Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The address delivered at the last meeting of the British Association
by the president of the Anthropological Section contained nothing that
was strikingly novel--it is not every year that striking novelties can
be announced--but it dealt in an interesting manner with several
phases of a most important subject. The speaker, Professor Brabrook,
took the position that the order of the universe is expressed in
continuity, not cataclysm, and that this principle will be found
illustrated in every branch of anthropological research, in direct
proportion to the completeness of the data obtained. He admitted the
vastness of the gap which still separates the remains of palaeolithic
from those of neolithic man, but expressed the belief that further
explorations would bring intermediate relics to light. To quote the
speaker's words: "The evidence we want relates to events which took
place at so great a distance of time that we may well wait patiently
for it, assured that somewhere or other these missing links must have
existed, and probably are still to be found."
Reference was made to the labors which are now being usefully expended
in gathering what is called the folklore of various communities, and
to the result which continually appears with fuller evidence, namely,
that the tendency of mankind everywhere is to develop like fancies and
ideas at a like stage of intellectual development. Full of detail as
these stories are, they are found to contain but a few primitive
ideas; and it seems not improbable that to a large extent they are
essentially Nature myths. Mr. Brabrook happily quotes Lord Bacon's
description of such narratives as "sacred relics, gentle whispers and
the breath of better times." The "better times" are a part of the
general system of myth; but who will deny that there is a special
charm in these early documents of our race? "Let one of our literary
exquisites," said a thoughtful French writer, "try to write a fairy
tale which shall neither be a pretentious apologue nor a tiresome and
transparent allegory, and he will soon feel that mere cleverness does
not suffice to create these marvelous narratives, and will conceive a
just admiration for those who constructed them, that is to say,
everybody and nobody."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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