CHAPTER 1
THE OUTLOOK

Waar lieth on the knees of the gods no man knoweth,
thus ordinarily men do not concern themselves with
anything but the immediate future. All else they
leave to “Providence.” The philosophic historian,
however, examining the perspectives of the world’s
history, finds himself compelled to recognise that, as a
matter of fact, coming events do “ cast their shadows
before them.” There are, too, signs of the times
which, if we are able to read them, may make the future
the better for us.
A study of the early traces of Man, and of general
geology in connection therewith, shows that he has
been a denizen of this earth for at least hundreds of
thousands of years, possibly even for millions of years.
Human history, however, goes back at the most only
something like ten thousand years, and for the first half
of this period it is very meagre indeed. For this reason
Man’s occupancy of the world’s surface is not as informative
 as one might wish it to be. Among other
things the character of the fluctuations of his numbers,
of his earlier aggregations and their developments, of
the nature of the civilisations to which he has attained,
is but very imperfectly known.. The monuments of
human effort in Babylonia and Egypt, in China and
India, in Peru and Mexico, at least inform us, however,
that great changes in the intensity of his corporate
life have occurred in the past.