PAX BRITTANICA

THE OUTLINE OF
HISTORY

Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind

BY
H. G. WELLS

WRITTEN WITH THE ADVICE AND EDITORIAL HELP OF

MR. ERNEST BARKER,
SIR H. H. JOHNSTON, SIR E. RAY LANKESTER
AND PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY

AND ILLUSTRATED BY
J. F. HORRABIN

VOLUME I

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1920,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
By H. G. WELLS.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1920.

NORWOOD PRESS
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

“A philosophy of the history of the human race, worthy of its name, must begin with the heavens and descend to the earth, must be charged with the conviction that all existence is one—a single conception sustained from beginning to end upon one identical law.”—Friedrich Ratzel.

THIS Outline of History is an attempt to tell, truly and clearly, in one continuous narrative, the whole story of life and mankind so far as it is known to-day. It is written plainly for the general reader, but its aim goes beyond its use as merely interesting reading matter. There is a feeling abroad that the teaching of history considered as a part of general education is in an unsatisfactory condition, and particularly that the ordinary treatment of this “subject” by the class and teacher and examiner is too partial and narrow. But the desire to extend the general range of historical ideas is confronted by the argument that the available time for instruction is already consumed by that partial and narrow treatment, and that therefore, however desirable this extension of range may be, it is in practice impossible. If an Englishman, for example, has found the history of England quite enough for his powers of assimilation, then it seems hopeless to expect his sons and daughters to master universal history, if that is to consist of the history of England, plus the history of France, plus the history of Germany, plus the history of Russia, and so on. To which the only possible answer is that universal history is at once something more and something less than the aggregate of the national histories to which we are accustomed, that it must be approached in a different spirit and dealt with in a different manner. This book seeks to justify that answer. It has been written primarily to show that history as one whole is amenable to a more broad and comprehensive handling than is the history of special nations and periods, a broader handling that will bring it within the normal limitations of time and energy set to the reading and education of an ordinary citizen. This outline deals with ages and races and nations, where the ordinary history deals with reigns and pedigrees and campaigns; but it will not be found to be more crowded with names and dates, nor more difficult to follow and understand. History is no exception amongst the sciences; as the gaps fill in, the outline simplifies; as the outlook broadens, the clustering multitude of details dissolves into general laws. And many topics of quite primary interest to mankind, the first appearance and the growth of scientific knowledge for example, and its effects upon human life, the elaboration of the ideas of money and credit, or the story of the origins and spread and influence of Christianity, which must be treated fragmentarily or by elaborate digressions in any partial history, arise and flow completely and naturally in one general record of the world in which we live.

The need for a common knowledge of the general facts of human history throughout the world has become very evident during the tragic happenings of the last few years. Swifter means of communication have brought all men closer to one another for good or for evil. War becomes a universal disaster, blind and monstrously destructive; it bombs the baby in its cradle and sinks the food-ships that cater for the non-combatant and the neutral. There can be no peace now, we realize, but a common peace in all the world; no prosperity but a general prosperity. But there can be no common peace and prosperity without common historical ideas. Without such ideas to hold them together in harmonious co-operation, with nothing but narrow, selfish, and conflicting nationalist traditions, races and peoples are bound to drift towards conflict and destruction. This truth, which was apparent to that great philosopher Kant a century or more ago—it is the gist of his tract upon universal peace—is now plain to the man in the street. Our internal policies and our economic and social ideas are profoundly vitiated at present by wrong and fantastic ideas of the origin and historical relationship of social classes. A sense of history as the common adventure of all mankind is as necessary for peace within as it is for peace between the nations.

