while its theory has changed even more absolutely than its practice ; for medical history begins with the ancient world holding fast to the savage doctrine that madness, epilepsy, fever, and other diseases, are caused by demons possessing the patient a belief which is still that of half the human race, but which it has been the slow but success ful task of scientific pathology to supersede in the civilised world. In like manner, the history of judicial and admini strative institutions may be appealed to for illustrations of the modes in which old social formations are reshaped to meet new requirements, new regulations are made, and new officers are constituted to perform the more complex duties of modern society, while from time to time institu tions of past ages, which have lost their original purpose,
and become obsolete or hurtful, are swept away.
That processes of development similar to these had already been effective to raise culture from the savage to the barbaric level, two considerations especially tend to prove. First, there are numerous points in the culture even of rude races which are not explicable otherwise than on the theory of development. Thus, though difficult or superfluous arts may easily be lost, it is hard to imagine the abandonment of contrivances of practical daily utility, where little skill is required, and materials are easily accessible. Had the Australians or New Zealanders, for instance, ever possessed the potter s art, they could hardly have forgotten it. The inference that these tribes repre sent the stage of culture before the invention of pottery is confirmed by the absence of buried fragments of pottery in the districts they inhabit (Lubbock, in Report of British Association, Dundee, 1867, p. 121). The same races who were found making thread by the laborious process of twisting with the hand, would hardly have disused, if they had ever possessed it, so simple a labour-saving device as the spindle, which consists merely of a small stick weighted at one end ; the spindle may, accordingly, be regarded as an instrument invented somewhere between the lowest and highest savage levels (Tylor, Early Hist. of Mankind, p. 193). Again, many devices of civilisation bear unmis takable marks of derivation from a lower source ; thus the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian harps, which differ from ours in having no front pillar, appear certainly to owe this remarkable defect to having grown up through intermediate forms from the simple strung bow, the still used type of the most primitive stringed instrument (Engel, Music of the most Ancient Nations, pp. 17, 30). In this way the history of numeral words furnishes actual proof of that independent intellectual progress among savage tribes which some writers have rashly denied. Such words as hand, hands, foot, man, &c., are used as numerals signifying 5, 10, 15, 20, &c., among many savage and barbaric peoples; thus Polynesian lima, i.e., “hand,” means 5; Zulu, tatisitupa, i.e., “taking the thumb,” means 6 ; Greenlandish, arfersanek-pingasut, i.e., “on the other foot three,” means 18; Tamanac, tevin itoto, i.e., “one man,” means 20, &c., &c. The existence of such expressions demonstrates that the people who use them had originally no spoken names for these num bers, but once merely counted them by gesture on their fingers and toes in low savage fashion, till they obtained higher numerals by the inventive process of describing in words these counting-gestures (Tylor, in Journal Royal Inst., March 15, 1867; Primitive Culture, chap. vii.) Second, the process of " survival in culture " has caused the preservation in each stage of society of phenomena belonging to an earlier period, but kept up by force of custom into the later, thus supplying evidence of the modern condition being derived from the ancient. Thus the mitre over an English bishop's coat-of-arms is a survival which indicates him as the successor of bishops who actually wore mitres, while armorial bearings themselves, and the whole craft of heraldry, are survivals bearing record of a state of warfare and social order whence our present state Avas by vast modification evolved. Evidence of this class, proving the derivation of modern civilisation, not only from ancient barbarism, but beyond this, from primeval savagery, is immensely plentiful, especially in rites and ceremonies, where the survival of ancient habits is peculiarly favoured. Thus the modern Hindu, though using civilised means for lighting his household fire, retains the savage "fire-drill" for obtaining fire by friction of wood when what he considers pure or sacred fire has to be produced for sacrificial purposes ; while in Europe into modern times the same primitive process has been kept up in producing the sacred and magical " need-fire," which was lighted to deliver cattle from a murrain. Again, the funeral offerings of food, clothing, weapons, &c., to the dead are absolutely intelligible and purposeful among savage races, who believe that the souls of the departed are ethereal beings, capable of consuming food, and of receiving and using the souls or phantoms of any objects sacrificed for their use. The primitive philosophy to Avhich these conceptions belong has to a great degree been discredited by modern science ; yet the clear survivals of such ancient and savage rites may still be seen in Europe, where the Bretons leave the remains of the All Souls supper on the table for the ghosts of the dead kinsfolk to partake of, and Russian peasants set out cakes for the ancestral manes on the ledge which supports the holy pictures, and make dough ladders to assist the ghosts of the dead to ascend out of their graves and start on their journey for the future world ; while other provision for the same spiritual journey is made when the coin is still put in the hand of the corpse at an Irish wake. In like manner magic still exists in the civilised world as a survival from the savage and barbaric times to which it originally belongs, and in which is found the natural source and proper home of utterly savage practices still carried on by ignorant peasants in our OAVII country, such as taking omens from the cries of animals, or bewitching an enemy by sticking full of pins and hanging up to shrivel in the smoke an image or other object, that similar destruction may fall on the hated person represented by the symbol (Tylor, Primitive Culture, chap. i., iii, iv., xi., xii.; Early Hist. of Man, chap. vi.)
not only generalises the data of history, but supplements lines of ^e- its information by laying doAvn the lines of development ve P men along Avhich the loAvest prehistoric culture has gradually risen to the highest modern level. Among the most clearly marked of these lines is that which follows the succession of the stone, bronze, and iron ages. The stone age represents the early condition of mankind in general, and has remained in savage districts up to modern times, while the introduction of metals need not at once supersede the use of the old stone hatchets and arrows, Avhich haA T e often long continued in dwindling surviA al by the side of the new bronze and even iron ones. The bronze age had its most important place among ancient nations of Asia and Europe, and among them was only succeeded after many centuries by the iron age ; while in other districts, such as Polynesia and Central and South Africa, and America (except Mexico and Peru), the native tribes Avere moA^ed directly from the stone to the iron age Avithout passing through the bronze age at all. Although the three divisions of savage, barbaric, and civilised man do not correspond at all perfectly Adth the stone, bronze, and iron ages, the classification of civilisation thus introduced by Nilsson and Thomsen has proved a guide of extraordinary value in arranging in their proper order
of culture the nations of the Old World. Another great
