82 GEOGRAPHICAL AND LOCAL 



memory of certain races ; these furnish no proof 

 whatever of specific distinctions, or that they 

 could not be descended from the common an- 

 cestor of our species. 



Humboldt has an important observation which 

 will explain how this might happen without 

 having recourse to such a supposition. Speak- 

 ing of the barbarism of certain tribes of Ame- 

 ricans and Asiatics, he observes : " The bar- 

 barism that prevails throughout these different 

 regions is, perhaps, less owing to a primitive 

 absence of all kind of civilization, than to the 

 effects of a long degradation. The greater part 

 of the hordes, which we designate under the 

 name of savages, descend, probably, from nations 

 more advanced in cultivation." 1 And in another 

 place : " If it be true that savages are for the 

 most part degraded races, remnants escaped 

 from a common shipwreck, as their languages, 

 their cosmogonic fables, a crowd of other indi- 

 cations seem to prove." 



Now, what is it that degrades man, and causes 

 him to make an approach towards the brute? 

 Setting up sense above reason and intellect; 

 sight above faith; this world above the next. 

 Experience teaches us, that those faculties of 

 our nature that are most cultivated, become most 

 acute : if intellectual pursuits are neglected, the 



1 Personal Travels. E. T. iii. 208. 



