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their original types of wildness. This argument may do very well for wild 
animals, because all their improvement is confessedly ab extra. As they 
never raised themselves, so, when their artificial supports are withdrawn, they 
naturally drop back again to their original level. Indeed, they often drop 
lower than their original level. For example : the European swine, first 
carried by the Spaniards, in 1509, to the island of Cubagua, at that time 
celebrated for its pearl fishery, degenerated into a monstrous race, with toes 
which were half a span in length. Our analogy is of the latter kind. Just 
as the domesticated swine of Europe did, in this instance, fall below the 
natural level of the wild hog of America, so our present savage races repre- 
sent a lower level of mankind than that which was originally their stand- 
point. One analogy is as fair and good as another. But the truth is that 
neither is compatible with the facts of the case, for wild beasts do not become 
raised by their own unaided powers — it is not by development, but by the 
tuition of a superior order of beings ; whereas man rises in civilization by the 
cultivation of his own natural powers, both mental and moral. Granting this, 
then all true analogy between the cases must fail. When man raised himself 
up to the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, it was only by a progres- 
sive cultivation of his physical, mental, and moral nature. Correspondingly, 
when man fell to the level of the Digger Indians in America (supposing them 
to have had a civilization previously, which is our present platform of argu- 
ment) it must have been by a progressive deterioration of his physical, mental, 
and moral nature. The question we have to decide is this — Whether the 
starting-point of man’s development toward 19th century civilization was 
like the condition of Digger Indians in America, so that he may be con- 
sidered to have raised himself from the extreme lowest point to the extreme 
highest ; or was it somewhere intermediate between the two, from which 
central point some races have risen higher and others fallen lower, merely 
by the cultivation or non-cultivation of their natural resources ? In con- 
tending for the latter point, we have by far the larger induction of facts in 
our favour, drawn from the analogy of contemporaneous history. These 
facts and analogies are so plain and perspicuous, that I honestly confess, if 
there were no Bible in existence, I should still hold my own opinions as the 
result of simple scientific inquiry. I will conclude, if you will allow me, by 
reading a passage from Max Muller : — “ More and more the image of man, 
in whatever clime we meet him, rises before us noble and pure from the 
very beginning. . . . As far as we can trace back the footsteps of man, 
even on the lowest strata of history, we see that the divine gift of a sound 
and sober intellect belonged to him from the very first, and the idea of a 
humanity emerging slowly from the depths of an animal brutality can never 
be maintained again.” (Cheers.) 
The Meeting was then adjourned. 
