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Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Before the days of prehistoric man, July 4, 1909

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Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://media.library.ohiou.edu/scripps
•
July 4, 1909. QL
BElPORE THE DAYS OF PREHISTORIC lliTAN.
~--.. -.. -.. -".--,---.--.,-.... ---.--~-......... -~---
"There is nothing ne\v under the sun." At least I have been able to find anything ne·N.
am years. I tili:n.1{ing and scouring such literature as comes to me for new facts, and
laboring always construct some J if not all-including generalization
of things spiritual and material, at least generalization that will
include more facts and fifferent facts than those which have been propounded
I came my fact-for~ing ex-peditions
new and rea.l1y things. And I have hue-hed myself and chuckled to myself and
and Ii va plump," my by VITi the past or of the present, in which I recognize that I have only been
following in the footsteps of some other prospector, and that wondrous
i discovery had been made before.
Sunday my intently, somethiI1t;-; seen. ~e gone away again before I arrived; - --he ha,d gone off to a colI ege in
northern .England and there told a whole school room full of students
all about his discovery and ~J discovery.
I wonder how thousands of others,--prospectors in the
desert,---have gone before both him and me, and in years, yes, in ~es,
past have seen and contemplated tho~~htfully a thing that this professor
"i" >..... .,~ ~, ... '
J111y -B-E--F-O--R.-E- -,T.-H-E.. - -D--A-Y.S- -.O,F- .. -P-R-E.H,I-S.T-O-R"IC'. . IvTAN. --~--
nevI sun. It not
ne"Here I spending days and months and years ,thinking and
tnin.1d ng to constrtlct genera.lization
thi~s material J a faots before.
Frequently have oame across ideas in fact-foraging expeditions
that have been entirely ne\, marvelous to me---really beau-tiful
hugged felt that of all the men that now live in the world or that had ever
lived in the world to me only had been revealed this treasure. Then,
"plump, It eye falls on a phrase, or sentence, or monograph produced
some one of these thousands of investigators, thinkers and W'ri ters of
followil~ my , This morning I found another man in m.y wilderness who
had been looking before I came) but very intently J at something that I
had seen,and studied. Jie had looked and investigated and made his notes
and arrived;-··-he had t~one college northem,England sohool DT] many desert l ---eSJ
thoughtfully (')t,;:)~
,,;;,:·· .. · ..... IfI. "

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Title	Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Before the days of prehistoric man, July 4, 1909
Collection	E. W. Scripps Papers, 1868-1926
Creator/Author	Scripps, E. W. (Edward Willis), 1854-1926
Date Original	1909-07-04
Subject-LCSH	Prehistoric peoples Humanity Human beings
Is Part Of	E. W. Scripps Papers, Series 4, Box 01, Vol 02 E. W. Scripps' Writings 1909, Book 2
Collection finding aid	http://www.library.ohiou.edu/archives/mss/mss117.html
Call Number	mss117/ser4/box01/book02/228-233
Original Format-AAT	Essays
Publisher	Ohio University Libraries. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections
Type	Text
Format [IMT]	Application/pdf
Physical dimensions	6 p.; 11 x 8.5
Identifier	ser4_box01_vol02_228-233_prehistoric.pdf
Donor	Scripps, Charles E. (Charles Edward), 1920-
Rights Information	In the public domain. Unpublished works are under copyright for the life of the author + 70 years
Citation	E.W. Scripps Papers, Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections, Ohio University Libraries
Transcript	Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://media.library.ohiou.edu/scripps • July 4, 1909. QL BElPORE THE DAYS OF PREHISTORIC lliTAN. ~--.. -.. -.. -".--,---.--.,-.... ---.--~-......... -~--- "There is nothing ne\v under the sun." At least I have been able to find anything ne·N. am years. I tili:n.1{ing and scouring such literature as comes to me for new facts, and laboring always construct some J if not all-including generalization of things spiritual and material, at least generalization that will include more facts and fifferent facts than those which have been propounded I came my fact-for~ing ex-peditions new and rea.l1y things. And I have hue-hed myself and chuckled to myself and and Ii va plump" my by VITi the past or of the present, in which I recognize that I have only been following in the footsteps of some other prospector, and that wondrous i discovery had been made before. Sunday my intently, somethiI1t;-; seen. ~e gone away again before I arrived; - --he ha,d gone off to a colI ege in northern.England and there told a whole school room full of students all about his discovery and ~J discovery. I wonder how thousands of others,--prospectors in the desert,---have gone before both him and me, and in years, yes, in ~es, past have seen and contemplated tho~~htfully a thing that this professor "i" >......,~ ~,... ' J111y -B-E--F-O--R.-E- -,T.-H-E.. - -D--A-Y.S- -.O,F-.. -P-R-E.H,I-S.T-O-R"IC'.. IvTAN. --~-- nevI sun. It not ne"Here I spending days and months and years ,thinking and tnin.1d ng to constrtlct genera.lization thi~s material J a faots before. Frequently have oame across ideas in fact-foraging expeditions that have been entirely ne\, marvelous to me---really beau-tiful hugged felt that of all the men that now live in the world or that had ever lived in the world to me only had been revealed this treasure. Then, "plump, It eye falls on a phrase, or sentence, or monograph produced some one of these thousands of investigators, thinkers and W'ri ters of followil~ my , This morning I found another man in m.y wilderness who had been looking before I came) but very intently J at something that I had seen,and studied. Jie had looked and investigated and made his notes and arrived;-··-he had t~one college northem,England sohool DT] many desert l ---eSJ thoughtfully (')t,;:)~ ,,;;,:··.. ·..... IfI. " , Prehis~oric Man-.. 