The Plains of Patagonia. 229 



seems strange in so keen an observer, and one who 

 lias lived so mucb with nature and unciviHzed men ; 

 but it must be borne in mind that his peculiar 

 theories with regard to man's origin — the acquisi- 

 tion of large brains, naked body, and the upright 

 form not through but in spite of natural selection 

 — would predispose him to take such a view. My 

 own experience and observation have led me to a 

 contrary conclusion, and my belief is that we might 

 learn something by looking more beneath the 

 hardened crust of custom into the still burning core. 

 For instance, that experience I had in Patagonia — ■ 

 the novel state of mind I have described — seemed to 

 furnish an answer to a question frequently asked 

 with regfard to men livino; in a state of nature. 

 When we consider that our intellect, unlike that of 

 the inferior animals, is progressive, how wonderful 

 it seems that communities and tribes of men should 

 exist — " are contented to exist," we often say, just as 

 if they had any choice in the matter — for ages and 

 for thousands of years in a state of pure barbarism, 

 living from hand to mouth, exposed to extremes of 

 temperature, and to frequently-recurring famine 

 even in the midst of the greatest fertility, when a 

 little foresight — " the smallest amount of intelligence 

 possessed by the lowest of mankind," we say — would 

 be sufficient to make their condition immeasurably 

 better. If, in the wild natural life, their normal 

 state is like that into which I temporarily fell, then 

 it no longer appears strange to me that they take 

 no thought for the morrow, and remain stationary. 



