These distinctions are not made by anthropologists as a rule, yet I
cannot but think they are in the main the true distinctions which must
be made if we are to arrive at any general conception of the progress
of man from savagery to civilisation. The distinctions which seem to
hold the field against those I have suggested, are those of hunter,
pastoral, and agricultural. I say seem to hold the field, because they
have never been scientifically worked out. They are stated in
textbooks and research work almost as an axiom of anthropology, but
their claim to this position is singularly weak and unsatisfactory,
and has never been scientifically established. They are only
economical distinctions, not social, and they do not properly express
related stages. Hunting, cattle keeping, and agriculture are found in
almost all stages of social evolution, and I, for one, deny that in
the order they are generally given, they express anything approaching
to accurate indication of the line of human progress. The
distinctions I have suggested do not, of course, contain everything
indicative of human progress. They are the first broad outlines to be
filled up by the details of special peoples, special areas, and
special ages. They involve many sub-stages which need to be properly
worked out, and for which a satisfactory terminology is required. In
the meantime, as measuring-posts of man's line of progress, they
express the most important fact about man, namely, that his present
enforced stationary condition has followed upon an enormous period of
enforced movement. That movement has finally resulted in the presence
of man everywhere on the earth's surface. This has been followed by
the continued moving of savage man within the limited areas to which
he has been finally pushed; by the movement of barbaric man from one
place of settlement to another place of settlement, again within
limited areas; and by the movement of political man through countries
and continents of vast extent, and the final overlordship of political
man over savage and barbaric man whom he has subjected and used for
his purpose of final settlement in the civilised form of settlement.
It will be apparent from the terms I have used to express the three
chief stages in man's progress, that I give a special significance to
the use of blood kinship as a social force, and in the sequel I think
this special significance will be justified.[301]

No one can properly estimate