1666 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



implements found at our very door forms a part of 

 the wider story of the first appearance of man and 

 of his distribution on the earth. 



MAN'S PRIMITIVE CON- 

 DITION. DUKE OF ARGYLL 



AS the question of man's origin is different from 

 the question of his antiquity, and as the an- 

 tiquity of man is a different question from his primi- 

 tive condition, so again the last question includes 

 within itself several different matters of inquiry. 

 There is first the question, What consciousness had 

 primeval man of moral obligation, and what com- 

 munion with his Creator? Next there is the ques- 

 tion, What were his innate intellect or understand- 

 ing? And, thirdly, there is the question, What was 

 his condition in respect to knowledge, whether as the 

 result of intuition or as the result of teaching? Sir 

 J. Lubbock speaks of primeval man as having been 

 in a condition of "utter barbarism." But no one, 

 speaking philosophically, has a right to use such 

 terms as "barbarism" and "civilization" without 

 some definition of their meaning. What were those 

 faculties which made the first creature who pos- 

 sessed them "worthy to be called a man"? A mind 

 capable of reason, disposed to reason, and able to ac- 

 quire, to accumulate, and to transmit knowledge 

 this is the distinctive attribute of man. The first 

 being "worthy to be so called" must have had such a 

 mind. But it could not properly be said of such a 

 being, on the ground merely of his ignorance of me- 



