9 



diate requirements in the matter of food, and in the more 

 rigorous climates, clothing and shelter, he would naturally be 

 eminently materialistic and probably altogether devoid alike of 

 most of that ajsthetic sense exhibited in the perception and enjoy- 

 ment of beauty, and of all that sympathy for the lower creation, 

 which we now term distinctively humanity, which make up between 

 them so much of our own feeling in the matter. As to the 

 former of these, however, — the sense of beauty, — we have, 

 seemingly, direct evidence, amplified by the analogies of modern 

 savagery, that a love of personal adornment is — in both sexes 

 indiscriminately — so primitive that we are tempted to believe 

 that, though not so highly developed an instinct, perhaps, as 

 that which has led to the sexual selection of the wondrous 

 colour-schemes of insects and birds, there was an innate love of 

 the beautiful in man, more comparable, perhaps, as that which 

 has produced the colours of the mandrill. Perhaps, even here, 

 however, we can trace a utilitarian origin. The necklace of 

 shells or claws, or at a later period of beads, metal, or other 

 objects, obtained perhaps by barter from some higher race, is so 

 general among savages, and even in early entombments, that we 

 think it must have had an innately aesthetic origin. Though 

 the fossil echinoid, evidently carefully chosen as the handle of a 

 flint implement, would be a means of proving ownership, or 

 might become the primeval insignia of rank, its first choice, and 

 the rows of ' shepherds' crowns ' and ' snakes' hearts ' round the 

 skeleton in a barrow, seem alike to have arisen from that mere 

 sense of the bizarre which is to-day an important element in our 

 conventional notions of beauty. Is it not, however, possible that, 

 as a white under-surface to the tail proves useful to the rabbit as 

 a recognition mark, some feathers stuck in the hair of a chief as 

 his oriflamme, or those painful slashings of the cheeks, or 

 smearing or tattooing the body with pigments, may have been 

 the strictly utilitarian origin of much personal adornment, which 

 in later stages has become an object in itself ? 



As far as the Lecturer could tell, there was no evidence of 

 domesticated animals during the Palfeolithic age, but in later 

 hunting periods arose a practice of keeping of pets, to which we 

 might attribute the first softening of attitude towards Nature 

 and the beginning of humane feelings. This led Professor 

 Boulger to touch upon some difficult problems, whether any 

 particular progress of the human race had originated in the 

 mind of one great genius, a Cadmus, Triptolemus, Tubal Cain, 

 or Sequoia, and had then been transmitted from tribe to tribe, 

 whether by international trade or by conquest, or whether it had 

 been reached independently in many times and places. These 

 questions concerned alike the utilisation of fire, the art of 

 polishing flint, the potter's wheel, the lathe, the smelting of 



