322 Preliminary Essay to Reports on 



ments of tuition appear. The birds, for the most part, educate 

 their young ; they lead them by short flights to seek their food, 

 and only abandon them after their powers are fully developed. 

 The same remarks hold of many of the quadrupeds. In all 

 cases, however, the powers arrived at are nearly the same with 

 each individual of a species. But when we reach the top of the 

 scale, how different ! The young of the human species receives 

 not merely that tuition which is common to all the mammalia, 

 but also a distinct kind of education, which conveys the fruits of 

 the experience of all the preceding generations. Man lives to 

 add to that experience, and though his physical powers reach to 

 their full development, the entire man knows nothing of ma- 

 turity. Powers of which our ancestors were ignorant, are now 

 wielded by us, while we, in our turn, may be opening the way 

 for other processes to be employed by our descendants. 



The burrowing bee still uses the same instrument to pierce 

 the downright shaft, and to cluster round it the beautifully 

 smoothed cells. Still she selects the hard beaten soil, whence the 

 wind may sweep the dust that otherwise would betray her 

 labours. The sand-spider still uses the same cement to form 

 the walls of her retreat, and to weave her branchy net. But 

 man is found at one time burying himself in the ground, at 

 another tearing the rocks asunder to rear the magnificent pa- 

 lace. Here he draws his subsistence from the ocean, there he 

 cultivates the ground ; here he clothes himself in the skin of the 

 wild beast, there he weaves the delicate web, and prides himself 

 in the sleekness of his coat. 



With man there is no permanence. Every thing is changing, 

 and each season adds to his powers and comfort. He seems to 

 possess an endless variety of appetites, that are only called into 

 action as opportunity offers for their gratification ; there seems 

 to lurk within him an immense variety of powers, of which 

 only a few are called into active use by any single individual. 

 Among the animals, the history of an individual is almost the 

 history of the tribe ; but the story of the life of man is ever 

 changing ; and the mode of living of one nation appears in- 

 credible to another. 



In the present paper I intend to take a rapid view of the 

 general nature of those proctjsses by which man gradually 



