298 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



philanthropists and missionaries, but as cool and sober 

 naturalists, destruction in the struggle for existence as 

 a consequence of their retardation (itself regulated by 

 the universal conditions of development), is the natural 

 course of things. 



If we examine the mental condition of mankind, and 

 compare it with the psychical capacities of animals, we 

 must not take the average Indian or European as our 

 standard, but the Australian and Papuan races, which 

 in body also have remained at a grade which the other 

 more favoured races outgrew in pre-historic times long 

 past. Many, it is true, overcome all difficulties, inas- 

 much as, assured of an equalizing human dignity as of 

 a dogma needing no further foundation, they are ready 

 with the assertion that it is impossible to doubt that 

 they have retrograded from a higher mental develop- 

 ment and sunk into barbarism. But if this possibility 

 might be admitted as regards some few races, such as 

 the Fuegians; in others, in the Australians for instance, 

 any real evidence of this previous more elevated condi- 

 tion is wanting. 



The superior mental prerogatives which are supposed 

 to separate man from the animal, hinge more or less on 

 the following points. 



Man alone, it is said, is capable of development or 

 progress. Specifically, human is all progress regulated 

 and effected by human speech, for many animals like- 

 wise possess the gift of communication. But if we are 

 not to imagine man as having advanced from all eternity, 

 the question is, how was this advance initiated, and the 

 whole concern is fundamentally reduced to the problem 

 of the origin of language. We will return to this subject. 



