THE COMMERCIAL, STAGE.
From some of the above examples it will be seen that agricultural nations may linger a long while in this stage, deriving their sustenance from field crops, yet making little headway beyond the satisfaction of their immediate needs. This was long ago observed by the historian Thucydidcs, who pointed out the necessity of commerce to a developed civilization. " In ancient times," he writes, " the laud was cultivated merely sufficiently to supply the food required the family, nor were orchards set out nor riches accumulated, because there was no commercial intercourse between nations. Travelling either by sea or land was peril ous, and strongholds had not been erected as places of refuge and secure deposits for the overplus. Therefore they cared little for their homes, and were constantly wandering from place to place." Agriculture must yield a surplus beyond the annual requirements of the nation, and this surplus must find its way through the medium of trade, partly to other nations, partly to other classes of the same nation, before the benefits derived from it are fully experienced. When this is accomplished, a portion of the population can confine themselves to other vocations without anxiety for the future, men can congregate in large cities, and the dreadful results of famine need not be apprehended. Noth but an extremely perfect system of supplying food by commerce would allow the existence of cities like New York or London, in which probably on no day during the year is there sufficient food stored to supply the inhabitants one week. •
Stages by General both the above classifications of the stages of progress—the one based on the artistic development, the other on the sources of the useful in certain branches of science, especially archreology and political economy, it is evident that neither fully satisfies the requirements of the ethnologist. He asks for a more detailed and comprehensive picture than either of these single ele ments of national growth, or than any one element whatever, can supply. Therefore it is more fruitful in this science to retain the old classification, based on general conditions, which divided the stages of progress as fol lows: I. The Stage of Savagery; 2. The Stage of Barbarism; 3. The Stage of Semi-civilization; 4. The Stage of Civilization; 5. The Stage of Enlightenment.
The general characteristics of each of these stages can be clearly enough assigned, premising, of course, that they are artificial distinc tions, established merely for the purpose of aiding us to grasp with greater facility the details of the steady and often scarcely perceptible rise of a nation from the lowest to the highest place on the scale. The one con dition merges into the other without abruptness, and the higher constantly retains traces of its ruder nredecessors.