life, the occupation, or of those little things which make up
the culture of a people. But the knowledge of primitive tribes,
gathered from the scanty remains of their implements, from a
thorough exploration of their cavern homes, has made us
acquainted with much of their home life and surroundings:
and we are not entirely ignorant as to such topics as their
trade, government, and religion. We must not forget that this is
a knowledge of tribes and peoples who lived here in times
immeasurably ancient as compared with those in existence at the
very dawn of history.

We must try and form a mental picture of what was probably the
primitive state of man; and a little judicious reasoning from
known facts will do much for us in this direction. Some writers
have contended that the first condition of man was that of
pleasing innocence, combined with a high degree of
enlightenment, which, owing to the wickedness of mankind, he
gradually lost. This ideal picture, however consonant with our
wishes, must not only give way before the mass of information
now at our command, but has really no foundation in reason;
"or, at any rate, if this primitive condition of innocence and
enlightenment ever existed, it must have disappeared at a period
preceding the present archaeological investigations."<29>
Nothing is plainer than that our present civilization has been
developed from barbarism, as that was from savagism.<30> We need
go back but a few centuries in the history of any nation, before
we find them emerging from a state of barbarism. The energy and
intelligence of the Anglo-Saxon has spread his language to the
four corners of the globe; he has converted the wilderness into
fruitful fields, and reared cities in desert lands: yet his