224 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



hock's interesting works 23 can hardly fail to be deeply im- 

 pressed with the close similiarity between the men of all 

 races in tastes, dispositions, and habits. This is shown by 

 the pleasure which they all take in dancing, rude music, 

 acting, painting, tattooing, and otherwise decorating them 

 selves — in their mutual comprehension of gesture-language 

 — and, as I shall be able to show in a future essay, by the 

 same expression in their features, and by the same inar- 

 ticulate cries, when they are excited by various emotions. 

 This similarity, or rather identity, is striking, when con- 

 trasted with the different expressions which may be ob- 

 served in distinct species of monkeys. There is good 

 evidence that the art of shooting with bows and arrows 

 has not been handed down from any common progenitor 

 of mankind, yet the Istone arrow-heads, brought from the 

 most distant parts of the world and manufactured at the 

 most remote periods, are, as Nilsson has shown, 24 almost 

 identical ; and this fact can only be accounted for by the 

 various races having similar inventive or mental powers. 

 The same observation has been made by archaeologists 26 

 with respect to certain widely-prevalent ornaments, such 

 as zigzags, etc. ; and with respect to various simple beliefs 

 and customs, such as the burying of the dead under 

 megalithic structures. I remember observing in South 

 America, 26 that there, as in so many other parts of the 

 world, man has generally chosen the summits of lofty hills, 

 on which to throw up piles of stones, either for the sake of 

 recording some remarkable event, or for burying his dead. 



23 Tylor's 'Early History of Mankind,' 1865 ; for the evidence with 

 respect to gesture-language, see p. 54. Lubbock's ' Prehistoric Times,' 

 2d edit. 1869. 



24 ' The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia,' Eng. translat. edited 

 by Sir J. Lubbock, 1868, p. 104. 



25 Hodder M. Westropp, on Cromlechs, etc., ' Journal of Ethnological 

 Soc.' as given in 'Scientific Opinion,' June 2, 1869, p. 3. 



96 ' Journal of Researches : Voyage of the *' Beagle," ' p. 46. 



