certain prejudices and preconceptions which recent man inherited
from his prehistoric ancestor. Ideas which had passed current as
unquestioned truths for one hundred thousand years or so are not
easily cast aside.

In going back, in imagination, to the beginning of the
prehistoric period, we must of course reflect, in accordance with
modern ideas on the subject, that there was no year, no
millennium even, when it could be said expressly: "This being was
hitherto a primate, he is now a man." The transition period must
have been enormously long, and the changes from generation to
generation, even from century to century, must have been very
slight. In speaking of the extent of the age of man this must be
borne in mind: it must be recalled that, even if the period were
not vague for other reasons, the vagueness of its beginning must
make it indeterminate.

Bibliographical Notes.--A great mass of literature has been
produced in recent years dealing with various phases of the
history of prehistoric man. No single work known to the writer
deals comprehensively with the scientific attainments of early
man; indeed, the subject is usually ignored, except where
practical phases of the mechanical arts are in question. But of
course any attempt to consider the condition of primitive man
talies into account, by inference at least, his knowledge and
attainments. Therefore, most works on anthropology, ethnology,
and primitive culture may be expected to throw some light on our
present subject. Works dealing with the social and mental
conditions of existing savages are also of importance, since it
is now an accepted belief that the ancestors of civilized races
evolved along similar lines and passed through corresponding
stages of nascent culture. Herbert Spencer's Descriptive
Sociology presents an unequalled mass of facts regarding existing
primitive races, but, unfortunately, its inartistic method of
arrangement makes it repellent to the general reader. E. B.
Tyler's Primitive Culture and Anthropology; Lord Avebury's
Prehistoric Times, The Origin of Civilization, and The Primitive
Condition of Man; W. Boyd Dawkin's Cave-Hunting and Early Man in
Britain; and Edward Clodd's Childhood of the World and Story of
Primitive Man are deservedly popular. Paul Topinard's Elements
d'Anthropologie Generale is one of the best-known and most
comprehensive French works on the technical phases of
anthropology; but Mortillet's Le Prehistorique has a more popular
interest, owing to its chapters on primitive industries, though
this work also contains much that is rather technical. Among
periodicals, the Revue de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie de Paris,
published by the professors, treats of all phases of
anthropology, and the American Anthropologist, edited by F. W.
Hodge for the American Anthropological Association, and intended
as "a medium of communication between students of all branches of
anthropology," contains much that is of interest from the present
stand-point. The last-named journal devotes a good deal of space
to Indian languages.


CHAPTER II. EGYPTIAN SCIENCE

1 (p. 34). Sir J. Norman Lockyer, The Dawn of Astronomy; a study
of the temple worship and mythology of the ancient Egyptians,
London, 1894.

2 (p. 43). G. Maspero, Histoire Ancie-nne des Peuples de l'Orient
Classique, Paris, 1895. Translated as (1) The Dawn of
Civilization, (2) The Struggle of the Nations, (3) The Passing of
the Empires, 3 vols., London and New York, 1894-1900. Professor
Maspero is one of the most famous of living Orientalists. His
most important special studies have to do with Egyptology, but
his writings cover the entire field of Oriental antiquity. He is
a notable stylist, and his works are at once readable and
authoritative.

3 (p. 44). Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, London, 1894, p.
352. (Translated from the original German work entitled Aegypten
und aegyptisches Leben in Alterthum, Tilbigen, 1887.) An
altogether admirable work, full of interest for the general
reader, though based on the most erudite studies.

4 (p. 47). Erman, op. cit., pp. 356, 357.

5 (p. 48). Erman, op. cit., p. 357. The work on Egyptian medicine
here referred to is Georg Ebers' edition of an Egyptian document
discovered by the explorer whose name it bears. It remains the
most important source of our knowledge of Egyptian medicine. As
mentioned in the text, this document dates from the eighteenth
dynasty--that is to say, from about the fifteenth or sixteenth
century, B.C., a relatively late period of Egyptian history.

6 (p. 49). Erman, op. cit., p. 357.

7 (p. 50). The History of Herodotus, pp. 85-90. There are
numerous translations of the famous work of the "father of
history," one of the most recent and authoritative being that of
G. C. Macaulay, M.A., in two volumes, Macmillan & Co., London and
New York, 1890.

8 (p. 50). The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian,
London, 1700. This most famous of ancient world histories is
difficult to obtain in an English version. The most recently
published translation known to the writer is that of G. Booth,
London, 1814.


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