30 The Seventeenth General Meeting. 
civilisation is to be obtained by direct observation ; that is, by con- 
trasting the condition of a low race at different times, so as to see 
whetherits culture has altered in the meanwhile. The contactrequisite 
for such an inspection of a savage tribe by civilized men, has much the 
same effect as the experiment which an inquisitive child tries upon 
the root it put in the ground the day before, by digging it up to see 
whether it has grown. At all events, it is a general rule, that 
original and independent progress is not found among a people of 
low civilisation im presence of a race in a higher state of culture. 
It is natural enough that this should be the case, and it does not in 
the least affect the question, whether the lower race was stationary 
or progressing before the arrival of the more cultivated foreigners. 
There is less difficulty in disposing of the other assertion, that 
savages seem never to invent or discover anything for themselves. 
If collections, such as that in the Blackmore Museum, teach any- 
thing at all, it is, that savages in every stage of culture do invent, 
and do discover things for themselves. The isolation of particular 
forms of weapons or tools in particular islands or regions, naturally 
leads to the supposition that they were independently invented by 
the people who alone use them. For instance, I have said that the 
Fijians were excellent potters, this excellence in the manufacture of 
pottery led to an extraordinary development of the art of cookery, 
for they were able to expose their ware to the direct heat of the 
fire, and to boil their food in this manner. This development 
of the art of cookery among the Fijians led to the, apparently, 
independent invention of that very civilised instrument, the fork, 
which they used for fishing the hot morsels out of their various 
soups and stews, and the use of which appears to be unknown, 
(except as introduced by Europeans) to the other islanders of the 
Pacific. Indeed, the use of forks in eating was unknown to people 
so advanced as the Greeks and Romans, and in England forks only 
came into general use at the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
But, if we admit that savages can invent and consequently 
progress in the industrial arts and in knowledge, we must also allow, I 
think, that decline is possible. Indeed few persons will deny that both 
decline and progress in art and knowledge are now actually going 
—— VS Se -_ 
