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small group of mankind gone on teaching their children the same 

 set of ideas, carrying them on from generation to generation, from 

 age to age, so that when they are found in distant regions, among 

 tribes which have become different even in bodily formation, they 

 represent the long-inherited traditions of a common ancestry ? Or 

 is it that all over the world, man, being substantially similar in mind, 

 has again and again, under similar circumstances of life, developed 

 similar groups of ideas and customs? I cannot, I think, use the 

 opportunity of standing at this table more profitably then by in- 

 sisting, in the strongest manner whicn I can find words to express, 

 on the fundamental importance of directing attention to this great 

 problem, the solution of which will alone bring the study of civili- 

 zation into its full development as a science. 



Let me put before you two or three cases, from examples which 

 have been brought under my notice within the last few days, as 

 illustrating the ways in which this problem comes before us in all 

 its difficulty. 



This morning, being in the museum with Major Powell, Professor 

 Mosely, and Mr. Holmes, looking at the products of Indian life in 

 the far west, my attention was called to certain curious instruments 

 hanging together in a case in which musical instruments are con- 

 tained. These consisted simply of flat, oblong, or oval pieces of 

 wood, fastened at the end to a thong, so as to be whirled round and 

 round, causing a whirring or roaring noise. The instruments in 

 question came, one from the Ute Indians, and one from the Zuhis. 

 Now, if an Australian, finding himself inspecting the National muse- 

 um, happened to stand in front of the case in question, he would 

 stop with feelings not only of surprise, but probably of horror; for 

 this is an instrument which to him represents, more intensely than 

 anything else, a sense of mystery attached to his own most important 

 religious ceremonies, especially those of the initiation of youths to 

 the privileges of manhood, where an instrument quite similar in 

 nature is used for the purpose of warning off women and children. 

 If this Australian was from the south, near Bass Strait, his native law 

 is, that, if any woman sees these instruments, she ought immediately 

 to be put to death ; and the illustration which he would give is, 

 that, in old times, Tasmania and Australia formed one continent, 

 but that one unlucky day it so happened that certain boys found one 

 of these instruments hidden in the bush, and showed it to their 

 mothers, whereupon the sea burst up through the land in a deluge. 



