THE DESCENT OB ORIGIN OF MAN 195 



coveries, excepting perhaps the art of making fire." The 

 Australian boomerang is a good instance of one such inde- 

 pendent discovery. The Tahitians when first visited had 

 advanced in many respects beyond the inhabitants of most 

 of the other Polynesian islands. Thex-e are no just grounds 

 for the belief that the high culture of the native Peruvians 

 and Mexicans was derived from abroad;" many native plants 

 were there cultivated, and a few native animals domesticated. 

 We should bear in mind that, judging from the small influ- 

 ence of most missionaries, a wandering crew from some 

 semi-civilized land, if washed to the shores of America, 

 would not have produced any marked effect on the natives, 

 unless they had already become somewhat advanced. Look- 

 ing to a very remote period in the history of the world, wa 

 find, to use Sir J. Lubbock's well-known terms, a paleolithic 

 and neolithic period ; and no one will pretend that the art 

 of grinding rough flint tools was a borrowed one. In all 

 parts of Europe, as far east as Greece, in Palestine, India, 

 Japan, New Zealand, and Africa, including Egypt, flint 

 tools have been discovered in abundance; and of their use 

 the existing inhabitants retain no tradition. There is also 

 indirect evidence of their former use by the Chinese and 

 ancient Jews. Hence there can hardly be a doubt that 

 the inhabitants of these countries, which include nearly the 

 whole civilized world, were once in a barbarous condition. 

 To believe that man was aboriginally civilized and then 

 suffered utter degradation in so many regions, is to take 

 a pitiably low view of human nature. It is apparently a 

 truer and more cheerful view that progress has been much 

 more general than retrogression ; that man has risen, though 

 by slow and interrupted steps, from a lowly condition to the 

 highest standard as yet attained by him in knowledge, 

 morals, and religion. 



«• Sir J. Lubbock, "Prehistoric Times," 2d edit., 1869, chap. xv. and xvi. 

 ei passim. See, also, the excellent ninth chapter in Tyler's "Early History of 

 Mankind," 2d edit., IStO. 



*■ Dr. P. Miiller has made some good remarks to this efEect in the "Reise 

 der Novara: Anthropolog. Theil>" Abtheil. iii., 1868, s. 12t. 



