212 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
life, with reward for good and evil; and upon this basis we 
find polytheism, and, of course, monotheism, the highest 
development of all. This, however, except in very rare 
instances, is not to be met with in the country with which 
we are dealing. | 
I referred before to the réle which agriculture plays in 
the development of races. Now in Ceniral Africa, all 
things being equal, the higher the agriculture the higher the 
development of the people; and so too is it with wood- 
carving, pottery, the manufacture of weapons of war and for 
the chase, and the construction of traps for snaring birds or 
animals. I do not think that, in general, sufficient credit is 
given to Central Africans for the ingenuity which is expended 
upon all these arts. The pottery compares favourably with 
that of home manufacture in any part of the world. The 
wood-carving certainly falls behind, but the wicker-work 
and the various weapons are constructed tastefully, neatly, 
and with surprising skill. Indeed, when we compare articles 
of African manufacture with the products of the highest 
civilisation, we find that whereas in the latter the articles 
are brought to great perfection, yet in the former is to be 
found the fundamental idea which les at the basis of all 
the various developments of which the industry is capable. 
I must now devote a few words to the subject of clothing. 
I would first remark that clothing has nothing whatever to 
do with a standard of civilisation, and, as far as morals go, 
the absence of all clothing is a distinct advantage. I noticed 
over and over again in Africa the more clothed the person 
the more immoral and indecent the tribe. Those tribes 
possessing little or no clothing were far superior in these 
respects; for instance, in Uganda, although it is death for 
persons to be unclothed in the streets, as regards morality 
a more filthy people would be difficult to imagine. In a 
state of nature want of clothing has no drawbacks, and it is 
only when we come to the civilised races that we find 
clothes pandering to indecency of all descriptions. Clothing, 
both in its character, its extent, and method of fabrication, 
depends again upon climatological factors, and we see that 
according to the amount of rain-fall, of sunlight, of vegetation, 
