the tremendous amount of movement which
preceded these later limitations to movement. Savage and barbaric
races are now hemmed in by the forces of modern civilisation. This was
not the case even a few hundred years ago, and though we cannot say
when constant movement all over the world was stayed, we can form some
idea of the comparatively late period when this took place by a
contemplation of the very recent growth of the political civilisations
known to history. At the most, this can only be reckoned at some ten
thousand years. At the back of this short stretch of time, or of the
successive periods at which the new civilisations have arisen, there
are recollections of great movements and great migrations. Egypt,
Babylonia, India, Persia, Greece, and Rome have preserved these
recollections by tradition, and tradition has been largely confirmed
by archaeology. Celts and Teutons have preserved parallel traditions
which are confirmed by history observed from without. These traditions
and memorials of the migration period have not been scientifically
examined in each case, but where scholars have touched upon them,
great and unexpected results have been produced.[302]

There was time enough, before these late and special movements which
led to civilisation, for man, in the course of peopling the earth, to
be brought at various stages to a standstill, and such a change in his
life-history would have its own special results. One of the most
momentous of these results is the fossilisation of social and mental
conditions. Man stationary, or movable by custom within restricted
areas, would live under conditions which must have produced forms of
culture different from those under which man lived when he was always
able to penetrate, not by custom but by the force of circumstances,
into the unknown domain of unoccupied territory; and the fossilisation
of his culture at various stages of development, in accord with the
various periods of his being brought to a standstill, would be the
most important result.[303] Whenever man was compelled to move onward
the social forces which were demanded of him, as he proceeded from
point to point, must have been quite different from those which he
could have adopted if he had been allowed to stay in areas which
suited him, if he could have selected his settlement grounds and
awaited events. The calmness of the latter methods would perhaps have
led to the unconscious development of social forms