CONTENTS

OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER I.

THE SCIENCE OF CULTURE. PAGE

Culture or Civilization — Its phenomena related according to definite Laws — Method of classification and discussion of the evidence — Connexion of successive stages of culture by Permanence, Modification, and Survival — Principal topics examined in the present work

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CHAPTER II.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE.

State of culture, industrial, intellectual, political, moral — Development of culture in great measure corresponds with transition from savage through barbaric to civilized life — Progression-theory — Degeneration-theory — Development-theory includes both, the one as primary, the other as secondary — Historical and traditional evidence not available as to low stages of culture — Historical evidence as to principles of Degeneration — Ethnological evidence as to rise and fall in culture, from comparison of different levels of culture in branches of the same race — Extent of historically recorded antiquity of civilization — Prehistoric Archæology extends the antiquity of man in low stages of civilization — Traces of Stone Age, corroborated by megalithic structures, lake-dwellings, shell-heaps, burial-places, &c., prove original low culture throughout the world — Stages of Progressive Development in industrial arts

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CHAPTER III.

SURVIVAL IN CULTURE.

Survival and Superstition — Children's games — Games of chance — Traditional sayings — Nursery poems — Proverbs — Riddles — Significance and survival in Customs: sneezing-formula, rite of foundation-sacrifice, prejudice against saving a drowning man

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