many of the stages of growth from pictorial | the rational conceptions of his mind." But signs, and abridgments of such, to the sys-"this creative faculty, which gave to each tematic employment of conventional symbols conception, as it thrilled for the first time that are not pictorial. It can scarcely be said that there is now a dispute as to the origin of speech. It is admitted that all the languages of men have grown; the processes and laws of the growth are well ascertained and agreed upon. All speech has been run back to a few monosyllabic sounds, as the elemental matter out of which the wonderful variety of tongues has been elaborated. There is some controversy as to the roots, but it chiefly concerns the question whether they were instinctive utterances, whatever that, as distinguished from developed utterances, may mean-it is not asserted that instincts may not be developed -or sounds uttered in successful imitation of sounds occurring in nature, and as interjections in the natural expressions of emotion.* : Professor Max Müller, who supports the instinctive theory, puts his results thus:"We require no supernatural interference, nor any conclave of ancient sages to explain the realities of human speech. All that is formal in language is the result of rational combination; all that is material the result of a mental instinct. The first natural and instinctive utterances, if sifted differently by different clans, would fully account both for the first origin and for the first divergence of human speech. We can understand not only the origin of language, but likewise the necessary breaking up of one language into many." Elsewhere rejecting tre origin of roots in interjections, and the imitation of sounds occurring in nature, he adopts the views of a German authority (Professor Heyse, of Berlin), which are as follows: "There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. .. It was the same with man, the most highly organized of nature's works" -and so on. Man possessed an instinctive "faculty for giving articulate expression to ... * Mr. E. B. Tylor has done good service in show. itg how important gesture originally was as a means of communication. He has shown that there must have been a time when the numerals were unspoken, and their purposes served by visible signs,-a hand meaning 5, and two hands 10; 20, of course, was a man. The argument rested by Sir John Lubbock on the evidence Mr. Tylor has adduced is conclusive as to the independent development, among different races, of systems of numeration founded on counting the fingers and toes, and worked at first by appeals to the eye. It is understood that Mr. Darwin is now working on this subject. + Lectures on the Science of Language, 4th edition (1864), p. 409. through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled!" etc. This-which would have been worthy of Sir George Grey, and in him not to be wondered at-is marvellous as propounded by Müller. It has been appositely termed "the ding-dong theory" of the origin of language, as opposed to the bow-wow, or imitative, and pooh-pooh, or interjectional, theories. It cannot be said that the "dingdong" has met with any acceptance. Mr. Whitney says of it, "It may be very summarily dismissed, as wholly unfounded and worthless. It is, indeed, not a little surprising to see a man of the acknowledged ability and great learning of Professor Muller, after depreciating and casting ridicule upon the views of others respecting so important a point, put forward one of his own as a mere authoritative dictum, resting it upon nothing better than a fanciful comparison which lacks every element of a true analogy, instance, or illustration, drawn from either the nature or the history of language."* Take it either way, as ideas came gradually, and therefore words, which, even on the ding-dong hypothesis, came after the ideas, we are led back to a time when man, as regards his power of communicating with his fellows, was undistinguishable from any other animal, for the brutes also have their modes of communication, including "their natural and instinctive utterances." Thus (4.) Religion. Of the growth of religious ideas we shall here say little, because the subject would require more space than we have for the whole purposes of this paper at our disposal for its discussion, and to make the development clearly apparent. much, however, it is necessary to say, that when we examine the religions of the ancient nations, as we know them, at the earliest time-and they were almost as various as their languages, while, like them, perhaps, compounded from a few simple elements, the conclusion is irresistibly forced on the mind, that each of them had passed through a long previous history. They were composite, as were the populations that possessed them; animal and vegetable gods, the elements, and especially fire, the sun, moon, and planets, light and personifications of light, of the sun, and of the procreative and life-sustaining powers of nature, being all commingled in theogonies to which there * Whitney, 1. c. p. 427. must have been numerous contributories, | is refused access-the superior faith beaten