1 66 The Special Sociological Errors 



when we have perfected means of communication, 

 so that different races, such as Europeans and 

 Patagonians, come into contact, with primitive 

 periods, when there were no means of locomotion 

 except by foot. It would have been impossible 

 in primitive times to go from Europe to Patagonia. 

 Primitive man might, indeed, have made a voyage 

 on foot from what is now Canada, to what is now 

 La Plata, but a voyage of this character would have 

 required an exceedingly long period of time. On 

 account of the difficulties of commimication, long 

 voyages were very difficult for primitive man, 

 and the contacts must have taken place only 

 between tribes more or less neighbouring. But if 

 they were neighboiu-s, they would have been 

 subject to the same conditions of the habitat, 

 and would not have been very different in develop- 

 ment. 



The data from archaeological materials also 

 demonstrate that Ratzenhofer is wrong in assert- 

 ing that peaceful relations were impossible among 

 primitive men. Even in neolithic times, a 

 considerable commerce and exchange existed, 

 and we find objects of Asiatic origin in Europe 

 at this period, while the Phoenicians practised 

 numerous exchanges with the populations of 

 western Europe at a period when they still lived 

 in a condition of small tribal groups, related only 

 by bonds of common descent. Finally, the 

 theory of actual causes, which teaches us to look 

 for a parallelism between primitive society and 



