FROM SAVAGE TO CIVILIZED LIFE. 181 



TAYLOR maintains that civilization is natural to man ; that barbarism is not a 

 state of nature ; and that there is no prima facie evidence for assuming it to be 

 the original condition of man.* Far, however, from regarding with mortification 

 the circumstance that I have been anticipated in some of my views on this 

 subject by the appearance of this work, I consider such a coincidence as a proof 

 of the general truth of the positions assumed, that more than one mind has 

 been verging to the same conclusions. It were to have been wished, at the same 

 time, that Dr TAYLOR had noticed Dr DOIG'S Letters, Mr SUMNER'S work, Mr BEKE'S 

 work, or the prior one of Professor HAMILTON ; for, though he may have carried 

 out the illustration of the proposition to a greater length than these gentlemen, 

 the merit of challenging the received theory is unquestionably due to them. 



In such circumstances, I should not have thought of laying my particular 

 views on this subject before the Society, had the opinion advanced, and so well 

 illustrated in some of its details, by Dr TAYLOR, been in all points the same as my 

 own. But, besides other considerations, there are two elements which enter into 

 my theory of man's early civilization, which are totally omitted or opposed in the 

 statements of the writers to whom I have alluded, and which it is impossible to 

 separate from the consideration of his social condition, I mean the domestica- 

 tion of animals and the cultivation of the Cerealia : And while I attempt to shew 

 that the supposed progress of man from a savage to a civilized state is an un- 

 founded assumption, flowing from the dreams of poets or the theories of philoso- 

 phers, I shall also endeavour to make it evident, that races of domestic cattle and 

 the cultivation of the Cerealia must have been contemporary with the earliest 

 existence of the human race. 



According to some French writers, man has arisen to what he is at present 

 from very humble beginnings indeed. LAMARCK more than hints that some spe- 

 cies of the Quadrumanous animals, or Apes, may, from the exigencies of their 

 situation, have given up their natural propensities, and learned to walk, and speak, 

 and think, by some fancied necessity of a progressive development of faculties. 

 A similar opinion was entertained by Lord MONBODDO.| M. BORY DE ST VINCENT, 

 following in the same train, thinks that a progress may be traced from the apes 

 and orang to the Hottentot, and from the Hottentot to the most civilized races. 

 The sexual propensity, according to this author, brings the male and female to- 

 gether ; the long helplessness of infancy secures the family alliance ; and hence 

 follow tribes or connected families. Thunder has struck down trees in the ancient 

 forests, or a crater has poured out ignited lava on the vegetation, and thus the use 

 of fire was learned by man 4 



BUFFON supposes that the first Man, though fashioned in his body and organs 



* TAYLOR'S Natural History of Society, i. 19. t Origin and Progress of Language, i. 272. 



} Diet. Classique de 1'Hist. Nat. Art. L'HoMME. 

 VOL. XV. PART I. 3 C 



