Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-05-28
FTYLER,S DISCUSSION OF
THE NEW STONE AGE
4" Anenpt 70 ErPla' hat Happened in Period The Relic
& rot NhichArs Feb and the Significance Of Which.
Muss Be Guessed At
49, .......s ny FELIX f. sCHELIING A

| ess0S OF BnGusn Lternture
IWHAT an anthropolosist or an
~ archeoloKist or other specialist
might say about this book I have alb :
solnteiy no means Of determining. FIX :
actly what l am to do with 10 is a
question which only the completion Of
.nis review. can tell. I aus a 1ayman,
simple and innocent In this whole
matter; innocent except for big book,
tne TUE OF which anu its author
nave forgotten after the manner OF un :
scientific people. This was book about
round heads and long headed people In
q sense apparently very different from
the historical roundhead or the business
long -headed man. Another really de-
iIghtfui book OF my reading was Mr..
Osburn's sbout this very stone age.
and, latterly, I have read the resume OF
the whole subject so delightfully."- told
by Mr.. Wells in his "Outlines OF His
tory, SO severely criticized BY those
who have not read Il. I can see that
l am properly one of Professor Tyler 4
readers Of this pre- history, as he calls
It, intelligent and thoughtful" let me
hope. and certainly puzzled In a
multiplicity Of facts" at times, may
l say. 1t without offense, all but
smothered in surmise."
TNHE most striking thing about book
L such as this is the extraordinary
conviction which it must carry to the
thinking man Of the absolutely pro-
visional character Of all our scientific
learning. Here Is the careful gathering
together Of IN enormous mass Of nate
rial, remains, shell, stone, metal,
ceramic and other OF mans prehistoric
life on the globe. as variously described
and interpreted BY hundreds of investi-
gators, with additional matter touch
ing geology, geography, climate and all
philology, language, folklore and re-
ligion at the other. 1t is fair to Pro-
fessor Tyler to say that he warns the
reader again and again Of the uncer-
tainties Of Interpretation. the incom-
pleteness Of knowledge, the dangers Of
inference and the like. The process Of
reading this book Is like a perilous
journey over floating cakes Of fee. with
deep water and wide water yawping
between. We are secure on a little
island for moment or two only to take
q perilous leap to the next cake; we
balance daintily on a neatly floating
assertion or slip on an inference which
we fear Is going to topple over with us,
only to repeat these dangerous leaps
from one uncertainty to the next.
confess that when shore was reached
or was 1t only the bordering morass of
the folklore margin of history?-I
breathed a sigh Of relief. But solid
ground there can be none in such
subject. wonder where solid ground
is left us anywhere, for that matter.
We used to find IL in religion. But there
my solid ground was not your solid
ground. We used to find 1t in the laws
Of gravitation. But DR.. Einstein with
his doctrine of relativity has upset all
that. We used to think that we were
conveying a sort Of solidity in knowl-
edge to the young in our colleges and
universities. But Mr.. Edison tells us
that college boys do not know any
thing. Do their professors? Doc Mr..
Edison? Science Is coming to be a dis
heartening affair. ..
OUT Of the water we came, out Of the
" ooze and slime onto the land,
where we developed lungs: into the
trees, where we developed hands and
tails; out Of tho trees onto
the ground, again, where we learned to
walk upright and. I suppose, became
apprehensive instead Of prehensive. And
now we 20 back into the water with
out gills and up into the air without
organic wings. Cave dwellings, pit
dwellings, lake dwellings, dolmens and
other big stones and structures, for