IS IT A DELUSION?' 53 



example, when I say that this particular wish, with 

 the delusion it gives rise to, is as old as thought, 

 human and semi-human, and is still nothing but a 

 wish and delusion, how do I know what has been in 

 the past — that dreadful past of man's history on 

 earth? Absolutely nothing, or no more than we can 

 know from the study of a few fossil thigh-bones and 

 an occasional skull. And all that these tell us is that 

 distant races, our own and other species of men, 

 have been in the occupation of continental areas for 

 long periods of time, probably untold thousands of 

 generations, and that some of these races were larger- 

 brained than the men of the present era. Of their 

 nature, their inner life, we know and can know nothing, 

 and can only suppose that they had developed a 

 mentality wholly unlike ours. They did not build 

 cities of stone to live in, or, in other words, they did 

 not create new artificial conditions of life, to be them- 

 selves remade by the conditions they had created, 

 and were therefore not civilised in our sense. Theirs 

 was then the simple life, the life of animal and savage, 

 with, perhaps, the savage nature outlived. We are 

 told, at all events, of one of these large-brained 

 races, that their dentition was different from ours, 

 that they had no canine teeth, and were not flesh but 

 grain-eaters. What, then, was the culture of these 

 human beings of thirty or forty — some say fifty — 

 thousand years ago — these men that did not feed on 

 flesh, animal or human, and probably had no weapons 

 of offence and made no wars ? I don't know, and it 

 was therefore nothing but presumption on my part 



