1885.] 
333 
Progress of Thought. 
the mind the body is untangible. However, man has 
become aware that he is, and it is generally thought has 
allowed his mental proclivities to overreach his physical 
development, altering, perhaps, even that from its original 
path. Man has attained to the conception of the immortal. 
This to my mind lends favour to the theory of preadamite 
races. Perhaps once thought and memory passed to the child, 
i. e., the crude consciousness of an existence. The hazy mind 
in the long, long life of brute man probably could not pass 
back to its beginning. A dim idea of the everlasting would 
impress itself on his progeny : and as he became more 
“ awake ” it would be constantly impressed on him by the 
permanency cf Nature, by the unpierceable heights of the 
silent blue above, and the unbound and unconceivable ex- 
panse of the ocean at his feet. Then he tasted of the tree 
of life and realised that he must die, but he could not con- 
ceive that he should drop out of time. But, in spite of what 
is often said to the contrary, I do not think the idea of 
immortality is intuitive. 
But let us turn to aCtual faCts. We find that the mind 
varies in different races, but that certain stems are common 
to all their diversities. It is observable in the expression of 
the face ; in the gait ; speech ; grammar ; expressions and 
phases of thought ; illustrated in art, literature, manners, dress, 
fancies, religions, and so forth ; the most striking being 
those apparent to the eye, their handcraft, and their social 
doings. To this we trace the reason why no religion can be 
universal unless the whole be inhabited by one race. 
Nor are peculiarities matters of accidental growth — this 
is contradicted by their constancy in variation. Thus the 
oriental does not only differ in choosing to consider his left 
hand the place of honour, but his book reads doubly back- 
wards, and even his letters slant in an opposite direction. 
Yet this oppositeness does not extend to physical faCts, such 
as being left-handed for instance, which is a proof of its 
subsequent development, or mental divergency. The straight 
line or a circle is the same thing to all men, though they 
may vary in the direction in which they draw them : we 
might say it is the faCt of order impressed on the mind. 
This suggests an inquiry : how have our notions of recti- 
lineal lines and perfect circles become impressed upon 
our minds, when in all Nature it is far from the rule and 
scarcely perceptible anywhere ? It is the exception. The 
sun is round, and so is the iris of the eye, but where are the 
vast quantity of horizontal, perpendicular, and parallel lines 
that haunt the human mind, and result in order — so absent 
