FROM SAVAGE TO CIVILIZED LIFE. 187 



enlivened by all the forms of animal creation, that could minister to his wants or 

 pleasures, and give him a 



choice 



Unlimited of manifold delights. 



Neither was the proverbial idleness of savage life the lot of the first man ; for 

 his mental faculties were exercised in naming, according to their different natures, 

 the various races of animals ; and exercise was provided for his physical frame, 

 in keeping and dressing the garden in which he was placed. 



In accordance with the Sacred Record, MILTON asserts, in his unrivalled 

 poem, that man was not created a mute and ignorant savage, but endowed with 

 all the physical and intellectual powers which distinguish the human race from 

 every other class of animated beings. He was not made, as the philosophical theory 

 supposes, a little higher than the brutes, but "a little lower than the angels; 1 ' 

 and though, since the introduction of moral evil, his tainted nature has indicated 

 a downward progress, yet unfading traces remain of that Divine image in which 

 he was originally created. In describing the inmates of Eden, MILTON says, 



Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, 



Godlike erect ! with native honour clad, 



In naked majesty, seemed lords of all ; 



And worthy seemed, for in their looks divine, 



The image of their glorious Maker shone. Book iv. 



And afterwards, in making ADAM describe his first sensations when he awoke to 

 life, he introduces him as saying thus 



To speak I tried and forthwith spake ; 



My tongue obeyed, and readily could name 

 Whate'er I saw. Book viii. 



And again, in introducing him as naming the inferior creatures, these verses 

 occur : 



As thus HE spoke, each bird and beast behold 

 Approaching, two and two ; these cowering low, 

 With blandishment each bird stooped on his wing. 

 I named them as they passed, and understood 

 Their nature. With such knowledge GOD endued 

 My sudden apprehension. Book viii. 



If anything required to be added to this, the fact of the Great Creator hold- 

 ing converse with the first of his creatures, and placing him in a station of mo- 

 ral responsibility, leaves no room to doubt of either ADAM'S moral or intellectual 

 endowments. Through him was to descend to his progeny the knowledge which 

 was to guide their future progress. 



In accordance with the same views, Bishop STILLINGFLEET observes, that " if 

 man were not fully convinced, in the first moment of his creation, of the being of 



