22 THE EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE. 



tate to declare that China, Chaldea, and Egypt, which 

 divide with no other countries the reasonable claim to 

 be its birth place, were the seats of the most advanced 

 primeval governments. 



Now, the character of the astronomy founded by these 

 peoples throws some light upon the order of their de- 

 velopment. It consisted of such phenomena as marked 

 the divisions of time — the year, the months, and the 

 days. And the knowledge acquired by observing these 

 phenomena was employed to regulate feasts, festivals, 

 and other periodic affairs, unknown everywhere, except 

 in organized communities. 



The order of development seems to have been every- 

 where the same. First, the attainment of those favorable 

 conditions furnished by a more or less highly-organized 

 social life, and, afterwards, the introduction of the primi- 

 tive forms of literature, fine arts, and science. 



If the doctrine of evolution be true then is civilization 

 the parent ; literature, art, and science, are its offspring. 



Just how the introduction of these elements into hu- 

 man life was brought about, is a problem which philoso- 

 phers have not yet solved to the satisfaction of one an- 

 other. At this point even the theory of evolution halts. 

 For, while we may think that we recognize the germ of 

 literature in the gift of language, and of art in manual 

 dexterity, and while we may safely affirm that the em- 

 ployment of language and skill was the inevitable 

 prompting of the material wants of men, yet the su- 

 preme difficulty remains that we can not dignify the re- 

 sults of these first promptings with the names of litera- 

 ture and art. These terms should be reserved to describe 

 those forms of language and those products of the hand 

 which express thoughts and emotions such as are not 

 suggested by material wants nor by animal instinct. 



Accordingly, we must seek the earliest germ of litera- 

 ture, not in the first sentence ever uttered, but in the 



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