388 MATERIALS OF HISTORY. 



destiny, and discuss the nature of his relations towards 

 that Unknown Power of whom he is the offspring and 

 the slave. I shall examine this planet and its con- 

 tents with the calm curiosity of one whose sentiments 

 and passions, whose predilections and antipathies, 

 whose hopes and fears, are not interested in the 

 question. I shall investigate without prejudice ; I 

 shall state the results without reserve. 



What are the materials of human history ? What 

 are the earliest records which throw light upon the 

 origin of man ? All written documents are things of 

 yesterday, whether penned on prepared skins, papyrus 

 rolls, or the soft inner bark of trees ; whether stamped 

 on terra-cotta tablets, carved on granite obelisks, or 

 engraved on the smooth surface of upright rocks. 

 Writing, even in its simplest picture form, is an art 

 which can be invented only when a people have be- 

 come mature. 



The oldest books are therefore comparatively 

 modern, and the traditions which they contain are 

 either false or but little older than the books them- 

 selves. All travellers who have collected traditions 

 among a wild people know how little that kind of 

 evidence is worth. The savage exaggerates whenever 

 he repeats, and in a few generations the legend is 

 transformed. 



The evidence of language is of more value. It 

 enables us to trace back remotely divided nations to 

 their common birth-place, and reveals the amount of 

 culture, the domestic institutions, and the religious 

 ideas which they possessed before they parted from 

 one another. Yet languages soon die, or rather be- 

 come metamorphosed in structure as well as in voca- 

 bulary : the oldest existing language can throw no 

 light on the condition of primeval man. 



