but, whether barren or whether fertile, the practice and application of
them is a healthy intellectual exercise.

It must not be thought that the use of metals, and the contact with the
Continent, which have just been noticed, invalidate the statement as to
the insufficiency of our earliest historical notices. It must not be
thought that they tell us more than they really do. It is only at the
first view that the knowledge of certain metallurgic processes, and the
trade and power that such knowledge developes, are presumptions in
favour of a certain degree of antiquity in the occupancy of our island
on the parts of its islanders; and it is only by forgetting the
_insular_ character of Great Britain that we can allow ourselves to
suppose that, though our early arts tell us nothing about our first
introduction, they at any rate prove that it was _no recent event_.
"Time," we may fairly say, "must be allowed for such habits as are
implied by the use of metals to have developed themselves, and,
consequently, generations, centuries, and possibly even millenniums must
have elapsed between the landing of the first vessel of the first
Britons, and the beginning of the trade with the Kassiterides." As a
general rule, such reasoning is valid; yet the earliest known phenomena
of British civilization are compatible with a comparatively modern
introduction of its population. For Great Britain may have been peopled
like Iceland or Madeira, _i.e._, not a generation or two after the
peopling of the nearest parts of the opposite Continent, but many ages
later; in which case both the population and its civilization may be but
things of yesterday. In the twelfth century, Iceland had an alphabet and
the art of writing. Had these grown up within the island itself, the
inference would be that its population was of great antiquity; since
time must be allowed for their evolution--even as time must be allowed
for the growth of acorns on an oak. But the art may be newer than the
population, or the population and the art may be alike recent. Hence, as
the civilization of the earliest Britons may be newer than the stock to
which it belonged, the testimony of ancient writers to its existence is
anything but conclusive against the late origin of the stock itself. It
is best to admit an absolutely pre-historic period, and that without
reservation; and as a corollary, to allow that it may have differed in
kind as well as degree from the historic.

T