150 GENERAL EVOLUTION. 



The first men, therefore, are looked upon by the develop- 

 mentalists as extremely embryonic in all that characterizes hu- 

 manity, and they appeal to the facts of history in support of this 

 yiew. If they do not derive much assistance from written his- 

 tory, evidence is found in the more enduring relics of human 

 handiwork. 



The opposing view is, that the races which present or have 

 presented this condition of inferiority or savagery have reached it 

 by a process of degradation from a higher state — as some believe, 

 through moral delinquency. This position may be true in certain 

 cases, which represent perhaps a condition of senility, but in gen- 

 eral we believe that savagery was the condition of the first man, 

 which has in some races continued to the present day. 



^. Evidence from ArchcBology. 



As the object of the present essay is not to examine fully into 

 the evidences for the theories of evolution here stated, but rather 

 to give a sketch of such theories and their connection, a few facts 

 only will be noticed. 



Improvement in the Use of Materials. — As is well known, the 

 remains of human handiwork of the earliest periods consist of 

 nothmg but rude implements of stone and bone, useful only in 

 procuring food and preparing it for use. Even when enterprise 

 extended beyond the ordinary routine, it was restrained by the 

 want of proper instruments. Knives and other cutting imple- 

 ments of flint still attest the skill of the early races of men from 

 Java to the Cape of Good Hope, from Egypt to Ireland, and 

 through North and South America. Hatchets, spear-heads and 

 ornaments of serpentine, granite, silex, clay slates, and all other 

 suitable rock materials, are found to have been used by the first 

 men, to the exclusion of metals, in most of the regions of the 

 earth. 



Later, the probably accidental discovery of the superiority of 

 some of the metals resulted in the substitution of them for stone 

 as a material for cutting implements. Copper — the only metal 

 which, while malleable, is hard enough to bear an imperfect edge 

 — was used by succeeding races in the Old World and the New. 

 Implements of this material are found scattered over extensive 

 regions. So desirable, however, did the hardening of the material 

 appear for the improvement of the cutting edge, that combinations 

 with other metals were sought for and discovered. The alloy with 



