400 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



flesh from the chin or cheek, the result being, upon the healing 

 of the wound, the appearance of a coquettish dimple. 



With the progress of civilization, the tendency is to dispense 

 to a greater or less degree with the various forms of bodily orna- 

 mentation, and the most painful operations for the adornment of 

 the person are given up first. The piercing of the ear, however, 

 is still common, and continues to remind us of the customs of 

 savages, but perhaps the day is not far distant when the earring, 

 the bracelet, the superabundant finger-ring, the costly diamond 

 necklace, and other reminders of savage life and social inequality 

 may give way before the spirit of democracy which is coming to 

 prevail more and more in our social as well as political life. And 

 yet we must not underrate the importance that these facts from 

 savage life have played in the world's progress. The dude, as 

 Prof. Starr reminds us, occupies an important place in the history 

 of culture, for personal vanity and the desire to emphasize one's 

 individuality have done much toward the development of our 

 aesthetic senses, and as well for the arts and sciences, and for the 

 cultivation and satisfaction of wants outside of the mere primi- 

 tive needs of food and clothing. 



One might go on multiplying by the hundreds illustrations of 

 the peculiarities of savage life, and suggesting interesting and 

 curious survivals, but the scope of a single short article would 

 not i^ermit the mention of a great variety of topics that properly 

 come within the field of primitive institutions and survivals. 

 Volumes of interesting facts have already been gathered upon 

 this vast and comparatively new department of study, and any 

 one who enters upon it will increase his respect for the advan- 

 tages which modern civilization has brought to us. If we exam- 

 ine, from the historical point of view, language, customs, my- 

 thology, mathematics, jurisprudence, property, folklore, morals, 

 religious beliefs and superstitions, we shall find "savage opin- 

 ion in a more or less rudimentary state, of which civilized man 

 still bears the traces, and over which state he represents the 

 greatest advance." We hear of the "freedom of the savage," 

 but we need to remember that he is utterly dependent upon 

 Nature for his support and is a slave to his own passions. It 

 is estimated that it requires fifty thousand acres, or seventy- 

 eight square miles, for the support of one man in the primitive 

 hunting and fishing stage; consequently, as their numbers in- 

 crease they are driven to cannibalism in self-defense. But with 

 the progress of civilization, man increases his dominion over 

 Nature, and, as a rule, we find the most highly civilized countries 

 those where the population is densest and production greatest. 

 Our great World's Fair presented us with a magnificent object 

 lesson of man's power over Nature. The marvelous rapidity of 



