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more civilised people, and have inherited customs from their 
forefathers, most of which are now forgotten; the useful 
manufacture of weapons and implements for their own 
employments remaining still known to them. 
“Tt cannot be denied, also, that there are some of their 
practices much in advance of the appearance they present 
as arace;—gleams of sunshine showing through a cloudy 
atmosphere. 
“For instance, their forges and ability to manufacture’ 
weapons for warfare are of a very superior quality ; and some 
tribes in the interior of Rejang are even able to smelt their 
own iron, which is second to no other for making arms. 
“We find the curious, complex manufacture of short swords, 
possessing concave and convex blades, which are capable, by 
this means, of penetrating either wood or flesh to a surprising 
extent; but much practice is required to use them properly, 
as a mistake in the angle of cutting would bring the weapon 
round and often wound the holder.” 
Mr. Pritchard, in his Polynesian Researches (p. 381), speaks 
of the degeneration of the Fijians and other Polynesians thus : 
“The very old men of F1ji—the repositories of their early 
lore—unanimously maintain that there was a time in their 
history when neither cannibalism nor war devastated their 
beautiful islands... . . 
‘“In both Samoa and Tonga there are somewhat similar 
traditions, which state that there was a time when war was 
unknown, and when the people lived happily together, and in 
greater numbers than at the present day.” 
Instances of this character might be indefinitely multiplied; 
and the universality of the traditions of the Creation of Man, 
the Deluge, the Ark, the Tower of Babel, &c., affords a strong 
confirmation of the truth of the Biblical narrative, which 
certainly does not represent primitive man as a savage. 
No doubt the manners and customs of many civilised nations 
do contain, as Sir John Lubbock and others show, relics of 
former barbarism ; but there is no evidence to prove that this 
barbarism was primitive, and that some degree of civilisation 
had not preceded it. 
A calm and dispassionate review, then, of the whole question 
may teach us to distrust the a priori and glib reasonings of 
those who argue for the spontaneous development of civilisation, 
and incline us to believe that, without ‘‘ an original impetus ” 
and “a helping hand” from higher powers, man would never 
have reached his present proud pinnacle of culture and re- 
finement, as well as to authorise us most positively to assert 
that “ savagery ” was vot the primitive condition of man. 