2. and I had looked upon witb so much interest. The human habitability of this earth may have existed for a hundred million of years, and it may have existed for a much longer time. It is tmpossible that the world should not have been i~~abited for many, ~y millions of years, at least. But let us presume that the first man put foot on this globe of ours a million years ago. Investigators in the geolo/gical department of science have de-tennined that the earth 's envelope of plant-feeding soii!. grows from nat... ural sources, --that is to sa.y from igneous roack,---at the rate of one foot in ten thousand years. This envelope is constantly forming and is constantly being swept away by the action of wind and running water. How much is being added to it by the accumulati on of star dust, and how much of it is beil1@; thrown off into space by radioactivity is hardly, as yet J calculable. But, in a million years a rocky mountain side or plain will , dissolve a hundred feet deep, and nearly all of this hundred feet will have been swept away; for rarely do we find the soil-envelope thicker at most than a few yards, and oftener a few feet t and frequently not , IDa11.V. inche s • What thi~s'existing on earth today, either entirely created or slightly modified by the forces of man, could endure this hundred feet deep erosion of a ndllion years? Beside erosion other forces, purely chemical and even other chemdoal foroes than radioactivity, are at work not only grinding down the mass of 'the earth by exploding, destroying and disintegrating it but are even changing the form and character of its sUbstanoe. Would it be possible for anything to remain on earth recog. zable as the handiwork of man after fifty thousand yea.rs? Let humanity be swept from the earth today and long before 229 storie Man--3 • fifty thousand years will be past there would be left not one thing on the surface of the earth to mark the fanner presence there of mankind. If a future re-investigating and reasoning inhabitant should undertake to study his predecessors on the ~obe he would find no clue except a few scattered fr~ents of man's work buried deep in some preserving matrix. But a million years hence, when hard igneous rock is worn down one hundred feet deep, all softer material such as could fonn matrices for fossil and other human remains woul~ have rotted and disintegrated to. a far greater depth, so that it might be extremely doubtful whether J anywhere on the earth • s surfa.ce J or buried deep in accumulated deposits, there would remain a single relic at the expiration of such a period • I believe it is claimed that there exists in the world today some monuments of man's handic~Eft which may have been constructed as long ago as ten thousand years. Ten ,thousand years, as the compara-tive period of past human habitability of the earth, is no longer than a day in the life of a nation or even a race. In some of the speculations I have indulged in and written about I have referred to man as a kind of microbe disease that was afflicting the earth's or~ismi on several occasions I have referred to i mathematical calculations to show how brief a period of time would be necessary, with two·single progenitors, to re-people this earth even more numerously than it is at present peopled. I have understood and accepted as axiomatic the principle of the birth, growth l long endurance and death of families', and of races and of species. I know that in a. few years I must die; and tha.t in t too many generations all of my descendants will pass I expect my tion not only to lose its government but its territory to other hu-. who have nothing in common as to race origin with us. We. ··,:!:~MaHt rehistoric Man--4. that man himself must die off of the earth entirely, and that too long before the earth ceases to be habitable to other living organisms. But, until recently, the idea had never occurred to me that prior to the existence of historic and prehistoric man there might and prol)ably did exist another great, and perhaps,in ascending line, many great human or human-like populations possessed of civilization, and physical and intellectual characteristics possibly infinitely superior, and possibly no more than equal to that possessed by the present human family. These vast populations of the world could have accomplished, in the way of marking the earth, far more than has been accomplished by the present human tribe, and still they could have disappeared so long ago as not to leave one trifling souvenir of their existence. When this idea formulated itself in my mind it didn't occur to me to ask myself whether or not it had been formulated in the minds of other men; it was only after having spent some time in contemplating i the idea and in turning it over and examining it with great interest that it finally did occur to me that it was entirely a novel one. Extensive as my reading has been it has all been of a purely desultory sort. I have not sought to master any subject, and even if ! I had such vast numbers of men have in the past and are in the present scouring the fields of exact and speculative science, it would be i~ possible for me to know more than an infinitessimal portion of the accumulated human knowledge and thought. This morning I have read in "Current Literature" a brief review of Professo<r Frederick Soddy) lecturer in the University of Glasgow, on the subject of "The Garden of Eden in the Light of the New Physics." Soddy is professor of physical chemistry and radioactivity in the university • It appears that he has been making his deductions speculation,s from the standpoint of what liiitle has been learned of -231 Prehistoric Man--5. radioactivity since a brief decade ago