Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 | Page 4

Semite ever depended upon a hunting and fishing stage. They doubtless did, but not in the time of any history that we know. The Bedouins, etc., wandering tribes to-day, and, among the Semitic, the Tuaregs of the Sahara, are a purely nomadic or pastoral race; yet are very much above the negroes of the south, who depend upon hunting and fishing.
Above it, however, and a very great improvement upon it, is the agricultural stage, where the main source of the food supply is the harvests. You observe, at once, that that means a sedentary life. When a man sows corn, he must wait thereabout and tend it and till it and finally reap it and store it and thrash it and then preserve the grain and build granaries for it; and it involves, in fact, the remaining in one place all the whole year; and then the regularity of that life led very distinctly to making men regular, generally, in their habits. They wanted to defend their homes--defend these grain fields of theirs, or starvation would result; therefore, they built towers and strong-walled cities; and they took great care in the selection of the best men among them to do the fighting, while others looked after the crop. We find that agriculture began at a very, very early period in both continents. In our own continent we cannot tell when agriculture was first in use--the main crop being the maize, or Indian corn. It was raised by the more advanced tribes from the extreme north, where its profitable culture invited, to the extreme south, from about the northern line of Wisconsin in North America to the latitude of southern Chile in South--extending, therefore, over some seven to eight thousand miles of linear distance.
In the old world (going back to the time of the lake dwellers) we know they had barley, rye and a species of millet; and later on they were introduced to oats and wheat and a variety of others. Rice was of the very earliest of our cereals, in the extreme east of the old world. Wherever we find a very ancient civilization we also find that it is intimately connected with some important cereal, and it has been said that all you have to do is to study botany--the history of botany--and you will find the history of human culture; and much there is that could be said for that.
Fourth, and finally, those who divide human culture according to the food supply consider that the highest stage is reached through commerce. Commerce brings to all the great centers of human life the food essential to their sustenance. It would be absolutely impossible--obviously so--to have a city like Philadelphia in existence for a month without constant and ceaseless commerce brought here the food for its inhabitants. It is quite likely that, were Philadelphia shut off at once from all connection with the world, within ten days there would be an absolute famine here--so closely do we depend upon our commercial supplies for our subsistence. These supplies are not drawn from any one locality; were we to draw a radius of five hundred miles around our great city of a million inhabitants, we should still find that the greater part of our food supply comes from a wider distance from us than that; and there is no one of us that will go to his table this evening but will see upon that table food products drawn from every quarter of the world. Thus it is that commerce enables man to reach an indefinite degree of consolidation; and it is through consolidation--through the more and more intimate relationship, and the closer and closer juxtaposition of man--that his real benefit and progress may be derived.
These, therefore, are the four stages of culture, as depending upon food supply: the hunting and fishing stage, the nomadic or pastoral, the agricultural and the commercial. These have been generally adopted by English writers, and they are so adopted to-day; and you will probably find them in many of the text books.
The American writers have, in many instances, followed the principles laid down and defined most clearly by Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, a distinguished ethnologist of the last generation. He divides (or accepted the division and largely defined it) the progress of man into a series of stages: beginning at the lowest point with savagery; then barbarism, semi-civilization, civilization, and fifth, enlightenment.
I may briefly refer to what he would include in these and the main criteria which he gives for each of them. He would place the savage condition as being that of the lowest tribes known to us. They have little or no agriculture; their commerce is very inchoate and rude: they have no knowledge of the metals as such; their best weapon is