History of Human Society. Frank Wilson Blackmar
by Economic Stages. – The progress of man is more clearly represented by the successive economic stages of his life. Thus we have first the primal nomadic period, in which man was a wanderer, subsisting on roots and berries, and with no definite social organization. This period, like all primary periods, is largely hypothetical. Having learned to capture game and fish, he entered what might be called the fisher-hunter stage, although he was still a nomad, and rapidly spread over a large part of the earth's surface, wandering from forest to forest and from stream to stream, searching for the means of subsistence and clothing.
When man learned to domesticate animals he made a great step forward and entered what is known as the pastoral period, in which his chief occupation was the care of flocks and herds. This contributed much to his material support and quickened his social and intellectual movement. After a time, when he remained in one place a sufficient time to harvest a short crop, he began agriculture in a tentative way, while his chief concern was yet with flocks and herds. He soon became permanently settled, and learned more fully the art of agriculture, and then entered the permanent agricultural stage. It was during this period that he made the most rapid advances in the industrial arts and in social order. This led to more densely populated communities, with permanent homes and the necessary development of law and government.
As the products of industry increased men began to exchange "the relatively superfluous for the relatively necessary," and trade in the form of barter became a permanent custom. This led to the use of money and a more extended system of exchange, and man entered the commercial era. This gave him a wider intercourse with surrounding tribes and nations, and brought about a greater diversity of ideas. The excessive demand for exchangeable goods, the accumulation of wealth, and the enlarged capacity for enjoyment centred the activities of life in industry, and man entered the industrial stage. At first he employed hand power for manufacturing goods, but soon he changed to power manufacture, brought about by discovery and invention. Water and steam were now applied to turn machinery, and the new conditions of production changed the whole industrial life. A revolution in industrial society caused an immediate shifting of social life. Classes of laborers in the great industrial army became prominent, and production was carried on in a gigantic way. We are still in this industrial world, and as electricity comes to the aid of steam we may be prepared for even greater changes in the future than we have witnessed in the past.5
In thus presenting the course of civilization by the different periods of economic life, we must keep the mind free from conventional ideas. For, while the general course of economic progress is well indicated, there was a slow blending of each period into the succeeding one. There is no formal procedure in the progress of man. Yet we might infer from the way in which some writers present this matter that society moved forward in regular order, column after column. From the formal and forcible way in which they have presented the history of early society, one might imagine that a certain tribe, having become weary of tending cattle and goats, resolved one fine morning to change from the pastoral life to agriculture, and that all of the tribes on earth immediately concluded to do the same, when, in truth, the change was slow and gradual, while the centuries passed away.
It is well to consider that in the expanded industrial life of man the old was not replaced, but supplemented, by the new, and that after the pastoral stage was entered, man continued to hunt and fish, and that after formal agriculture was begun the tending of flocks and herds continued, and fishing was practised at intervals. But each succeeding occupation became for the time the predominant one, while others were relatively subordinate. Even to-day, while we have been rushing forward in recent years at a rapid rate, under the power of steam and electricity, agriculture and commerce have made marvellous improvement. Though we gain the new, nothing of the old is lost. The use of flocks and herds, as well as fish and game, increases each year, although not relatively.
Progress Is Through the Food Supply. – This is only another view of the economic life. The first period is called the natural subsistence period, when man used such food as he found prepared for him by nature. It corresponds to the primal nomadic period of the last classification. From this state he advanced to the use of fish for food, and then entered the third period, when native grains were obtained through a limited cultivation of the soil. After this followed a period in which meat and milk were the chief articles of food. Finally the period of extended and permanent agriculture was reached, and farinaceous food by cultivation became the main support of life. The significance of this classification is observed in the fact that the amount, variety, and quality of the food available determine the possibility of man's material and spiritual advancement. As the food supply lies at the foundation of human existence, prosperity is measured to a large extent by the food products. The character of the food affects to a great extent the mental and moral capabilities of man; that is, it limits the possibilities of civilization. Even in modern civilization the effect of poor food on intellect, morals, and social order is easily observed.
Progress Is Estimated by Different Forms of Social Order. – It is only a more general way of estimating political life, and perhaps a broader way, for it includes the entire social development. By this classification man is first represented as wandering in a solitary state with the smallest amount of association with his fellows necessary to his existence and perpetuation, and with no social organization. This status of man is hypothetical, and gives only a starting point for the philosophy of higher development. No savage tribes have yet been discovered in which there was not at least association of individuals in groups, although organization might not yet have appeared. It is true that some of the lower tribes, like the Fuegians of South America, have very tentative forms of social and political association. They wander in loosely constructed groups, which constantly shift in association, being without permanent organization. Yet the purely solitary man is merely conjectural.
It is common for writers to make a classification of social groups into primary and secondary.6 The primary social groups are: first, the family based upon biological relations, supported by the habit of association; second, the play group of children, in which primitive characters of social order appear, and a third group is the association of adults in a neighborhood meeting. In the formation of these groups, the process of social selection is always in evidence. Impulse, feeling, and emotion play the greater parts in the formation of these primitive groups, while choice based on rational selection seldom appears.
The secondary groups are those which originate through the differentiation of social functions in which the contact of individuals is less intimate than in the primary group. Such voluntary associations as a church, labor organization, or scientific society may be classified as secondary in time and in importance.
Next above the human horde is represented the forced association of men in groups, each group struggling for its own existence. Within the group there was little protection and little social order, although there was more or less authority of leadership manifested. This state finally led to the establishment of rudimentary forms of government, based upon blood relationship. These groups enlarged to full national life. This third stage finally passed to the larger idea of international usage, and is prospective of a world state. These four stages of human society, so sweeping in their generalization, still point to the idea of the slow evolution of social order.
The Development of Family Life. – Starting with the hypothesis that man at one time associated in a state of promiscuity, he passed through the separate stages of polyandry and polygamy, and finally reached a state of monogamy and the pure home life of to-day. Those who have advocated this doctrine have failed to substantiate it clearly so as to receive from scholars the recognition of authority. All these forms of family life except the first have been observed among the savage tribes of modern life, but there are not sufficient data to prove that the human race, in the order of its development, must have passed through these four stages. However, it is true that the modern form of marriage and pure home life did not always exist, but are among the achievements of modern civilization. There certainly has been a gradual improvement in the relations of the members of the household, and notwithstanding the defects of faithlessness and ignorance, the modern family is the social unit and the hope of modern social progress.
The Growth of Political Life. – Many have seen in this
See Chapter XXVII.
See Cooley,