ace
above, set with brilliants; and beyond is an abyss of--nothing. Within
these bounds all things are known, all things are explained; there are
no mysteries but the whims of the gods. But when the plain on which we
tread becomes a portion of the surface of a great globe, and the domed
firmament becomes the heavens, stretching beyond Alcyone and Sirius,
with this enlargement of the realm of philosophy the verity of
philosophy is questioned. The savage is a positive man; the scientist is
a doubting man.

The opinions of a savage people are childish. Society grows! Some say
society develops; others that society evolves; but, somehow, I like to
say it grows. The history of the discovery of growth is a large part of
the history of human culture. That individuals grow, that the child
grows to be a man, the colt a horse, the scion a tree, is easily
recognized, though with unassisted eye the processes of growth are not
discovered. But that races grow--races of men, races of animals, races
of plants, races or groups of worlds--is a very late discovery, and yet
all of us do not grasp so great a thought. Consider that stage of
culture where the growth of individuals is not fully recognized. That
stage is savagery. To-day the native races of North America are agitated
by discussions over that great philosophic question, "Do the trees grow
or were they created?" That the grass grows they admit, but the orthodox
philosophers stoutly assert that the forest pines and the great
_sequoias_ were created as they are.

Thus in savagery the philosophers dispute over the immediate creation or
development of individuals--in civilization over the immediate creation
or development of races. I know of no single fact that better
illustrates the wide difference between these two stages of culture. But
let us look for other terms of comparison. The scalping scene is no more
the true picture of savagery than the bayonet charge of civilization.
Savagery is sylvan life. Contrast _Ka-ni-ga_ with New York. _Ka-ni-ga_
is an Indian village in the Rocky Mountains. New York is, well--New
York. The home in the forest is a shelter of boughs; the home in New
York is a palace of granite. The dwellers in _Ka-ni-ga_ are clothed in
the skins of animals, rudely tanned, rudely wrought, and colored with
daubs of clay. For the garments of New York, flocks are tended, fields
are cultivated, ships sail on the sea, and men dig in the mountains for
dye-stuffs stored in