and on the elaboration of which an infinity in some districts by the inferior, as being of thinking, fancy, faith, metaphysics, and more attractive to the inferior people. Every imposture had been expended, and round faith, again, on a conquest, loses in purity as which in some cases literatures had grown. it gains in range, through unavoidable interThe ivy never covers the tower of yesterday. mixture of its rites and doctrines with those This also has been said, that not one of them of the religion it displaces. Christianity exhibits the idea of God as we have it, as an itself, as seen in the Romish Church, has idea in the mind of the worshippers; and taken over much of the ceremonial, many of that not one of them exhibits the idea of crea- the festivals, and not a few of the doctrines, tion ex nihilo, as we have it; that these are of ancient Paganism. Change is thus a modern conceptions. Max Müller, following consequence of diffusion. And as every the Rev. R. G. S. Browne, in his essay on religion spreads necessarily from some centre the progress of Zend scholarship, points out of origin, continuous modification is a necesthat the idea of creation ex nihilo came late sary feature of the progress of every religion even to the Jews, who latterly received it as from its beginning. the orthodox view.* It occurs neither in the Veda nor Zendavesta. There is no hint of it in Homer. There has been a progress, therefore, in the central conceptions; how much more probable it is there was progress in the detail. Every one admits there is but one true faith, and since of faiths there is an immense variety, that all save one have grown or been invented. That is, we all admit that religions can grow and develop, are human institutions, that reflect in their structure, as modified from time to time, the shifting phases of belief in their adherents. It has been asked whether any faith has had no history, has not grown and developed within the period of our knowledge? The mysteries of religion occupy so many minds, and so exercise ingenuity, that its doctrines constantly tend to vary, and would do so very rapidly, but for (1.) the hold the central authority in each religious organization has on its ministers as bound by the standards; and (2.) the hold the ministers have on their flocks through the solemnities and ordinances. Despite these checks the varieties are surprisingly numerous. New sects are constantly forming, and about as frequently new religions. Of the projects, only those thrive that fall in with the sentiments and dispositions of large classes, the conditions of success so far resembling those of ordinary commercial undertakings. By a process like that of natural selection in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, those that best accommodate themselves to the conditions of existence live, while the others perish. Many religions, either wholly new or radical modifications of old faiths, have sprung up and died within a century. One or two more vigorous still flourish, and may live long and be influential. We see Mohammedanism spreading into regions to which Christianity Chips from a German Workshop (ed. 1867), vol. i. p. 135. If we would see from how low a state men may have advanced as regards speculation on the mysterious order of the world, we shall find races of men whose minds a thought of the existence of the divine power has never entered. Above that stage of blank ignorance we shall find every conceivable phase of speculation and belief; every imaginable form of superstition and idolatry; and a great variety of contending, highly organized, and in some respects "reasoned" systems of religious doctrine. The belief in God, and the idea of his hating sin and loving righteousness, are grand conceptions. Were there always some human breasts in which from the first they were cherished? To the question no one dare say No, however he may be moved by the probabilities of the case, looking to the answer which history would prompt him to give. "We can hardly speak with sufficient reverence of the discovery of these truths," says Max Müller, "however trite they may appear to ourselves; and, if the name of revelation seems too sacred a name to be applied to them, that of discovery is too profane, for it would throw the vital truths of all religion, both ancient and modern, into the same category as the discoveries of a Galileo or a Newton. Theologians may agree in denying that any man in possession of his reason can, without a crime, remain ignorant of God for any length of time. Missionaries, however, who held and defended this opinion, have been led to very different convictions after some intercourse with savage tribes. Dobrizhoffer, who was for eighteen years a missionary in Paraguay, states that the language of the Abipones does not contain a single word which expresses God or a divinity. Penafiel, a Jesuit theologian, declared that there were many Indians who, on being asked whether, during the whole course of their lives, they ever thought of God, replied, No, never. Dobrizhoffer says, "Travelling with fourteen Abipones, I sat down by the fire in the open stars.' 