Such are the views of history that this Outline seeks to realize. It is an attempt to tell how our present state of affairs, this distressed and multifarious human life about us, arose in the course of vast ages and out of the inanimate clash of matter, and to estimate the quality and amount and range of the hopes with which it now faces its destiny. It is one experimental contribution to a great and urgently necessary educational reformation, which must ultimately restore universal history, revised, corrected, and brought up to date, to its proper place and use as the backbone of a general education. We say “restore,” because all the great cultures of the world hitherto, Judaism and Christianity in the Bible, Islam in the Koran, have used some sort of cosmogony and world history as a basis. It may indeed be argued that without such a basis any really binding culture of men is inconceivable. Without it we are a chaos.

Remarkably few sketches of universal history by one single author have been written. One book that has influenced the writer very strongly is Winwood Reade’s Martyrdom of Man. This dates, as people say, nowadays, and it has a fine gloom of its own, but it is still an extraordinarily inspiring presentation of human history as one consistent process. Mr. F. S. Marvin’s Living Past is also an admirable summary of human progress. There is a good General History of the World in one volume by Mr. Oscar Browning. America has recently produced two well-illustrated and up-to-date class books, Breasted’s Ancient Times and Robinson’s Medieval and Modern Times, which together give a very good idea of the story of mankind since the beginning of human societies. There are, moreover, quite a number of nominally Universal Histories in existence, but they are really not histories at all, they are encyclopædias of history; they lack the unity of presentation attainable only when the whole subject has been passed through one single mind. These universal histories are compilations, assemblies of separate national or regional histories by different hands, the parts being necessarily unequal in merit and authority and disproportionate one to another. Several such universal histories in thirty or forty volumes or so, adorned with allegorical title pages and illustrated by folding maps and plans of Noah’s Ark, Solomon’s Temple, and the Tower of Babel, were produced for the libraries of gentlemen in the eighteenth century. Helmolt’s World History, in eight massive volumes, is a modern compilation of the same sort, very useful for reference and richly illustrated, but far better in its parts than as a whole. Another such collection is the Historians’ History of the World in 25 volumes. The Encyclopædia Britannica contains, of course, a complete encyclopædia of history within itself, and is the most modern of all such collections.[1] F. Ratzel’s History of Mankind, in spite of the promise of its title, is mainly a natural history of man, though it is rich with suggestions upon the nature and development of civilization. That publication and Miss Ellen Churchill Semple’s Influence of Geographical Environment, based on Ratzel’s work, are quoted in this Outline, and have had considerable influence upon its plan. F. Ratzel would indeed have been the ideal author for such a book as our present one. Unfortunately neither he nor any other ideal author was available.[2]

