190 GEOWTH AND DECLINE OP CULTURE. 



ably spinning her flax witli a spindle^ whicli spindle was simply 

 a bit of stick witb a potato stuck on the end of it. 



To conclude, the want of evidence leaves us as yet much in 

 the dark as to the share which decline in civilization may have 

 had in bringing the lower races into the state in which we find 

 them. But perhaps this difficulty rather affects the history of 

 particular tribes, than the history of Culture'as a whole. To 

 judge from experience, it would seem that the world, when it has 

 once got a firm grasp of new knowledge or a new art, is very 

 loth to lose it altogether, especially when it relates to matters 

 important to man in general, for the conduct of his daily life, 

 and the satisfaction of his daily wants, things that come home 

 to men's " business and bosoms." An inspection of the geo- 

 graphical distribution of art and knowledge among mankind, 

 seems to give some grounds for the belief that the history of 

 the lower races, as of the higher, is not the history of a course 

 of degeneration, or even of equal oscillations to and fro, but of 

 a movement which, in spite of frequent stops and relapses, has 

 on the whole been forward; that there has been from age to 

 age a growth in Man's power over Nature, which no degrading 

 influences have been able permanently to check. 



