CHAP. VI.] MAN. 151 



ornamental stone, in which their bowls are hollowed and their tubes 

 drilled with perfect skill, and the bowls themselves are sculptured into 

 the forms of birds, animals, and human heads, in a manner quite 

 unapproachable by any but civilised races. It is necessary to see these 

 pipes to appreciate the force of their silent testimony, and in the 

 Salisbury Museum, where they are seen in contrast with the works of 

 the present Indians and other savage tribes, the evidence is at once 

 conclusive. They are works of art of a high order ; true to nature and 

 exquisite in finish. They are the products of taste, leisure, and refine 

 ment in a cultivated and prosperous nation.&quot; 



And yet, as he justly remarks : 



&quot;The North American Indians, when the continent first became 

 known to us, were typical savages in every way. They were neither 

 the lowest nor the highest, nor were they all alike ; but if the modern 

 theory is true, they were in one of those stages of development through 

 which all civilised nations must have passed on their way to something 

 higher. Yet these Indians, instead of springing from some lower state 

 like that of the Australians, are proved to be the successors of a people 

 in every respect mucli higher than themselves. They are proved also to 

 be their descendants as well as their successors, because one at least of 

 the most striking customs of the ancient race has been inherited, and 

 because it is impossible to suppose that so numerous and cultivated a 

 people could themselves become extinct, or that they could be extermi 

 nated by any immigrant tribes in the condition of the Indians. These 

 savages, therefore, have reached their present state by degradation, 

 and not by progress. Their rude arts are not their own invention, but 

 are derived from higher art, become barbarous in their hands. No 

 single custom found amongst them can be identified as of savage origin, 

 for their former customs were of course those of their more civilised 

 ancestors, and it is these as altered by barbarism that we find among 

 them now. 



&quot; But if this is the case over an entire continent, what becomes of the 

 idea that savage life in general is an example of arrested progress, and 

 not an example of retrogression ? &quot; 



In deprecation of hasty conclusions to the effect that the 

 use of hieroglyphic signs is an indication of relative barbarism, 

 he observes : 



&quot; But if the letters MAN stand thus for the word expressing the 

 idea of man, independently of their separate phonetic force, they have 

 no advantage over any other symbol conveying the same meaning. 

 Nay, they are at a certain disadvantage, because the idea of man is the 

 same thing to every one, while the uttered sound expressing the idea is 



