26 



The Seventeenth General Meeting, 



the development of civilisation has not been at all uniform in 

 operation. 



The Stone Period is usually a period of savagery, the Bronze of 

 barbarism or low civilisation, and the Iron Period that of the middle 

 level of civilisation and onwards. This ideal scale, however, requires 

 much qualification. For instance, we know of no savages above 

 the culture-level of the Maoris, Caribs, and Cherokees who have 

 lived in their Stone Period during historical times. But it was not 

 invariably so in pre-historic times, for the Swiss lake-dwellers during 

 their Stone Period, led a settled life, were a pastoral and agricultural 

 people, and attained a condition to be regarded as barbarian rather 

 than savage. Perhaps of the three, the Bronze Period affords us 

 the most safe and reliable test of culture. The typical bronze-using 

 races of modern history are the Mexicans and the Peruvians, and 

 what is known of them agrees well with our dim information of the 

 pre-historic bronze people of Europe and Asia, so as to justify the 

 opinion that bronze always indicates a state above savagery, though, 

 at most extending to the middle range of civilisation. It is inter- 

 esting to find that the bronze-using Mexicans largely employed 

 stone implements for cutting purposes, and no weapon appears to 

 have been more dreaded by the Spanish invaders than the Mexican 

 wooden sword armed at the edges with flakes of obsidian. "We have 

 thus in the case of the ancient Mexicans very clear evidence of the 

 contemporary use of bronze and stone implements. 



The Iron Period is wanting in the definiteness of the two other 

 periods. Iron is, indeed, the universal accompaniment of the higher 

 civilisation, but it also descends into the savage state. Modern iron- 

 using people of Asia range from Persians, Hindus, and Chinese, 

 down to the barbarous Kalmuks and Khirgis, and the savage 

 Ostyaks ; while, in Africa, the Kaffir and Hottentot tribes, though 

 ironworkers, are in general culture below the ironless Mexicans and 

 Peruvians. It is evident, therefore, that the diffusion, or the inde- 

 pendent discovery, as the case may be, of the art of iron-working 

 has, in some instances, taken place without a corresponding elevation 

 in civilisation. Indeed, the iron-using Malay, Tartar, and African 

 tribes in their ideas of ornamentation, the forms of their weapons, 



