FROM SAVAGE TO CIVILIZED LIFE. 



ing, that they had none of the animals which furnish milk in abundance ; that 

 their immense plains, more fertile than the Steppes of Asia, remained without 

 herds ; and that, in consequence, in America " the intermediate link is wanting 

 that connects the hunting with the agricultural nations."* In Asia and Africa, 

 the same practice prevails among all the ruder tribes. There are few or none, 

 whatever be their more general mode of procuring food, whether it be hunting 

 or fishing, that do not raise some species of root or fruit, in addition to what they 

 otherwise procure. The really pastoral tribes of mankind, on the other hand, 

 confined to immense plains where agriculture is impracticable, were pastoral from 

 the beginning, and promise to be so in all time coming, f 



The use of fire, and the preparation of food in some way or other, are uni- 

 versal among the human race ; and in the rudest state in which man is now found, 

 there are arts exercised in the procuring and dressing of his food, in the prepara- 

 tion of his clothing, or the erection of his habitation, which he never could have 

 acquired but from progenitors more advanced in civilization than himself. The 

 universality of these arts, when added to the traditions of the most barbarous 

 tribes and the general and acknowledged filiation of their languages, point out 

 a less base original of the race than the degrading theories of the classical writers 

 have supposed. 



If civilization were, indeed, the slow result of experience, the earliest savages 

 must have been ages in acquiring even the necessaries of the most humble form 

 of human society. Instinctive feelings, common to all animals, might have led 

 them to satisfy their hunger from the acorns of the forest, and assuage their 

 thirst at the running stream. But it does not appear how their knowledge of 

 digging the soil for edible roots, or cultivating the most simple herbs, could ori- 

 ginate without supernatural aid ; and if man had been created a savage, without 

 the knowledge of speech, a savage he might have for ever remained among the 

 beasts of Eden, distinguished only by his form from the creatures around him. 

 The theories of philosophers as to acquired information, however just when ap- 

 plied to man in his ordinary descent, have no analogy when considered in refe- 

 rence to the first man. He must, in the nature of things, have been endowed with 

 speech, intuitive perceptions of external nature and its relations, the knowledge 



* Personal Narrative, iv. 319. 



t " The circumstances of the soil and the climate determine whether the inhabitant shall apply him- 

 self chiefly to agriculture or pasture ; whether he shall fix his residence, or bo moving continually about 

 with all his possessions." (An Essay on the History of Civil Society. By ADAM FERGUSON, LLD. 

 p. 162.) 



" The wide extended plains inhabited by the Tartar tribes, without a shrub, which the Russians call 

 Steppes, are covered with a luxuriant grass, admirably fitted for the pasture of numerous herds and 

 flocks." The inhabitants are " necessarily condemned to a pastoral life." (An Essay on the Principle 

 of Population, &c. 4to. p. 92. By T. R. MALTHTJS.) 



See also ALISON on Population, vol. i. p. 21, 22 ; and HEERBN'S Manual of Ancient History, p. 16. 



