August 30, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



243 



ancient is the simplest, and the simplest is 

 the most transparent, and therefore the 

 most instrnctive. 



Prehistoric archaeology is a new science. 

 I can remember when neither its name nor 

 its methods were known to the most learned 

 anthropologists. But it has already taught 

 us by incontrovertible arguments a wonder- 

 ful truth, a truth opposing and reducing to 

 nought many teachings of the sages and 

 seers of past generations. They imagined 

 that the primal man had fallen from some 

 high estate; that he had forfeited by his 

 own falseness, or been driven bj^ some hard 

 fate, from a pristine Paradise, an Eden gar- 

 den, an Arcady; that his ancestors were 

 demi-gods and heroes, himself their degen- 

 erate descendant. 



How has prehistoric archaeology reversed 

 this picture? We know beyond cavil or 

 question that the earliest was also the low- 

 est man, the most ignorant, the most bru- 

 tish, naked, homeless, half- speechless. But 

 the gloom surrounding this distant back- 

 ground of the race is relieved by rays of 

 glory ; for with knowledge not less positive 

 are we assured that through all hither 

 time, through seeming retrogressions and 

 darkened epochs, the advance of the race in 

 the main toward a condition better by every 

 standard has been certain and steady, 'ne'er 

 known reth-ing ebb, but kept due on.' 



Archaeology, however, is, after all, a deal- 

 ing with dry bones, a series of inferences 

 ft'om inanimate objects. The color and the 

 warmth of life, it never has. How can we 

 divine the real meaning of the fragments 

 and ruins, the forgotten symbols and the 

 perished gods, it shows us ? 



The means has been found, and this 

 through a discovery little less than marvel- 

 ous, the most pregnant of all that anthro- 

 pology has yet oifered, not yet appreciated 

 even by the learned. This discovery is that 

 of the psychical unity of man, the parallel- 

 ism of his development everywhere and in 



all time ; nay, more, the nigh absolute uni- 

 formity of his thoughts and actions, his 

 aims and methods, when in the same degree 

 of development, no matter where he is, or 

 in what epoch living. Scarcely anything 

 but his geographical environment, using 

 that term in its larger sense, seems to mod- 

 ify the monotonous sameness of his crea- 

 tions. 



I shall refer more than once to this dis- 

 covery ; for its full recognition is the corner 

 stone of true anthropology. In this con- 

 nection I i-efer to it for its application to 

 archaeology. It teaches us this : that when 

 we find a living nation of low culture, we 

 are safe in taking its modes of thought and 

 feeling as analogous to those of extinct 

 tribes whose remains show them to have 

 been in about the same stage of culture. 



This emphasizes the importance of a pro- 

 longed and profound investigation of the 

 few savage tribes who still exist; for al- 

 though none of them is as ru.de or as brute- 

 like as primitive man, they stand nearest 

 to his condition, and, moreover, so rapid 

 nowadays is the extension of culture that 

 probably not one of them will remain un- 

 touched by its presence another score of 

 years. 



Another discovery, also very recent, has 

 enabled us to throw light on the prehistoric 

 or forgotten past. We have found that 

 much of it, thought to be long since dead, 

 is still alive and in our midst, under forms 

 easily enough recognized when our atten- 

 tion is directed to them. This branch of 

 anthropology is known as Folklore. It in- 

 vestigates the stories, the superstitions, the 

 beliefs and customs which prevail among 

 the unlettered, the isolated and the yoiing ; 

 for these are nothing less than survivals of 

 the mythologies, the legal usages and the 

 sacred rites of earlier generations. It is 

 surprising to observe how much of the past 

 we have been able to reconstruct from this 

 humble and long neglected material. 



