VIU PREFACE. 



ties of Reason ; on the question how- 

 far the first use and the first direction 

 of his mental powers may have been 

 as purely instinctive in Man as in the 

 Bee or in the Beaver ; on the relation 

 between the two tendencies in Man to 

 advance and to decline ; on the causes 

 of degradation which are born with him 

 and seem to be inseparable from his 

 nature ; on the bearing upon the whole 

 argument of existing facts respecting his 

 distribution on the globe, and the obvious 

 effects upon him of hardship and of 

 suffering to produce, or to intensify, a 

 barbarous condition ; — on each and all of 

 these questions, which enter into the 



