1870.] Notices of Scientific Works. 505 



ON SAVAGES.* 



What Sir Charles Lyell has accomplished for the student of 

 Geology, Sir John Luhhock is now achieving for the student of 

 Ethnology. His ' Pre-historic Times '| first excited and awakened 

 public attention by the clearness of its descriptions and the able 

 and masterly manner in which the author dealt with the questions 

 relating to primitive man. 



In the present work Sir John Lubbock has adopted the same 

 inductive method of reasoning which has been so ably applied to 

 geological investigations by the illustrious Lyell in his 'Prin- 

 ciples/ viz. that of explaining the monuments of the earth's past 

 history by the "living present." Thus, from the habits and 

 customs of modern savages we are enabled to understand the 

 meaning and uses of the various relics of early man met with in 

 civilized countries where no primitive races now exist, and we can 

 thus more accurately picture and more vividly conceive the manners 

 and customs of our ancestors in bygone ages. 



Founded upon a course of lectures, originally delivered at the 

 Eoyal Institution in 1868, the author proposes in the present 

 volume " more particularly to describe the social and mental condi- 

 tion of savages, their art, their systems of marriage and of rela- 

 tionship, their religions, language, moral character, and laws." 

 Sir John promises in a future volume to publish those portions of 

 his lectures which have reference to their houses, dress, boats, arms, 

 implements, &c. 



"The study of the lower races of man," writes the author, 

 " apart from the direct importance which it possesses in an empire 

 like ours, is of great interest from three points of view. In the 

 first place, the condition and habits of existing savages resemble in 

 many ways, though not in all, those of our own ancestors in a period 

 now long gone by ; in the second, they illustrate much of what is 

 passing among ourselves, many customs which have evidently no 

 relation to present circumstances, and even some ideas which are 

 rooted in our minds, as fossils are imbedded in the soil ; and thirdly, 

 we can even, by means of them, penetrate some of that mist which 

 separates the present from the future." 



On the subject of savage intellect, it seems difficult to realize 

 the extreme mental inferiority of the lower aborigines ; the mind 

 of the savage, like that of the child, is of wonderfully small capacity 

 and limited in its powers of taking in ideas ; it is easily fatigued 

 by exercise, and is generally in a dormant state. Curious instances 



* ' The Origin of Civilization, and the Primitive Condition of Man' (Mental 

 and Social Condition oi" Savages). By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.K.S., &c. 

 8vo. Pp. 380. London, 1870. Longmans and Co. 



t Originally published (in part) in the ' Natural History Eeview.' 



