y be justly regarded as the "youth of
the world." However long man may have existed upon the earth, he becomes
thoroughly and distinctly human in the eyes of the historian only at the
epoch at which he began to create for himself a literature. As far back
as we can trace the progress of the human race continuously by means of
the written word, so far do we feel a true historical interest in its
fortunes, and pursue our studies with a sympathy which the mere lapse of
time is powerless to impair. But the primeval man, whose history never
has been and never will be written, whose career on the earth, dateless
and chartless, can be dimly revealed to us only by palaeontology,
excites in us a very different feeling. Though with the keenest interest
we ransack every nook and corner of the earth's surface for information
about him, we are all the while aware that what we are studying is
human zoology and not history. Our Neanderthal man is a specimen, not a
character. We cannot ask him the Homeric question, what is his name, who
were his parents, and how did he get where we found him. His language
has died with him, and he can render no account of himself. We can only
regard him specifically as Homo Anthropos, a creature of bigger brain
than his congener Homo Pithekos, and of vastly greater promise. But
this, we say, is physical science, and not history.

For the historian, therefore, who studies man in his various social
relations, the youth of the world is the period at which literature
begins. We regard the history of the western world as beginning about
the tenth century before the Christian era, because at that date we find
literature, in Greece and Palestine, beginning to throw direct light
upon the social and intellectual condition of a portion of mankind.
That great empires, rich in historical interest and in materials for
sociological generalizations, had existed for centuries before that
date, in Egypt and Assyria, we do not doubt, since they appear at the
dawn of history with all the marks of great antiquity; but the only
steady historical light thrown upon them shines from the pages of Greek
and Hebrew authors, and these know them only in their latest period. For
information concerning their early careers we must look, not to history,
but to linguistic archaeology, a science which can help us to general
results, but cannot enable us to fix dates, save in the crudest manner.

We mention the tenth century before Chris