'508 INSTRUCTION FROM ABOVE. Chap. XXIV. 



Since we find that men, who already possess a knowledge 

 of the arts needed by even the lowest savages, are swept off 

 the earth when reduced to a dependence on wild roots and 

 fruits alone, it is nearly certain that if they ever had been 

 in what is called a state of nature, from being so much 

 less fitted for supporting and taking care of themselves than 

 the brutes, they could not have lived long enough to have 

 attained even to the ordinary state of savages. They could 

 not have survived for a sufficient period to invent any- 

 thing, such as we who are not savages, and know how to 

 make the egg stand on its end, think that we easily 

 could have invented. The existence, therefore, of the 

 various instruments in use among the Africans, and other 

 partially civilized people, indicates the communication of 

 instruction at some period from some Being superior to man 

 himself. 



The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa. 

 The smelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the 

 ores, are also similar. Yellow hematite, which bears not the 

 smallest resemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, 

 is employed near Kolobeng for the production of iron. Mala- 

 chite, the precious green stone used in civilized life for vases, 

 would never be suspected by the uninstructed to be a rich 

 ore of copper, and yet it is extensively smelted for rings and 

 other ornaments in the heart of Africa. A copper bar of 

 native manufacture four feet long was offered to us for sale 

 at Chinsamba's. These arts are monuments attesting the 

 fact, that some instruction from above must at some time or 

 other have been supplied to mankind ; and, as Archbishop 

 Whately says, "the most probable conclusion is, that man 

 when first created, or very shortly afterwards, was ad- 

 vanced, by the Creator himself, to a state above that of 

 a mere savage." 



