106 CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD, ESQ., M.A., B.M. (OXON.), ETC. 
they could never raise themselves above their savage state, 
they could never rise to a civilised condition, unless they had 
assistance from without, any more than the infant could rise 
above the stage of infantile ignorance unless aided by the 
example, experience, and ineEeieeh of its parent or nurse. 
Such indeed has been the positive condition of those rare 
but interesting cases of human beings who have grown up 
wild in forests until the age of puberty, and who, when dis- 
covered, were in all respects (except in their instincts) like 
animals, and with no more conception of civilisation or cul- 
ture than bears and wolves, They had taught themselves 
nothing, beyond those rudiments which suffice to procure for 
them food and a rude shelter, they had no idea of articulate 
speech ; and indeed, in the case of Peter the wild boy, never 
succeeded in learning it, though (as if to prove that that were 
no adverse argument) in another no less typical and interest- 
ing instance, that of Mlle. Leblanc (supposed ta have been 
a year or two younger than Peter, when she was discovered 
in the forest of Soigny), perseverance in the effort to teach 
her to speak was at last rewarded with success.* 
We will not here diverge to the further consideration of 
the corollary which must necessarily be drawn from these 
facts, viz., that civilisation did not, and never could, begin 
from within, as self-originated by any race whatever. We, 
are well aware of the views most in vogue among the ethno- 
logists of the day. But it should be evident to any -un- 
biassed and thinking mind that no race of men or semi-men 
could eyolve even the merest rudiments of a complex ciyilisa- 
tion from their own unaided potential faculties, since those 
faculties in all cages remain dormant or undeveloped as long 
as they are left to themselves, and only evidence their 
wonderful capabilities when they are drawn out by external 
influences of a superior nature.f 
* We are well aware that these remarkable cases are now classed in 
some quarters under the category of “theroid idiots, which exhibit a 
striking aptitude for a wild animal life.” But it is purely an assumption 
that they were originally idiots ; nor is there any real ground for believ- 
ing that they voluntarily took to their wild life. A patho- psychical niche 
is “simply created for them, since they do not easily fall in with modern 
theories. 
+ No example (says Niebuhr) can be brought forward of an actually 
savage people haying independently become civilised (see Romische 
Geschichte, Pie pp. 88). And Mr. Laing, in his latest work, begins by 
laying down the same axiom, although in several later passages he seems 
to have forgotten that he had done so, and grievously contradicts himself 
by his theory of primitive Man having evolved a civilisation for himself. ' 
