io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



given to the Royal Institution in the spring of 1868, and were after- 

 ward greatly enlarged and published in a work, * The Origin of Civil- 

 ization and the Primitive Condition of Man," which has passed through 

 five editions, and, like his former work on prehistoric man, has been 

 translated into the French, German, Italian, Danish, Russian, Hunga- 

 rian, Dutch, Swedish, and other languages. It has also gone through 

 two American editions, and has given rise to considerable controversy 

 which has been called forth bv the antagonism of some of its views to 

 the prepossessions of a large proportion of its readers. It must have 

 cost the author an enormous amount of labor, and is, aside from the 

 theories it enunciates, a most serviceable work of reference, offering a 

 nearly exhaustive array of facts which it would be impossible for any 

 student to obtain for himself, drawn from a mass of authorities the 

 mere list of which would fill a considerable space. In this work the 

 Darwinian doctrine is applied in tracing the development of the social 

 and mental condition of savages, their arts, their system of marriage 

 and of relationship, their religions, languages, moral character, and 

 laws. It sustains the belief that " the law of humanitv is not des^en- 

 eracy, but progression ; not the falling away from a primitive state of 

 perfection, but the gradual amelioration and advance toward a higher 

 and better condition." To be more particular, the author maintains 

 the conclusions that "existing savages are not the descendants of civ- 

 ilized ancestors ; that the primitive condition of man was one of utter 

 barbarism ; and that from this condition several races have independ- 

 ently raised themselves." This work was one of the first attempts to 

 treat the origin of civilization on a rational and philosophic basis, and 

 has been pronounced " the completest summary of barbaric life that 

 we possess." 



These books form, however, but a small part of Sir John Lubbock's 

 scientific writings, which include besides numerous papers in the trans- 

 actions of learned societies, and in the scientific and antiquarian jour- 

 nals, the list of which is constantly growing, and the editing from the 

 original manuscript of the treatise of the nonagenarian Svend Xilsson 

 on " The Stone Acre of Sweden." 



The labors of Sir John Lubbock in behalf of the preservation of 

 the ancient monuments of Great Britain and Ireland may be con- 

 sidered in connection with his scientific work, although they have been 

 carried on chiefly in Parliament, and under the form of appeals to the 

 public. They have found shape in the well-known Ancient Monu- 

 ments Bill, which passed a second reading three times, but was finally 

 lost in the House of Lords. This bill was based upon the principle 

 " that, if the owner of one of these ancient monuments wishes to de- 

 stroy it, he should be required, before doing so, to give the nation the 

 option of purchase at a fair price." For this purpose, it proposed to 

 create a body of commissioners especially charged with the protection 

 of the ancient monuments, and so commended itself to all persons in- 



