26 The Seventeenth General Meeting. 
the development of civilisation has not been at all uniform in 
operation. 
The Stone Period is usually a period of savagery, the Bronze of 
barbarism or low civilisation, and the Iron Period that of the middle 
level of civilisation and onwards. ‘This ideal scale, however, requires 
much qualification. For instance, we know of no savages above 
the culture-level of the Maoris, Caribs, and Cherokees who have 
lived in their Stone Period during historical times. But it was not 
invariably so in pre-historic times, for the Swiss lake-dwellers during 
their Stone Period, led a settled life, were a pastoral and agricultural 
people, and attaimed a condition to be regarded as barbarian rather 
than savage. Perhaps of the three, the Bronze Period affords us 
the most safe and reliable test of culture. The typical bronze-using 
races of modern history are the Mexicans and the Peruvians, and 
what is known of them agrees well with our dim information of the 
pre-historic bronze people of Europe and Asia, so as to justify the 
opinion that bronze always indicates a state above savagery, though 
at most extending to the middle range of civilisation. It is inter- 
esting to find that the bronze-usmg Mexicans largely employed 
stone implements for cutting purposes, and no weapon appears to 
have been more dreaded by the Spanish invaders than the Mexican 
wooden sword armed at the edges with flakes of obsidian. We have 
thus in the case of the ancient Mexicans very clear evidence of the 
contemporary use of bronze and stone implements. 
The Iron Period is wanting in the definiteness of the two other 
periods. Iron is, indeed, the universal accompaniment of the higher 
civilisation, but it also descends into the savage state. Modern iron- 
using people of Asia range from Persians, Hindus, and Chinese, 
down to the barbarous Kalmuks and Khirgis, and the savage 
Ostyaks; while, in Africa, the Kaffir and Hottentot tribes, though 
ironworkers, are in general culture below the ironless Mexicans and 
Peruvians. It is evident, therefore, that the diffusion, or the inde- 
pendent discovery, as the case may be, of the art of iron-working 
has, in some instances, taken place without a corresponding elevation 
in civilisation. Indeed, the iron-using Malay, Tartar, and African 
tribes in their ideas of ornamentation, the forms of their weapons, 