11 We air, as usual, on the high shore of the river | new establishments, and we shall easily conPlata. The sky, which was perfectly serene, ceive how there was a time, in which almost delighted our eyes with its twinkling stars. all this world was plunged into the most deI began a conversation with the Cacique plorable barbarity. Men wandered in the Ychoalay, the most intelligent of all the woods and fields, without laws, without leadAbipones I have been acquainted with, as ers, or any form of government. Their fewell as the most famous in war. "Do you rocity became so great, that many of them behold," said I, "the splendour of heaven, devoured each other. All kinds of knowlwith its magnificent arrangement of stars? edge, even the most common and necessary, Who can suppose that all this is produced were so much neglected that not a few had by chance? Whom do you suppose to be forgot even the use of fire. It is to these their creator and governor? What were unhappy times we must refer what profane the opinions of your ancestors on the sub- historians relate of the miseries which afflictject?" "My father," replied Ychoalay, ed the first ages of the world. All ancient readily and frankly, "our grandfathers, and traditions declare that the first men led a life great-grandfathers, were wont to contemplate very little different from that of beasts. the earth alone, solicitous only to see wheth- shall find no difficulty in believing these reer the plain afforded grass and water for lations if we cast our eyes on what ancient their horses. They never troubled them- authors tell us of the state of several counselves about what went on in the heavens, tries even in their own times, a state the and who was the creator and governor of the reality of which is confirmed by modern relations. Travellers inform us, that even at this day, in some parts of the world, they meet with men who are strangers to all social intercourse, of a character so cruel and ferocious that they live in perpetual war, destroying and even devouring each other. These wretched people, void of all the principles of humanity, without laws, polity, or government, live in dens and caverns, and differ but very little from the brute creation. Their food consists of some fruits and roots, with which the woods supply them; for want of skill and industry they can seldom procure more solid nourishment. In a word, not having even the most common and obvious notions, they have nothing of humanity but the external figure. These savage people exactly answer the description given us by historians of the ancient state of mankind. We see even from Scripture that soon after the dispersion the precepts and example of Noah were so generally forgotten that even the ancestors of Abraham were plunged in idolatry."* We have now glanced at the facts which support the conclusion that men were originally ignorant of language and laws, arts, sciences, and religion,-a conclusion to which we are driven from whatever view of man's origin we set out. The story of the fall of man, unaccompanied as it is by a statement that the arts of life were divinely communicated, represents the species as left from the first to struggle for existence on the earth, cursed because of the disobedience of the first father. The narrative bears that men grew up in wickedness till the Flood came, which left as their only records but a few names and the generally bad reputation. At a later time the sins of Noah's descendants led to their dispersion, and to the confusion of tongues. Wandering in different directions, unable to communicate with each other, none of them perhaps retaining the original language or the ideas embedded in it, they must have sunk into utter barbarism. What does it matter whether the savagery from which men have advanced was primitive or induced, if it be the fact that it was universal? The learned President de Goguet, in his excellent work on the Origin and Progress of Laws, Arts, and Sciences, thus depicts the condition of men, before the commencement of the progress it was his object to investigate:" All society being dissolved by the confusion of tongues [at Babel], and families living detached from each other, they sunk in a little time into the profoundest ignorance. Add to this, the consideration of the tumult and disorder inseparable from 538. A History of Sanskrit Literature (1859), p. We have here the conclusion to which the facts led a man as ingenious and learned as he was orthodox-" that the first men led a life very little different from that of beasts." The fact may be humiliating; but surely it is encouraging. If we of the higher races of men are yet of those who once were in such a case, and have come to be what we are, while with humble hearts we regard our origin and first estate, we may hopefully look to the future as holding in store for our species forms of life purer and higher than the present by as much as the present are purer and higher than the past. *The Origin of Laws, etc., Trans. (Edinburgh, 1761), Introduction, vol. 1. p. 3. III. THE METHOD OF STUDYING EARLY HISTORY.