Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/161

 INTERPRETATION OF SAVAGE SOCIETY 147

of the historian to familiarize himself with the institutional life of savage society.

This failure of the social sciences to regard human life and human history as a whole, and to perceive the significance of the savage for any study of civilization has been touched upon by Professor Robinson in his brilliant essay on History, and I quote his words extensively, particularly since they introduce the ques- tion of a modification of the method of viewing historical materials :

"Fifty years ago it was generally believed that we knew something about man from the very first. Of his abrupt appear- ance on the freshly created earth and his early conduct, there appeared to be a brief but exceptionally authoritative account. Now we are beginning to recognize the immense antiquity of man. There are paleolithic implements which there is some reason for supposing may have been made a hundred and fifty thousand years ago ; the eolithic remains recently discovered may perhaps antedate the paleolithic by an equally long period. Mere guesses and impressions, of course, this assignment of millen- niums, which appear to have been preceded by some hundreds of thousands of years during which an animal was developing with 'a relatively enormous brain case, a skilful hand and an inveterate tendency to throw stones, flourish sticks' and, in general, as Ray Lankester expresses it, 'to defeat aggression and satisfy his natural appetites by the use of his wits rather than by strength alone.' There may still be historians who would argue that all this has nothing to do with history; — that it is 'prehistoric' But 'prehistoric' is a word that must go the way of 'preadamite,' which we used to hear. They both indicate a suspicion that we are in some way gaining illicit information about what happened before the foot lights were turned on and the curtain rose on the great human drama. Of the so-called 'prehistoric' period we of course know as yet very little indeed, but the bare fact that there was such a period constitutes in itself the most momentous of historical discoveries. The earliest, somewhat abundant, traces of mankind can hardly be placed earlier than six thousand years ago. They indicate, however, very elaborate and ad-