said, and thought. Nay, more; we escape all the fallacies
connected with the terms "primitive man". We are not compelled (as
will be shown later)[1] to prove that the first men of all were
like modern savages, nor that savages represent primitive man. It
may be that the lowest extant savages are the nearest of existing
peoples to the type of the first human beings. But on this point
it is unnecessary for us to dogmatise. If we can show that,
whether men began their career as savages or not, they have at
least passed through the savage status or have borrowed the ideas
of races in the savage status, that is all we need. We escape from
all the snares of theories (incapable of historical proof) about
the really primeval and original condition of the human family.


[1] Appendix B.


Once more, our theory naturally attaches itself to the general
system of Evolution. We are enabled to examine mythology as a
thing of gradual development and of slow and manifold modifications,
corresponding in some degree to the various changes in the general
progress of society. Thus we shall watch the barbaric conditions of
thought which produce barbaric myths, while these in their turn are
retained, or perhaps purified, or perhaps explained away, by more
advanced civilisations. Further, we shall be able to detect the
survival of the savage ideas with least modification, and the
persistence of the savage myths with least change, among the classes
of a civilised population which have shared least in the general
advance. These classes are, first, the rustic peoples, dwelling far
from cities and schools, on heaths or by the sea; second, the