384 Address of A. R. Wallace at the Glasgow Meeting. 
could never have arisen among an unintellectual and half-bar- 
barous people. So perfect a work implies many preceding less 
perfect works which have disappeared. It marks the culmina- 
ting point of an ancient civilization, of the early stages of which 
we have no record whatever. 
The three cases to which I have now adverted (and there 
are many others) seem to require for their satisfactory inter- 
pretation a somewhat different view of human progress from 
that which is now generally accepted. Taken in connection 
with the great intellectual power of the ancient Greeks—which 
Mr. Galton believes to have been far above that of the average 
of any modern nation—and the elevation, at once intellectual and 
moral, displayed in the writings of Confucius, Zoroaster, an 
the Vedas, they point to the conclusion, that, while in materia 
progress there has been a tolerably steady advance, man’s intel- 
lectual and moral development reached almost its highest level 
in a very remote past. he lower, the more animal, but often 
the more energetic types, have however always been far the 
more numerous; hence such established societies as have nere 
and there arisen under the guidance of higher minds, have 
always been liable to be swept away by the incursions of bar- 
barians. Thus in almost every part of the globe there may 
have been a long succession of partial civilization, each m tum 
succeeded by a period of barbarism; and this view seems 4 
ported by the occurrence of degraded types of skull along wit 
such “as might have belonged to a philosopher’—at a time 
when the mammoth and the reindeer inhabited southern France. 
Nor need we fear that there is not time enough for the ou 
and decay of so many successive civilizations as this view woul 
gap—marked alike by a change of physical conditions, bi 
animal life—which in Europe always separates him from 4s 
neolithic successor, was caused by the coming on an passin 
away of the great ice age. 
If the' views now sieved are correct, many, perhaps ~ 
of our existing savages, are the successors of higher races; ¢ ne 
their arts, often showing a wonderful similarity m distant eer 
tinents, may have been derived from a common source amo 
more civilized peoples. 
must now conclude this very imperfect skete Tt will, 
the offshoots from the great tree of Biological study. al a 
perhaps, be thought by some that my remarks have ten! i 
to the depreciation of our science, by hinting at impor he 
in our knowledge and errors in our theories, where more ’ 
siastic students see nothing but established truths. 
that I may have conveyed to many of my hearers 
Cie Biate acee han LE a Pil Bots 5 
