The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 2, Civilized Nations: The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 2Bancroft, Hubert Howe
History
The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 2, Civilized Nations: The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 2
Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Indians -- Bibliography; Indians of Central America; Indians of Mexico; Indians of North America -- Pacific Coast of North America
As in animals of the same genus or species, inhabiting widely
different localities, we see the results of common instincts, so in
the evolutions of the human race, divided by time or space, we see the
same general principles at work. So too it would seem, whether species
are one or many, whether man is a perfectly created being or an
evolution from a lower form, that all the human races of the globe are
formed on one model and governed by the same laws. In the customs,
languages, and myths of ages and nations far removed from each other
in social, moral, and mental characteristics, innumerable and striking
analogies exist. Not only have all nations weapons, but many who are
separated from each other by a hemisphere use the same weapon; not
only is belief universal, but many relate the same myth; and to
suppose the bow and arrow to have had a common origin, or that all
flood-myths, and myths of a future life are but offshoots from Noachic
and Biblical narratives is scarcely reasonable.
It is easier to tell what civilization is not, and what it does not
spring from, than what it is and what its origin. To attribute its
rise to any of the principles, ethical, political, or material, that
come under the cognizance of man, is fallacy, for it is as much an
entity as any other primeval principle; nor may we, with Archbishop
Whately, entertain the doctrine that civilization never could have
arisen had not the Creator appeared upon earth as the first
instructor; for, unfortunately for this hypothesis, the aboriginals
supposedly so taught, were scarcely civilized at all, and compare
unfavorably with the other all-perfect works of creation; so that this
sort of reasoning, like innumerable other attempts of man to limit the
powers of Omnipotence, and narrow them down to our weak
understandings, is little else than puerility.
[Sidenote: SOCIETY ESSENTIAL TO INTELLECT.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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