118 REPORT— 1876. 



■words of the late Sir Jolin Herschel, " according to received tlieories ought uot to 

 happen," and which, he tells us, should therefore be kept ever present to our minds, 

 since "they belong to the class of facts which serve as the clue to new discoveries." 

 According to modern theories, the higher civilization is ever a growth and an out- 

 come from a preceding lower state ; and it is inferred that this progress is visible to us 

 throughout all history and in all the material records of human intellect. But here 

 we have a building which marks the very dawn of history, which is the oldest 

 authentic monument of man's genius and skill, and which, instead of being far in- 

 ferior, is very much superior to all which followed it. Great men are the products 

 of their age and country, and the designer and constructors of this wonderful monu- 

 ment could never have arisen among an uuintellectual and half-barbarous people. 

 So perfect a work implies many preceding less perfect works which have disappeared. 

 It marks the culminating point of an ancient civilization, of the early stages of 

 which we have no record whatever. 



The three cases to which I have now adverted (and there are many others) seem 

 to require for their satisfactory interpretation a somewhat different view of human 

 progress from that which is now generally accepted. Taken in connexion with the 

 great intellectual power of the ancient Greeks — which Mr. Galton believes to have 

 been far above that of the average of any modern nation — and the elevation, at 

 once intellectual and moral, displayed in the writings of Confucius, Zoroaster, and 

 in the Vedas, they point to the conclusion that, while in material progress there has 

 been a tolerably steadj^ advance, man's intellectual and moral development reached 

 almost its highest level in a very remote past. The lower, the more animal, but 

 often the more energetic types have, however, always been far the more numerous ; 

 hence such established societies as have here and there arisen under the guidance 

 of higher minds have always been liable to be swept away by the incursions of 

 barbarians. Thus in almost eveiy part of the globe there may have been a long- 

 succession of partial civilizations, each in turn succeeded by a period of barbarism ; 

 and this view seems supported by the occurrence of degTaded types of skull along 

 with such " as might have belonged to a pliilosopher," at a time when the mam- 

 moth and the reindeer inhabited southern France. 



Nor need we fear that there is not time enough for the rise and decay of so many 

 successive civilizations as this view would imply ; for the opinion is now gaining 

 ground among geologists that palreolitliic man was really preglacial, and that the 

 great gap (marked alike by a change of physical conditions and of animal life) 

 whicli in Europe always separates him from his neolithic successor, was caused by 

 the coming on and passing away of the great ice age. 



If the views now advanced are coiTect, many, perhaps most, of our existing savages 

 are the successors of higher races ; and their arts, often showing a wonderful 

 similarity in distant continents, may have been derived from a common source 

 among more civilized peoples. 



I must now conclude this very imperfect sketch of a few of the offshoots from 

 the great tree of Biological study. It will, perhaps, be thought by some that my 

 remarks liave tended to the depreciation of our science, b}' hinting at imperfections 

 in our knowledge and errors in our theories where more enthusiastic students see 

 nothing but established truths. But I trust that I may have conveyed to many of 

 my heai'ers a different impression. I have endeavoured to show that, even in what 

 are usually considered the more tiivial and superficial characters presented by natural 

 objects, a whole field of new inquiry is opened up to us by the study of distribution 

 and local conditions. And as regards man, I have endeavoured to fix your attention 

 on a class of facts wliicli indicate that the course of his development has been far less 

 dii'ect and simple than has hitherto been supposed ; and that, instead of resembling 

 a single tide with its advancing and receding ripples, it must rather be compared 

 to the progress from neap to spring tides, both the rise and the depression being 

 comparatively greater as the waters of true civilization slowly advance towards the 

 highest level they can reach. 



And if we are thus led to believe that our present knowledge of nature is some- 

 what less complete than we have been accustomed to consider it, this is only what 

 wo might expect ; for however great may have been the intellectual triumphs of 

 the nineteenth century, we can hardly think so highly of its achievements as to 



