Prehistoric Man And Beast Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from Prehistoric Man: Researches Into the Origin of Civilisation in the Old and the New World But have we then no alternative between man plus the arti ficialities of civilisation, and man minus the influential Operation of moral laws which have their efficient equivalents in the instincts of all other animals; or can we not realize even in theory an intermediate normal condition? Such questions are replete with interest, whatever he the value of the answers rendered here to some Of the difficulties they suggest. The ethnologist does indeed study man from the same point of View as the mere naturalist but to do so to any good purpose, this essential difference between man and all other animals must be kept in View that in him a being appears for the first time among the multitude of animated organi zations, subject to natural laws as they are, but including within himself the power of interpreting and controlling the Operation of those laws; of accumulating and transmitting experience; and, above all, of looking in upon the workings of his own mind, and recog nising as part of his nature a system of moral government which he may obey or resist, though not with impunity. Our aim, therefore, is to isolate him from extraneous influences, and look, if possible, on man per 86; or at least where he can be shown to have attained maturity, exposed only to such influences as are the Ofl'spring of his own progress. In so far as this is possible we may hope to recover some means of testing man's innate capacity, and of determining by comparison what is common to the race. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.