1658 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



various degrees of advance toward the knowledge 

 of those arts which are actually found among semi- 

 barbarous nations may not have been of strictly in- 

 digenous growth. Thus it appears that one tribe of 

 Red Indians, called "Mandans," practiced the art 

 of fortifying their towns. Surrounding tribes, al- 

 though they saw the advantages derived from this art, 

 yet never practiced it, and never learned it. 



I do not agree with the late Archbishop of Dublin 

 that we are entitled to assume it as a fact that, as 

 regards the mechanical arts, no savage race has ever 

 raised itself. Whately says that "the earliest gene- 

 rations of mankind had received only very limited, 

 and what may be called elementary, instruction, 

 enough merely to enable them to make further ad- 

 vances afterward by the exercise of their natural 

 powers." But how much was this "enough"? And 

 what is meant by "instruction," as distinguished from 

 inborn or intuitive powers of observation and of 

 reasoning? May not this have been the form in 

 which the Creator first "instructed" man? For here 

 it is important to observe that in direct proportion 

 as we assume man's primitive condition to have been 

 such as to require elementary teaching, in the same 

 proportion do we suppose that his primitive condi- 

 tion in respect to intellect was low and weak. Ac- 

 cordingly, Whately assumes as an indisputable fact, 

 that man has no instincts such as enable the lower 

 animals to construct nests, cells, and lairs. My own 

 belief is that this is an assumption which is not only 

 unproved, but one which in all probability is false. 

 As Whately himself admits, "man is an animal" as 



