1 18 REPORT 1867. 



vidual work, for a few grand men and their harems ; nothing for the mass of the 

 people. The West, on the contrary, shows its mechanical improvements and 

 grand scientific discoveries, planned to lessen the toil of labour and multiply its 

 products, so that the poor shall profit as well as the rich. We learn the truth of 

 this view in a very small and quite unimportant matter, valuable only as an indi- 

 cation. Both West and East send models of their fruits, costimies, trades, &c.; 

 but the East sends them as toys — mere playthings, which are made to amuse and 

 not to instruct ; while the models of the West are in aid of horticultural or 

 ethnographical science, the final cause of which is public good, not private 

 pleasure. 



On the Origin of Civilization and the Early Con'Jition of Man. 

 By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S., Pres. Ent. Soe. Sfc. 

 Side by side with the different opinions whether man constitutes one or many 

 species, there are two opposite views as to the primitive condition of the first men, 

 or first beings worthy to be so called. Many writers have considered that man was 

 at first a mere savage, and that our history has on the whole been a steady progress 

 towards civilization, though at times, and sometimes for centuries, some races 

 have been stationary, or even have retrograded. Other authors of no less eminence 

 have taken a diametrically opposite view. According to them, man was from the 

 commencement pretty much what he is at present. If possible, even more ignorant 

 of the arts and sciences than now, but with mental qualities not inferior to our own. 

 Savages they consider to be the degenerate descendants of far superior ancestors. 

 Of the recent supporters of this theory, the late Archbishop of Dublin was amongst 

 the most eminent. In the present memoir I propose briefly to examine the reasons 

 which led Dr. Whately to this conclusion, and still more briefly to notice some of 

 the facts which seem to me to render it imtenable. Dr. Whately enunciates his 

 opinions in the following words : — " That we have no reason to believe that any 

 community ever did, or ever can emerge, unassisted by external helps, from a state 



of utter barbarism, into anj'thiug that can be called civilization Man has not 



emerged from the savage state ; the progress of any community in civilization, by its 

 own internal means, must .always have begim from a condition removed from that 

 of complete barbarism, out of which it does not appe.ar that men ever did or can 

 raise themselves." One might at first feel disposed to answer that fifty cases could 

 be cited which altogether discredit this assertion ; and vritbout going beyond the 

 limits of our own island, we might regard the history of England itself as a sufficient 

 answer to such a statement. Ai-chbishop Whately, however, was far too skilful a 

 debater not to have foreseen such an argument. " The ancient Germans," he says, 

 " who cultivated com, though their agriculture was probably in a vei-y rude state, 

 who not only had numerous herds of cattle, but emploj-ed the labour of brutes, and 

 even made use of cavalry in their wars, , . . these cannot with propriety be 

 reckoned savages, or if they are to be so called (for it is not worth while to dispute 

 about a word ), then I would admit that in this sense man may advance, and in 

 fact have advanced, by their own imassisted efforts, from the savage to the civi- 

 lized state." This limitation of the term " savage " to the very lowest repre- 

 sentatives of the human race no doubt rendered Dr. Whately 's theory more tenable 

 by increasing the difficulty of bringing forward conclusive evidence against it. 

 The Archbishop, indeed, expresses himself throughout his argument as if it would 

 be easy tn produce the required evidence in opposition to his theory, supposing that 

 any race of savages ever had raised themselves to a state of civilization. The 

 manner in which he has treated the case of the Mandaus, a tribe of North Ameri- 

 can Indians, however, effictually disposes of this hypothesis. This unfortunate 

 tribe is described as having been decidedly more civilized than those by which they 

 were sm-rounded. Having, then, no neighbom-s more advanced than themselves, 

 they were quoted as furnishing an instance of savages who had civilized them- 

 selves without external aid. In answer to this, Ai-chbishop Whately asks — " First, 

 How do we know that these Mandans were of the same race as their neighbours ? 

 Secondly, How do we know that theirs is not the original level from which the 

 other tribes have [alien ? Thirdly and lastly, supposing that the Mandans did 



