HUMAN LIFE 



years ago; so that, if he really represents 

 man in lowest human terms, we have had 

 a human history on this earth of which 

 the period since the earliest historically 

 known civilizations of Egypt and Crete is 

 a very small fraction. But that is not 

 necessarily to disparage the possibility of 

 a great deal of important human history 

 occurring during that small fraction of 

 time. The biologist is not so foolish as 

 to suggest that extent of time alone is a 

 measure of the importance of epochs in 

 human history. For most of us that last 

 one hundred-thousandth of the period of 

 man's existence has a hundred thousand 

 times more interest than all the rest. But 

 the biologist believes that paying a little 

 attention to prehistoric man may make 

 the greater attention we pay to historic 

 man more fruitful of a sounder under- 

 standing of human character, capacity 

 and possibility. 



We seem rather to have taken for 

 granted that Pithecanthropus was the 

 first man or obviously near-man type. 

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