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nydus/A Short History of the WorldPublic
Page 101 of 773
Table of Contents

XII PRIMITIVE THOUGHT

RELICS OF THE STONE AGE
RELICS OF THE STONE AGE Chert implements from Somaliland. In general form they are similar to those found in Western and Northern Europe Brit. Mus.

For the very earliest of the true men that we know of were probably quite talkative beings. In that way they have differed from the Neanderthalers and had an advantage over them. The Neanderthaler may have been a dumb animal. Of course the primitive human speech was probably a very scanty collection of names, and may have been eked out with gestures and signs.

There is no sort of savage so low as not to have a kind of science of cause and effect. But primitive man was not very critical in his associations of cause with effect; he very easily connected an effect with something quite wrong as its cause. “You do so and so,” he said, “and so and so happens.” You give a child a poisonous berry and it dies. You eat the heart of a valiant enemy and you become strong. There we have two bits of cause

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