The writer will offer no apology for making this experiment. His disqualifications are manifest. But such work needs to be done by as many people as possible, he was free to make his contribution, and he was greatly attracted by the task. He has read sedulously and made the utmost use of all the help he could obtain. There is not a chapter that has not been examined by some more competent person than himself and very carefully revised. He has particularly to thank his friends Sir E. Ray Lankester, Sir H. H. Johnston, Professor Gilbert Murray, and Mr. Ernest Barker for much counsel and direction and editorial help. Mr. Philip Guedalla has toiled most efficiently and kindly through all the proofs. Mr. A. Allison, Professor T. W. Arnold, Mr. Arnold Bennett, the Rev. A. H. Trevor Benson, Mr. Aodh de Blacam, Mr. Laurence Binyon, the Rev. G. W. Broomfield, Sir William Bull, Mr. L. Cranmer Byng, Mr. A. J. D. Campbell, Mr. A. Y. Campbell, Mr. L. Y. Chen, Mr. A. R. Cowan, Mr. O. G. S. Crawford, Dr. W. S. Culbertson, Mr. R. Langton Cole, Mr. B. G. Collins, Mr. J. J. L. Duyvendak, Mr. O. W. Ellis, Mr. G. S. Ferrier, Mr. David Freeman, Mr. S. N. Fu, Mr. G. B. Gloyne, Sir Richard Gregory, Mr. F. H. Hayward, Mr. Sydney Herbert, Dr. Fr. Krupicka, Mr. H. Lang Jones, Mr. C. H. B. Laughton, Mr. B. I. Macalpin, Mr. G. H. Mair, Mr. F. S. Marvin, Mr. J. S. Mayhew, Mr. B. Stafford Morse, Professor J. L. Myres, the Hon. W. Ormsby-Gore, Sir Sydney Olivier, Mr. R. I. Pocock, Mr. J. Pringle, Mr. W. H. R. Rivers, Sir Denison Ross, Dr. E. J. Russell, Dr. Charles Singer, Mr. A. St. George Sanford, Dr. C. O. Stallybrass, Mr. G. H. Walsh, Mr. G. P. Wells, Miss Rebecca West, and Mr. George Whale have all to be thanked for help, either by reading parts of the MS. or by pointing out errors in the published parts, making suggestions, answering questions, or giving advice. The amount of friendly and sympathetic assistance the writer has received, often from very busy people, has been a quite extraordinary experience. He has met with scarcely a single instance of irritation or impatience on the part of specialists whose domains he has invaded and traversed in what must have seemed to many of them an exasperatingly impudent and superficial way. Numerous other helpful correspondents have pointed out printer’s errors and minor slips in the serial publication which preceded this book edition, and they have added many useful items of information, and to those writers also the warmest thanks are due. But of course none of these generous helpers are to be held responsible for the judgments, tone, arrangement, or writing of this Outline. In the relative importance of the parts, in the moral and political implications of the story, the final decision has necessarily fallen to the writer. The problem of illustrations was a very difficult one for him, for he had had no previous experience in the production of an illustrated book. In Mr. J. F. Horrabin he has had the good fortune to find not only an illustrator but a collaborator. Mr. Horrabin has spared no pains to make this work informative and exact. His maps and drawings are a part of the text, the most vital and decorative part. Some of them, the hypothetical maps, for example, of the western world at the end of the last glacial age, during the “pluvial age” and 12,000 years ago, and the migration map of the Barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire, represent the reading and inquiry of many laborious days.

The index to this edition is the work of Mr. Strickland Gibson of Oxford. Several correspondents have asked for a pronouncing index and accordingly this has been provided.

The writer owes a word of thanks to that living index of printed books, Mr. J. F. Cox of the London Library. He would also like to acknowledge here the help he has received from Mrs. Wells. Without her labour in typing and re-typing the drafts of the various chapters as they have been revised and amended, in checking references, finding suitable quotations, hunting up illustrations, and keeping in order the whole mass of material for this history, and without her constant help and watchful criticism, its completion would have been impossible.

