CHAP. VI.] MAN. 147 



opinions expressed, seem to indicate at least the possibility 

 of a more extensive process of degeneration than they are 

 inclined to allow. Social progress is an exceedingly complex 

 phenomenon, the result of many factors ; and even existing 

 instances of retrogression, as in Spain, are palpable enough, 

 while no one probably will contest the inferiority, in many 

 respects, of the Greece of our day to that which listened 

 to the voice of Aristotle or Plato. 



Mr. Tylor contrasts very favourably with the late Mr. 

 Buckle in his appreciation of this complexity, and in his 

 perception of the importance of moral as well as of intel 

 lectual advance, and of the absurdity of those who make 

 sure that every revolutionary change must be an improve 

 ment. He says: 



&quot; Even granting that intellectual, moral, and political life may, on 

 a broad view, be seen to progress together, it is obvious that they are 

 far from advancing with equal steps. It may be taken as a man s rule 

 of duty in the world, that he shall strive to know as well as he can find 

 out, and do as well as he knows how. But the parting asunder of 

 these two great principles, that separation of intelligence from virtue 

 which accounts for so much of the wrongdoing of mankind, is continu 

 ally seen to happen in the great movements of civilisation. As one 

 conspicuous instance of what all history stands to prove, if we study 

 the early ages of Christianity, we may see men with minds pervaded 

 by the new religion of duty, holiness, and love, yet at the same time 

 actually falling away in intellectual life, thus at once vigorously grasp 

 ing one-half of civilisation, and contemptuously casting off the other.&quot; 

 Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 25. 



This aspect of the question has an important bearing upon 

 the view we should take respecting the earliest families of man. 

 It is plain that a high moral standard might have existed 

 with a most rudimentary state of art and the scantiest appli 

 ances of material civilisation. After speaking of Mr. Alfred 

 Wallace and of Lieut. Bruijn Kops, Mr. Tylor says : &quot; Ethno 

 graphers who seek in modern savages types of the remotely 

 ancient human race at large, are bound by such examples to 

 consider the rude life of primaeval man under favourable con 

 ditions to have been, in its measure, a good and happy life.&quot; 



It is difficult for us, surrounded by the abundant aids 



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