236 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



It is easy for an isolated colony to sink into 

 barbarism, and such instances might be adduced 

 within historic times. An entire civilization can 

 sink back into the state that followed upon the 

 passing of Imperial Rome, and into decline still 

 lower, as we shall show; but it is a moral impos 

 sibility for the savage to lift himself up unaided 

 to civilization, for the very reason that he is a 

 savage, without the energy and persevering striv 

 ing after higher things that distinguish him from 

 the higher stages of human development. Civili 

 zation can be explained upon no other assumption 

 than that primitive man and woman did not begin 

 their work on earth in a state of savagery, though 

 there is no reason for denying that they passed 

 successively through the paleolithic and the neo 

 lithic stages, which in no way indicate their degree 

 of development as human beings. 



