cook: primitive social states 127 



When families live isolated on the land, as among the Kekchis, 

 the children have full opportunities to learn all the facts and 

 acquire all the skill that the parents may possess, and transmit 

 these arts in turn to their descendants. Capable parents not 

 only produce more capable children, but give them a more effec- 

 tive equipment for life. It is easy to understand that civiliza- 

 tion develops under such conditions, by gradual accumulation of 

 the experience and accidental discoveries of successive generations. 

 Among the Africans, on the other hand, the premature socializa- 

 tion of the children interferes with progress toward civilization. 

 Postnatal inheritance is restricted when contacts between the 

 generations are inadequate. There are smaller chances that prog- 

 ress made by capable individuals will be preserved and trans- 

 mitted to their descendants. 



With this difference of social organization in mind, it becomes 

 easier to understand the striking contrast noted by so many travel- 

 lers, historians and ethnographers, between the natives of Africa 

 and America. The general distribution and diversity of archae- 

 ological remains on the American continent afford evidences of a 

 generally favorable condition for the development of civilization. 

 In tropical Africa, on the other hand, civilization has not only 

 failed to develop but many introduced civilizations have degen- 

 erated into barbarism. This is not because the Africans are infe- 

 rior as individuals to the Indians, for they generally have both 

 physical and mental superiority. But the Indians were able to 

 make more progress because they retained the superior social 

 organization of separate families instead of taking the false step 

 of premature socialization. It is true that many tribes of Indians 

 in different parts of the American continent went over to the com- 

 munal, sympedic system, but it does not appear that such tribes 

 made progress toward civilization, even as far as the Africans. 



The sympedic condition is not confined, of course, to primitive 

 peoples, but supervenes whenever the family organization is 

 weakened by crowding people together in villages or cities, 

 becoming most intensified among urban populations that have 

 ceased to practice any of the agricultural arts. Village-dwelling 

 agricultural or pastoral people may preserve effective contacts 



