200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eternal unfolding ; another recognizes in the soul-element the vital 

 principle of progress, and attributes to religion all the benefits of 

 enlightenment ; one builds a theory on the groundwork of a funda- 

 mental and innate morality ; anotlier discovers in the forces of Nature 

 the controlling influence upon man's destiny ; while yet others, as we 

 have seen, believe accumulative and inherent nervous force to be the 

 media through which culture is transmitted. Some believe that 

 moral causes create the physical ; others, that physical causes create 

 the moral. 



Thus Mr. Buckle attempts to prove that man's development is 

 wholly dependent upon his physical surroundings. Huxley points to 

 a system of reflex actions mind acting on matter, and matter on 

 mind as the possible culture-basis. Darwin advances the doctrine 

 of an evolution from vivified matter as the principle of progressive 

 development. In the transmutation of nerve-element from parents to 

 children, Bagehot sees " the continuous force which binds age to age, 

 which enables each to begin with some improvement on the last, if the 

 last did itself improve ; which makes each civilization not a set of de- 

 tached dots, but a line of color, surely enhancing shade by shade." 

 Some see in human progress the ever-ruling hand of a Divine Provi- 

 dence, others the results of man's skill ; with some it is free-will, with 

 others necessity ; some believe that intellectual development springs 

 from better systems of government, others that wealth lies at the 

 foundation of all culture ; every philosopher recognizes some cause, 

 invents some system, or brings human actions under the dominion of 

 some species of law. 



As in animals of the same genus or species, inhabiting widely-dif- 

 ferent localities, we see the results of common instincts, so in the evo- 

 lutions of the human race, divided by time or space, we see the same 

 general principles at work. So, too, it would seem, whether species 

 are one or many, whether man is a perfectly created being or an evo- 

 lution from a lower form, that all the human races of the globe are 

 formed on one model and governed by the same laws. In the cus- 

 toms, languages, and myths, of ages and nations far removed from 

 each other in all social, moral, and mental characteristics, innumerable 

 and striking analogies exist. Not only have all nations weapons, but 

 many who are separated from each other by a hemisphere use the 

 same weajion ; not only is belief universal, but many relate the same 

 myth ; and to suppose the bow and arrow to have had a common 

 origin, or that all flood-myths, and myths of a future life, are but ofl- 

 shoots from Noachic and Biblical narratives, is scarcely reasonable. 



It is easier to tell what civilization is not, and what it does not 

 spring from, than what it is and what its origin. To attribute its 

 rise to any of the principles, ethical, political, or material, that come 

 under the cognizance of man, is fallacy, for it is as much an entity as 

 any other primeval principle ; nor may we, with Archbishop Whately, 



