MORLOT- SOMIi (iliNKHAL VIKVVS ON A liCH^KOfiOriV. 
47 
begin by physical geology. This supplies us witli a thread of induc- 
tion t o guide us safely in our rambles thi-ough the past ages of our 
cartli, as Lyell has so admirably set forth ; for the laws which 
o'oveni organic creation and the inoro'anic world are as invariable as 
the results of their combinations and pernuitations are infinitely 
varied, science reveaHng to us everywhere the perfect stability of 
causes with the diversity of forms. 
So, to understand the past ages of our species, we must first begin 
by examining its present state, following man wherever he has 
crossed the waters and set his foot upon dry land. The different 
nations which at present inhabit our earth must be studied with re- 
spect to their industry, their habits, and their general mode of life. 
We thus make ourselves acquainted with the different degrees of 
civilization, ranging from the highest summit of modern development 
to the most abject state, hardly sirrpassing that of the brute. By that 
means Ethnology supplies us with what may be called a contempo- 
raneous scale of development, the stages of which are more or less 
fixed and invariable ; whilst Ai-chseology traces a scale of successive 
development, with one moveable stage passing gTadually along the 
whole line.* 
Ethnography is, consequently, to Archaeology what physical geo- 
graphy is to geology, namely, a thread of induction in the labyrinth 
of the past, and a starting point in those comparative researches of 
which the end is the knowledge of mankind, and its development 
through successive generations. 
In foUovraig out the principles above laid down, the Scandinavian 
savants have succeeded in unravelling the leading features in the pro- 
gress of pre-historical European civilization, and in distinguishing 
three principal eras, which they have called the Stone-age, the 
Bronze-age, and the Iron-age. t 
This gi'eat conquest in the realm of science is due chiefly to the 
labours of Mr. Thomsen, director of the Ethnological and Ai-cha^olo- 
* Some naturalists see a correspondence of the same sort between embryology 
and comparative anatomy, for they consider the human embryo as passing during 
its development throiigh the different stage.s of the scale of animal creation, or, at 
least, as passing through the different states of the embryos of the different 
stages of that scale. 
t The history of Danish Archaeology has been sketched by T. Hindenberg. 
See " Dansk Maanedskrift," I. 1859. 
