The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-12
m the london Spectator.


Sir John Lubbock's remarkable address at
Liverpool on the ''social and religious con-
dition of the lower races of man, contains
certainly the most complete conceivable proof
that in all human communities of which we
can trace the history, the tendency has been
upwards, and not downwards, a history of
progress, and not O history of degradation.
But we wish Sir John Lubbock had added to
his lecture something which he of all others,
is best qualified to add, on the widely diffe-
rent results of the observations of the natura-
alist who watches and describes the hibits and
instincts of animals, and the observations of
the student of the earliest stages OF
human history, who watches and describes
the habits and customs of barbarous m en-.
Curiously enough, every feature Sir John
Lubbock has contributed to the history of
barba1ism-and no one has so good right as
he to be called in some sense the historian
of barbarism-is a feature tending to distin-
guish man from the brutes, at least to dis
tinguish essentially the characteristic bru-
tality of man from the brutality
of brutes. Take any one of
Sir John Lubbock's curious list of savage
ries, and you will find that, intellectually
speaking, it constitutes not a link between
civilized man and the lower animals but a
chasm between them. He quotes, for in
stance at the very outset celebrated saying
of negro to Captain Burton. 'What Am
/ starve while my sister has children whom
she can sell ?" Now, is not the feeling of
civilization about the claims of children on
their parents far more nearly an intel
lectual reflection of the in
stincts exhibited by almost all the lower
animals with relation to their young, than a
development of this savage sentiment
Where is the bird that will cast one of its
young to the hawk to save itself, or the doe
that will not fight far more fercely for its
fawn than for itself? The self-assertion of
this savage selfishness represents a gap be-
tween civilized man and the lower animals,
not link. Then take the practice-of the
great prevalence of which among savages Sir
John Lubbock produces curious evidence-of
the fathers going to bed with a newborn
child, while the mother gets up and does all
the work of the household. Is not this,
again, case of capricious break in the chain
between animal instinct and civilized sense?
Or take Sir John Lubbocks account of the
extravagant passion of the savage for not
only artificial, but positively inconvenient
and painful ornament, such as bones
stuck through the nose, studs in the
cheeks, and so forth. Without saying that
civilized man, or at least woman, has
entirely abandoned all these savage practices, is
it not evident that the tendency of civilization
has been to abolish the inconvenient orna-
mentations of savage vanity, and to return
towards the simplicity of the unconscious
creature? Again, consider Sir John Lub-
books remarks on the laws of savage tribes.
1t is often supposed he says, that savages are
personally more free than civilized men, but
''there cannot be a greater mistake. The
savage is nowhere free. All over the world
his life is regulated by a complicated set of
rules and customs as forcible as laws, of gen
eral psohibitions, and unjust privileges" d"
''The Australians, for example, 'instead of
enjoying perfect personal freedom, as would
at first appear, are governed by a code of
rules and a set of customs which form one of
the most cruel tyrannies that has ever perhaps
existed on the face of the earth, subjecting
notl only the will, but the property
and life of the weak to the dominion of the
strong" Of this, again, there is no trace
among gregarious animals; for though one
= tribe will prey upon another, creatures of the
same kind, like bees or beavers, live for the
most part in instructive peace and order. And
here again, the great aim of civilization is to
strike off the alien yoke of tyrannic law and
custom which barbarism imposes. Again, in
the relation between the sexes, the most
marked distinction Of savage life is the vio-
lence with which woman is habitually treated,
being carried off at first by violence, and
reduced to the position of kind of slave
afterwards. Here again, we find nothing
parallel in the life of the lower animals and
n
Kandyan, expressing his scorn for rather ex-
ceptional savage, Veddah, cited in proof of
the contemplate character of the Veddahs
that they remain true to one wife till death,
which, said the Kandyan, was exactly like
the practice of monkeys What Sir John
Lubbock thinks the most common rule of
marriage in the lowest tribes, the system OF
communal marriage, is certainly not an i'm
provement on, but deterioration from the
habits of the higher brutes. Of religion OF
course there can be no trace in the brutes,
and the mere power of fancying and specu.
lating, however rudely, on the unseen, is,
of course, great advance in the faculty but
the first result of that power, as in the lower
religions described by Sir John Lubbock
for instance, the worship of the serpent, be-
cause of his deadly venom-is to start man
off again on the track of mutilation of ma
ture, instead of conformity to it such as we
see in the animal world. Any one who follows
Sir John Lubbock carefully through his de-
scription of savage customs and habits, will
see, in almost every one, not q link, but q
chasm, between the life of what is called in.
stinct, and the life of what is called educated
reason. Formulated selfshness and caprice
are of the very essence of savage customs
Unselfsh and orderly instincts, which pro
duce many of the effects of the highest intel
hgent organization, are of the very essence OF
the animal life in the stage beneath. The
more we learn of the lowest types of bar
barism, the more clear it seems that the
first STRINGS of human character were no
improvements by the method of natura
selection" on the habits of the brutes
but in most cases absolute deterioration
on those habits, due to the disturbing
power of self-will and caprice. MeI
instead of gaining an advantage owe