174 PRIMEVAL MAN. 



representing the aboriginal condition of Man ? 

 Is it not certain that whatever advances 

 towards civilization may have been made 

 among their progenitors, such advances must 

 necessarily have been lost under the conditions 

 to which their children are reduced ? Sir J. 

 Lubbock urges, in reply to Whately, that 

 the low condition of Australian savages affords 

 no proof whatever that they could not raise 

 themselves, because the materials of improve- 

 ment are wanting in that country, which 

 affords no cereals, nor animals capable of 

 useful domestication. But Sir J. Lubbock 

 does not perceive that the same argument 

 which shows how improvement could not 

 possibly be attained, shows also how degra- 

 dation could not possibly be avoided. If 