when the Curies discovered radium. I have at least this comfort and thought: My path toward the idea was a different one from that pursued by Soddy. Soddy was b~ided to his point in the desert by deductions drawn from radium,---I started from Jim Hill's sermon to the American farmers concerning soil-waste. After Hill had spoken a geologist en~hasized Hill's remarks by a lecture going to prove that it took nature ten thousand years to make one foot of soil. I will here record a rather peculiar sensation that occurred to me at the time of readinr,:; this geologist's lecture: I think it is sigiificant and that it goe s to shcilw that all humanity is an organism, and that this or·ganism as a whole has the same repugnance to death as does the individual; it not only has a replloonance to immediate material death but to race extinction..Just as every day a man wants to live as long as he canjmd hopes to 1 i ve again after death in Bome individual form here or else"ovhere, so does the human family as a whole covet the longest possible earth-life and thereafter, perhaps, an eternity-life. All these specul~tions of mine have been pessimistic. My individual death, or the death of my family, my nation or my kind appeared not only inevitable but comparatively inmediate. When I read this article stati!¥s that a new envelope of soilfood must be depended upon to be fanned everoJ ten thousand years I felt, rather than said,: "Ho: The end is not so near as I thought. Let fool humanity go on over-crowding and improvidently devouring and wasting "its heri tags to the fa.rthest extent paBsl ble until the one and anehalf billions of present human beings have been reduced to even a few score thousands. There will be enough of us to hang on for ten or Prehistoric Man--6. twenty thousands of years until the earth~ soil has renewed i tsel! I and then again will the human family grow and spread. and perhaps be more wise and provident and live for a longer time and be happier on a newmade earth. It In fact I felt in a mild. way that sort of joy and happiness and re~uvenation of spirit which a sick man would feel who, after having gone down to deathts door, and then recovering consciousness would hear the doctors say that all danger was past and. that recovery was certain. I felt happy to learn this evidence of a new lease of life for humanity. It has been such and similar instincts discovered in myself that has caused me to almost fully believe in the solidarity of the human race J and it has caused me to believe that all mankind is an organism that is complete in mutual dependence, as for instance the organism of a single individual in which each cell of the body is a part of the whole, all cells being dependent mutually upon each other to a greater or a. lesser extent for their existence. In fact I consider that the indi vidual human being is as to the great world-embracing human organism as is the body cell to the body organism of the individual. A step or two farther along I find myself in accord not only wi th all the great religious teachers, but with such materialistic philosophers as Haeckel. The universe is a li~ing organism, a soul and an intelligence; is eternal, and I am part of the universe, part of the soul and part of the intelligence. Eternity is mine, extinction is not! Dictated By E. W. Scripps iramar J CaJ.ifornia July 4, 1909..~ 233

Title	Page 1
Collection finding aid	http://www.library.ohiou.edu/archives/mss/mss117.html
Transcript	Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://media.library.ohiou.edu/scripps • July 4, 1909. QL BElPORE THE DAYS OF PREHISTORIC lliTAN. ~--.. -.. -.. -".--,---.--.,-.... ---.--~-......... -~--- "There is nothing ne\v under the sun." At least I have been able to find anything ne·N. am years. I tili:n.1{ing and scouring such literature as comes to me for new facts, and laboring always construct some J if not all-including generalization of things spiritual and material, at least generalization that will include more facts and fifferent facts than those which have been propounded I came my fact-for~ing ex-peditions new and rea.l1y things. And I have hue-hed myself and chuckled to myself and and Ii va plump" my by VITi the past or of the present, in which I recognize that I have only been following in the footsteps of some other prospector, and that wondrous i discovery had been made before. Sunday my intently, somethiI1t;-; seen. ~e gone away again before I arrived; - --he ha,d gone off to a colI ege in northern.England and there told a whole school room full of students all about his discovery and ~J discovery. I wonder how thousands of others,--prospectors in the desert,---have gone before both him and me, and in years, yes, in ~es, past have seen and contemplated tho~~htfully a thing that this professor "i" >......,~ ~,... ' J111y -B-E--F-O--R.-E- -,T.-H-E.. - -D--A-Y.S- -.O,F-.. -P-R-E.H,I-S.T-O-R"IC'.. IvTAN. --~-- nevI sun. It not ne"Here I spending days and months and years ,thinking and tnin.1d ng to constrtlct genera.lization thi~s material J a faots before. Frequently have oame across ideas in fact-foraging expeditions that have been entirely ne\, marvelous to me---really beau-tiful hugged felt that of all the men that now live in the world or that had ever lived in the world to me only had been revealed this treasure. Then, "plump, It eye falls on a phrase, or sentence, or monograph produced some one of these thousands of investigators, thinkers and W'ri ters of followil~ my , This morning I found another man in m.y wilderness who had been looking before I came) but very intently J at something that I had seen,and studied. Jie had looked and investigated and made his notes and arrived;-··-he had t~one college northem,England sohool DT] many desert l ---eSJ thoughtfully (')t,;:)~ ,,;;,:··.. ·..... IfI. "

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