'The four stages', an illustrated theory of social evolution with Hispanic precedent

The theory -especially dynamic in the Scottish Enlightenment (A. Smith, J. Millar, A. Ferguson, W. Robertson)- of the four stages (hunters, ranchers, farmers and merchants) happens to be a conjectural history with which the evolutionary interpretation of the process of civilization began. The incidence in England and France of the work of the Jesuit J. de Acosta (Natural and Moral History of the Indies, Seville, 1590) up to the English and Scottish Enlightenment (Locke and Robertson) is addressed, paying special attention first to the English translation by E. Grimstone (1604), based on the French version by R. Regnault (1598). Likewise, the use of Acosta is examined in detail in a French political encyclopedia widespread in Europe (P. D'Avity, 1613), translated into several languages, also by Grimstone into English. Finally, the original components of the theory of the four stages in Acosta and D'Avity are examined, in its three Spanish, French and English versions as precursors of anthropological theory.