UNITY AND CONTINUITY. 309 



inventions, and beliefs of the race are those which 

 must determine its course in all time. In ever- 

 widening circles they may decay in power, or may be 

 crossed and affected by other ripples on the surface, 

 but they must proceed to its circumference in time 

 and space. With unity of origin and continuity of 

 descent, it is certain that modern men must be the 

 product of the original nature of man, with the effects 

 of all the causes acting on it from the first, and that 

 the earliest of these influences must be the most potent 

 and the most widespread. 



Any true science of man must therefore go back 

 to his origin, and trace out his primitive conditions 

 and their results, and our best means for doing this 

 are the remains of primitive men, and those less 

 modified races which still exist. It may depend on 

 our previous tendencies and the methods we pursue, 

 whether we find ourselves, with many modern inquirers, 

 brought back to the presence of a simian ancestor of 

 our race, destitute of nearly all that now characterizes 

 it, or to a perfect primeval man endowed by his Maker 

 with all those qualities which essentially distinguish 

 humanity. I propose in this concluding chapter to 

 show by American facts that the latter is the true 

 conclusion of archaeology, as it is of sacred history, 

 and in doing this I shall refer to some additional 

 points not previously mentioned, so as to give greater 

 interest to the discussion, and to notice shortly some 

 important facts relating to primitive man, which space 

 has not permitted us to consider in detail. 



