158 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. VI. 



by the hypothesis, in a position which deprived them of the 

 first of these influences, and circumstances might well have 

 rendered their power of inventio inoperative and practically 

 futile. Thus some might have remained stationary, or have 

 continued to retrograde till discovered by civilised man, while 

 others more favourably circumstanced might have again spon 

 taneously advanced by their own inventio and been found by 

 discoverers in a positively ascending and improving condition. 

 Nothing, therefore, which ethnology or archa3ology can de 

 monstrate can conflict with Christian doctrine, since the ques 

 tion concerning the mental condition of Adam is one utterly 

 beyond the reach of any physical science, while any facts 

 which science can prove concerning Homo sylvaticus will be 

 welcomed by theologians as tending to throw light upon 

 the condition of his descendants, respecting which question 

 there is complete freedom of opinion. 



It is physical science, not theology, which inclines me to 

 assign a greater scope to degeneration than that assigned to 

 it by the authors herein referred to. As has been said, in 

 stances of degeneration are before our eyes to-day in Europe, 

 and even the periodical literature of our own country is con 

 tinually giving vent to opinions (such, above all, as those of 

 the Agnostics), which have but to spread predominantly to 

 render our degradation certain. 



France of the Regency and Pagan Rome long ago demon 

 strated how easily the most profound moral corruption can 

 co-exist with the most varied appliances of a complex civili 

 sation. The peasants of the Tyrol, on the other hand, serve 

 equally well to demonstrate how pure and lofty a morality, 

 and how really refined a mental civilisation may co-exist 

 with very great simplicity in the adjuncts and instruments of 

 social life. We have but to develop this idea somewhat 

 further to see a family of the stone age, clothed in a few 

 skins, ignorant of the sciences, and innocent of all but the 

 rudest art, yet possessed of a moral integrity but very ex 

 ceptionally present amidst the population of the greatest 

 cities of modern days. 



