OUR FIRST PARENTS 223 



age, the bronze age and the iron age, is entirely 

 arbitrary. Moreover all these ages have existed 

 simultaneously in different parts of the earth down 

 to recent times. 



Here precisely is the confusion that exists in the 

 minds of our modern scientists. They cannot 

 dissociate the two ideas of purely material com- 

 forts, which may be combined with real savagery 

 at heart, and a high stage of all that really is of 

 value in true civilized life. Whether dwelling in 

 the modern cliff habitations, the sixteen- or sixty- 

 story buildings of our huge cities, not seldom amid 

 the most unnatural and often the most immoral 

 conditions, cribbed and confined in small rooms 

 and narrow streets, or whether meeting all the 

 necessities of life in a more primal simplicity, "A 

 man's a man for a' that." Even when wandering 

 far from his earlier civilization and at times de- 

 clining more and more to a level with his savage 

 surroundings, we still find him covering the walls 

 of the caverns to which he came for shelter, pro- 

 tection, or worship, with artistic etchings that ex- 

 cite our wonder. In the Cueva de la Vieja, be- 

 longing to the Old Stone Age, women are por- 

 trayed with long gowns descending from their 

 bosoms. There are animated pictures of life, of 

 the chase and war in this marvelous Alpera fresco, 

 dating back to the so-called Reindeer period, 

 formerly synonymous with "primitive savagery." 



