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and in the course of time the result is the highly-civilised 
race of to-day. 
But against this theory we place the fact that everywhere 
we find that before a race is elevated there is a revelation 
made to it by another race superior to itself,—an instructor ; 
and we think we are perfectly logical when we argue from 
the known present inability of a savage race to raise itself to 
the unknown past; the inability of apes to do the same, and 
therefore perfectly logical when we say that at first there must 
have been a Divine Instructor. 
This was the opinion of the great Humboldt,—as good a 
name by the bye as Haeckel, and he says, “ The important 
question has not yet been resolved whether that savage state 
which even in America is found in various gradations is to 
be looked upon as the dawning of a society about to come, or 
whether it is not rather the fading remains of one sinking 
amidst storms, overthrown and shattered by overwhelming 
catastrophes. To me the latter seems to be nearer the truth 
than the former.” 
To the same effect are the words of President Smith of the 
College of New Jersey, N.S.,—as good a name as any of those 
who advocate the apish origin of man,—‘“ Hardly is it possible 
that man, placed on the surface of the world in the midst of 
its forests and marshes, capable of reasoning indeed, but 
without having formed principles to direct its exercise, 
should have been able to preserve his existence unless 
he had received from his Creator along with his being 
some instructions concerning the employment of his faculties 
for procuring his subsistence and inventing the most neces- 
sary arts of life. Nature has furnished the inferior animals 
with many and powerful instincts to direct them in the choice 
of their food. But man must have been the most forlorn of 
all creatures, cast out as an orphan of nature, naked and help- 
less. He must have perished before he could have learned to 
supply his most immediate and urgent wants.” Of course, it 
is conceded that, given the possession of a certain degree of 
mental culture, man is able to improve himself. 
We do not contend for a high state of what is called civili- 
sation for primitive man. We know from the Bible records 
that 1t was otherwise. But what we contend for is this,— 
man started on his career with a certain amount of knowledge, 
that he began his existence as a man endowed with reason 
and conscience, and in conscious communication with his 
Maker, who instructed him in those things which he never 
could have found out for himself. And then, having been so 
endowed and so instructed, he was left to use his faculties 
