THE DESCENT OB ORIGIN OF MAN 239 



allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that 

 they are descended from a common progenitor who was thus 

 endowed ; and consequently that all should be classed under 

 the same species. The same argument may be applied with 

 much force to the races of man. 



As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant 

 points of resemblance between the several races of man in 

 bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer 

 to similar customs) should all have been independently 

 acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors 

 ■who had these same characters. We thus gain some insight 

 into the early state of man, before he had spread step by step 

 over the face of the earth. The spreading of man to regions 

 widely separated by the sea, no doubt, preceded any great 

 amount of divergence of character in the several races ; for 

 otherwise we should sometimes meet with the same race in 

 distinct continents; and this is never the case. Sir J. Lub- 

 bock, after comparing the arts now practiced by savages in 

 all parts of the world, specifies those which man could not 

 have known wh.en he first wandered from his original birth- 

 place; for if once learned they would never have been for- 

 gotten."' He thus shows that "the spear, which is but a 

 development of the knife-point, and the club, which is but 

 a long hammer, are the only things left." He admits, how- 

 ever, that the art of making fire probably had been already 

 discovered, for it is common to all the races now existing, 

 and was known to the ancient cave inhabitants of Europe. 

 Perhaps the art of making rude canoes or rafts was likewise 

 known; but as man existed at a remote epoch, when the 

 land in many places stood at a very different level to what 

 it does now, he would have been able, without the aid of 

 canoes, to have spread widely. Sir J. Lubbock further re- 

 marks how improbable it is that our earliest ancestors could 

 have "counted as high as ten, considering that so many 

 races now in existence cannot get beyond four." Neverthe- 

 less, at this early period, the intellectual and social faculties 

 »« "Prehistoric Times," 1869, p. 574. 



