times to which it originally belongs, and in
which is found the natural source and proper home of utterly savage
practices still carried on by ignorant peasants in Great Britain, such
as taking omens from the cries of animals, or bewitching an enemy by
sticking full of pins and hanging up to shrivel in the smoke an image or
other object, that similar destruction may fall on the hated person
represented by the symbol (Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ch. i., iii.,
iv., xi., xii.; _Early Hist. of Man_, ch. vi.).

The comparative science of civilization thus not only generalizes the
data of history, but supplements its information by laying down the
lines of development along which the lowest prehistoric culture has
gradually risen to the highest modern level. Among the most clearly
marked of these lines is that which follows the succession of the Stone,
Bronze, and Iron Ages (see ARCHAEOLOGY). The Stone Age represents the
early condition of mankind in general, and has remained in savage
districts up to modern times, while the introduction of metals need not
at once supersede the use of the old stone hatchets and arrows, which
have often long continued in dwindling survival by the side of the new
bronze and even iron ones. The Bronze Age had its most important place
among ancient nations of Asia and Europe, and among them was only
succeeded after many centuries by the Iron Age; while in other
districts, such as Polynesia and Central and South Africa, and America
(except Mexico and Peru), the native tribes were moved directly from the
Stone to the Iron Age without passing through the Bronze Age at all.
Although the three divisions of savage, barbaric, and civilized man do
not correspond at all perfectly with the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages,
this classification of civilization has proved of extraordinary value in
arranging in their proper order of culture the nations of the Old World.

Another great line of progress has been followed by tribes passing from
the primitive state of the wild hunter, fisher and fruit-gatherer to
that of the settled tiller of the soil, for to this change of habit may
be plainly in great part traced the expansion of industrial arts and the
creation of higher social and political institutions. These, again, have
followed their proper lines along the course of time. Among such is the
immense legal development by which the primitive law of personal
vengeance passed gradually away, leaving but a few survi