Prehistoric and Savage Man i 79 



since it has led, to what I am persuaded are very mistaken 

 results. I should ill perform the honourable duty with 

 which you have intrusted me, if I did not point out to the 

 best of my power what I believe to be the true lessons which 

 scientific facts, considered without prejudice, teach us as to 

 this important question. In this inquiry it is especially 

 necessary to try and guard against the unconscious action 

 of our desires or sentiments upon our reason. There is no 

 appeal from the facts of science and from inferences thence 

 logically drawn, and every attempt to ignore the former or 

 elude the latter in deference to any traditional behef which 

 may be threatened, or to support any theory which may have 

 captivated our fancy, must be carefully and scrupulously 

 avoided. 



But we must also be very careful that what we take to be 

 facts are indeed such. We must be careful not to attach 

 imdue importance to differences which strike the eye, 

 neglecting essential resemblances which are more recondite. 



Even in our intercourse with our fellow-countrymen, we 

 are sometimes tempted to despise an intellect which mani- 

 fests itself by uncouth gestures and coarse speech wherein 

 the rules of grammar and correct pronunciation are violated, 

 and yet that intellect may be quite as good as ours. I have 

 been myself more than once surprised in intercourse with 

 peasants, to find how correct was their appreciation even of 

 questions of philosophy when once I had got over the 

 difficulties arising simply from our different modes of express- 

 ing similar ideas. 



If such misapprehensions may arise even in a country 

 Uke this, how much more must we be hable to error in esti- 

 mating the true nature of men so very widely different from 

 ourselves in all that strikes the senses and is calculated to 

 cause astonishment, as are the wild tribes which inhabit the 

 remoter regions of the earth ! Here surely extreme caution 



