Introduction 27 



2. The Fishing Stage. Men were now capable of 

 slightly more settled conditions; a rude hut served for 

 shelter; and a few families were aggregated into the 

 nucleus of a primitive community. A constant supply 

 of food and the conditions for procuring it developed 

 some idea of laying by stores and of possessing crude 

 property. 



3. The Pastoral Stage. Animals were domesti- 

 cated and taken care of, thus affording abundance of 

 food, and an incentive to increase flocks and herds. 

 Men were aggregated into tribes, having patriarchs or 

 chiefs, and the first beginnings of a patriarchal gov- 

 ernment. Hands are now busy building temporary 

 tents, making matting and basket-work, tanning skins, 

 making yarn, and weaving various fabrics for domestic 

 use. Stranger is synonymous with enemy; and bloody 

 conflicts with encroaching intruders are frequent. A 

 dreamy life, too, this is, when the first beginnings of 

 science, art, and philosophy make their appearance. 



4. The Agricultural Stage. Permanent relation with 

 the soil is now secured. The cultivation of the soil 

 is really a process of domesticating plants. In that 

 way they can be made to increase more rapidly than 

 in a state of nature, and thus furnish more abundant 

 pasture for the flocks of the preceding stage, more 

 abundance of food for man, and more raw material 

 with which to develop the various domestic arts, such 

 as cooking, spinning, weaving, carpentering, etc. 



Dependence upon nature is still very marked Rain 

 and sunshine are necessary to a good crop,no matter 

 how well the soil is plowed and cultivated. Yet 

 increased rewards for diligence are more certain here 

 than in former stages; and the incentive to bodily 

 exertion is considerable. Inventions are now often 

 found to be useful; and man's ingenuity is taxed to 

 increase the area of cultivated land without increasing 

 the amount of necessary labor. 



