548 WAS PRIMITIVE MAN A MODERN SAVAGE ! 



in their annals when the earth was still empty and happy and young. 

 These numerous coincidences can not be accidental. They unquestion- 

 ably point to the necessity of revising and limiting the confidence with 

 which the modern savage has been used to explain a nobler past which 

 the surviving savage would have shared, if he had been fit for it, or 

 untoward circumstance had not barred his way. In the end it may be 

 found that even more radical change is necessary in our interpretation 

 of the past, that the only true explanation is that much in existing 

 savage culture represents retrogression, and was never a part of the 

 upward movement of the race. For the present this conclusion would 

 be to err in another extreme. All that can be claimed now is that too 

 much has been made of savage life in explaining the primitive develop 

 mentof the race, and too little of conditions which, once existing, have 

 since disappeared, and, by disappearing, have done much to create the 

 misleading savage of modern anthropology. 



