] 98 MR STARK ON THE SUPPOSED PROGRESS OF HUMAN SOCIETY 



unknown, and of tamed animals, on returning to their original wild state, resum- 

 ing the characters of their original condition, this, too, is an assumption without 

 evidence to render it even probable. The existence of embalmed animals in the 

 tombs, and of figures on the monuments, of Egypt, shew, that at least for three 

 thousand years there has been no essential change in form and structure.* The 

 wild horses of the Tartarian plains, the wild horses of South America, have re- 

 turned to no common type materially different from the races from which they 

 are descended ;f and the black cattle of the Llanos are of all the colours of the 

 domestic varieties. Even the dogs introduced by Europeans to various countries, 

 and which have become wild, have not, in the course of years, reverted to their 

 supposed original sources, and become wolves and jackals, but obstinately remain 

 dogs still, in defiance of all theories to the contrary. 



That the domestication of cattle was not the slow result of experiments con- 

 tinued for ages, is farther demonstrable from the rapid increase of population in 

 the early periods of the world. This increase could not have taken place if agri- 

 culture, including the domestication of cattle and the cultivation of the Cerealia, 

 were then unknown, and the first tribes had roamed over the extensive hunting- 

 grounds of a world to be peopled, or gleaned their meagre food from the sponta- 

 neous produce of the woods and fields. The American races did not advance far 

 in agriculture, according to Dr ROBERTSON,! as they had no tame animals, and 

 knew none of the useful metals. 



The writers on population have almost universally agreed as to the principle, 

 that the numbers of mankind could not increase to any marked extent without 

 pasturage and agriculture; and, of course, in compliance with the prevailing 

 theory, all their disquisitions have reference to the hunting, the pastoral, and the 

 agricultural state, as stages naturally produced in savage human nature by the 

 pressure of numbers on the amount of food.$ "The first hordes," says Baron 

 CUVIEB, in compliance with the prevailing theory, "made little progress. Re- 

 duced to live by the chase, by fishing, or by wild fruits ; obliged to give all their 

 time to the search of subsistence, they could not multiply much, because all the 

 game would have been destroyed. Their arts were limited to the construction of 

 huts and canoes, to cover themselves with skins, and fabricate bows and arrows." 

 And again, " When they had tamed the herbivorous animals, they found, in the 

 possession of numerous flocks, a certain subsistence, and some leisure, which they 



* HASSELQUIST'S Travels in the Levant, 90, 91. f HUMBOLDT, Personal Narrative, iv. 340. 



J History of America, ii. 11?. 



Mr MALTHUS, however, is of a different opinion. " If hunger alone could have prompted the sa- 

 vage tribes of America to such a change in their habits, I do not conceive that there would have been a 

 single nation of hunters and fishers remaining ; but it it evident that some fortunate train of circum- 

 stances, in addition to this stimulus, is necessary for this purpose." (An Essay on the Principle of Po- 

 pulation, &c. By T. R. MALTHUS, A.M. 4to, p. 43.) And in another place, he says, " It may be said, 

 however, of the shepherd as of the hunter, that, if want alone could effect a change of habits, there would 

 be few pastoral tribes remaining." ' (P. 92.) 



