John S. Hittell
Published: 2015-09-27
Total Pages: 390
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Excerpt from A History of the Mental Growth of Mankind in Ancient Times, Vol. 1 The Delphic maxim, that "to understand man as he is, we must know what he has been," is not less true of him as a species than as an individual. In studying ourselves, we should take into account, not only what we thought and did as children, but also what our remote ancestors and relatives did, in the ruder phases of culture. We cannot obey the Socratic command, "know yourself," without comparing ourselves with other men, not only those near us but also those far from us, in space, time, and intellectual condition. In so far as we do not understand other men, in so far we do not understand ourselves. Everything human interests us; and all the main features of human life, even in the lowest savages and fiercest barbarians, are highly instructive to us. The aboriginal Australians, the Bushmen, the Fuegians, and the Eskimos are our brethren, possessing the like feelings and passions with ourselves, and differing from us mainly in education, inherited drill, and property. They enable us to see what we might have been under different circumstances. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.