The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

remarks to this effect in the ‘Reise der Novara: Anthropolog. Theil,’ Abtheil. iii. 1868, s. 127.); many native plants were there cultivated, and a few native animals domesticated. We should bear in mind that, judging from the small influence of most missionaries, a wandering crew from some semi-civilised land, if washed to the shores of America, would not have produced any marked effect on the natives, unless they had already become somewhat advanced. Looking to a very remote period in the history of the world, we find, to use Sir J. Lubbock’s well-known terms, a paleolithic and neolithic period; and no one will pretend that the art of grinding rough flint tools was a borrowed one. In all parts of Europe, as far east as Greece, in Palestine, India, Japan, New Zealand, and Africa, including Egypt, flint tools have been discovered in abundance; and of their use the existing inhabitants retain no tradition. There is also indirect evidence of their former use by the Chinese and ancient Jews. Hence there can hardly be a doubt that the inhabitants of these countries, which include nearly the whole civilised world, were once in a barbarous condition. To believe that man was aboriginally civilised and then suffered utter degradation in so many regions, is to take a pitiably low view of human nature. It is apparently a truer and more cheerful view that progress has been much more general than retrogression; that man has risen, though by slow and interrupted steps, from a lowly condition to the highest standard as yet attained by him in knowledge, morals and religion.