THE Essays in this volume have been written to help those who, like myself, are trying to trace the paths worn by the ruling races of the world through the tangled jungles of past time, and thus to learn the real history of the childhood of humanity during the ages when national life began its troubled journey towards its ultimate and, as yet, unseen goal. They call especial attention to the ehronologieal data supplied by social laws and customs, mythic history and ritual, and prove that these when studied provide guiding marks from which we ean deduce, even in ages which have been hitherto called prehistoric, the order in which the leading epoehs of civilisation succeeded one another.