134 LESSONS FKOM NATURE. [CHAP. VI. 



Again : 



&quot; The American aborigines, negroes, and Europeans, differ as much 

 from each other in mind as any three races that can be named ; yet I 

 was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the 

 Beagle, with the many little traits of character, showing how similar 

 their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with 

 whom I happened once to be intimate.&quot; 



Again :| &quot; Differences of this kind (mental) between 

 the highest men of the highest races and the lowest savages, 

 are connected by the finest gradations.&quot; He also bears 

 testimony to the substantial unity (he says, &quot; close simi 

 larity &quot;) between men of all races in the following passage :t 

 &quot;This is shown by the pleasure which they all take in 

 dancing, rude music, acting, painting, tattooing, and other 

 wise decorating themselves in their mutual comprehension 

 of gesture-language and, as I shall be able to show in 

 a future essay, by the same expression in their features, 

 and by the same inarticulate cries, when they are excited 

 by various emotions. This similarity, or rather identity, 

 is striking, when contrasted with the different expressions 

 which may be observed in distinct species of monkeys. 

 There is good evidence that the art of shooting with bows 

 and arrows has not been handed down from any common 

 progenitor of mankind, yet the stone arrow-heads, brought 

 from the most distant parts of the world and manu 

 factured at the most remote periods, are, as Nilsson has 

 shown, almost identical ; and this fact can only be accounted 

 for by the various races having similar inventive or mental 

 powers. The same observation has been made by archae 

 ologists with respect to certain widely -prevalent ornaments, 

 such as zigzags, &c. ; and with respect to various simple 

 beliefs and customs, such as the burying of the dead under 

 megalithic structures. I remember observing in South 

 America, that there, as in so many other parts of the world, 



* Voyage of the &quot;Beagle,&quot; vol. i. p. 232. 

 f Op. cit. p. 35. t Op. cit. p. 232. 



