Ancient Society

"Ancient Society" is a book written by Lewis H. Morgan published in 1877. In this book, Morgan developed his famous theory of the three stages of human progress, i.e., from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. Friedrich Engels based his "Origin of the Family" on this book.

The concept of progress

The dominant idea of Lewis' thought is that of "progress". [This article places words and phrases quoted from Morgan in Italics, rather than quotes, for the reader's visual convenience.] It is to be conceived as a "career" of social "states" arranged in a "scale" on which mankind has "worked their way up" from the "bottom". Progress is "historically true of the entire human family", but not uniformly. Different "branches" of the family have evidenced "human advancement" to different conditions. The scale nevertheless is universal, or "substantially the same in kind", with "deviations from uniformity ... produced by special causes". Morgan hopes therefore to discern "the principal stages of human development". [Chapter 1, initial]

Progress is to be apprehended in Morgan partly through analogy. It is an "ascent" to "human supremacy on the earth". The prime analogate is an individual working his way up in society; that is, Morgan, who was well read in classics, relies on the Roman cursus honorum, rising through the ranks, which became the basis of the English ideas of career and working your way up, to which he blends in the rationalist idea of a scala, or ladder, of life. The idea of growth or development is also borrowed from individuals. A society has a life like that of an individual, which develops and grows.

The analogy, however, is given an anthropological twist and introduces the comparative method then coming into vogue in other fields. Lewis resorts to units called ethna, by which he means "inventions", "discoveries" and "domestic institutions". The ethna are compared and judged higher or lower on the scale, pair by pair. Morgan's ethna appear to comprise at least some of Edward Burnett Tylor's cultural objects. Morgan mentions Tylor a number of times in the book. Morgan's standard of higher or lower is not clearly expressed. By higher he appears to mean whatever contributes better to control over the environment, victory over competitors, and spread of population. He does not mention Charles Darwin.

The lines of progress

The substitutions of ethna better than the previous follow several "lines of progress".

The ethnical periods

Morgan rejects the "Age of Stone, of Bronze, of Iron" as being insufficient characterizations of progress. They overlap and refer only to "implements". [Since Morgan the traditional terms have prevailed, but they have been expanded to mean many of the things Morgan meant. Morgan's "Savagery" and "Barbarism" are roughly equivalent to Braidwood's "food gathering" and "food production". Over the span of time Morgan's choice of words proved too prejudicial for common use. In today's society, calling peoples "savages" and "barbarians" would cause international incidents. In Morgan's time, Africa was still being mined for slaves and the tribesmen of which he spoke did not then own casinos and other business enterprises, drive automobiles, fly airplanes and watch television.] Based on the "lines of progress" he distinguishes "ethnical periods", which each have a "distinct culture" and a "particular mode of life" and do not overlap in a region. He does admit to exceptions and a difficulty of determining exact borders between periods. Scientific archaeology did not exist in Morgan's time; he therefore cannot use stratigraphy or scientific dating, but bases his arguments on linguistic and historical speculation.

Notes

External links

* [http://marx.org/reference/archive/morgan-lewis/ancient-society/index.htm Full text of "Ancient Society"]