Yet history in its simple forms is one of the most spontaneous of human achievements.

Stories of mighty deeds, of the prowess and death of heroes, are among the earliest productions of even semi-civilised man--the earliest subjects of epic and lyric verse.

But this rudimentary form is never more than biographical.

With increasing complexity of social evolution it dies away, and history proper, as distinct from annals and chronicle, does not arise till circumstances allow of general and synthetic views, till societies can be surveyed from a sufficient distance and elevation for their movements to be discerned.

Thucydides, Livy, and Tacitus do not appear till Greece and Home have reached their highest point of homogeneous national life.
The tardy dawn of history in the modern world was owing to its immense complexity.