As the question of man’s origin is different from the question of his antiquity, and as the antiquity of man is a different question from his primitive condition, so again the last question includes within itself several different matters of inquiry. There is first the question, What consciousness had primeval man of moral obligation, and what communion with his Creator? Next there is the question, What were his innate intellect or understanding? And, thirdly, there is the question, What was his condition in respect to knowledge, whether as the result of intuition or as the result of teaching? Sir J. Lubbock speaks of primeval man as having been in a condition of “utter barbarism.” But no one, speaking philosophically, has a right to use such terms as “barbarism” and “civilization” without some definition of their meaning. What were those faculties which made the first creature who possessed them “worthy to be called a man”? A mind capable of reason, disposed to reason, and able to acquire, to accumulate, and to transmit knowledge--this is the distinctive attribute of man. The first being “worthy to be so called” must have had such a mind. But it could not properly be said of such a being, on the ground merely of his ignorance of mechanical arts, that he was in a condition of “utter barbarism,” if he were at the same time conscious of moral obligations and obedient to them. Wherever a brutal or savage custom prevails it is at once assumed to be a sample of the original condition of mankind. And this in the teeth of facts which prove that many of such customs not only may have been, but must have been, the result of corruption. Take cannibalism as one of these. Sir J. Lubbock seems to admit that this loathsome practice was not primeval, probably because he considers it as unnatural. And so it is--that is to say, it is against the better nature of man; but the fact of its existence proves that within the limits of that nature there are elements liable to perversions even so horrible as this. And so we come upon the fact of the two natures of man, and of the power of the worst parts of his nature to overcome the best. It is thus that customs the most cruel and depraved become established. But if this be the explanation, and the only possible explanation, of cannibalism, is it not evident that this may also be the explanation of other customs which are violent and horrible only in a less degree? Cruel rites of worship and savage customs as regards marriage and the relation of the sexes come under the same category. Cannibalism is only an extreme case of a general law, and it is a crucial test of the fallacy of a whole class of arguments commonly assumed by those who support the savage theory respecting the primeval condition of mankind.