SCHEME OF CONTENTS

BOOK I THE MAKING OF OUR WORLD
PAGE
Chapter I. The Earth in Space and Time		3
Chapter II. The Record of the Rocks
§ 1.	The first living things	7
§ 2.	How old is the world?	13
Chapter III. Natural Selection and the Changes of Species		16
Chapter IV. The Invasion of the Dry Land by Life
§ 1.	Life and water	23
§ 2.	The earliest animals	25
Chapter V. Changes in the World’s Climate
§ 1.	Why life must change continually	29
§ 2.	The sun a steadfast star	34
§ 3.	Changes from within the earth	35
§ 4.	Life may control change	36
Chapter VI. The Age of Reptiles
§ 1.	The age of lowland life	38
§ 2.	Flying dragons	43
§ 3.	The first birds	43
§ 4.	An age of hardship and death	44
§ 5.	The first appearance of fur and feathers	47
Chapter VII. The Age of Mammals
§ 1.	A new age of life	51
§ 2.	Tradition comes into the world	52
§ 3.	An age of brain growth	56
§ 4.	The world grows hard again	57
§ 5.	Chronology of the Ice Age	59
BOOK II THE MAKING OF MEN
Chapter VIII. The Ancestry of Man
§ 1.	Man descended from a walking ape	62
§ 2.	First traces of man-like creatures	68
§ 3.	The Heidelberg sub-man	69
§ 4.	The Piltdown sub-man	70
§ 5.	The riddle of the Piltdown remains	72
Chapter IX. The Neanderthal Men, an Extinct Race. (The Early Palæolithic Age)
§ 1.	The world 50,000 years ago	75
§ 2.	The daily life of the first men	79
§ 3.	The last Palæolithic men	84
Chapter X. The Later Postglacial Palæolithic Men, the First True Men. (Later Palæolithic Age)
§ 1.	The coming of men like ourselves	86
§ 2.	Subdivision of the Later Palæolithic	95
§ 3.	The earliest true men were clever savages	98
§ 4.	Hunters give place to herdsmen	101
§ 5.	No sub-men in America	102
Chapter XI. Neolithic Man in Europe
§ 1.	The age of cultivation begins	104
§ 2.	Where did the Neolithic culture arise?	108
§ 3.	Everyday Neolithic life	109
§ 4.	How did sowing begin?	116
§ 5.	Primitive trade	118
§ 6.	The flooding of the Mediterranean Valley	118
Chapter XII. Early Thought
§ 1.	Primitive philosophy	122
§ 2.	The Old Man in religion	125
§ 3.	Fear and hope in religion	126
§ 4.	Stars and seasons	127
§ 5.	Story-telling and myth-making	129
§ 6.	Complex origins of religion	130
Chapter XIII. The Races of Mankind
§ 1.	Is mankind still differentiating?	136
§ 2.	The main races of mankind	140
§ 3.	Was there an Alpine race?	142
§ 4.	The Heliolithic culture of the Brunet peoples	146
§ 5.	How existing races may be related to each other	148
Chapter XIV. The Languages of Mankind
§ 1.	No one primitive language	150
§ 2.	The Aryan languages	151
§ 3.	The Semitic languages	153
§ 4.	The Hamitic languages	154
§ 5.	The Ural-Altaic languages	156
§ 6.	The Chinese languages	157
§ 7.	Other language groups	157
§ 8.	Submerged and lost languages	161
§ 9.	How languages may be related	163
BOOK III THE DAWN OF HISTORY
Chapter XV. The Aryan-speaking Peoples in Prehistoric Times
§ 1.	The spreading of the Aryan-speakers	167
§ 2.	Primitive Aryan life	169
§ 3.	Early Aryan daily life	176
Chapter XVI. The First Civilizations
§ 1.	Early cities and early nomads	183
§ 2A.	The riddle of the Sumerians	188
§ 2B.	The empire of Sargon the First	191
§ 2C.	The empire of Hammurabi	191
§ 2D.	The Assyrians and their empire	192
§ 2E.	The Chaldean empire	194
§ 3.	The early history of Egypt	195
§ 4.	The early civilization of India	201
§ 5.	The early history of China	201
§ 6.	While the civilizations were growing	206
Chapter XVII. Sea Peoples and Trading Peoples
§ 1.	The earliest ships and sailors	209
§ 2.	The Ægean cities before history	213
§ 3.	The first voyages of exploration	217
§ 4.	Early traders	218
§ 5.	Early travellers	220
Chapter XVIII. Writing
§ 1.	Picture writing	223
§ 2.	Syllable writing	227
§ 3.	Alphabet writing	228
§ 4.	The place of writing in human life	229
Chapter XIX. Gods and Stars, Priests and Kings
§ 1.	Nomadic and settled religion	232
§ 2.	The priest comes into history	234
§ 3.	Priests and the stars	238
§ 4.	Priests and the dawn of learning	240
§ 5.	King against priests	241
§ 6.	How Bel-Marduk struggled against the kings	245
§ 7.	The god-kings of Egypt	248
§ 8.	Shi Hwang-ti destroys the books	252
Chapter XX. Serfs, Slaves, Social Classes, and Free Individuals
§ 1.	The common man in ancient times	254
§ 2.	The earliest slaves	256
§ 3.	The first “independent” persons	259
