Identifier: ridpathshistoryo01ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men ..
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history Ethnology
Publisher: New York, Merrill & Baker
Contributing Library: Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston University

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abounds, and men have grownbut little from the merely animal lifewith which they were projected into theworld. All the movements of history,according to this hypothesis, have acommon trend towTard the production ofa complete man and a perfect society. PRIMEVAL MAN.—CONDITIONS OF SAVAGE LIFE. 375 In the struggle to reach this end somepeoples go to the front, others lag, andstill others drop into nonentity. Somebecome self-conscious and display thosehigh and generous activities which inthe aggregate go by the name of civili-zation, and others remain on lower levels,or even in the original sloughs of bar-barism. The civilized forms of life, ac- stone, or half-naked fishermen draggingtheir nets and boats to shore on solitarycoasts. The further the lines of humanlife are traced backward the more pro-foundly do they penetrate a world wherereason is absent and bestiality prevails. Out of this primitive state the morevigorous of the savage peoples, by toil-some ascent and painful struggles,
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BARBARISM ILLUSTRATED—ANCIENT FISHING SCENE.—Drawn by Riou. cording to this view of human history,are merely the survival and develop-ment of those better activities whichhave been found to be of benefit to therace. It thus happens that when the eth-nologist and the historian begin anexamination of the pastthey find savagery asthe bottom fact. The firstmen are rude huntersbeasts with weapons of Elaboration ofthis view; argu-ments in its sup-port. discoverablesmiting wild gradually emerge into conscious exist-ence. They expand in their intellectualpowers, invent superior forms of utter-ance and a pictorial representation ofthought, write their words by means ofsymbols, record the story of their owndeeds, mass themselves into strong com-munities, begin to reason about theorigin of the world and the course ofnature, and finally take up the chant ofepic poetry. Which, then, of these twocontradictory theories will better ex- 376 GREAT RACES OE MANKIND. plain the existence and origin of

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