EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 233 



itself, lost in the mists of historic antiquity, is now supposed 

 to have obtained the light of knowledge from some still earlier 

 scene of intellectual culture. This has caused to many a 

 great difficulty in supposing a natural or spontaneous origin 

 for civilization and the attendant arts. But, in the first place, 

 several stages of derivation are no conclusive argument against 

 there having been an originality at some earlier stage. In 

 the second, such observers have not looked far enough, for, if 

 they had, they might have seen various instances of civiliza- 

 tions which it is impossible, with any plausibility, to trace 

 back to a common origin with others ; such are those of China 

 and America. They would also have seen civilization spring- 

 ing up, as it were, like oases amongst the arid plains of 

 barbarism, as in the case of the Mandans. A still more 

 attentive study of the subject would have shown, amongst 

 living men, the very psychological procedure on which the 

 origination of civilization and the arts and sciences depended. 

 These things, like language, are simply the effects of the 

 spontaneous working of certain mental faculties, each in rela- 

 tion to the things of the external world on which it was 

 intended by creative Providence to be exercised. The 

 monkeys themselves, without instruction from any quarter, 

 learn to use sticks in fighting, and some build houses an 

 act which cannot in their case be considered as one of instinct, 

 but of intelligence. Such being the case, there is no neces- 

 sary difficulty in supposing how man, with his superior 

 mental organization, (a brain five times heavier), was able, 

 in his primitive state, without instruction, to turn many 

 things in nature to his use, and commence, in short, the 

 circle of the domestic arts. He appears, in the most un- 

 favourable circumstances, to be able to provide himself with 

 some sort of dwelling, to make weapons, and to practise some 

 simple kind of cookery. But, granting, it will be said, that 

 he can go thus far, how does he ever proceed further un- 

 prompted, seeing that many nations remain fixed for ever at 

 this point, and seem unable to take one step in advance ? It 

 is perfectly true that there is such a fixation in many nations ; 

 but, on the other hand, all nations are not alike in mental 



