256 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



The clouds that roll about it, sullen and black as 

 night, are slowly being dispelled by the breaking 

 dawn. Over a brook that whitens into foam a 

 roe is leaping, pursued by a .huntsman clad in skins 

 and holding in his outstretched arm a long and 

 sinuous bow. Dimly seen afar, a troop of his 

 fellows dance in the misty light, while on a high 

 plateau a circle of wigwams stands, with a great 

 column of fire and smoke ascending. It is, let us 

 say, the morning sacrifice. 



Man is man precisely as now we know him. In 

 his song and dance we behold the beginnings of 

 art. His arrow overtakes the prey and his mind 

 is keen, alert and resourceful. The morning 

 holocaust was offered to the one true God, and 

 the first art did Him worthy service in song and 

 rhythmic dance. Our economic preconceptions, 

 indeed, make primitive man look to the chase for 

 his sole support. While this is true of the savage 

 fallen from a higher state into the lowest decline, 

 it does not follow that husbandry and the pastoral 

 life were not soon developed by the first human 

 beings, as Scripture indeed tells us that they were. 



"The Arcadian" or "Pastoral State" is the title 

 of the second painting. Ages passed before man 

 had risen to the material comfort here portrayed. 

 In the distance is the familiar hill with its mighty 

 boulder. The flocks are grazing on a green slope, 

 and on an upland tract of soil a ploughman traces 

 his furrow, plodding after the laboring kine. 



