his nurses, or other children, or with 

 his pets, so man in the childhood of the race and in its earlier 

 development sees in the wind some hidden being or personality 

 bending the tree, or shaking the leaves, or moaning or sighing in 

 the forest, or roaring angrily in thunder. Only a slightly different 

 imagination is required to see in the sun, moon, and planets super- 

 natural beings or gods travelling across the heavens, and by asso- 

 ciation, since they seem to visit his heavens daily or monthly 

 or at other regular intervals, to believe that they are somehow con- 

 cerned with himself and his welfare or destiny. From this primi- 

 tive interpretation to the modern astronomical knowledge of the 

 immensity, the movements and the paths, the temperatures, and 



1 The latest edition of Sir John Lubbock's [Lord Avebury's] " Prehistoric Times " 

 should also be consulted. Other easily accessible volumes are A. C. Haddon's 

 " The Wanderings of Peoples " (Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature) 

 and J. L. Myres' "The Dawn of History" (Home University Library Series). 

 The chapters on " Modern Savages" in Lord Avebury's " Prehistoric Times" are 

 especially instructive. Most important of all is Professor H. F. Osborn's recent 

 work, " Men of the Old Stone Age." 



