The earlier of these generalisations were composed before the acceptance of the theory of evolution, in the new light of which all biological sciences had to start afresh, and all were written before the masses of new material collected by ethnologists and archæologists, working in the field, had brought so much fresh evidence to bear upon the whole geographical and historical aspect of man that it was impossible “to see the wood for the trees.” Thus the time for synthesis had arrived, and with the hour came the man. A. H. Keane’s _Ethnology_ appeared in 1896, to be followed by his _Man, past and present_ in 1899. J. Deniker’s _Les races et les peuples de la terre_, together with the English translation, appeared in the following year. [Sidenote: =Ethnology and the Classics.=] In summarising the sources from which the materials for the science of ethnology are derived, stress must be laid on the contributions from classic authors. No student can afford to neglect the histories, annals, poems, and sacred books of the ancients, whether African, European, or Asiatic. Professor J. L. Myres (1908) has pointed out that anthropological investigations and speculations were already afoot in the fifth century B.C. and before, and has outlined the ethnological problems concerning man, his origin and relationships, and the questions connected with his social life that interested and puzzled the ancient Greek world. Not only Herodotus, but other writers, show that these problems were thoroughly familiar to the Greeks. Long before Herodotus, Hesiod refers to a standard scheme of archæology, in which Ages of Gold, Silver, and Bronze succeed each other; primitive man is described as a forest dweller growing no corn, but subsisting on acorns and beech mast; Anaximander and Archelaus have suggestions to solve the mystery of man’s origin, Anaximander taking an “almost Darwinian outlook”[83] of the animal kingdom; Æschylus distinguishes the tribes of men by culture, noting the differences in their dress and equipments, religious observances and language. Footnote 83: This statement is criticised by E. E. Sikes in _Folk-Lore_, xx., 1909, p. 424. The chief value of the Greeks to the ethnologist is that they were collectors of material. Some of their theories have been substantiated, but they arrived at conclusions by deduction rather than by induction. Thus in many ways anthropology owes a deep debt of gratitude to the classics. It was not until recently that this debt began to be repaid. Within the last twenty or thirty years there has been an increasing recognition of the value of anthropological studies in the elucidation of the classics; and this healthy movement is mainly associated with the name of Professor William Ridgeway, of Cambridge, who devoted his presidential address before the Royal Anthropological Institute, in 1909, to this subject.