LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. VII. 



Are such powers, however, possessed by all mankind ? 

 which are Putting aside idiots as beings whose latent facul- 



common to t 



aii mankind, ties are inaccessible, and who are manifestly in 

 an abnormal pathological condition, we have no hesitation, 

 alter considering what has been brought forward in preceding 

 chapters, in affirming that they have. The mental nature of 

 all men is essentially one ; and if there are those who do not 

 understand all that is above implied, they can at least be 

 made to understand it. The essential oneness of human nature 

 is, as we have seen in the last chapter, sufficiently attested 

 by witnesses the least likely to be biassed in favour of such 

 unity, and the most fitted by their abilities, and the patient 

 labour they have bestowed upon the subject, to express an 

 authoritative judgment. &quot;Keason&quot; I take to be a reflective 

 power which asks the questions &quot; What ? &quot; and &quot; Why ? &quot; 

 But Mr. Tylor tells us, in a passage before cited : 



&quot; Man s craving to know the causes at work in each event he wit 

 nesses, the reasons why each state of things he surveys is such as it is 

 and no other, is no product of high civilisation, but a characteristic of 

 his race down to its lowest stage. Among rude savages it is already an 

 intellectual appetite, whose satisfaction claims many of the moments 

 not engrossed by war, or sport, or sleep.&quot; Primitive Culture, vol. i. 

 p. 332. 



He also remarks : 



&quot; The state of things amongst the lower tribes which presents itself 

 to the student, is a substantial similarity in knowledge, arts, and 

 customs, running through the whole world.&quot; Researches into the Early 

 History of Mankind, p. 231. 



Indeed, this author not only witnesses to the essential unity 

 of man in all places but also in all time?. He says : 



&quot; The historian and the ethnographer must be called upon to show 

 the hereditary standing of each opinion and practice, and their inquiry 

 must go back as far as antiquity or savagery can show a vestige, for 

 there seems no human thought so primitive as to have lost its bea ring 

 on our own thought, nor so ancient as to have broken its connection 

 with our life. Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 409. 



All men, then, agree in possessing the faculties above enu 

 meratednamely, sell-consciousness, reason, and will, with 



