ABSTRACT
The development of culture is a different question to the development of separate nations. Nations rise and fall, but culture moves on for ever. If culture is to progress it must subjugate all nations that oppose it, advancing over their dead bodies. The people were either violently destroyed or absorbed by other nations more cultured or more capable of culture than those who had fallen victim to stagnation. The victors were more capable than the vanquished of developing civilization, and were helped in their task by the culture of the conquered nation, for nothing is permanently lost. The existence of a progressive improvement in human life by means of culture is a self-evident and an acknowledged truth whose discovery must be regarded as the first and most significant of the achievements of Sociology. A general system of culture stages is not only possible, but it is a scientific necessity.
