EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 165 



in relation to the things of the external world on which 

 it was intended by creative Providence to be exercised. 

 The monkeys themselves, without instruction from any 

 quarter, learn to use sticks in fighting, and some build 

 houses — an act which cannot in*their case be considered 

 as one of instinct, but of intelligence. Such being the 

 case, there is no necessary difficulty in supposing how 

 man, with his superior mental organization, (a brain 

 five times heavier,) was able, in his primitive state, 

 without instruction, to turn many things in nature to his 

 use, and commence, in short, the circle of the domestic 

 arts. He appears, in the most unfavorable circumstances, 

 to be able to provide himself with some sort of dwelling, 

 to make weapons, and to practice some simple kind of 

 cookery. But, granting, it will be said, that he can go 

 thus far, how does he ever proceed further unprompted, 

 seeing that many nations remain fixed forever at this 

 point, and seem unable to take one step in advance ? It 

 is perfectly true that there is such a fixation in many na- 

 tions; but, on the other hand, all nations are not alike in 

 mental organization, and another point has been estab- 

 lished, that only when some favorable circumstances 

 have settled a people in one place do arts and social ar- 

 rangements get leave to flourish. If we were to limit 

 our view to humbly endowed nations, or the common 

 class of minds in those called civilized, we should see 

 absolutely no conceivable power for the origination of 

 new ideas and devices. But let us look at the inventive 

 class of minds which stand out amongst their fellows — 

 the men who, with little prompting or none, conceive 

 new ideas in science, arts, morals — and we can be at no 

 loss to understand how and whence have arisen the ele- 

 ments of that civilization which history traces from coun- 

 try to country throughout the course of centuries. See 

 a Pascal, reproducing the Alexandrian's problems at fif- 

 teen ; a Ferguson, making clocks from the suggestions 

 of his own brain, while tending cattle on a Morayshire 

 heath : a boy Lawrence, in an inn on the Bath road, pro- 

 ducing, without a master, drawings which the educated 

 could not but admire ; or look at Solon and Confucius, 

 devising sage laws, and breathing the accents of all but 

 divine wisdom, for their barbarous fellow-countrymen, 

 three thousand years ago — and the whole mystery is 

 solved at once Amongst the arrangements of Provi* 



