The present subject has been treated in so full and admirable a manner by Sir J. Lubbock (32. ‘On the Origin of Civilisation,’ ‘Proceedings of the Ethnological Society,’ Nov. 26, 1867.), Mr. Tylor, Mr. M’Lennan, and others, that I need here give only the briefest summary of their results. The arguments recently advanced by the Duke of Argyll (33. ‘Primeval Man,’ 1869.) and formerly by Archbishop Whately, in favour of the belief that man came into the world as a civilised being, and that all savages have since undergone degradation, seem to me weak in comparison with those advanced on the other side. Many nations, no doubt, have fallen away in civilisation, and some may have lapsed into utter barbarism, though on this latter head I have met with no evidence. The Fuegians were probably compelled by other conquering hordes to settle in their inhospitable country, and they may have become in consequence somewhat more degraded; but it would be difficult to prove that they have fallen much below the Botocudos, who inhabit the finest parts of Brazil. The evidence that all civilised nations are the descendants of barbarians, consists, on the one side, of clear traces of their former low condition in still-existing customs, beliefs, language, etc.; and on the other side, of proofs that savages are independently able to raise themselves a few steps in the scale of civilisation, and have actually thus risen. The evidence on the first head is extremely curious, but cannot be here given: I refer to such cases as that of the art of enumeration, which, as Mr. Tylor clearly shews by reference to the words still used in some places, originated in counting the fingers, first of one hand and then of the other, and lastly of the toes. We have traces of this in our own decimal system, and in the Roman numerals, where, after the V, which is supposed to be an abbreviated picture of a human hand, we pass on to VI, etc., when the other hand no doubt was used. So again, “when we speak of three-score and ten, we are counting by the vigesimal system, each score thus ideally made, standing for 20—for ‘one man’ as a Mexican or Carib would put it.” (34. ‘Royal Institution of Great Britain,’ March 15, 1867. Also, ‘Researches into the Early History of Mankind,’ 1865.) According to a large and increasing school of philologists, every language bears the marks of its slow and gradual evolution. So it is with the art of writing, for letters are rudiments of pictorial representations. It is hardly possible to read Mr. M’Lennan’s work (35. ‘Primitive Marriage,’ 1865. See, likewise, an excellent article, evidently by the same author, in the ‘North British Review,’ July 1869. Also, Mr. L.H. Morgan, ‘A Conjectural Solution of the Origin of the Class. System of Relationship,’ in ‘Proc. American Acad. of Sciences,’ vol. vii. Feb. 1868. Prof. Schaaffhausen (‘Anthropolog. Review,’ Oct. 1869, p. 373) remarks on “the vestiges of human sacrifices found both in Homer and