countries the New Stone Age was succeeded by a Bronze Age, then by an Iron Age, and then, after a considerable lapse of time, by the discovery of writing; but in Egypt and Babylonia writing came before the discovery of iron. Probably writing, which is a way of expressing ideas, was a natural development of the arts of painting, sculpture, and engraving, which are ways of expressing objects. The fact that picture-writing was the earliest form of writing seems to support this conclusion. Primitive men had some conception of religion. Sunworship was probably the predominant idea, and Stonehenge may be the ruins of a great temple dedicated to the worship of the sun-god. Human sacrifices were offered to propitiate the angry deity, to secure good harvests, to avert or end pestilences, and to celebrate victory over enemies in war. Another factor in primitive religion was ancestor worship. The influence of the head of the family did not end at death: to avoid his wrath it was necessary to propitiate him afterwards. Sometimes it was considered sufficient merely to preserve his spear or other possessions and taboo their use or perhaps even contact with them. H. G. Wells has a graphic paragraph in which he visualizes the religious life of England three or four thousand years ago before the coming of civilization, and the alternating feelings of fear, awe, mystery, and even cheerfulness which primitive religion invoked : 'Away beyond the dawn of history, 3,000 or 4,000 years ago, one thinks of the Wiltshire uplands in the twilight of a midsummer day's morning. The torches pale in the growing light. One has a dim apprehension of a procession through the avenue of stone, of priests, perhaps fantastically dressed with skins and horns and horrible painted masks-not the robed and bearded dignitaries our artists represent the Druids to have been-of chiefs in skins adorned with necklaces of teeth and bearing spears and axes, their great heads of hair held up with pins of bone, of women in skins or flaxen robes, of a great peering crowd of shock-headed men and naked children. They have assembled from many distant places; the ground between the avenues and Silbury Hill is dotted with their encampments. A certain festive cheerfulness prevails. And amidst the throng march the appointed victims, submissive, helpless, staring towards the distant smoking altar at which they are to die—that the harvests may be good and the tribe increase.' I The men of the Old Stone Age, even the artistic and highly developed Cro-Magnons, were not what we should call civilized. They were barbarians, but splendid barbarians. So too were Neolithic men, who, however, made a great step towards civilization by the practice of a form of agriculture, which tended towards settled habits of life. In the Old Stone Age nomadic customs prevailed. Men were hunters, and therefore wanderers. Comparatively few must have roamed over, and in a sense inhabited, vast tracts of territory, just as, to-day, Labrador, which is bigger than France, is inhabited by a few thousand Indians, who follow one great herd of caribou as it wanders north and then south again in search of food. The wanderings of primitive man would make his differentiation into groups or peoples practically impossible. This is confirmed by the fact that Palaeolithic remains, whether found in Somaliland, on the banks of the Nile, or in the drift deposits of the Seine or the Thames, are astonishingly similar. Civilization implies settlement in definite territories, the building of cities, the evolution of ordered methods of government, the development of trade and commerce, and a capacity for progress which is unrestricted. The absence of writing and of ships were two things which made it impossible for the men of the Stone Ages to progress beyond a certain point; but while the inhabitants of Europe were still labouring under these disadvantages, in other parts of the world men had actually evolved civilizations which, in some respects, are not inferior to the finest civilizations of modern times. The earliest civilizations were those which sprang up in Egypt, Babylonia, China, India, and Crete, and of these the 1 Outline of History, Chap. XII. EARLY CIVILIZATIONS-EGYPT 15 Egyptian and the Babylonian appear to be the oldest. It is not as yet at all certain which preceded the other, and the problem of the extent to which one ancient civilization affected another also awaits solution. It is possible that they were all indigenous and grew up out of their own roots. II EARLY CIVILIZATIONS-EGYPT PROFESSOR FLINDERS PETRIE considers that Egyptian civilization is as old as 10000 B.C., and that even at this remote period of the world's history the Egyptians had well-made pottery modelled by hand, fine flint work, a little copper, but no weaving. The earliest governments were probably city-states. These eventually combined to form two kingdoms-one comprising the Nile Delta known as Lower Egypt, the other to the south known as Upper Egypt. The kingdoms were united by Menes, who succeeded to the southern state and conquered the northern, probably about 3400 B. C., although some authorities put it very much earlier.1 With Menes begins the dynastic period of Egyptian history. He was the first king of the first dynasty, and when Alexander the Great added Egypt to his dominions in 332 B. C. it was the thirty-first dynasty which came to an end. From very early times, thousands of years before Menes, the Egyptians believed in a future life. Valuable property was placed with the dead, including grain and linen. These discoveries are believed to indicate that Egypt was the country from which the first grain and flax came to Europe about six thousand years ago. In Egypt, too, the earliest taxes may have originated, in the form of measures of flax or grain which the peasants paid to their chieftains, who controlled the irrigation trenches by means of which Nile water was e.g. Dr. Flinders Petrie and Dr. Wallis Budge. I spread over the country during the annual overflowing of the river. If the peasant refused to pay his tax, the chieftain would stop his supply of water, and a failure of his crops would be the result. The river Nile has in all ages been the source of the life and prosperity of the people of Egypt. In the early Dynastic period they had no knowledge of whence it came and they spoke of it as surrounding the whole earth. The Nile-god was regarded as a particularly potent deity. the respect in which the Egyptians held him may be gathered from a Hymn to the Nile preserved on papyrus in the British Museum : Some idea of 'Homage to thee, O Hapi (the river Nile or the river-god), thou appearest in this land, and thou comest in peace to make Egypt to live. Thou waterest the fields which Ra (the sun-god) hath created, thou givest life unto all animals, and as thou descendest on thy way from heaven thou makest the land to drink without ceasing. Thou art the friend of bread and drink, thou givest strength to the grain and makest it to increase, and thou fillest every place of work with work. . . . Thou art the lord of fish . . . thou art the creator of barley, and thou makest the temples to endure for millions of years. . . . Thou art the lord of the poor and needy. If thou wert overthrown in the heavens, the gods would fall upon their faces and men would perish. When thou appearest upon the earth, shouts of joy rise up and all people are glad; every man of might receiveth food, and every tooth is provided with meat. . . . Thou fillest the storehouses, thou makest the granaries to overflow, and thou hast regard to the condition of the poor and needy. Thou makest herbs and grain to grow that the desires of all may be satisfied, and thou art not impoverished thereby.' I It is possible that the art of writing originated in Egypt. The earliest form of writing was picture writing such as is still to be found among some uncivilized communities, e. g. the Indians of Alaska. Thus an Indian of Alaska, if he wished IO. 1 A Guide to the Egyptian Collections in the British Museum, pp. 9 and |