§ 4.	Social classes three thousand years ago	262
§ 5.	Classes hardening into castes	266
§ 6.	Caste in India	268
§ 7.	The system of the Mandarins	270
§ 8.	A summary of five thousand years	272
BOOK IV JUDEA, GREECE, AND INDIA
Chapter XXI. The Hebrew Scriptures and the Prophets
§ 1.	The place of the Israelites in history	277
§ 2.	Saul, David, and Solomon	286
§ 3.	The Jews a people of mixed origin	292
§ 4.	The importance of the Hebrew prophets	294
Chapter XXII. The Greeks and the Persians
§ 1.	The Hellenic peoples	298
§ 2.	Distinctive features of the Hellenic civilization	304
§ 3.	Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in Greece	307
§ 4.	The kingdom of Lydia	315
§ 5.	The rise of the Persians in the East	316
§ 6.	The story of Crœsus	320
§ 7.	Darius invades Russia	326
§ 8.	The battle of Marathon	332
§ 9.	Thermopylæ and Salamis	334
§ 10.	Platæa and Mycale	340
Chapter XXIII. Greek Thought and Literature
§ 1.	The Athens of Pericles	343
§ 2.	Socrates	350
§ 3.	What was the quality of the common Athenians?	352
§ 4.	Greek tragedy and comedy	354
§ 5.	Plato and the Academy	355
§ 6.	Aristotle and the Lyceum	357
§ 7.	Philosophy becomes unworldly	359
§ 8.	The quality and limitations of Greek thought	360
Chapter XXIV. The Career of Alexander the Great
§ 1.	Philip of Macedonia	367
§ 2.	The murder of King Philip	373
§ 3.	Alexander’s first conquests	377
§ 4.	The wanderings of Alexander	385
§ 5.	Was Alexander indeed great?	389
§ 6.	The successors of Alexander	395
§ 7.	Pergamum a refuge of culture	396
§ 8.	Alexander as a portent of world unity	397
Chapter XXV. Science and Religion at Alexandria
§ 1.	The science of Alexandria	401
§ 2.	Philosophy of Alexandria	410
§ 3.	Alexandria as a factory of religions	410
Chapter XXVI. The Rise and Spread of Buddhism
§ 1.	The story of Gautama	415
§ 2.	Teaching and legend in conflict	421
§ 3.	The gospel of Gautama Buddha	422
§ 4.	Buddhism and Asoka	426
§ 5.	Two great Chinese teachers	433
§ 6.	The corruptions of Buddhism	438
§ 7.	The present range of Buddhism	440
BOOK V THE RISE AND COLLAPSE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Chapter XXVII. The Two Western Republics
§ 1.	The beginnings of the Latins	445
§ 2.	A new sort of state	454
§ 3.	The Carthaginian republic of rich men	466
§ 4.	The First Punic War	467
§ 5.	Cato the Elder and the spirit of Cato	471
§ 6.	The Second Punic War	475
§ 7.	The Third Punic War	480
§ 8.	How the Punic War undermined Roman liberty	485
§ 9.	Comparison of the Roman republic with a modern state	486
Chapter XXVIII. From Tiberius Gracchus To the God Emperor in Rome
§ 1.	The science of thwarting the common man	493
§ 2.	Finance in the Roman state	496
§ 3.	The last years of republican politics	499
§ 4.	The era of the adventurer generals	505
§ 5.	Caius Julius Cæsar and his death	509
§ 6.	The end of the republic	513
§ 7.	Why the Roman republic failed	516
Chapter XXIX. The Cæsars between the Sea and the Great Plains of the Old World
§ 1.	A short catalogue of emperors	52
§ 2.	Roman civilization at its zenith	529
§ 3.	Limitations of the Roman mind	539
§ 4.	The stir of the great plains	541
§ 5.	The Western (true Roman) Empire crumples up	552
§ 6.	The Eastern (revived Hellenic) Empire	560
BOOK VI CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
Chapter XXX. The Beginnings, the Rise, and the Divisions of Christianity
§ 1.	Judea at the Christian era	569
§ 2.	The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth	573
§ 3.	The universal religions	582
§ 4.	The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth	584
§ 5.	Doctrines added to the teachings of Jesus	586
§ 6.	The struggles and persecutions of Christianity	594
§ 7.	Constantine the Great	598
§ 8.	The establishment of official Christianity	601
§ 9.	The map of Europe, A.D. 500	605
§ 10.	The salvation of learning by Christianity	609
Chapter XXXI. Seven Centuries in Asia (CIRCA 50 B.C. TO A.D. 650)
§ 1.	Justinian the Great	614
§ 2.	The Sassanid Empire in Persia	616
§ 3.	The decay of Syria under the Sassanids	619
§ 4.	The first message from Islam	623
§ 5.	Zoroaster and Mani	624
§ 6.	Hunnish peoples in Central Asia and India	627
§ 7.	The great age of China	630
§ 8.	Intellectual fetters of China	635
§ 9.	The travels of Yuan Chwang	642

LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Life in the Early Palæozoic	11
Time-chart from Earliest Life to 40,000,000 Years Ago	14
Life in the Later Palæozoic Age	19
Australian Lung Fish	26
Some Reptiles of the Late Palæozoic Age	27
Astronomical Variations Affecting Climate	33
Some Mesozoic Reptiles	40
Later Mesozoic Reptiles	42
Pterodactyls and Archæopteryx	45
Hesperornis	48
Some Oligocene Mammals	53
Miocene Mammals	58
Time-diagram of the Glacial Ages	60
Early Pleistocene Animals, Contemporary with Earliest Man	64
The Sub-Man Pithecanthropus	65
The Riddle of the Piltdown Sub-Man	71
Map of Europe 50,000 Years Ago	77
Neanderthal Man	78
Early Stone Implements	81
Australia and the Western Pacific in the Glacial Age	82
Cro-magnon Man	87
Europe and Western Asia in the Later Palæolithic Age	89
Reindeer Age Articles	90
A Reindeer Age Masterpiece	93
Reindeer Age Engravings and Carvings	94
Diagram of the Estimated Duration of the True Human Periods	97
Neolithic Implements	107
Restoration of a Lake Dwelling	111
Pottery from Lake Dwellings	112
Hut Urns	115
A Menhir of the Neolithic Period	128
Bronze Age Implements	132
Diagram Showing the Duration of the Neolithic Period	133
Heads of Australoid Types	139
Bushwoman	141
Negro Types	142
Mongolian Types	143
Caucasian Types	144
Map of Europe, Asia, Africa 15,000 Years Ago	145
The Swastika	147
Relationship of Human Races (Diagrammatic Summary)	149
Possible Development of Languages	155
Racial Types (after Champollion)	163
Combat between Menelaus and Hector	176
Archaic Horses and Chariots	178
The Cradle of Western Civilization	185
Sumerian Warriors in Phalanx	189
Assyrian Warrior (temp. Sargon II)	193
Time-chart 6000 B.C. to A.D.	196
The Cradle of Chinese Civilization (Map)	202
Boats on Nile about 2500 B.C.	211
Egyptian Ship on Red Sea, 1250 B.C.	212
Ægean Civilization (Map)	214
A Votary of the Snake Goddess	215
American Indian Picture-Writing	225
Egyptian Gods—Set, Anubis, Typhon, Bes	236
Egyptian Gods—Thoth-lunus, Hathor, Chnemu	239
An Assyrian King and His Chief Minister	243
Pharaoh Chephren	248
Pharaoh Rameses III as Osiris (Sarcophagus relief)	249
Pharaoh Akhnaton	251
Egyptian Peasants (Pyramid Age)	257
Brawl among Egyptian Boatmen (Pyramid Age)	260
Egyptian Social Types (From Tombs)	261
The Land of the Hebrews	280
Aryan-speaking Peoples 1000-500 B.C. (Map)	301
Hellenic Races 1000-800 B.C. (Map)	302
Greek Sea Fight, 550 B.C.	303
Rowers in an Athenian Warship, 400 B.C.	306
Scythian Types	319
Median and Second Babylonian Empires (in Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign)	321
The Empire of Darius	329
Wars of the Greeks and Persians (Map)	333
Athenian Foot-soldier	334
Persian Body-guard (from Frieze at Susa)	338
The World According to Herodotus	341
Athene of the Parthenon	348
Philip of Macedon	368
Growth of Macedonia under Philip	371
Macedonian Warrior (bas-relief from Pella)	373
Campaigns of Alexander the Great	381
Alexander the Great	389
Break-up of Alexander’s Empire	393
Seleucus I	395
Later State of Alexander’s Empire	398
The World According to Eratosthenes, 200 B.C.	405
The Known World, about 250 B.C.	406
Isis and Horus	413
Serapis	414
The Rise of Buddhism	419
Hariti	428
Chinese Image of Kuan-yin	429
The Spread of Buddhism	432
Indian Gods—Vishnu, Brahma, Siva	437
Indian Gods—Krishna, Kali, Ganesa	439
The Western Mediterranean, 800-600 B.C.	446
Early Latium	447
Burning the Dead: Etruscan Ceremony	449
Statuette of a Gaul	450
Roman Power after the Samnite Wars	451
Samnite Warriors	452
Italy after 275 B.C.	453
Roman Coin Celebrating the Victory over Pyrrhus	455
Mercury	457
Carthaginian Coins	468
Roman As	471
Rome and its Alliances, 150 B.C.	481
Gladiators	489
Roman Power, 50 B.C.	506
Julius Cæsar	512
Roman Empire at Death of Augustus	518
Roman Empire in Time of Trajan	524
Asia and Europe: Life of the Period (Map)	544
Central Asia, 200-100 B.C.	547
Tracks of Migrating and Raiding Peoples, 1-700 A.D.	555
Eastern Roman Empire	561
Constantinople (Maps to show value of its position)	563
Galilee	571
Map of Europe, 500 A.D.	608
The Eastern Empire and the Sassanids	620
Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia	622
Ephthalite Coin	629
Chinese Empire, Tang Dynasty	633
Yuan Chwang’s Route from China to India	643

