ini. They all refer to the
British savage. He is cannibalistic, incestuous, naked, possesses his
wives in common, lives on wild fruits and not cultivated cereals,
indulges in head-hunting, has no settled living-place which can be
called a house, and generally betrays the characteristics of pure
savagery.[162] Altogether there is a fairly substantial range of
material for the formation of a reasonable conception of the condition
of savagery in Britain.

[Illustration: ROMAN SCULPTURED STONE FOUND AT ARNIEBOG, CUMBERNAULD,
DUMBARTONSHIRE, SHOWING A NAKED BRITON AS A CAPTIVE]

We need not dwell long upon the earlier of our historians who have
neglected or contested the statements of the authorities they use.
They hardly possessed the material for scientific treatment, and
personal predilections were the governing factors of any opinion which
is expressed. John Milton, in his brave attempt to tell the story of
early England, does not so much as allude to these disagreeable
points. Hume disdainfully passes by the whole subject and practically
begins with the Norman conquest. Lappenberg says of the group marriage
of the Britons that it "is probably a mere Roman fable."[163] Innes
accepts the views of the classical authorities and argues from them in
his own peculiar way,[164] but Sullivan will have it that the
materials afforded from classical sources are worthless: "they consist
of mere hearsay reports without any sure foundation, and in many cases
not in harmony with the results of modern linguistic and archaeological
investigations."[165] Neither Turner nor Palgrave has any doubt as to
the authority of these early accounts,[166] and Dr. Giles accepts the
accounts which he so usefully collected from the original
authorities.[167]

The modern historian cannot, however, be so incidentally treated. He
lives in the age of the comparative sciences and of anthropological
research. He sometimes uses, though in a half-hearted and incomplete
fashion, the results of inquirers in these fields of research, but he
nowhere deals with the problem fully. His sins are not general, but
special. He agrees with one statement of his original authority and
disagrees with another, and we are left with a chaos of opinion
founded upon no accepted principle. If the earlier historians accepted
or rejected historical records without much reason for either course,
the later historians have no right to follow them. The terms "savage"
and "barbarian,