872 BIOLOaiCAL TRAINING AND STUDIES. 



from him and from Mr. Tylor, the human mind ])lunders and errs and 

 deceives itself in these subjects in just the same way as it does in 

 the kindred, though more immediately arising, pressing, and im- 

 portant matters of social and political life. In these latter spheres 

 of observation we are apt occasionally to mistake one of those 

 intermittent reactions of opinion, produced as eddies are produced 

 in a river by the deposit of sand and mud at angles in its onward 

 course, for a deliberate giving up of the principles upon which all 

 previous progress has been dependent. The straws which float 

 upon the surface of a backwater may be taken as proofs that the 

 river is about to flow upwards, and a feeble oarsman in a light boat 

 may be deceived for some moments by the backward drifting of his 

 small craft. Now an analogous blunder is often made in matters 

 of purely historical interest ; and we may do well to learn from the 

 experience thus cheaply earned. ' The history of the human race 

 has/ says Sir John Lubbock, p. ^12, I.e., 'I feel satisfied, on the 

 whole been one of progress : I do not of course mean to say that 

 every race is necessarily advancing; on the contrary, most of the 

 lower are almost stationary :' but Sir John regards these as ex- 

 ceptional instances, and points out that if the past history of man 

 had been one of deterioration, we have but a groundless expectation 

 of future improvement; whilst on the other, if the past has been 

 one of progress, we may fairly hope that the future will be so 

 also. 



Mr. Tylor's words are equally to the purpose, though, as forming 

 the end of a chapter merely and not the end of a book, they are less 

 enthusiastic in tone (p. 193, Tylor, 'Early History of Mankind'). 

 They run thus : — 



' To judge from experience, it would seem that the world, when 

 it has once got a firmer grasp of new knowledge or a new art, is 

 very loath to lose it altogether, especially when it relates to matters 

 important to man in general, for the conduct of his daily life, and 

 the satisfaction of his daily wants, things that come home to men's 

 " business and bosoms." An inspection of the geographical distri- 

 bution of art and knowledge among mankind seems to give some 

 grounds for the belief that the history of the lower races, as of the 

 higher, is not the history of a course of degeneration or even of 

 equal oscillations to and fro, but of a movement which, in spite of 

 frequent stops and relapses, has on the whole been forward ; that 



