[Gutenberg 44844] • The Evolution of Culture, and Other Essays

These Essays, or rather Lectures, contain the first-fruits of the earliest systematic attempt to apply the theory of Evolution to the products of human handiwork. In their original form they have long been difficult to obtain; and they are reprinted now to supply the needs of candidates for the Oxford Diploma in Anthropology, and of the numerous visitors to the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford. But they will certainly appeal to a far wider public also, as a brief and authentic statement of their author’s discoveries.

The four Essays are reprinted substantially as they were first delivered and published. But verbal errors and actual misquotations have been corrected; and allusions to specimens or diagrams exhibited during the original discourses, but not published, have been replaced so far as possible by references to similar objects figured in the Plates.

The Plates are photographic reproductions of the original illustrations, with the exception of Plates V, XIII, XVII, XVIII. Of these, Plate XIII has simply been re-drawn, from a faded original; Plates XVII and XVIII have been translated, without loss of detail, from colours to monochrome shading; Plate V has been reconstituted from illustrations quoted in the text, with the permission of their publisher, Mr. Murray. Plate XXI is reproduced, by permission of Sir John Evans, from the paper which it illustrated originally.

The footnotes demand a word of explanation. The author, as the original publications show, was not precise in indicating his sources: he frequently gave, as a quotation, the general sense rather than the exact words of his authority; and occasionally his memory played him false. In the reprint, the precise references have been identified, and are given in full, and obvious errors in the text have been either amended or corrected in a footnote. The editor desires to acknowledge much valuable help in the search for references from Miss C. M. Prior, of Headington.

INTRODUCTION

It was about the middle of last century that an officer in Her Majesty’s Army began to apply the lessons which he had learnt in the course of some of his professional experimental work to studies pursued by him as a hobby in a far wider field of science. The story of the famous ethnographical collection of Colonel Lane Fox is well known, and I need but briefly refer to it. During his investigations, conducted with a view to ascertaining the best methods whereby the service firearms might be improved, at a time when the old Tower musket was being finally discarded, he was forcibly struck by the extremely gradual changes whereby improvements were effected. He observed that every noteworthy advancement in the efficiency, not only of the whole weapon, but also of every individual detail in its structure, was arrived at as a cumulative result of a succession of very slight modifications, each of which was but a trifling improvement upon the one immediately preceding it. Through noticing the unfailing regularity of this process of gradual evolution in the case of firearms, he was led to believe that the same principles must probably govern the development of the other arts, appliances, and ideas of mankind. With characteristic energy and scientific zeal Colonel Lane Fox began at once, in the year 1851, to illustrate his views and to put them to a practical test. He forthwith commenced to make the ethnological collection with which his name will always be associated, and which rapidly grew to large proportions under his keen search for material which should illustrate and perhaps prove his theory of progress by evolution in the arts of mankind.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PRINCIPLES OF CLASSIFICATION (1874)

ON THE EVOLUTION OF CULTURE (1875)

PRIMITIVE WARFARE. I (1867)

PRIMITIVE WARFARE. II (1868)

PRIMITIVE WARFARE.