194: 'T3E DESCENT OF MAN 



lastly of the toes. We have traces of this in our own deci- 

 mal system, and in tha Eoman numerals, where, after the 

 v., which is supposed to be an abbreviated picture of a 

 human hand, we pass on to VI., etc., when the other hand 

 no doubt was used. So again, "when we speak of three- 

 score and ten, we are counting by the vigesimal system, 

 each score thus ideally made standing for 20 — for 'one man,-' 

 as a Mexican or Carib would put it." " 



According to a large and increasing school of philologists 

 every language bears the marks of its slow and gradual 

 evolution. So it is with the art of writing, for letters are 

 rudiments of pictorial representations. It is hardly possible 

 to read Mr. M'Lennan's work'^ and not admit that almost 

 all civilized nations still retain traces of such rude habits as 

 the forcible capture of wives. What ancient nation, as the 

 same author asks, can be named that was originally monog- 

 amous? The primitive idea of justice, as shown by the 

 law of battle and other customs of which vestiges still re- 

 main, was likewise most rude. Many existing superstitions 

 are the remnants of former false religious beliefs. The 

 highest form of religion — the grand idea of Grod hating sin 

 and loving righteousness — was unknown during primeval 

 times. ' 



Turning to the other kind of evidence: Sir J. Lubbock 

 has shown that, some savages have recently improved a little 

 in some of their simpler arts. From the extremely curious 

 account which he gives of the weapons, tools, and arts in 

 use among savages in various parts of the world, it cannot 

 be doubted that these have nearly all been independent dis- 



" "Royal Institution of Great Britain, " March 15, 1SQ1. Also, "Researches 

 into the Early History of Mankind," 1865. 



85 "Primitive Marriage," 1865. See, likewise, an excellent article, evidently 

 by the same author, in the "North British Review, " July, 1869. Also, Mr. 

 L. H. Morgan, "A Conjectural Solution of the Origin of the Class System of 

 Relationship," in "Proc. American Acad, of Sciences," vol. vii., February, 

 1868. Prof. SohaafEhausen ("Anthropolog. Review," October, 1869, p. 31S) 

 remarks on "the vestiges of human sacrifices found both in. Homer and the 

 Old Testament." 



