Conclusion.
Each individual passes through many of the stages through which the race has come. A child may pass in a week or a month through a stage covering centuries in the development of the race, but nevertheless he experiences it clearly for the time being. The savage personified everything around him. If he struck himself against a tree, he was angry with the tree that had hurt him, and he tried to hurt the tree in revenge. The child today falls against a chair and hits the chair that hurt him. Now just as the child by such experiences, scarcely noted by others, realized far less by himself, comes into the clear vision of manhood, so by similar experiences the whole race has come to its present development. We are too prone to smile at the conceptions of the primitive world, and, grown wise with the flight of centuries, cast aside the beliefs of early ages when men adjusted themselves to life. Let us reflect then upon the attainments of prehistoric man and attempt to fathom how great a debt historic peoples owe him. In view of his achievements, we must grant that by his efforts civilization was greatly aided. The stepping stones on which he rose from abject savagery to higher things stand out sharply in spite of absence of records and scant remains. The rough pioneering had been done, in a great measure, and not alone the rudiments of civilization but evidences of culture were plainly visible at the dawn of history, properly so-called.
ABORIGINAL ROCK-CARVINGS.
[1] Starr: Some First Steps in Human Progress, p. 28.
[2] Starr: Some First Steps in Human Progress, p. 151.
[3] Starr: Some First Steps in Human Progress, p. 80.
[4] The Beginnings of Art, Grosse, p. 61.
[5] The Beginnings of Art, Grosse, p. 307.
