224 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



On this subject the Duke of Argyll wrote long 

 ago: 



Implicity, if not explicitly, the savage theory, and the rea 

 soning in support of it, assume that civilization consists mainly, 

 if not exclusively, in a knowledge of the arts. Knowledge, 

 for example, or ignorance of the use of metals, are character 

 istics on which great stress is laid. Now as regards this 

 point, as Whately truly says, the narrative of Genesis dis 

 tinctly states that this kind of knowledge did not belong to 

 mankind from the first, but was the fruit of consequent dis 

 covery, through the ordinary agency of these mental gifts 

 with which man at his creation was endowed. It is assumed 

 in the savage-theory that the presence or absence of this 

 knowledge stands in close and natural connection with the 

 presence or absence of other and higher kinds of knowledge, 

 of which an acquaintance with the metals is but a symbol and 

 a type. Within certain limits this is true, and we may assume, 

 therefore, that in Genesis also, the intimation given on this 

 subject implies that so far as civilization means a command 

 over the powers of nature, man was left to make his own way, 

 through his powers of reason and through his instincts of 

 research.* 



Yet even in this earliest civilized society, of 

 which the Scripture writes, we have already the 

 signs of decline, which throughout the whole of 

 history were to alternate with those of true pro 

 gression, and thus account for every subsequent 

 form of barbarism and savagery. There is evo 

 lution and devolution, at every stage. Here 

 again the Scripture narrative wonderfully bears 

 out the facts of history. The existence of 

 savagery in every period, shortly after the Crea- 



* &quot;Primeval Man.&quot; pp. 30, 31. 



