n tribes shortly before the foundation of Rome, the Germans of
Tacitus, the Norsemen of the Viking age.

We are here confronted for the first time with the iron ploughshare
drawn by animals, rendering possible agriculture on a large scale, in
fields, and hence a practically unlimited increase in the production of
food for the time being. The next consequence is the clearing of forests
and their transformation into arable land and meadows--which process,
however, could not be continued on a larger scale without the help of
the iron ax and the iron spade. Naturally, these improvements brought a
more rapid increase of population and a concentration of numbers into a
small area. Before the time of field cultivation a combination of half a
million of people under one central management could have been possible
only under exceptionally favorable conditions; most likely this was
never the case.

The greatest attainments of the higher stage of barbarism are presented
in Homer's poems, especially in the Iliad. Improved iron tools; the
bellows; the hand-mill; the potter's wheel; the preparation of oil and
wine; a well developed fashioning of metals verging on artisanship; the
wagon and chariot; ship-building with beams and boards; the beginning of
artistic architecture; towns surrounded by walls with turrets and
battlements; the Homeric epos and the entire mythology--these are the
principal bequests transmitted by the Greeks from barbarism to
civilization. In comparing these attainments with the description given
by Cesar or even Tacitus of Germans, who were in the beginning of the
same stage of evolution which the Greeks were preparing to leave for a
higher one, we perceive the wealth of productive development comprised
in the higher stage of barbarism.

The sketch which I have here produced after Morgan of the evolution of
the human race through savagery and barbarism to the beginning of
civilization is even now rich in new outlines. More still, these
outlines are incontrovertible, because traced directly from production.
Nevertheless, this sketch will appear faint and meagre in comparison to
the panorama unrolled to our view at the end of our pilgrimage. Not
until then will it be possible to show in their true light both the
transition from barbarianism to civilization and the striking contrast
between them. For the present we can summarize Morgan's arrangement in
the following manner: Savagery--time of predominating appropr