RACES AND I'EOi'LKS 229 



We must romombor that none of tho great civilizations 

 of the world was the product of the genius of a single 

 people.2^ In ancient times, civilization was shifting over 

 a rather limited jirea and was transferred from con- 

 queror to conquered, or vice versa. Ideas and inventions 

 were carried from one to another and eacli people par- 

 ticipated in this early development and contributed its 

 share to the general progress. In tliis process of bor- 

 rowing and developiiiciit, tlie fact that the European race 

 happened to distance all others is merely a matter of a 

 few thousand years, and in the vast history of man this 

 is a short period. We must remember that the highly 

 specialized Magdalenian culture is not less than twenty 

 thousand years old, and yet there is no reason to believe 

 that this stage was reached by mankind the world over 

 at the same period.-^ Now that we know that we are 

 dealing with vast periods of time it seems probable that 

 the life-history of a people, the vicissitudes of its history, 

 are fully sufficient to explain a delay of this character 

 without ol)liging us to assume a difference in their apti- 

 tude for social development.^^ "This retardation would 

 l)e significant only if it could be shown that it occurs in- 

 dependently over and over again in the same race, wdiile 

 in other races greater rapidity of development Avas found 

 mieatedly in independent cases." -' 



^ At the present time, practically all members of the 

 White race participate to a greater or less degree in the 

 advance of civilization. In no other race has the civili- 

 zation that has been attained at one time or another, 

 reached all the tribes or peoples of that racM This does 



2i7btU, pp. G-7. 



22 /6k/., p. 9. 



23 Waitz, T. — Anthropologic dcr yaturvolkcr, 2iul. ed., vol. 1, p. 3S1. 



2^ Boas, op. cit., p. 10. 



