118 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



All these are no doubt important stages in the 

 History of Man ; but when we have reached the 

 remotest, we find that we have not yet attained the 

 Zero of Civilisation. Let us adopt another test, 

 and try to discover that period in which what we at 

 present call the arts of civilised life had their origin, 

 antecedent to which Man was utterly rude and un- 

 cultivated, and from which we have derived nothing, 

 and nothing has descended to us. But such an 

 inquiry will lead us into still darker obscurity. We 

 shall find that not only in Science, but that in all 

 our Arts, in all the contrivances of human ingenuity 

 with which our modern life is surrounded, whether 

 the most familiar or the most elaborate, what is 

 recent is constantly interwoven with the remote and 

 unknown Past. All that we can trace is one con- 

 tinued and connected movement, the beginning of 

 which extends far beyond the limits of History, or 

 of Tradition, or of any known Kecord. We can only 

 arrive at an approximate guess by examining our- 

 selves, and by endeavouring to discover in what 

 faculties of our nature this great distinguishing 

 characteristic of Man is situated. 



In illustration of this view, let us take one of the 

 latest, and one of the noblest creations of an advanced 



