CONTINUITY. 225 



striking it against a larger stone or rock ; then, as time sug- 

 gested improvements, it would be more carefully shaped, and 

 another stone used as a tool ; then (at what interval we can 

 hardly guess) it would be ground, then roughly polished, and 

 so on subsequently bronze weapons, and nearly the last 

 before we come to historical periods, iron. Such an appa- 

 rently simple invention as a wheel must, in all probability, 

 have been far subsequent to the rude hunting tools or 

 weapons of war to which I have alluded. 



A little step-by-step reasoning will convince the unpre- 

 judiced that what we call civilisation must have been a 

 gradual process ; can it be supposed that the inhabitants of 

 Central America or of Egypt suddenly and what is called 

 instinctively built their cities, carved and ornamented their 

 monuments ? If not, if they must have learned to construct 

 such erections, did it not take time to acquire such learning, 

 to invent tools as occasion required, contrivances to raise 

 weights, rules or laws by which men acted in concert to effect 

 the design ? Did not all this require time ? and if, as the 

 evidence of historical times shows, invention marches with a 

 geometrical progression, then, viewing its progress inversely, 

 how slow must have been the earlier steps ! If even now 

 habit, and prejudice resulting therefrom, vested interests, &c., 

 retard for some time the general application of a new inven- 

 tion, or the adoption of a new social change, what must have 

 been the degree of retardation among the comparatively un- 

 educated beings which then existed ? 



I have of course been able to indicate only a few of the 

 broad arguments on this most interesting subject ; for de- 

 tailed data on which my reasoning is founded, the works of 

 Lamarck, Darwin, Hooker, Huxley, Carpenter, Lyell, and 

 others must be examined. If I lean to the view that the 

 successive changes in organic beings do not take place by 

 sudden leaps, it is, I believe, from no want of an impartial 

 feeling ; but if the facts are stronger in favour of one theory 

 than another, it would be an affectation of impartiality to 

 make the balance appear equipoised. 



The prejudices of education and associations with the past 

 are against this, as against all new views ; and while on the 



Q 



