Page:World History.pdf/39

2 inhabited by savage and barbarous peoples, such as are still found in every continent.

The savage is a mere child of nature. He secures food from wild plants and animals; he knows nothing of metals, but makes his tools and weapons of wood, bone, and stone; he wears little or no clothing; and his home is merely a cave, a rock shelter, or a rude bark hut. Such miserable folk occupy the interior of South America, Africa, Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines, and other regions. Barbarism forms a transitional stage between savagery and civilization. The barbarian has gained some control of nature. He has learned to sow and reap the fruits of the earth, instead of depending entirely upon hunting and fishing for a food supply, to domesticate animals, and ordinarily to use implements of metal. Barbarous tribes at the present time include certain North American Indians, the Pacific Islanders, and most of the African negroes.

The facts collected by modern science make it certain that early man was first a savage and then a barbarian before he reached anywhere the stage of civilization. We know this, not on the evidence of written records — early man made neither inscriptions nor books — but from the things which he left behind him in many parts of the world, particularly in Europe and the Mediterranean region. These include a few of his own bones, many bones of animals killed by him, and a great variety of tools, weapons, and other objects. Systematic study of such remains began during the nineteenth century. The study is still in its infancy, but it has gone far enough to afford some idea of human progress before the rise of civilization.

2. Man's Place in Nature

Astronomy and geology present a wonderful picture of the earth in past ages. The astronomer tells us that space is for the most part mere emptiness, that at vast intervals in this emptiness are the so-called "fixed stars," — flaming, incandescent masses of matter, — that the sun is such a star,