lly only the first two and the transition to the
third required his attention. He subdivided each of these into a lower,
middle and higher stage, according to the progress in the production of
the means of sustenance. His reason for doing so is that the degree of
human supremacy over nature is conditioned on the ability to produce the
necessities of life. For of all living beings, man alone has acquired an
almost unlimited control over food production. All great epochs of human
progress, according to Morgan, coincide more or less directly with times
of greater abundance in the means that sustain life. The evolution of
the family proceeds in the same measure without, however, offering
equally convenient marks for sub-division.

I. SAVAGERY.

1. Lower Stage. Infancy of the human race. Human beings still dwelt in
their original habitation, in tropical or subtropical forests. They
lived at least part of the time in trees, for only in this way they
could escape the attacks of large beasts of prey and survive. Fruit,
nuts, and roots served as food. The formation of articulated speech is
the principal result of this period. Not a single one of all the nations
that have become known in historic times dates back to this primeval
stage.

Although the latter may extend over thousands of years, we have no means
of proving its existence by direct evidence. But once the descent of man
from the Animal Kingdom is acknowledged, the acceptance of this stage of
transition becomes inevitable.

2. Middle Stage: Commencing with the utilization of fish (including
crabs, mollusks and other aquatic animals) and the use of fire. Both
these things belong together, because fish becomes thoroughly palatable
by the help of fire only. With this new kind of food, human beings
became completely independent of climate and locality. Following the
course of rivers and coastlines, they could spread over the greater part
of the earth even in the savage state. The so-called palaeolithic
implements of the early stone age, made of rough, unsharpened stones,
belong almost entirely to this period. Their wide distribution over all
the continents testifies to the extent of these wanderings. The
unceasing bent for discovery, together with the possession of fire
gained by friction, created new products in the lately occupied regions.
Such were farinaceous roots and tubers, baked in hot ashes or in baking
pits (ground ovens). When the first weapons, club and sp