The evolution of man : essays / by G. Elliot Smith.

  • Smith, Grafton Elliot, 1871-1937.
Date:
1924
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The evolution of man : essays / by G. Elliot Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    what is known of the extinct members of the Human Family, and to guide the reader amidst the jungle of detailed information provided in the well-known works by Sollas, Osborn, Keith, Smith Woodward, and Boule. Elsewhere (in the article ‘ Anthropology’ in the first of the three supplementary volumes to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1922) I have surveyed this field in a some¬ what different manner and given fuller bibliographical references. Chapter III is a discourse delivered at the Royal Institution on February 22, 1924, of which a slightly curtailed version was published in Nature (March 15). It aims at correlating the two lines of approach to the essential problem of the nature of Man’s intellectual pre-eminence, the study of Man’s pedigree and its implications discussed in Chapter I, and the nature of the Human Family and its achievements, which are examined in Chapter II. In attempting to attain conciseness of expression I have used teleological phraseology in many places merely as a matter of convenience, and not from any idea of accepting Teleology. The reissue of addresses upon essentially the same problem delivered under very different circumstances to such diverse audiences as the British Association, the British Academy, and the Royal Institution pro¬ vide, makes a certain amount of repetition unavoidable; but a long experience of the ways of students has convinced me that it is not without its uses to repeat and re-emphasize important points in an argument. University College, London, March 31, 1924. G. E. S.