CIVILIZED NATIONS. 163 



Bon with those advanced on the other side. Many nations, 

 no douht, have fallen away in civilization, and some may 

 have lapsed into utter barbarism, though on this latter head 

 I have met with no evidence. The Fuegianswere probably 

 compelled by other conquering hordes to settle in their 

 inhospitable country, and they may have become in conse- 

 quence somewhat more degraded; but it would be difficult 

 to prove that they have fallen much below the Botocudos, 

 who inhabit the finest parts of Brazil. 



The evidence that all ci\ilized nations are the descend- 

 ants of barbarians, consists, on the one side, of clear traces 

 of their former low condition in still-existing customs, 

 beliefs, language, etc.; and on the other side, of proofs 

 that savages are independently able to raise themselves a 

 few steps in the scale of civilization, and have actually thus 

 risen. The evidence on the first head is extremely curious, 

 but cannot be here given; I refer to such cases as that of 

 the art of enumeration, which, as Mr. Tylor clearly shows 

 by reference to the words still used in some places, origi- 

 nated in counting the fingers, first of one hand and then of 

 the other, and lastly of the toes. We have traces of this 

 in our own decimal system, and in the Eoman numerals, 

 where, after the V, which is supposed to be an abbreviated 

 picture of a human hand, we pass on to YI, etc., when 

 the other hand no doubt was used. So again, *^ when we 

 speak of three-score and ten, we are counting by the vigesi- 

 mal system, each score thus ideally made, standing for 20 

 for *one manias a Mexican or Carib would put it."* 

 According to a large and increasing school of philologists, 

 every language bears the marks of its slow and gradual evo- 

 lution. So it is with the art of writing, for letters are 

 rudiments of pictorial representations. It is hardly possi- 

 ble to read Mr. M'Lennan's work f and not admit that 

 almost all civilized nations still retain traces of such rude 

 habits as the forcible capture of wives. What ancient 



*" Royal Institution of Great Britain," March 15, 1867. Also 

 " Researches Into the Early History of Mankind," 1865. 



f " Primitive Marriage," 1865. See, likewise, an excellent article, 

 evidently by the same author, in the " North British Review," July, 

 1869. Also, Mr. L. H. Morgan, "A Conjectural Solution of the 

 Origin of the Class System of Relationship," in " Proc. American 

 Acad, of Sciences," vol. vii. Feb., 1868. Prof. Schaaffhausen 

 (" Anthropolog. Review," Oct., 1869, p. 373) remarks on " the vestiges 

 of human sacrifices found both in Homer and the Old Testament." 



