Abstract
“LIVE man,” Mr. Hocart says, “wants to know about his past as a key to his present. The man who does not is dead.” He has written what is virtually a survey of the material of anthropological science to satisfy that desire. An enormous amount of ground is covered in a small compass; for he has traced the growth and achievement of man “from the time he can be reckoned as man” down to the present day. Mr. Hocart will have none of the arbitrary divisions between prehistory and history, and between savage and civilised. His treatment of the subject is individual in style and original in method; and be it added, at times provocative. It is not possible to comment here in detail upon the many points upon which his views stimulate thought; but attention must be directed to the emphasis he lays on the psychological and ritualistic element in mechanical invention. His protest against the misuse of ‘evolutionary’ in the study of technical development is salutary.
The Progress of Man: a Short Survey of his Evolution, his Customs and his Works.
A. M.
Hocart
By. Pp. xvi + 316. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1933.) 7s. 6d. net.
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The Progress of Man: a Short Survey of his Evolution, his Customs and his Works . Nature 133, 85 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133085c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133085c0