238 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



He who will read Mr. Tylor's and Sir J. Lubbock's 

 interesting works" can hardly fail to be deeply impressed 

 with the close similarity between the men of all races in 

 tastes, dispositions, and habits. This is shown by the 

 pleasure which they all take in dancing, rude music, act- 

 ing, painting, tattooing, and otherwise decorating them- 

 selves; in their mutual comprehension of gesture-language, 

 by the same expression in their features, and by the same 

 inarticulate cries, when excited by the same emotions. This 

 similarity, or rather identity, is striking, when contrasted 

 with the different expressions and cries made by distinct 

 species of monkeys. There is good evidence that the art 

 of shooting with bows and arrows has not been handed 

 down from any common progenitor of mankind; yet, as 

 Westropp and Nilsson have remarked,"' the stone arrow- 

 heads, brought from the most distant parts of the world, 

 and manufactured at the most remote periods, are almost ■■ 

 identical; and this fact can only be accounted for by the 

 various races having similar inventive or mental powers. 

 , The same observation has been made by archeologists" 

 with respect to certain widely prevalent ornaments, such 

 as zigzags, etc. ; and with respect to various simple beliefs 

 and customs, such as the burying of the dead under mega- 

 lithio structures. I remember observing in South America," 

 that there, as in so many other parts of the world, men have 

 generally chosen the summits of lofty hills to throw up piles 

 of stones, either as a record of some remarkable event, or for 

 burying their dead. 



Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in 

 numerous small details of habits, tastes, and dispositions 

 between two or more domestic races, or between nearly 



^* Tylor's "Early History of Mankind," 1865; with respect to gesture- 

 language, see p. 54. Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," 2d edit., 1869. 



25 "On Analogous Forms of Implements," in "Memoirs of Anthropolog. 

 Soc," by H. M. Westropp. "The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia," 

 Bng. translat., edited by Sir J. Lubbock, 1868, p. 104. 



i" Westropp, "On Cromlechs," etc., "Journal of Ethnological Soc," as 

 given in "Scientific Opinion," June 2, 1869, p. 3. 



" "Journal of Eesearches: Voyage of the Beagle," p. 46. 



