CHAP. VI.] MAN. 135 



man has generally chosen the summits of lofty hills, on 

 which to throw up piles of stones, either for the sake of 

 recording some remarkable event, or for burying his dead.&quot; 



Mr. Darwin then plainly tells us that all the essential 

 mental characters of civilised man are found, in however 

 less completely developed a state, in the very lowest races of 

 men. 



These testimonies by themselves are sufficient to show 

 that, in the opinion of those most capable of acquiring and 

 most certain to acquire information tending to confirm the 

 monistic hypothesis, not only are there no evidences of 

 men in a nascent state as to the power of speech, but all 

 available evidence shows that in the essential of language 

 the various existing races of men are mentally one. This, 

 indeed, is manifest and undeniable. No tribe exists which 

 cannot count two, cannot say &quot; I,&quot; &quot; woman,&quot; &quot; death,&quot; 

 &quot; food,&quot; &c. In other words, there is no tribe which does 

 not express general conceptions and abstract ideas by ar 

 ticulate sounds. But, as we have seen, the differences be 

 tween vocal sounds capable of such expression are but 

 differences of degree, while the differences between all such 

 utterances and vocal utterances which but express sen 

 sations and emotions is a difference of kind. Therefore, we 

 were compelled to conclude, in our last chapter but one, 

 that the most imperfect languages offer us no indication of a 

 transition from irrational cries, being separated from the 

 latter by an indefinitely wide barrier, while they differ from 

 the highest speech, but by a greater simplicity, which 

 indeed is sometimes far more apparent than real. We 

 have also seen reason to conclude, in our last chapter, that 

 there is no evidence whatever for the existence of man in a 

 non-moral condition, or with fundamental moral principles 

 which directly contradict our own. 



Turning now to the first subject-matter of our present 

 inquiry, that concerning religion concerning the ^st^ew 

 universality, or non-universality, of religious con- religion. 

 ceptions it is once more necessary here, as in the subjects 



