30 PRIMEVAL MAN. 



inconvenient obligation. But implicitly, if not 

 explicitly, the Savage-theory and the reasoning 

 in support of it assume that civilization con- 

 sists mainly if not exclusively in a knowledge 

 of the arts. Knowledge, for example, or igno- 

 rance, of the use of metals, are, as we shall 

 see, characteristics on which great stress is 

 laid. Now, as regards this point, as Whately 

 truly says, the narrative of Genesis distinctly 

 states that this kind of knowledge did not 

 belong to Mankind at first, but was the fruit 

 of subsequent discovery, through the ordinary 

 agency of those mental gifts with which Man 

 at his creation was endowed. It is assumed 

 in the Savage-theory that the presence or 

 absence of this knowledge stands in close 

 and natural connection with the presence or 