-In Considering how the general course of human progress from its beginning can be ascertained, we shall reach a point from which the argument demonstrating the progress to have taken place will be seen to acquire a great accession of force. It has been said that in the course of the life of the individual phases occur analogous to those of the development of the species. This is partially true as regards the unfolding of intelligence and morality. There is the childish stage of thoughtlessness and love of amusement; the boyish, in which speculation begins; youth, with its loveblossoms, quickened poetic and scientific imagination, faith, chivalry, self-devotion; manhood last, appreciating the situation, with experience, self-control, moderation, disappointment, and submissiveness. A fanciful person might, with a little trouble, make much out of the slight general resemblances here suggested. It would be to no purpose, however, saving the exercise and the pleasures of ingenuity. The infant has his mother's arms; the child his father's hearth; the boy, older and wiser comrades; the youth, a ref. uge, when discomfited, beneath the parental roof; so that, as the race had no corresponding solaces and supports, there is a radical difference between its case and that of the individual at each stage of progress. The species, whatever view is to be taken of its origin, has beyond doubt been from the beginning engaged in the struggle for existence. It be impossible to infer from the incidents of that struggle, as we now see it, what its character was when waged with the forces of nature, hand to hand, without science and without art; but we must believe it was in early times very sharp and terrible, seeing how hard it still is for the majority. How the fierce pull for life must have qualified, stunted, or prevented the growth of the intellect and conscience, we may learn from a study of the effects of exceptional circumstances on the nature and conduct of individuals. But beyond this, the study of the individual, always excepting the knowledge it affords of human nature, will not much avail in the elucidation of human history in general. The analogies between the evolution of the life of the specimen and the species are suggestive rather than instructive, and need not seriously occupy the student of history. may The history of a nation, on the other hand, might be expected to disclose, not analogies merely to the phases of development of the species, but many of the phases themselves. Here, however, a difficulty occurs similar to that encountered in the general inquiry: the history of most nations was to an unknown extent transacted before the age of records. The question is, How can we learn what the unrecorded part of the national progress was? Our answer is, that we can do this to a considerable extent by studying the various sections of the nation. In a progressive community all the sections do not advance pari passu, so that we may see in the lower some of the phases through which the more advanced have passed. Of course the completeness of the disclosure must depend on the number and nature of the inequalities presented. The inequality of development is determined by the nature of things. It results necessarily from the conditions under which many of the causes of progress operate, and is, in the nature of the case also, more remarkable the larger the progressive community is. While the progress of communities is determined to a great extent by causes that affect all their sections equally, it must always be in many respects promoted by a few leading spirits, acting chiefly on certain of the sections only in the first instance. The men of genius who by their inventions have from time to time added to human knowledge and power, and, by their speculations and aspirations, dignified our life; the philosophers and critics who are foremost to purify, amplify, and change ideas; and the favourites of fortune who are so circumstanced as to be immediately benefited by discoveries, and influenced by improved standards of propriety, form a class by themselves in every community. What is gained by the leaders is first appreciated, taken over, and secured by those next to them in the ranks of progress-ranks that widen backwards from the front. Its transmission to the rear, and adoption and preservation there, are manifestly dependent on the arrangements for that end existing,-the educational apparatus,-which are everywhere imperfect, and for each rank the more imperfect the wider it is, the more numerous its members. And since the force of custom is more decided in the greater masses than the less, while the means of diffusing new ideas are more imperfect for the greater than the less, the latter must tend to advance more rapidly than the former. In other words, owing to the inequality of gifts and opportunities, and the conditions hampering the dissemination of new ideas and methods, inequalities of development must be presented by the sections of every progressive society, and must be more numerous and remarkable the larger the society is. We should not look for very different modes of life in a small group, and we should be surprised not to find them in a large group, for there, on