PREHISTORIC SCIENCE 



ready explanation. But this phase of the subject 

 carries us somewhat afield. For our present purpose 

 it suffices to have pointed out that the conception of 

 man's mortality a conception which now seems of all 

 others the most natural and "innate" was in all 

 probability a relatively late scientific induction of our 

 primitive ancestors. 



5. Turning from the consideration of the body to 

 its mental complement, we are forced to admit that 

 here, also, our primitive man must have made certain 

 elementary observations that underlie such sciences 

 as psychology, mathematics, and political economy. 

 The elementary emotions associated with hunger and 

 with satiety, with love and with hatred, must have 

 forced themselves upon the earliest intelligence that 

 reached the plane of conscious self-observation. The 

 capacity to count, at least to the number four or 

 five, is within the range of even animal intelligence. 

 Certain savages have gone scarcely farther than this; 

 but our primeval ancestor, who was forging on towards 

 civilization, had learned to count his fingers and toes, 

 and to number objects about him by fives and tens in 

 consequence, before he passed beyond the plane of 

 numerous existing barbarians. How much beyond this 

 he had gone we need not attempt to inquire ; but the 

 relatively high development of mathematics in the 

 early historical period suggests that primeval man had 

 attained a not inconsiderable knowledge of numbers. 

 The humdrum vocation of looking after a numerous 

 progeny must have taught the mother the rudiments 

 of addition and subtraction ; and the elements of mul- 

 tiplication and division are implied in the capacity tq 



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