i8o THE ASCENT OF MAN 



Age of Stone — peoples whose mental culture and 

 habits are often actual witnesses to the mental 

 states of early Man. These children of Nature take 

 up the thread of mental progress where the Trog- 

 lodyte and Drift Man left it ; and the modern 

 traveller, starting from the civilization of Europe 

 can follow Mind downwards step by step, in ever 

 descending order, tracing its shadings backwards to 

 a first simplicity, till he finds himself with the still 

 living Lake-dweller of Nyasaland or the Bushman 

 of the African forest. Time was when these 

 humble tribes, with their strange and artless ways, 

 were mere food for the curious. Now the study 

 of the lower native races has risen to the first 

 rank in comparative psychology ; and the student 

 of beginnings, whether they be the beginnings of 

 Art or of Ethics, of Language or of Letters, of 

 Law or of Religion, goes to seek the roots of his 

 science in the ways, traditions, faiths, and institu- 

 tions of savage life. 



This leads us, however, to the fourth of the 

 sources from which we were to gather a hint or 

 two with regard to the past of Mind — the savage. 

 No one should pronounce upon the Evolution of 

 Mind till he has seen a savage. By this is not 

 meant the show savage of an Australian town, 

 or the quay Kaffir of a South African port, or 



