132 P R I M E V A L M A N. 



a condition of ** utter barbarism/' if he were 

 at the same time conscious of moral obhga- 

 tions and obedient to them. It is, of course, 

 open to a theorist to assume that the First 

 Man was both ignorant and bad, or that the 

 sense of right and wrong was rudimentary 

 and wholly uninformed. But all I desire to 

 point out here is, that there is no necessary 

 connection between a state of mere childhood 

 in respect to knowledge, and a state of " utter 

 barbarism" — words which, if they have any 

 definite meaning at all, imply the lowest 

 moral, as well as the lowest intellectual con- 

 dition. Consequently no proof, if proof there 

 be, that Primeval Man was ignorant of the 

 industrial arts can afford the smallest pre- 

 sumption that he was also ignorant of duty 



