180 GROWTH AND DECLINE OF CULTURE. 



The miscellaneous pieces of evidence given in this chapter 

 have been selected less as giving grounds for arguments safe 

 from attack, than as examples of the sort of material with 

 which the Ethnologist has to deal. The uncertainty of many 

 of the inferences he makes must be counterbalanced by their 

 number, and by the concurrence of independent lines of reason- 

 ing in favour of the same view. But in the arguments given 

 here iu illustration of the general method, only one side of 

 history has been kept in view, and the facts have been treated 

 generally as evidence of movement only in a forward direction, 

 or (to define more closely what is here treated as Progress) of 

 the appearance and growth of new arts and new knowledge, 

 whether of a profitable or hurtful nature, developed at home 

 or imported from abroad. Yet we know by what has taken 

 place within the range of history, that Decline as well as Pro- 

 gress in art and knowledge really goes on in the world. Is 

 there not then evidence forthcoming to prove that degradation 

 as well as development has happened to the lower races beyond 

 the range of direct history? The known facts bearing on this 

 subject are scanty and obscure, but by examining some direct 

 evidence of Decline, it may be perhaps possible to form an 

 opinion as to what indirect evidence there may probably be, 

 and how it is to be treated; though actually to find this and 

 use it, is a very different matter. 



There are developments of Culture which belong to a par- 

 ticular climate or a particular state of society, which require a 

 despotic government, a democratic government, an agricultural 

 life, a life in cities, a state of continued peace or of continued 

 war, an accumulation of wealth which exceeds what is wanted 

 for necessaries and is accordingly devoted to luxury and refine- 

 ment, and so forth. Such things are all more or less local and 



the South American word caou-in or kaawy, a liquor made from maize or the 

 mandioc root by chewing, boiling with water, and fermenting ; but the idea of 

 bitterness or pungency is unsuitable to this liquor. Dias (Die. da Lingua Tupy) 

 gives perhaps a more accurate form, cauim = vinho, a derivative perhaps from 

 eau = beber (vinho) . To show how easily such accidental coincidences as that 

 of Icava and cauim may be found, a German root may be pointed out for both, 

 looking as suitable as though it were a real one, kauen, to chew. 



