ON SECLUDED TRIBES OF UNCIVILIZED MEN. 343 



as the utter absence of any mental stimulant such as those which in 

 civilized communities are called aims. Where the social condition 

 admits of no ambitious aspirations, and where mental superiority 

 would bring no commensurate advantages in its train, it is not likely 

 that men will trouble themselves to exercise their minds about things 

 foreign to the dull and daily routine of providing food and shelter. 



The rarity of the reception of any ideas except those which have 

 existed in a limited community for thousands of years, must unfit the 

 mind for any fresh excursions into the regions of thought. Such a 

 position as some of these secluded tribes occupy, would, even in the 

 course of a few generations, reduce the minds of tolerably intelligent 

 savages to a state of dull imbecility or mere animal and ferocious in- 

 stinct : but when we take into consideration the hereditary trans- 

 mission through centuries of degradation, of these inactive and in- 

 curious brains, their efficiency, according to the law of nature, gra- 

 dually diminishing, the wonder is that the line between these outcasts 

 and the beasts is yet so clearly marked, and that there still lingers 

 smongst any of them an instinct of worship, and a vague notion of a 

 spiritual existence. 



Yet it is astonishing how, by contact with the superior races, 

 minds of low development will become improved. The Australian 

 was long supposed to have mental capabilities as poor as those of 

 any other race ; but facts, well authenticated, prove that the abori- 

 ginal Australian possesses a mind superior to what was formerly 

 imagined of it. A quotation from a report transmitted to the Eng- 

 lish Grovernment on the subject, states that his mind is quick and 

 :keen, and " rather like a treasure sealed up than a vacuum." The 

 children learn a science like geography, which appeals to their exter- 

 nal senses, very rapidly, though in more abstract studies, when men- 

 tal processes are required, as in arithmetic, they are as yet deficient. 

 It is said on good authority that they evince as much average capa- 

 city for improvement as English children. Probably in a few gen- 

 erations if the race be so long persistent, the reflective faculties may 

 be brought into efficient action. 



Such assurances as these ought to stimulate our philanthropy, 

 and impress us with a high estimate of the character and vitality of 

 the human intellect, which, as in this case, after so many ages of 

 degradation, can by the exercise consequent on the communication 

 ^f new ideas be gradually elevated to a higher and perhaps a normal 

 standard. 



