EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 251 



origin for civilization and the attendant arts. But, in the first 

 place, several stages of derivation are no conclusive argument 

 against there having been an originality at some earlier stage. 

 In the second, such observers have not looked far enough, for, 

 if they had, they might have seen various instances of civiliza- 

 tions which it is impossible, with any plausibility, to trace 

 back to a common origin with others ; such are those of China 

 and America. They would also have seen civilizations spring- 

 ing up, as it were, like oases among the arid plains of bar- 

 barism, as in the case of the Mandans. A still more attentive 

 study of the subject would have shown, amongst living men, 

 the very psychological procedure on which the origination of 

 civilization and the arts and sciences depended. 



These things, like language, are simply the effects of the 

 spontaneous working of certain mental faculties, each in rela- 

 tion to the things of the external world on which it was 

 intended by creative Providence to be exercised. The monkeys 

 themselves, without instruction from any quarter, learn to use 

 sticks in fighting, and some build houses an act which cannot 

 in their case be considered as one of instinct, but of intelligence. 

 Such being the case, there is no necessary difficulty in suppos- 

 ing how man, with his superior mental organization, (a brain 

 five times heavier,) was able, in his primitive state, without 

 instruction, to turn many things in nature to his use, and com- 

 mence, in short, the circle of the domestic arts. He appears, 

 in the most unfavourable circumstances, to be able to provide 

 himself with some sort of dwelling, to make weapons, and to 

 practise some simple kind of cookery. But, granting, it will 

 be said, that he can go thus far, how does he ever proceed 

 further unprompted, seeing that many nations remain fixed 

 for ever at this point, and seem unable to take one step in 

 advance ? It is perfectly true that there is such a fixation in 

 many nations; but, on the other hand, all nations are not 

 alike in mental organization, and another point has been esta- 

 blished, that only when some favourable circumstances have 

 settled a people in one place, do arts and social arrangements 

 get leave to flourish. If we were to limit our view to humbly- 

 endowed nations, or the common class of minds in those called 

 civilized, we should see absolutely no conceivable power for 

 the origination of new ideas and devices. But let us look at 

 the inventive class of minds which stand out amongst their 

 fellows the men, who, with little prompting or none, conceive 

 new ideas in science, arts, morals and we can be at no loss 



