argument against the theory of degradation and not against that of progress. Civilised races, say we, are the descendants of races which have risen from a state of barbarism. Barbarians, on the contrary, argue our opponents, are the descendants of civilised races, and have sunk to their present condition. But Archbishop Whately admits that the civilised races are still rising, while the savages are now stationary; and, oddly enough, seems to regard this as an argument in support of the very untenable proposition that the difference between the two is due not to the progress of the one set of races, a progress which every one admits, but to the degradation of those whom he himself maintains to be stationary. The delusion is natural, and like that which every one must have sometimes experienced in looking out of a train in motion, when the woods and fields seem to be flying from us, whereas we know that in reality we are moving and they are stationary. But it is argued, "If man, when first created, was left like the brutes to the unaided exercise of those natural powers of body and mind which are common to the European and to the New Hollander, how comes it that the European is not now in the condition of the New Hollander?" I am indeed surprised at such an argument. In the first place, Australia possesses neither cereals nor any animals which can be domesticated with advantage; and in the second, we find, even in the same family, among children of the same parents, the most opposite dispositions-in the same nation there are families of high character, and others in which every member is more or less criminal. But in this case, as in the last, the Archbishop's argument, if good at all, is good against his own view. It is like an Australian boomerang, which recoils upon its owner. The Archbishop believed in the unity of the human race, arguing that man was originally civilised (in a certain sense). "How comes it, then," I might ask him, "that the New Hollander is not now in the condition of the European?" In another passage, Archbishop Whately quotes with approbation a passage from President Smith, of the College of New Jersey, who says-Man, "cast out an orphan of nature, naked and helpless, into the savage forest, he must have perished before he could have learned how to supply his most immediate and urgent wants. Suppose him to have been created, or to have started into being, one knows not how, in the full strength of his bodily powers, how long must it have been before he could have known the proper use of his limbs, or how to apply them to climb the tree?" &c., &c. Just the same, however, might be said of the gorilla or the chimpanzee, which certainly are not the degraded descendants of civilised ancestors. Having thus very briefly considered the arguments brought forward by Archbishop Whately, I will proceed to state, also very briefly, some

facts which seem to militate against the view advocated by him. Firstly, I will endeavour to show that there are indications of progress even among savages; secondly, that among the most civilised nations there are traces of original barbarism. He supposes that men were from the beginning herdsmen and cultivators. We know, however, that the Australians, Tasmanians, North and South Americans, and several other more or less savage races, living in countries eminently suited to our domestic animals and to the cultivation of cereals, were yet entirely ignorant both of the one and the other. It is, I think, improbable that any race of men who had once been agriculturalists and herdsmen should entirely abandon pursuits so easy and so advantageous, and it is still more improbable that, if we accept Usher's very limited chronology, all tradition of such a change should be lost. Moreover, even if the present colonists of (say) America or Australia were to fall into such a state of barbarism, we should still find in those countries herds of wild cattle descended from those imported: and, even if these were exterminated, still we should find their remains, whereas we know that no trace of a bone either of the ox, the horse, or the domestic sheep has been found either in Australia or in the whole extent of America. So, again, in the case of plants. We do not know that any of our cultivated cereals would survive in a wild state, though it is highly probable that, in a modified form perhaps, they would do so. But there are many other plants which follow in the train of man, and by which the botany of South America, Australia, and New Zealand has been almost as profoundly modified as their ethnology has been by the arrival of the white man. The Maoris have a melancholy proverb that the Maoris disappear before the white man, just as the white man's rat destroys the native rat, the European fly drives away the Maori fly, and the clover kills the New Zealand fern. A very interesting paper on this subject, by Dr. Hooker, whose authority no one will question, is contained in the Natural History Review for 1864:-In Australia and New Zealand, he says, for instance, the noisy train of English emigration is not more surely doing its work than the stealthy tide of English weeds, which are creeping over the surface of the waste, cultivated, and virgin soil in annually increasing numbers of genera, species, and individuals. Apropos of this subject, a correspondent says:-"T. Locke Travers, Esq., F.L.S., a most active New Zealand botanist, writing from Canterbury, says :-'You would be surprised at the rapid spread of European and foreign plants in this country. All along the sides of the main lines of roads through the plains, a Polygonum, called cow grass, grows most luxuriantly. the roots sometimes two feet in depth, and the plants spreading over an area from four to five feet in diameter. The dock (Rumex obtusi

folius or R. Crispus) is to be found in every river bed, extending into the valleys of the mountain rivers, until these become mere torrents. The Sow-thistle is spread all over the country, growing luxuriantly nearly up to six thousand feet. The water-cress increases in our still rivers to such an extent as to threaten to choke them altogether.'" The Cardona of the Argentine Republics is another remarkable instance of the same fact. We may, therefore, safely assume that if Australia, New Zealand, or South America had ever been peopled by a race of herdsmen or agriculturalists, the fauna and flora of these countries would almost inevitably have given evidence of the fact, and differed. much from the condition in which they were discovered. We may also assert, as a general proposition, that no weapons or instruments of metal have ever been found in any country inhabited by savages wholly ignorant of metallurgy. A still stronger case is afforded by pottery. Pottery is not easily destroyed; when known at all, it is always abundant, and it possesses two qualities—namely, that of being easy to break, and yet difficult to destroy, which render it very valuable in an archæological point of view. Moreover, it is in most cases associated with burials. It is therefore a very significant fact, that no fragment of pottery has ever been found in Australia, New Zealand, or the Polynesian Islands. It seems to me extremely improbable that an art so easy and so useful should ever have been lost by any race of men. Moreover, this argument applies to several other arts and instruments. I will mention only two, though several others might be brought forward. The art of spinning, and the use of the bow are quite unknown to many races of savages, and yet would hardly be likely to have been abandoned when once known. The absence of architectural remains in these countries is another argument. Archbishop Whately, indeed, claims this as being in his favour, but the absence of monuments in a country is surely indicative of barbarism and not of civilisation. The mental condition of savages seems also to me to speak strongly against the "degrading" theory. I have elsewhere pointed out that, according to the almost universal testimony of all writers on savages-merchants, philosophers, naval men, and missionaries alike-there are many races of men who are altogether destitute of a religion. The cases are perhaps less numerous than they are asserted to be, but many of them rest on doubtful evidence. Yet I feel it difficult to believe that any people which had once possessed a religion would ever have entirely lost it. Religion appeals so strongly to the hopes and fears of men-it takes so deep a hold on most minds -it is so great a consolation in times of sorrow and of sickness-that I can hardly think any nation would ever abandon it altogether. Where, therefore, we find a race which is now ignorant of religion, I cannot

