Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/537

Rh ; and this alphabet, which constitutes the first step of elementary instruction, is certainly one of the most marvelous inventions of the human mind. So almost all the ancients attributed to it a divine origin.

III. Primitive Forms of Society.—As I just said to you, it is by language that societies begin, and by writing that they make the greatest progress in civilization. But, before they attain civilization, they have long halting-places to get over, and, regarding the ensembles of the human races, we see three very distinct kinds of primitive society.

The lowest degree of human association is people that hunt and fish; and this inferiority is easily explained. A society composed entirely of hunters cannot be numerous, because it must live on the game it kills. Therefore, a great space is needed to nourish a sparse population. Besides, the hunter's chances are for the day; he is never sure of a living for to-morrow. This incessant uncertainty prevents him from directing his intelligence toward more elevated subjects. Hunters, besides, have incessantly to watch their hunting-grounds to prevent encroachments. In other words, the hunter is the image of war. Wars easily arise between neighboring populations placed in identical conditions. These wars are without mercy, for each prisoner is one more mouth to feed; kill him, then. Hence, hunting-tribes are almost inevitably courageous, sometimes heroic, but warlike and cruel.

As soon as man domesticates certain animals—cattle, sheep, or llamas—as soon as he becomes pastoral, his to-morrow is assured. He can at once begin to occupy himself with something besides his food; and we see societies of this kind begin to make progress. However, pastoral people need vast spaces for their animals; these promptly exhaust the herbage of a canton; it becomes needful to go elsewhere after food for the animals which supply milk and flesh, the nourishment of the master, and so a pastoral population cannot exist in great numbers. They easily become nomadic. In their migrations the hordes meet and dispute by force of arms for the precious pasturage. War breaks them up; but prisoners may be utilized by the conqueror, and their food will not be a great sacrifice. They are spared, and slavery is born.

Society takes its third form, when man finds that the vegetable kingdom furnishes more abundant and reliable food than that obtained from animals—when he becomes an agriculturist. Besides, agriculture gives him leisure. His manners soften. War, when it breaks out, becomes less cruel. Prisoners employed to work in the field can render services more and more considerable. Slavery becomes serfdom. Relieved from imperious material necessities, the intelligence of the master awakens and enlarges. A true civilization may arise and grow among agriculturists.

Centuries ago Europeans attained a social state permitting the