214 ; . 
necessary part of these laws.” It would be impossible now, and I think 
unnecessary, to pursue the subject farther in detail. But you will see that 
there are many gaps where not only is there room for the action of a Divine 
Being, but where such action is imperatively called for. 
To one point more have I to advert, and that is the origin of civilisation. It 
is an old argument in defence of revealed religion, and one which affords a 
strong presumption that a revelation must have come to man, that no nation 
has ever been known to civilise itself. All that we can learn from the history 
of civilisation is that it has not been self-evolved in any land or race, but 
has been received from some other. Whole systems of civilisation have been 
lost and have perished, and races have relapsed into barbarism. But there 
is no example of any race already barbarous discovering or inventing any 
system of civilisation ; in fact, it would seem that, when man is placed at a 
certain standpoint of progress, he can go on; but, if he has not gained that or 
has sunk below it, he always declines and sinks deeper into savagery. The 
impression will, doubtless, be strong upon the minds of many that develop- 
ment and evolution, which explain the origin and transmutation of species, 
can surely and more easily explain the dawn, the rise, the progress of 
civilisation, whose new developments we are ourselves every day witnessing. 
Now, on this point I will take the utterances, the most recent utterances, 
from an article in the Nineteenth Century of January, 1885, by 
Professor Max Miiller. This testimony is of the ablest, for there is no more 
distinguished philologist in Europe, and the languages, the religions, the 
myths of histories of early races and primitive peoples have been his special 
study. The article to which I refer is entitled “The Savage.” I will 
endeavour briefly to indicate its line of argument. The Professor states it 
thus: “One of these point-blank questions which has been addressed to me 
by several reviewers of my books is this, ‘Tell us, do you hold that man 
began as a savage or not?’ To deny that man began as a savage, and that 
the most savage and degraded races now existing present us with the primeval 
type of man, seems to be the shibboleth of a certain school of thought, a 
school with which on many points I sympathise.” After discussing at 
considerable length the difficulties of defining the meanings and limits of the 
words “savagery” and “civilisation,” the writer adverts to the very strong 
arguments advanced by the Duke of Argyll in his book, The Unity of Nature, 
on geographical grounds, that present savages are degraded races, and are not 
specimens of primitive man ; and this argument he discusses from a 
philological point of view, and arrives at the conclusion that the languages 
of savages also show signs of degradation, and give evidence of having fallen 
from a higher and nobler condition.. Without going further into this essay, 
T will just read in full its two concluding paragraphs : “ Disappointing as it 
may sound, the fact must be faced, nevertheless, that our reasoning faculties, 
wonderful as they are, break down completely before all problems concerning 
the origin of things. We may imagine, we may believe anything we like 
about the first man, we can know absolutely nothing. If we trace him back 
