Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/86

BOOK II. THE GREEKS CHAPTER IV THE COMING OF THE GREEKS THEIR EARLY ACHIEVEMENTS I. THE ^GEAN CIVILIZATION 70. How Europe gained its Higher Civilization from Egypt and Western Asia. In the first chapter of this history we followed the slow progress of mankind in Europe during the long Stone Ages. We found that in the Late Stone Age, to judge from the remains of villages on the shores of lakes and banks of rivers, the peoples of Europe had learned to cultivate fields and tame animals, to make pottery, to spin and weave ( 8). But their ability to progress by themselves appears to have come to an end. They contiuued to live in a state of barbarism similar to that of many of the Indian tribes of North America before the arrival of the Spanish, French, and English. They did not learn how to write, how to work metals into useful articles, erect buildings of fine stone masonry, or construct sailing ships for trade. In short, they failed to rise to a civilized life like that we have found in the Orient. Meanwhile, as we have seen, in Egypt and in Western Asia men who had formerly used stone weapons and bee'n as ignorant as the men of the Late Stone Age in Europe had begun to make wonderful discoveries and inventions. They had learned to write and to use metals and make beautiful statues, furniture, and jewelry and build great and imposing structures. In the second and third chapters we studied some of the wonderful things ac- complished by the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, for it 48