PRIME VAL MAN. 353 



to higher manifestations in the progress of the ages. There 

 seems, however, to be a fundamental difference in the two 

 kinds of progress. With the lower animals it is a struc- 

 tural advance ; with man, an education. With the former 

 the steps of the advance are marked by successive species; 

 with man by successively higher attainments of the intelli- 

 gence. With the other vertebrates the highest is structur- 

 ally different; w T ith the succession of human races, the 

 highest and the lowest are structurally identical. 



Archaeologists distinguish three ages in the history of 

 man — the Age of Stone, the Age of Bronze, and the Age 

 of Iron. In the Age of Stone, the uses of the metals had 

 not been discovered, and human implements were con- 

 structed of flint, serpentine, diorite, argillite, and other suit- 

 able rocks. In the Age of Bronze, implements of bronze 

 began to be introduced, and we descend to the verge of 

 historic times. The Age of Iron is characterized by the 

 use of that metal, and the arts and industries of the most 

 advanced civilization. 



Most anthropologists are inclined to subdivide the Age 

 of Stone into two or three epochs. Vogt, Lartet, and 

 Christy divide it into two : first, the Cave-Bear Epoch, or 

 epoch of hewn stone implements ; secondly, the Reindeer 

 Epoch, or epoch of polished stone implements, carved and 

 artfully decorated bones, and other evidences of " a very 

 intelligent, art-endowed race of men." 



It is not by any means certain, however, that these two 

 epochs were successive. The more skilled workmen of the 

 Reindeer Epoch may have lived contemporaneously with 

 the Cave-Bear men, as natives of all degrees of civilization 

 have co-existed upon the earth in all ages. Neither is it 

 supposed that the three ages represent three stages of hu- 

 man civilization, each of which, in turn, has been world- 

 wide. We find simply that in the history of every race 