the view we have been taking, they are normal and necessary. Let us take the case of London to illustrate our meaning. In that centre of arts, sciences, industries, and intelligence, are predatory bands, leading the life of the lowest nomads. The night street-prowlers are nearly as low in their habits as the jackals of Calcutta. The city might be made to furnish illustrations of the progress of the family in every phase, from the lowest incestuous combinations of kindred to the highest group based on solemn monogamous marriage. It contains classes that know not marriage, classes approximating to marriage through habits of settled concubinage, and classes for whom promiscuity is an open, unabashed organization. The honour of some of the people are the humane institutions; the disgrace of others are the baby-farming and infanticide, systems as heartless as ever China or Orissa knew. Manners, customs, even language and religion, vary, as we pass from class to class. Groups as destitute as Ojibbeways of religious knowledge and emotion are within the shadow of its cathedrals: the same district containing some whose minds the idea of God never entered, and others who, in the pride of philosophy, have rejected it. Between the extremes is every conceivable form of intelligent and unintelligent faith. Many of these facts, we are aware, may be explained on the degradation hypothesis, as well as by the hypothesis of unequal development. That the lowest strata are constantly receiving accessions through degradation there is no doubt; but these strata have always existed, and were presumably lower formerly than they now are. Can we doubt that they consist to a large extent of the direct representatives of those who formed the lowest strata in the earliest times? What is true of the large towns generally is still truer of the nation at large. Cities are the centres of all that is denominated by civilisation, as the name indicates; they are ex facie the birthplaces of civility, urbanity, politeness. In country districts opportunities of interchanging ideas are rarer, while the clashing of interests evolving new rules of conduct is less frequent and intense; progress in the country therefore is naturally slow, and mainly determined by influences flowing over from the towns. We should expect accordingly to find life most primitive in the districts least exposed to city influences. And this is what we find. In Devonshire and Cornwall, at one extreme, and in the Highlands and the Hebrides, at the other, we discover remains of pre-Chris tian customs and superstitions, as well as modes of life of striking rudeness. Customs survived in Wales till lately that grew out of the rudest stages of society, as, for example, the mimicked cavalry engagement as a ceremony of marriage. Ideas derived from other ancient customs may still be found lingering in various districts in the north of England. The nation that one may divorce a wife by selling her is one of these. Indeed, when we go back little more than a hundred years, we find the most palpably diverse states of life within the country. Tribal and clan ties were till very lately in full force in the Highlands of Scotland, where the archaic system of relationship by milk-ties still survives-as system of which almost everywhere else the traces have long been obliterated. Of course, for many of the inequalities special reasons may be assigned. The population is here mixed, there pure--one stock being purer here, and another there, and each having peculiarities affecting the social phases. The same thing may be said of the town populations. What we maintain is, that had the population been originally homogeneous, and its progress achieved by its internal forces uninfluenced from without, there must have been inequalities of development-the sections less affected by the causes of progress exhibiting phases of life and feeling through which those better situated had passed. A variety of stocks in a nation is merely another and independent guarantee for inequalities of development, as establishing inequalities of gifts, and probably of opportunities, in the sections of the population. Let us see now to what account such inequalities might be put in illustrating the history of the population of the United Kingdom. We might disinter in Cornwall a great part of the Paganism of the ancient Britons; from a study of the still lingering customs associated with the Beltane festival and Easter and May-day, we might pretty confidently conclude that the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons had equally at one time been fire-worshippers, had we no other evidence of the fact. We might conclude that the Welsh tribes had at one time been exogamous tribes, that obtained their wives usually by actually capturing them from their enemies; and that the mixed population in the north of England comprised tribes that used to get their wives by the less primitive method of sale and purchase. The milk-tics of the Hebrides, as they may to this day be studied, would throw a light on the difficulty Giraldus Cambrensis states to have been long ago felt in Ireland, among congeners of the |