Some typographical errors have been corrected;a list follows the text. (etext transcriber's note) |
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
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| THE DAWN OF HISTORY. An Introduction to Pre-historic Study. 12mo | $1.25 |
| OUTLINES OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF among the Indo-European Races. Crown 8vo. | 2.50 |
THE
DAWN OF HISTORY:
AN INTRODUCTION TO
PRE-HISTORIC STUDY.
EDITED BY
C. F. KEARY, M.A., F.S.A.
NEW EDITION.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
1902{ii}
THE CAXTON PRESS
NEW YORK.
PREFACE.
The present edition of the Dawn of History is a considerableenlargement upon the former one, as may be judged from the fact that theformer, including the Appendix, contained only 231 pages, whereas thepresent edition contains 357. These enlargements have chiefly affectedthe first four chapters with the ninth and tenth, and, generallyspeaking, the chapters for which the editor is wholly responsible. Hefelt himself quite incapable of improving chapters eight, eleven, andthirteen, which can hardly fail to be recognized as the best in thevolume; and, unhappily, the hand which wrote them—that of AnnieKeary—is no longer able to revise or alter. Some slight correctionstherefore have been made, in accordance with the advance of thesebranches of study during recent years, but nothing more. No more wereneeded, for (in the case of the chapters on writing, for example)further research has only tended to establish more firmly theconclusions here accepted. The chapters on early social life (vi.,vii.), again, did{iv} not seem to the editor to require more than slightcorrections.
In the chapters dealing with religion and mythology, it was not to beexpected that the writers could avoid treading upon controversialground; but as almost every proposition upon these matters is disputedby some one, it was not possible to adopt the plan of putting forwardonly those facts and theories which may be considered as established.Some disputed points are discussed in the Appendix. Even on the subjectof language the views of one (small) school of philologists had to berelegated in like manner to the Appendix.
So far for the character of the alterations upon the first edition. Thenew matter introduced, whenever it has not been of the nature of acorrection of the old, has been aimed in the direction of making moreclear the processes through which the human mind has gone in theacquisition of each fresh capacity—more clear the extent t