124 . Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



period ; but Sir Charles Lyell, and other later ones, 

 have thrown great doubt upon their calculations, 

 and assign a much remoter period to his origin. 

 Whatever may be the date of it, we may assume 

 that he was endowed then, as he is now, with the 

 two gifts of Instinct and Eeason; his Instinct 

 appertaining to the merely animal part of his 

 nature, his Reason constantly tending to elevate him 

 above it. His instincts, we may conclude, were 

 inseparably connected with his corporeal frame, or 

 formed a part of him, and were identified with it 

 and him, from his very birth. The higher faculty 

 of Eeason must have been developed far more 

 gradually, and must have been some time in 

 acquiring the government of his actions. The 

 instincts of the lower animals serve for their 

 preservation : were the instincts of Man at the very 

 earliest commencement of his earthly course suf- 

 ficient for his preservation ? Did Reason, even 

 from the beginning, lend its aid ? or did the Power 

 which created him aid the first steps of his infancy ? 

 Whichever may be the case, there must have been a 

 period, and that a very brief period, after his birth, 

 when his higher nature must have asserted itself, 

 when his instincts became subordinate to his reason. 