but assume that it has always been so. I will now proceed to mention a few cases in which some improvement does appear to have taken place. According to M'Gillivray, the Australians of Port Essington, who, like all their fellow-countrymen, had formerly bark canoes only, have now completely abandoned them for others hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, which they buy from the Malays. It is said that the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands have recently introduced outriggers. The Bachapins, when visited by Burchell, had just commenced working iron. According to Burton, the Wajiji negroes have recently learned to make brass. In Tahiti, when visited by Captain Cook, the largest morai, or burial place, was that erected for the then reigning Queen. The Tahitians also had then very recently abandoned the habit of cannibalism, which we know was very common in other Pacific Islands. Moreover, there are certain facts which speak for themselves. Some of the North American tribes cultivated the maize. Now, the maize is a North American plant, and we have here, therefore, clear evidence of a step in advance made by these tribes. Again, the Peruvians had domesticated the llama. Those who believe in the diversity of species of men may endeavour to maintain that the Peruvians had domestic llamas from the beginning. Archbishop Whately, however, would not take this line. He would, I am sure, admit that the first settlers in Peru had no llamas, nor indeed any other domestic animal, excepting probably the dog. Another very strong case is the invention of the boomerang by the Australians. This weapon is known to no other race of men, with the doubtful exception of one Central African tribe. We cannot look on it as a relic of primeval civilisation, or it would not now be confined to one race only. The Australian cannot have learned it from any civilised visitors for the same reason. It is, therefore, as it seems to me, exactly the case we want, and a clear proof of a step in advance-a small one if you like-but still a step made by a people whom Archbishop Whately would certainly admit to be true savages. The rude substitutes for writing found among various tribes must also in many cases be regarded as of native origin. In the case of the system of letters invented by Mohammed Doalu, a negro of the Vei country, in West Africa, the idea was no doubt borrowed from the missionaries, although it was worked out independently. In other cases, however, this cannot, I think, be maintained. Take the case of the Mexicans. Even if we suppose that they are descended from a primitively civilised race, and had gradually and completely lost both the use and tradition of letters to my mind, by the way, a most improbable hypothesis-still we must look on their system of picture-writing as being of American origin. Even if a system of writing by letters could ever be altogether lost-which I

doubt-it certainly could not be abandoned for that of picture-writing, which is inferior in every point of view. If the Mexicans had owed their civilisation, not to their own gradual improvement, but to the influence of some European visitors, driven by stress of weather or the pursuit of adventure into their coasts, we should have found in their system of writing, and in other respects, unmistakable proofs of such an influence. Although, therefore, we have no historical proof that the civilisation of America was indigenous, we have in its very character evidence, perhaps, more satisfactory than any historical statements would be. The same argument may be derived from the names used for numbers by savages. I feel great difficulty in supposing that any race which had learned to count up to ten would ever unlearn a piece of knowledge so easy and yet so useful. Yet we know that few, perhaps none, of those whom Archbishop Whately would call savages, can count so far. No Australian language contained numerals for any number beyond four; the Dammaras and Abipones use none beyond three; some of the Brazilian tribes cannot go beyond two. In many cases when the system of numeration is at present somewhat more advanced, it bears on it the stamp of native and recent origin. Among civilised nations the derivations of the numerals have long since been obscured by the gradual modification which time effects in all words, especially those in frequent use, and before the invention of printing. And if the numerals of savages were relics of a former civilisation, the waifs and strays saved out of the general wreck, though we could not expect to trace them up to that original language which in such a case must have existed, yet we certainly should not find them such as they really are. I cannot, of course, give to this argument all the development of which it is capable, but I will quote a short passage from a very interesting lecture delivered before the Royal Institution, by my friend, Mr. Tylor, in which some of the facts are clearly stated, and with an authority which no one will gainsay :-Among many tribes of North and South America and West Africa are found such expressions asfor five, "a whole hand;" and for six, "one to the other hand ;" ten, "both hands ;" and eleven, "one to the foot ;" twenty, "one Indian ;" and twenty-one, "one to the hands of the other Indian;" or for eleven, "foot one;" for twelve, "foot two;" for twenty, "a person is finished;" while among the miserable natives of Van Diemen's Land the reckoning of a single hand-viz., five, is called puganna, "a man." For displaying to us the picture of the savage counting on his fingers, a being struck with the idea that if he describes in words his gestures of reckoning, these words will become a numeral, perhaps no language approaches the Zulu. Counting on his fingers, he begins always with