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savages, such as have been discovered now to exist in remote 
corners of the earth, furthest away from the traditional place 
of the origin and dispersion of mankind. Is it not then a 
fair question to raise, Whether, at the times of the history 
recorded by the most ancient historians, human nature had so 
far degenerated as to have arrived at the savage state . 
For? when we turn from written history to the still older 
monuments of antiquity, what do we find? The pyramids of 
Egypt, the remains of Thebes, of Memphis, of Rabek (the 
Scnptural On, and Heliopolis of &e Greeks) the rmns of 
Persepohs, Nineveh, Babylon, of the Giant Cities, of Kliors- 
abad, Birs Nimroud, Balbek, and Palmyra In India, Ceylon 
Japan, China, Central America, Italy, Greece, everywhere 
almost throughout the whole world, evidences may be adduced 
of man’s possession of knowledge, ingenuity, art and science, 
in the ages long past. Even in North America, on the banks of 
Ohio and Mississippi, the latest discoveries of archeology and 
geology go to prove, as Sir Charles Lyell bears witness in his 
Antiquity of Man, that an anterior civilization had also existed 
there, — where “the noble savage ran” in later times-older 
than that savagedom of the Red Indians which was found to 
exist when the modem Europeans first visited America. 
But while noticing this testimony to the antiquity of civili- 
zation in America, which surely goes somewhat towards 
proving that the Red Indian savages are not specimens ot 
“the primitive man,” as some have supposed, but really a 
degenerate race, we must keep in mind that the absence o 
any such proof of the former civilization of the oldest dwellers m 
America would by no means have established the contrary. 
Nomadic tribes sunk in barbarism, and in process of degene- 
ration to savagery, whose remote ancestors might have been 
civilized, might of course migrate into regions previously 
uninhabited altogether ; in which case the local geological 
record could afford no evidence of the stock whence such a 
people might have really sprung. 
Again, if we trace the thread of civilization backwaids, 
begin where we may, wo have the same results. If we begin 
with ourselves and our own authentic history, comparatively 
recent though it be, — we are led back to Rome, to Greece, to 
Phoenicia, and so on, till civilization becomes lost in time 
immemorial; and then the vast ruins of magnificent and 
giant cities, of obelisks, pyramids and temples, speak to us 
where all written history — save that of Holy scripture 
is silent. 
That there are difficulties in dealing with man’s past his- 
