[13] "If the earth were struck by one of Mr. Wells's comets, and if, in consequence, every human being now alive were to lose all the knowledge and habits which he had acquired from preceding generations (though retaining unchanged all his own powers of invention and memory and habituation) nine tenths of the inhabitants of London or New York would be dead in a month, and 99 per cent of the remaining tenth would be dead in six months. They would have no language to express their thoughts, and no thoughts but vague reverie. They could not read notices, or drive motors or horses. They would wander about, led by the inarticulate cries of a few naturally dominant individuals, drowning themselves, as thirst came on, in hundreds at the riverside landing places, looting those shops where the smell of decaying food attracted them, and perhaps at the end stumbling on the expedient of cannibalism. Even in the country districts men could not invent, in time to preserve their lives, methods of growing food, or taming animals, or making fire, or so clothing themselves as to endure a Northern winter."--GRAHAM WALLAS, _Our Social Heritage_, p. 16. Only the very lowest of savages might possibly pull through if culture should disappear. [14] "A Theory of History", Political Science Quarterly, December, 1920. He attributes history to the adventurers. [15] Count Korzybski in his _Manhood of Humanity_ is so impressed by the uniqueness and undreamed possibilities of human civilization and man's "time-binding" capacity that he declares that it is a gross and misleading error to regard man as an animal at all. Yet he is forced sadly to confess that man continues all too often to operate on an animal or "space-binding" plan of life. His aim and outlook are, however, essentially the same as those of the present writer. His method of approach will appeal especially to those who are wont to deal with affairs in the spirit of the mathematician and engineer. He is quite right in thinking that man has hitherto had little conception of his peculiar prerogatives and unlimited opportunities for betterment. [16] In the beginning, too, man did not know how children came about, for it was not easy to connect a common impulsive act with the event of birth so far removed in time. The tales told to children still are reminiscences of the mythical explanations which our savage ancestors advanced to explain the arrival of the infant. Consequently, all popular theories of the origin of marriage and the family based on the assumption of conscious paternity are outlawed. [17] Lucretius warns the reader not to be deterred from considering the evils wrought by religion by the fear of treading on "the unholy grounds of reason and in the path of sin".--_De Rer. Nat_. i, 80 ff. * * * * * IV