26 quotes
At many points palaeontological research touches the existence and conditions of man in the geological and archaeological ages. It considers him, indeed, as the culmination of the animal races whose antiquity is in the rocks and whose present activities are displayed on the dry land and in the waters of our globe.
Ridpath's History of the World (1897)
The rudimentary breasts of the male...seem to point to a condition still more primitive in the development of our race — to a time when even the sexes had not been differentiated the one from the other!
Ridpath's History of the World (1897)
The various peoples differed greatly, some being comparatively taciturn, little disposed to communicate with their fellows, and others having a natural enthusiasm and gift in the commerce of speech. Some of the most intellectual and vigorous of the ancient races were loquacious to a degree that can not now be well appreciated.
Ridpath's History of the World (1897)
Many are the forms and applications of tradition....Almost every tribe and incipient people urged some extravagant claim to a prior possession of the country or place which they occupied....Though we are convinced that the world was peopled by the diffusion of races, nearly all the early peoples disclaimed this method of possession, and asserted immemorial residence in their respective countries.
Ridpath's History of the World (1897)
We may not admit that the universe is an absurdity. We may not any longer suppose that our own small earth with its burden of interests, to us so overwhelming, is of any superior consequence in the universal scheme beyond what the size, place, and physical importance of our little globe may reasonably imply.
Ridpath's History of the World (1897)
As in the case of the individual, there comes to pass a time in the progress of kindred and tribe and race when consciousness appears. When this happens in the individual, he at once begins...to consider himself, to remember....In like manner the rise of ethnic consciousness leads at once to that peculiar, reflective, and communicative form of mental activity which we call tradition and history.
Ridpath's History of the World (1897)