44 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Prof. Otis T. Mason commenced to read a paper entitled The 

 Sayage Mind in the Presence of Civilization, but the hour of 

 adjournment arrived before he had completed it. 



Thirty-Seventh Regular Meeting, April 5, 1881. 



Professor Otis T. Mason concluded the reading of his paper 

 commenced at the preceding meeting, entitled The Savage Mind 

 in the Presence of Civilization. The following abstract has 

 been furnished : 



1. The progress of civilization has been guided and stimulated 

 in every age by the presence of peoples more advanced in any re- 

 gard. It is impossible for beings constituted as we are to look 

 upon the processes or results of industry different from or more ad- 

 vanced than their own without emotion, accompanied with emula- 

 tion or despair, according as the object may or may not be beyond 

 their reach. 



2. Theoretically this fact is related to chronology, reversion, flex- 

 ibility of races, technology, language, social system, and religion. 



3. There are certain lines or categories of culture, such as food, 

 dress, shelter, war, industry, ornament, gratification, traffic, family 

 organization, government, and religion, along which there has been 

 evolution and elaboration. 



4. Among these categories themselves there is gradation, nearly 

 in the order named above. It is more difficult for a people to 

 change in the higher and more intellectual than in the lower cate- 

 gories. It is, therefore, easier to induce a people to change food, 

 dress, implements, weapons, &c, than to alter their language, kin- 

 ship, government, and religion. 



5. In each class or line there may be, and probably are, well 

 marked stages of progress, corresponding to Mr. Morgan's periods. 



. If the categories, therefore, are represented by parallel perpendicu- 

 lar lines, the total simultaneity would be marked by lines like par- 

 allels of latitude or isotherms crossing the categories. 



