Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-11-07
The Outline Of History-By H. G. Wells
|. The Romance of Mother Earth

lNUT OF such ideas and tumble of kim
dred ones grew the first quasi-religious
elements in human life, With every
development OF speech it became possible to
intensity and develop the tradition of tabus
and restraints and ceremonies. There is not a
savage or barbaric race today that is not
held in a net Of such tradition.
And with the coming Of tn, primitive herds
man there would be a considerable broaden
ing out off this sort practice. Things hith-
erto unheeded would be found of Importance
in human affairs. Neolthic man was nomad-
ic in different spirit from the mere daylight
drift after food of the primordial hunter. He
was herdsman upon whose mind sense of
direction and the lie of the land had been
forced. He watched his flock by night as
we'll as by day.
The sun by day and presently the stars by
night helped to guide his migrations; he be-
gan to find after many ages that the stars
are steadier guides than the sun. He would
begin to note particular stars and star groups,
and to distinguish any individual thing was,
for primitive man, to believe it individualized
and personal
Friendly Guides
He would begin to think of the chief stars
persons, very shining and dignified and
trustworthy persons looking at him like
bright eye in the night. His primitive till
age strengthened his sense Of the seasons.
Particular stars ruled his heavens when seed
time was due. Up to certain point, noun
night after night 1t stopped there, and
then, night after night, receded. Surely this
was a sign, silent, marvellous warning to
the wise.
The beginnings of agriculture we must
remember, were in the suD-tropical zone, or
even nearer the equator, where stars of the
first magnitude shine with a splendor un-
known in more temperate ATTITUDES.
And Neolithic man was counting, and fall
ing under the spell of numbers. There are say
Io1 hot hnEro F0r
number above five. Some peoples cannot go
above two. But Neolithic man in the lands
of his origin in Asia and Afric even more
than in Europe, was already counting his &C.
cumulating possessions
The Hoodoo of Thirteen
He was beginning to use TALES, and won
dering at the triangularity of three and the
sQuareness of four, and why some quantities
like twelve were easy to divide in all sorts
Of ways, and others, like thirteen, impossi-
BILE. Twelve became noble, generous and ia
miliar number to him, and thirteen rather an
outcast and disreputabe one
Probably man began reckoning time by the
clock of the full an, new moons.
Moonlight is an important thing to herds
men who no longer merely hunt their herds
but watch and guard them. Moonlight, too,
A Carved Statute ("Menhir") of the Neophit-
ic Period-a Contrast to the Freedom
and Vigor of Palaeolithic Art.
was perhaps, his time for lovemaking, as in
deed it may have been for primordial man
and the ground ape ancestor before him. But
from the phases of the moon, as his tillage
increased, mans attitude would go on to
the greater cycle of the seasons.
Primordial man probably only drifted be-
fore the winter as the days grew cold. Neo-
lithic man knew surely that the winter would
come, and stored his fodder and presently his
grain. He had to fix seedtime, propitious
seedtime, or his sowing was failure The
earliest recorded eckoning is by moons and
by generations of men. The former seems to
be the case in the Book Of Genesis, where, If