[85] Such loss by neglect of technological elements that have been superseded may have serious consequences in case a people of somewhat advanced attainments suffers a material set-back either in its industrial circumstances or in its cultural situation more at large,—as happened, e. g., in the Dark Ages of Europe. In such case it is likely to result that the community will be unable to fall back on a state of the industrial arts suited to the reduced circumstances into which it finds itself thrown, having lost the use of many of the technological elements familiar to earlier generations that lived under similar circumstances, and so the industrial community finds itself in many respects driven to make a virtually new beginning, from a more rudimentary starting point than the situation might otherwise call for. This in turn acts to throw the people back to a more archaic phase of technology and of institutions than the initial cultural loss sustained by the community would of itself appear to warrant.
[86] Sophus Müller, Vor Oldtid, “Stenalderen,” sec. iii, “Tidsforhold i den ældre Stenalder;” O. Montelius, Les temps préhistoriques en Suède, ch. i, p. 20.
[87] Compare the case of the Indians of the North-West Coast, who have occupied a region comparable to the neolithic Baltic area in the distribution of land and water as well as in the abundance of good timber.
[88] Sophus Müller, Vor Oldtid, “Bronzealderen,” secs. xiii, xiv; Montelius, Les temps préhistoriques en Suède, ch. ii.
[89] Cf., e. g., C. A. Haddon, Evolution in Art, section on “Magic and Religion.”
[90] Except for species that habitually breed by parthenogenesis.
[91] The caution is perhaps unnecessary that it is not hereby intended to suggest a doubt of Mr. Galton’s researches or to question the proposals of the Eugenicals, whose labours are no doubt to be taken for all they are worth.
[92] See, e. g., Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, vol. ii, part ii; Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1884–1885, F. Boas, “The Central Eskimo.”
[93] Cf. Basil Thomson, The Diversions of a Prime Minister, and The Figians.
[94] The extent of this “quasi-personal fringe” of objects of intimate use varies considerably from one culture to another. It may often be inferred from the range of articles buried or destroyed with the dead among peoples on this level of culture.