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BOOK I

THE MAKING OF OUR WORLD

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THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY

I

THE EARTH IN SPACE AND TIME

THE earth on which we live is a spinning globe. Vast though it seems to us, it is a mere speck of matter in the greater vastness of space.

Space is, for the most part, emptiness. At great intervals there are in this emptiness flaring centres of heat and light, the “fixed stars.” They are all moving about in space, notwithstanding that they are called fixed stars, but for a long time men did not realize their motion. They are so vast and at such tremendous distances that their motion is not perceived. Only in the course of many thousands of years is it appreciable. These fixed stars are so far off that, for all their immensity, they seem to be, even when we look at them through the most powerful telescopes, mere points of light, brighter or less bright. A few, however, when we turn a telescope upon them, are seen to be whirls and clouds of shining vapour which we call nebulæ. They are so far off that a movement of millions of miles would be imperceptible.

One star, however, is so near to us that it is like a great ball of flame. This one is the sun. The sun is itself in its nature like a fixed star, but it differs from the other fixed stars in appearance because it is beyond comparison nearer than they are; and because it is nearer men have been able to learn something of its nature. Its mean distance from the earth is ninety-three million miles. It is a mass of flaming matter, having a diameter of 866,000 miles. Its bulk is a million and a quarter times the bulk of our earth.

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