
CHAPTER III 
THE MATERIAL SIDES OF LIFE 
Agriculture and Domestic Animals. There is 
a widely prevalent theory that mankind as a whole has 
passed through three successive stages with reference 
to its food. According to this view, people were first 
hunters, fishermen, or gatherers of roots and berries; 
after a time they came to domesticate animals and lead 
a pastoral life; in the last state, they are reputed to 
have added the domestication of plants, in other words, 
agriculture. . 
This theory rests upon two foundations. The first 
is the observation that all nations of hunters possess a 
comparatively rude civilization—always, at any rate, 
inferior to that of Europeans. The second prop to the 
theory is the knowledge that the Hebrews and certain 
European peoples changed from the pastoral to the 
agricultural life about the beginning of the historical 
period. It will be seen that these two facts are a very 
slender foundation on which to rear a hypothesis appli- 
cable to mankind in general. Indeed, it has long since 
been noted that there are so many contrary cases that 
the theory must be looked upon as untenable. In the 
whole of aboriginal America, for instance, animals 
other than the dog were domesticated in only a few 
place and at best utilized only to a subsidiary extent. 
In a large part of both North and South America, 
however, agriculture was practised, in many regions 
intensively, and there can be no doubt whatever that 
this mode of life was entered directly from the hunting 
and root-gathering stage. 
Domestic animals are kept in most parts of the East 
Indies, but always among people that also till the soil 
and in every case place much more dependence on their 
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