A History of Science-1 [117]
leader received the name."[1] Peculiar interest attaches to this narrative as illustrating both credulousness as to matters of fact and pseudo-scientific explanation of alleged facts. The modern interpreter may suppose that a violent thunderstorm came up during the course of a battle between the Romans and the so-called barbarians, and that owing to the local character of the storm, or a chance discharge of lightning, the barbarians suffered more than their opponents. We may well question whether the philosophical emperor himself put any other interpretation than this upon the incident. But, on the other hand, we need not doubt that the major part of his soldiers would very readily accept such an explanation as that given by Dion Cassius, just as most readers of a few centuries later would accept the explanation of Xiphilinus. It is well to bear this thought in mind in considering the static period of science upon which we are entering. We shall perhaps best understand this period, and its seeming retrogressions, if we suppose that the average man of the Middle Ages was no more credulous, no more superstitious, than the average Roman of an earlier period or than the average Greek; though the precise complexion of his credulity had changed under the influence of Oriental ideas, as we have just seen illustrated by the narrative of Xiphilinus.
APPENDIX REFERENCE LIST, NOTES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES
CHAPTER I. PREHISTORIC SCIENCE Length of the Prehistoric Period.--It is of course quite impossible to reduce the prehistoric period to any definite number of years. There are, however, numerous bits of evidence that enable an anthropologist to make rough estimates as to the relative lengths of the different periods into which prehistoric time is divided. Gabriel de Mortillet, one of the most industrious students of prehistoric archaeology, ventured to give a tentative estimate as to the numbers of years involved in each period. He of course claimed for this nothing more than the value of a scientific guess. It is, however, a guess based on a very careful study of all data at present available. Mortillet divides the prehistoric period, as a whole, into four epochs. The first of these is the preglacial, which he estimates as comprising seventy-eight thousand years; the second is the glacial, covering one hundred thousand years; then follows what he terms the Solutreen, which numbers eleven thousand years; and, finally, the Magdalenien, comprising thirty-three thousand years. This gives, for the prehistoric period proper, a term of about two hundred and twenty-two thousand years. Add to this perhaps twelve thousand years ushering in the civilization of Egypt, and the six thousand years of stable, sure chronology of the historical period, and we have something like two hundred and thirty thousand or two hundred and forty thousand years as the age of man. "These figures," says Mortillet, "are certainly not exaggerated. It is even probable that they are below the truth. Constantly new discoveries are being made that tend to remove farther back the date of man's appearance." We see, then, according to this estimate, that about a quarter of a million years have elapsed since man evolved to a state that could properly be called human. This guess is as good as another, and it may advantageously be kept in mind, as it will enable us all along to understand better than we might otherwise be able to do the tremendous force of 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
APPENDIX REFERENCE LIST, NOTES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES
CHAPTER I. PREHISTORIC SCIENCE Length of the Prehistoric Period.--It is of course quite impossible to reduce the prehistoric period to any definite number of years. There are, however, numerous bits of evidence that enable an anthropologist to make rough estimates as to the relative lengths of the different periods into which prehistoric time is divided. Gabriel de Mortillet, one of the most industrious students of prehistoric archaeology, ventured to give a tentative estimate as to the numbers of years involved in each period. He of course claimed for this nothing more than the value of a scientific guess. It is, however, a guess based on a very careful study of all data at present available. Mortillet divides the prehistoric period, as a whole, into four epochs. The first of these is the preglacial, which he estimates as comprising seventy-eight thousand years; the second is the glacial, covering one hundred thousand years; then follows what he terms the Solutreen, which numbers eleven thousand years; and, finally, the Magdalenien, comprising thirty-three thousand years. This gives, for the prehistoric period proper, a term of about two hundred and twenty-two thousand years. Add to this perhaps twelve thousand years ushering in the civilization of Egypt, and the six thousand years of stable, sure chronology of the historical period, and we have something like two hundred and thirty thousand or two hundred and forty thousand years as the age of man. "These figures," says Mortillet, "are certainly not exaggerated. It is even probable that they are below the truth. Constantly new discoveries are being made that tend to remove farther back the date of man's appearance." We see, then, according to this estimate, that about a quarter of a million years have elapsed since man evolved to a state that could properly be called human. This guess is as good as another, and it may advantageously be kept in mind, as it will enable us all along to understand better than we might otherwise be able to do the tremendous force of 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