de
without attempting to explore the hidden causes of the process. Some
day, when these causes are better understood, man may take a hand in the
game, and become, in regard to the infinite possibilities still sleeping
in the transmitted germ, a self-liberator. Nature is but a figurative
expression for the chances of life, and the wise man faces no more
chances than he needs must. Scientific breeding is no mere application
of the multiplication table to a system of items. We must make
resolutely for the types that seem healthy and capable, suppressing the
defectives in a no less thorough, if decidedly more considerate, way
than nature has been left to do in the past. Here, then, along physical
lines is one possible path of human progress, none the less real because
hitherto pursued, not by the aid of eyes that can look and choose, but
merely in response to painful proddings at the tail-end.

Our remaining task is to take stock of that improvement in the arts of
life whereby man has come gradually to master an environment that
formerly mastered him. For the Early Palaeolithic Period our evidence in
respect of its variety, if not of its gross quantity, is wofully
disappointing. Not to speak of man's first and rudest experiments in the
utilization of stone, which are doubtless scattered about the world in
goodly numbers if only we could recognize them clearly for what they
are, the Chellean industry by its wide distribution leads one to suppose
that mankind in those far-off days was only capable of one idea at a
time--a time, too, that lasted a whole age. Yet the succeeding Acheulean
style of workmanship in flint testifies to the occurrence of progress in
one of its typical forms, namely, in the form of what may be termed
'intensive' progress. The other typical form I might call 'intrusive'
progress, as happens when a stimulating influence is introduced from
without. Now it may be that the Acheulean culture came into being as a
result of contact between an immigrant stock and a previous population
practising the Chellean method of stone-work. We are at present far too
ill-informed to rule out such a guess. But, on the face of it, the
greater refinement of the Acheulean handiwork looks as if it had been
literally hammered out by steadfastly following up the Chellean pattern
into its further possibilities. Explain it as we will, this evolution of
the so-called _coup-de-poing_ affords almost the sole proof that the
human world