Note 1 — Chapter I · METHOD AND DIVISIONS.

To this end it would seem best to divide the several tribes according to their general culture, and then to inquire at which stages of culture slavery is found. But such a division cannot be made here incidentally; for it would require years of labour. And a good division, that we could adopt, has not yet been made. Morgan distinguishes three periods of savagery, three of barbarism, and one of civilization1. But his system rests on the unproved supposition, that the stage of culture a people has attained to entirely depends on its technical ability in the arts of subsistence. Dr. Vierkandt has made another distinction. Besides the civilized and semi-civilized peoples he has two categories: migratory tribes (unstete Völker), and primitive peoples proper (eigentliche Naturvölker). The former are the Australians, Tasmanians, Andamanese, Veddahs, Negritos, Kubus, Bushmen, African pigmy-tribes, Fuegians and Botocudos; the latter the American Indians, Arctic races, Northern Asiatics, Caucasus tribes, hill-tribes of India, Negroes to the South of the Soudan, inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago and Oceanic Islands2. But this division cannot be of any use to us. It is not the result of an extensive and accurate examination of the facts; the writer himself admits that he has followed his general impressions3. Now the impressions of a capable sociologist, as Vierkandt undoubtedly is, may count for something; they give a hint as to the direction, in which the investigation has to be carried on; but they do not themselves afford a scientific basis to rely upon. His unstete Völker are simply those generally known as the “lowest type of man”, whether justly or unjustly we do not know4. And his eigentliche Naturvölker, as Professor Steinmetz rightly remarks5, comprehend savages of widely different degrees of development. Moreover, although he says his criterion is the psychical state of man, the economic side of social life comes always prominently into view6; but the author does not even try to prove that the psychical state of man depends upon the stage of economic development.