hay TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTED ARTICLES. 
mercial roads, to follow them to the chase and to battle, to surprise 
them in some of their religious observances, and to contemplate their 
funeral ceremonies. We thus transport ourselves into the past of 
our species, as the geologist has been able to make himself the con- 
temporary of the phases of development of our planet. It is thus 
we understand the study of high antiquity or primitive Archeology. 
We see that these researches deal with material objects, to vivify 
them and make them speak, as the geologist has the power of making 
stones speak. Nature is communicative when we know how to 
interrogate her; only we must not ask from times, when writing 
was unknown, to furnish us with proper names; for here they are 
entirely wanting,—whilst they play an important part in ordinary 
history. Thus, our studies will necessarily be limited to following 
the development of civilization, (in German Cultur-geschichte) in all 
that is allied to the acts of man, without touching speech. We 
can, to.a certain point, see our ancestors but we cannot hear them, 
we observe them as if we were deaf and dumb. 
It will be objected, perhaps, that to reconstruct thys the human 
past by means of the remains of industry, an abundance of means 1s 
_ necessary, which we do not possess; it will be said that antiquities 
are rare, and that fortunate discoveries are not frequent. But for- 
merly it was thought fossils were also rare, and also exceptional ; 
and now collections overflow. with them, for they have been sought 
for and have been found abundantly, and beyond all expectation. 
It is true, that with the exception of some monuments formed of 
great blocks and certain heaps of earth, time has rarely spared 
amongst the products of primitive industry those which rise above 
the surface of the earth. Especially is it the case in the countries 
with which we are occupied; and where the employment of masonry 
bound by mortar, dates only from the Romans. But let us consider 
_ that numerous generations have succeeded each other on the same 
ground—that they have sowed it with the minute remains of their 
activity, and that they have each in their turn passed away, carrying 
to their.tombs what was most precious to them. We shall compre- 
hend, then, that the vegetable earth, the mould, must be lke one of 
those fossiliferous strata of the geologist, rich in documents of the past 
—only we must learn to find them, to recognize them, and to inter- 
_ypret them. The soil which we tread is veritably the tomb of the 
_ past—a.vast grave, always open, and which will swallow us in our 
