The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-07 00:00:00

THE " PALL MALL GAZETTE" O.N
SAVAGES.

We beg leave to add a few more observations to
the remarks which we made last week respecting
the savage state. That that state was not the ori-
ginal condition of mankind, but a declension from
an anterior civilization, is proved, as we showed, by
the magnificent remains of rich and highly-refined
languages, and still better preserved fragments of
primeval doctrine. But there is another proof
which ought to carry conviction to every mind,
and which we will state as succinctly as possible.
It is now nearly four centuries since Columbus
discovered America, and during that long period
the savages scattered through the northern and
southern portions of that vast Continent, when
not converted to Christianity, have not advanced
a single step in moral and intellectual culture.
They still present the same sad spectacle of pro-
found moral and mental degradation, and still re-
volve in the same circle of cruel superstitious and
hideous practices, unchanged by time, unreformed
even by the sight of a Christian civilization, where
of they obtain occasional glimpses. And there is
reason to believe that for several centuries at least
before Europeans planted their feet on the Ameri-
can Continent the same state of things existed.
Progressiveness, which is one of the most distinc-
tive traits of civilized man, is null in the savage.
And yet external nature, which a materialist philo-
sophy represents as the sole motive power of
civilization, is nowhere more magnificent than in
the New World.

What conclusion are we, then, to draw from these
facts? What other but this, that if, in the course
of four, and, we may safely say, seven, centuries
at least, the savage, unaided by the Christian reli-
gion, has been unable to emerge from the abject
condition to which he has been reduced, it follows
that those flourishing kingdoms, Egypt, Assyria,
India, and others, which appear on the threshold
of sacred and profane history, could not have been
evolved from the savage state. In other words,
man's first state, as Holy Writ shows, was that of
a high civilization ; for he had been favoured with
a Divine Revelation, and had in his early years held
converse with the angels. And this account of
man's origin and primal history, as recorded by
Scripture, is corroborated by the testimony of uni-
versal tradition. "The first men," says Cicero,
" were in communion with the gods, and received
instruction from them." And an old Chinese sage,
quoted by Abel Remusat, observes, "that a bright
light shone round the first men. Man," he con-
tinues (and many moderns would do well to weigh
his words), " man is a child born ,at midnight,
who, when he sees the sun rise, thinks that yester-
day never existed."
Thus on the matter under inquiry the ♦oice of
Scripture and of general tradition coincides with
the results of modern observation.

And yet the savage, impotent as he is to raise
himself from his intellectual, moral, and social de-
basement, is far exalted above the primitive man
imagined by materialism. The former lives on the
remains• of a glorious patrimony ; he has still the
mutilated fragments of religion, moral and social
obligation, law, and lastly, language, which he once
received from the civilized community, whence by
force of circumstances he seceded. But the primi-
tive being, whom Materialism loves to fancy, was
thrown on this world without Revelation, without
religious, moral, and social instruction—without
language, in fine, and thus, unaided, rose by his
own spontaneous energy, to the heights of all civili-
zation. But surely, the continued degradation of
the savage, under circumstances infinitely more
favourable, as has been shown, would alone dis-
prove an hypothesis, repugnant as it is in many
other respects to Reason, and adverse fo the testi-
mony of Scripture and of Tradition.
There have been found two or three examples
of individuals devoid of all intellectual and moral
ideas, without religion, without language. But
they were individuals isolated from all human inter-
course ; and thus destitute of the gifts which God
once imparted, and which, however disfigured,
society alone can transmit. But never was a tribe,
however savage, found in the like condition.
The Pall Mall Gazette says that history never
shows us a nation falling into the savage state.
But the writer should remember that there are
many social phenomena which are either unnoticed
by her, or lie beyond the reach of her ken. Be-
sides, the say age has no histor his monotonous