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ISTo answer haying been given last year at Birmingham, 
when the question was asked. What single instance could be 
adduced of a savage people having civilized themselves ? I 
afterwards wrote a brief paper, with the title, “ Man, savage 
and civilized — an appeal to facts/' and published it in the 
Ethnological Journal for October, 1865, embodying the same 
arguments and repeating that question ; from which paper I 
beg leave to make the following brief extract, by way of in- 
troducing the answer it received : — 
The thesis I now venture especially to maintain is, not only that civiliza- 
tion is older than the savage state, but that it must be so. Here I appeal to 
all our knowledge of mankind, moral, social, and metaphysical, as well as to 
all the facts of history, both as regards the course of civilization throughout 
the world and all that we know of savage races. 
. . . Setting out with M. Guizot’s famous sentence, that “ Civilization 
is a fact,” I argue, from its very existence now, that it must always have 
existed since man was. We are not here, of course, concerned with minor 
details respecting the various phases into which civilization may have been 
developed. I speak of “ the civilized man ” only as an elevated, intellectual, 
and moral being, apart from his peculiar circumstances. 
I argue that civilization (in this proper sense) must always have existed 
since man’s creation : — First, because I am not aware of any civilization in 
the world which has not either always existed among the civilized race from 
time immemorial, or has had its origin attributed to the prior civilization of 
another race, brought ah extra to the race becoming civilized. We can 
scarcely consider that the Greeks were “ savages ” before the introduction 
among them of written language and Egyptian civilization ; nor that the 
Britons (with their chariots) were savages when invaded by the Bomans. 
But, be that as it may, the civilization of Egypt and of Borne had at least a 
prior existence; which is enough for my main thesis.— And, Second, because 
we know nothing of any truly “ savage ” race having raised itself to a state 
of civilization ; while it is questionable whether there is any thoroughly 
savage people that can be said to have become civilized through the influence 
of a superior race. But, even could such a case be adduced, it would not of 
course disprove the priority of civilization. The real point to be established 
by those who dispute my position is the proof that savage races can civilize, 
or have ever civilized , themselves. 
lo tliis, two answers appeared in the Ethnological Journal 
of November last; one by a writer signing “ A. B.,” who 
began by explaining why no answer was given by the Presi- 
dent of the Ethnological Society at Birmingham. He says : 
“ I fear the explanation amounts simply to this, that Mr. 
Crawfurd may have thought the theory the mere coruscation 
of a too exuberant fancy which needed no extinguisher. But 
