Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/44

 CHAPTER II.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE.

Stages of culture, industrial, intellectual, political, moral — Development of culture in great measure corresponds with transition from savage through barbaric to civilized life — Progression-theory — Degeneration-theory — Development-theory includes both, the one as primary, the other as secondary — Historical and traditional evidence not available as to low stages of culture — Historical evidence as to principles of Degeneration — Ethnological evidence as to rise and fall in culture from comparison of different levels of culture in branches of the same race — Extent of historically recorded antiquity of civilization Prehistoric Archæology extends the antiquity of man in low stages of civilization — Traces of Stone Age, corroborated by megalithic structures, lake dwellings, shell-heaps, burial-places, &c., prove original low culture throughout the world — Stages of Progressive Development in industrial arts.

In taking up the problem of the development of culture as a branch of ethnological research, a first proceeding is to obtain a means of measurement. Seeking something like a definite line along which to reckon progression and retrogression in civilization, we may apparently find it best in the classification of real tribes and nations, past and present. Civilization actually existing among mankind in different grades, we are enabled to estimate and compare it by positive examples. The educated world of Europe and America practically settles a standard by simply placing its own nations at one end of the social series and savage tribes at the other, arranging the rest of mankind between these limits according as they correspond more closely to savage or to cultured life. The principal criteria of classification are the absence or presence, high or low development, of the industrial arts, especially metal-working, manufacture of