NATURE 



i6q 



THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1907. 



PlIT -RIVERS. 



The EviiUilioii of Culture and other Essays. By the 

 late Lieut. -General A. Lane-Fox Pit'.-Rivers. 

 Edited bv J. L. Myres, with an introduction by 

 Henr\- Balfour. Pp. xx + 232; twenty-one plates. 

 (Oxford: The Clartndon Press, 190(1.) Price 

 ys. 61!. net. 



TN languas;e and in all ideas communicated by 

 word of mouth there is a hiatus between the 

 limits of our knowledi^e and the oritjin of culture 

 which can never be bridtjed over, but we may h;-,ld in 

 our hand the first tool ever created by the h.iiid of 

 man " (p. 31). 



The i^'^reat collection at Oxford needed this book, 

 as a monument needs its inscription. These lectures, 

 written durinfif the actual collection and arrantjement 

 of the specimens, show the author's method c[ 

 classification and explain the evolutionary principles 

 which are concretely embodied in the objects them- 

 selves, from " the first tool ever created by the hand 

 of man " to the hit^lust effort of barb.iric manu- 

 facture. 



.\s everv student of man knows. General Pill- 

 Rivers devoted a lifetime and a fortune to the apiili- 

 cation of the idea of evolution to the ori.jfin and 

 development of the material arts. It was 

 " durintj his investigations, conducted with a view 

 to ascertaining the best methods whereby the service 

 firearms might be improved, at a time when the old 

 Tower musket was being finally discarded, he was 

 forciblv struck bv the extremely gradual changes 

 whereby improvements were effected. He observed 

 tiiat every noteworthv advancement in the efficiency, 

 not only of the whole weapon, but also of every 

 individual detail in its structure, was arrived at as 

 a cumulative result of a succession of very slight 

 modifications, each of which was but a triflin.g 

 improvement upon the one immediately preceding it. 

 Through noticing the unfailing regularity of this 

 process of gradual evolution in the case of firearms, 

 he was led to believe that the same principles must 

 probably govern the development of the other arts, 

 appliances, and ideas of mankind." 



This extract, from Mr. Balfour's excellent intro- 

 duction, puts on record a case of material inspira- 

 tion very similar to that bv which Darwin was led 

 to his own great work. Colonel Lane-Fox began to 

 put his ideas to a practical test in 1851. Evolution 

 was in the air during the 'fifties, and it should not 

 be forgotten that Pitt-Rivers, like E. B. Tylor in a 

 parallel direction, worked out its principles indepen- 

 dently of Darwin. 



Taking what we may call conscious evolution at 

 its first beginnings in the application of human hands 

 and brains to the materials supplied by nature, he 

 traces the development of utensils and weapons 

 through savagery and barbarism into civilised culture. 

 He takes as an axiom the principle that the earlier 

 a weapon is the nearer it lies to some natural form. 

 The consideration of these natural forms is extremely 

 interesting, and the way in vi-hich, not onlv the form, 

 but the material itself, flint, for instance, limited, or 

 NO. 1964, VOL. 76] 



in some cases suggested, the use of a weapon or tool 

 is an instructive psychological lesson. The author's 

 analysis of variation, retardation, and other qualita- 

 tive differences in the chain of continuity is full of 

 interesting analogies with biological processes. Thus 

 he can say that man " can no more be said to have 

 invented the boomerang than he can be said to have 

 invented the art of sustaining life by nourishment " 

 (|). 124). Knowledge of the theory of projectiles 

 renders the author's account of savage missiles scien- 

 tific in the truest sense; there is nothing a priori 

 about it. The evolution of the shield from the club 

 will be strange news to the layman. A detail of 

 divelopment,. which illustrates the interchange of use 

 and ornament, is the following, from the lecture en 

 " Early Modes of Navigation " : — 



" The oculus, which, on the sacred boats of the 

 Iv','yplians, represented the eye of Osiris guiding the 

 mummy of the departed across the sacred lake, is 

 >till seen eastward — in India and China — converted 

 into an ornamental device, while westward it lived 

 through the period of the Roman and Grecian 

 birenies and triremes and has survived to this dav 

 on the Maltese rowing-boats and the Xebecque of 

 Calabria, or has been converted into a hawser-hole 

 in modern European craft." 



The italics are not the author's, and serve to point 

 out his tendency at times to make coincidence into 

 causal connection. The bow of a boat is, of course, 

 the obvious place for various gear to be put, failing 

 which it is no less the obvious place for ornament, 

 imaginative, as in the- case of the " eve," or purelv 

 decorative. But the author did not mean that the 

 hawser-hole of a modern ship is sans phrase a de- 

 velopment from the Egyptian "eye." 



The lectures deal generally with principles of 

 classification (as a])plied to tlie Pitt-Rivers collec- 

 tion), the evolution of culture, primitive warfare and 

 weapons (the largest section of the book), and early 

 modes of navigation, and are filled with abundance 

 of detail. Mr. Balfour in his introduction does full 

 justice to his author's achievement and his inspiring 

 of other workers on the same lines. A luminous 

 example of the principles set forth in the book is 

 given in a sketch of his own historv of the origin 

 of stringed instruments from the bow of the archer 

 (<■/. " The Natural History of the Musical Bow," by 

 H. Balfour). He holds that some have taken excep- 

 tion to the use of the term " evolution " in connec- 

 tion with the development of implements and 

 weapons, and adequatelv vindicates such use. So at 

 least it seems to me ; and a study of the earliest 

 facts of "invention," so-called, would be most in- 

 structive to those who are inclined to draw too sharp 

 a line between biological chang^e and mental adjust- 

 ments to environment. Psychologists and students 

 of invention will find this a masterly book, and of 

 unusual value in directing attention to many a 

 fruitful series of facts and many examples of what 

 Mr. Balfour well calls "hybridisation of ideas." 

 There is no index. Many would prefer photographic 

 process-work for the plates instead of woodcuts. 

 Why should there not be some typical photographs of 

 the Pitt-Rivers collection ? A. E. Crawley. 



I 



