192 
in certain influential quarters. And perhaps I may be per- 
mitted to add, with reference to the discussion at our first 
ordinary meeting last month, that I do not consider I am 
trenching in the least upon the province of the Scriptural 
exegesisf, in merely ascertaining and noticing what is the 
unquestionable sense of a word or the undisputed meaning of 
a passage of Scripture. I doubt whether there exists a second 
man who in any reputed organ of the press would venture to 
sav that yashar only means perpendicular . , 
But our ethnologist made use of such arguments and ven- 
tured to write in such a tone, although obliged to make the 
following important admissions: “The Greeks and Romans 
(he says), who might have written an account of savages, 
knew If none. They knew many ‘barbarians, but never 
r a savage The 7 races inhabiting Europe -me under 
the notice of the Greeks and Romans were all of a higfi 
quality .Among the most backward known to the ancients 
were our own forefathers, the Britons; but, m possession of 
herds and flocks, of iron and corn, they were very fer advance 
beyond the savage state. The other civilized races of the old 
world, such as the Egyptians, the Jews, and Assyrians, the 
Persians, the Hindoos, and the Chinese, were probably in the 
simieTtate of ignorance of the existence of savages, such as 
w“e found in America and the isles of the Pacific, as the 
Greeks and Romans were. They had experience o m y 
barbarians, as they have now, but of no savages. 
This vou will perceive, is precisely my argument. I ha 
appealed^ all these facts, which my opponent cannot deny ; 
and asked for facts upon the other side. The only reply wa 
this : “ But those who are now civilized must once have been 
barbarians, -the barbarians must have been ^vages and the 
lowest savages known to us, as m the example of the Austra 
lians, must have been once lower still ,— must have been on_ 
without language, fire, and implements. We .can .hardly be 
said to have any authentic account of savages rising 
ranks of barbarians; but we are notwithstanding sa isfied 
that, from the nature of things, such a progress must have 
tak 0 6 f n course, these reiterated “ musts ” all go for nothing. 
Thev are mere strongly-prejudiced assumptions of the point 
at ilsue -^d being contrary to the ascertained facts within 
our tooXdge anf experience, they are false assumptions 
tion last year : — 
