154 LESSONS FROM NATUEE. [CHAP. VI. 



It may well be asked, why then does Mr. Spencer, in the 

 teeth of evidence, believe in the primitive and original 

 bestiality of man? He does so simply in consequence of 

 the exigences of the theory he adopt?, but we, who are bound 

 in the fetters of no such theory, are at liberty to appreciate 

 facts at whatever may be their just value. Mr. Spencer s 

 admissions are, however, extremely important. 



Mr. Darwin also admits :* &quot; The problem of the first 

 Mr Dar . advance of savages towards civilisation is at pre- 

 win s - sent much too difficult to be solved.&quot; He also 



adds :t &quot; Many nations, no doubt, have fallen away in civili 

 sation,&quot; though he doubts their falling into utter bar 

 barism. Finally he says 4 &quot;The inhabitants of Tierra del 

 Fue-o, the Cape of Good Hope, and Tasmania, in the one 

 hemisphere, and of the Arctic regions in the other, must 

 have passed through many climates and changed their habits 

 many times.&quot; One may well ask, why then may they not 

 have degenerated? 



Thus we may be certain that some savages have been 

 Degradation degraded from a higher level, and this certainty 

 certain. establishes an a priori probability that all have 

 been so. Such degradation would not, however, be incon 

 sistent with the existence of a considerable amount of pro 

 gress in some places side by side with a wider degradation. 

 The New Zealanders show evidence of a possible degrada 

 tion through changed conditions, as they doubtless at one 

 time inhabited a warmer clime. They show this by their 

 use of the well-known Polynesian word &quot;niu&quot; (cocoa-nut) for 

 different kinds of divination, thus keeping &quot; up a trace of 

 the time when their ancestors in the tropical islands had 

 them, and divined by them.&quot; 



How soon the use even of stone implements may be for- 

 aotten is proved by Erman in KamskatkaJ who got there 

 a fluted prism of obsidian; but though one would have 



* Descent of Man. vol. i. p. 167. t Op. cit. p. 181. 



J Op. cit. p. 136. Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 73. 



I! Researches into the Early History of Mankind, p. 207. 



