178 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



of America, Mexico, and Peru. If a child playing 

 with a toy spade is a proof that it is a child, a 

 nation working with stone axes is proved to be a 

 child-nation. Erroneous conclusions may easily be 

 drawn, and indeed have been, from the fact of a 

 nation using stone, but the general law stands. 

 Partly, perhaps, by mutual intercourse, this use of 

 stone became universal ; but it arose, more likely, 

 from the similarity in primitive needs, and the 

 available means of gratifying them. Living under 

 widely different conditions, and in every variety of 

 climate, all early peoples shared the instincts of 

 humanity which first called in the use of tools and 

 weapons. All felt the same hunger ; all had the 

 instinct of self-preservation ; and the universality 

 of these instincts and the commonness of stone led 

 the groping Mind to fasten upon it, and make it 

 one of the first steps to the Arts. A Stone Age, 

 thus, was the natural beginning. In the nature of 

 things there could have been no earlier. If Mind 

 really grew by infinitely gradual ascents, the exact 

 situation the theory requires is here provided in 

 actual fact 



The next step from the Stone Age, so far as 

 further appeal to ancient implements can guide us 

 is also exactly what one would expect. It is to a 

 better Stone Age. Two distinct grades of stone 



