THE QUARTERLY 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, 
OCTOBER, 1877. 
I. OUR SIX-FOOTED RIVALS. 
ET us suppose that, having no previous acquaintance 
with the subject, we were suddenly informed, on 
good authority, that there existed in some part of 
the globe a race of beings who lived in domed habitations, 
aggregated together so as to form vast and populous cities, 
— that they exercised jurisdiction over the adjoining terri- 
tory, laid out regular roads, executed tunnels underneath 
the beds of rivers, stationed guards at the entrance of their 
towns, carefully removed any offensive matter, maintained 
a rural police, organised extensive hunting expeditions, at 
times even waged war upon neighbouring communities, took 
prisoners and reduced them to a state of slavery, — that they 
not merely stored up provisions with due care, to avoid their 
decomposition by damp and fermentation, but that they 
kept cattle, and in some cases even cultivated the soil and 
gathered in the harvest. We should unquestionably regard 
these creatures as human beings who had made no small 
progress in civilisation, and should ascribe their actions to 
reason. If we were then told that they were not men, and 
they were in some places formidable enemies to man, and 
had even by their continued molestations caused certain 
villages to be forsaken by all human occupants, our interest 
would perhaps be mixed with some little shade of anxiety 
lest we were here confronted by a race who, under certain 
eventualities, might contest our claim to the sovereignty 
of the globe. But when we learn that these wonderful 
creatures are inserts some few lines in length our curiosity 
is cooled ; we are apt, if duly guided by dominant prepos- 
sessions, to declare that the social organisation of these 
beings is not civilisation, but at most gwsAcivilisation, — - 
that their guiding principle is not reason, but “ instindt,” 
VOL. vii. (n.s.) 2 H 
