ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 



301 



factory interpretation a somewhat different view of 

 human progress from that which is now generally 

 accepted. Taken in connection with the great intellec- 

 tual power of the ancient Greeks — w^hich Mr. Galton 

 believes to have been far above that of the average of 

 any modern nation — and the elevation, at once intellec- 

 tual and moral, displayed in the writings of Confucius, 

 Zoroaster, and the Vedas, they point to the conclusion 

 that, while in material progress there has been a tolerably 

 steady advance, man's intellectual and moral develop- 

 ment reached almost its highest level in a very remote 

 past. The lower, the more animal, but often the more 

 energetic types have, however, always been far the more 

 numerous ; hence such established societies as have here 

 and there arisen under the guidance of higher minds 

 have always been liable to be swept away by the incursions 

 of barbarians. Thus in almost every part of the globe 

 there may have been a long succession of partial civilisa- 

 tions, each in turn succeeded by a period of barbarism ; 

 and this view seems supported by the occurrence of 

 degraded types of skull along with such as might have 

 belonged to a philosopher," at a time when the mammoth 

 and the reindeer inhabited southern France. 



Nor need we fear that there is not time enough for 

 the rise and decay of so many successive civilisations as 

 this view would imply ; for the opinion is now gaining 

 ground among geologists that palaeolithic man was 

 really preglacial, and that the great gap (marked alike 

 by a change of physical conditions and of animal life) 

 which in Europe always separates him from his neolithic 

 successor, was caused by the coming on and passiDg 

 away of the great ice age. 



