The great difficulty of teaching many savages the arts of civilized life is no proof whatever that the various degrees of advance toward the knowledge of those arts which are actually found among semi-barbarous nations may not have been of strictly indigenous growth. Thus it appears that one tribe of Red Indians, called “Mandans,” practiced the art of fortifying their towns. Surrounding tribes, although they saw the advantages derived from this art, yet never practiced it, and never learned it. I do not agree with the late Archbishop of Dublin that we are entitled to assume it as a fact that, as regards the mechanical arts, no savage race has ever raised itself. Whately says that “the earliest generations of mankind had received only very limited, and what may be called elementary, instruction, enough merely to enable them to make further advances afterward by the exercise of their natural powers.” But how much was this “enough”? And what is meant by “instruction,” as distinguished from inborn or intuitive powers of observation and of reasoning? May not this have been the form in which the Creator first “instructed” man? For here it is important to observe that in direct proportion as we assume man’s primitive condition to have been such as to require elementary teaching, in the same proportion do we suppose that his primitive condition in respect to intellect was low and weak. Accordingly, Whately assumes as an indisputable fact, that man has no instincts such as enable the lower animals to construct nests, cells, and lairs. My own belief is that this is an assumption which is not only unproved, but one which in all probability is false. As Whately himself admits, “man is an animal” as well as the creatures that are below him. It is true that he has not instincts of the same kind as they have. But this is no proof whatever that he has not, and had not originally, instincts which stand in strict correlation with the peculiarities of his higher physical organization. There are many facts which go far to prove that man has, and must always have had, instincts which afford all that is required as a starting-ground for advance in the mechanical arts. Few persons have reflected on how much is involved in the most purely instinctive acts, such as the throwing of a stone or the wielding of a stick as a weapon of offence. Both these simple acts involve the great principle of the use of artificial tools. Even in the most rudimentary form the use of an implement fashioned for a special purpose is absolutely peculiar to man, and arises necessarily and instinctively out of the structure of his body. The bodies of the lower animals are so constructed that such implements as they are capable of directing are all supplied in the form of bodily organs. All effects which they desire to produce, or are capable of producing, are effected directly by the use of those organs under the guidance of implanted instincts. There are some very curious cases