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Cit. XLIIL] 



OEIGIN AND DISTEIBUTION OF MAN. 



4G5 



rliinoceros^ bear^ lion^ liya3na^ and otliers long since extinct, 

 naturalists had already amused tliemselves in speculating on 

 the probable birthplace of mankind, the point from which, 

 if we assume the whole human race to have descended from 

 a single stock, the tide of emigration must originally have 

 proceeded. It has been always a favourite conjecture, that 

 this birthplace was situated within or near the tropics, where 

 perpetual summer reigns, and where fruits, herbs, and roots 

 are plentifully supplied throughout the year. The climate 

 of these regions, it has been said, is suited to a being born 

 without any covering, and who had not yet acquired the arts 

 of building habitations or providing clothes. 



' The hunter state,' it has been argued, ^ which Montes- 

 quieu placed the first, was probably only the second stage to 

 which mankind arrived ; since so many arts must have been 

 invented to catch a salmon, or a deer, that society could no 

 longer have been in its infancy when they came into use.'^ 

 When regions where the si3ontaneous fruits of the earth 

 abound became overpeopled, men would naturally diffuse 

 themselves over the neighbouring parts of the temperate 

 zone ; but a considerable time would probably elapse before 

 this event took place ; and it is possible, as a writer before 

 cited observes, that in the interval before the multiplication 

 of their numbers and their increasing wants had compelled 

 them to emigrate, some arts to take animals were invented, 

 but far inferior to what we see practised at this day among 

 savages. As their habitations gradually advanced into the 

 temperate zone, the new difiiculties they had to encounter 

 would call forth by degrees the spirit of invention, and the 

 probability of such inventions always rises with the number 

 of people involved in the same necessity.f 



Sir Humphry Davy, although coinciding for the most part 

 m the above views, has introduced one of the persons in his 

 second dialogue, as objecting to the theory of the human race 

 having gradually advanced from a savage to a civilised state, 

 on the ground that ' the first man must have inevitably been 

 destroyed by the elements or devoured by savage beasts, so 



* Brand's Select Dissert, from the Amoen. Acad., vol.i. p. 118. 



t Ibid 



VOL. II. 



H n 



t ^ 



