And here it is important to observe that even if savage races be taken as the type of man’s primeval condition, the evidence afforded by these races is all in favor of the conclusion that, as regards his characteristic mental powers, man has always been man, and nothing less. There is quite as much ingenuity and skill in the manufacture of a knife of flint as in the manufacture of a knife of iron. And the skill displayed by the men who used stone implements is not confined to that which is involved in the selection of mineral substances suitable for the purpose. That skill is also eminently displayed in the use made of those stone implements after they had been fashioned. The smaller implements of bone, or of horn, or of wood which the stone knives and hatchets were employed to make are often highly ingenious, and sometimes eminently beautiful. The truth is that high qualities of reasoning and ready faculties of observation are called forth in the inverse ratio of the acquired knowledge with which they are provided, and from which they start. It matters not which of the two theories we adopt in regard to the origin of the human race, whether we suppose it to have proceeded from one or from two, or even from several different centres of creation; it matters not whether we suppose with Sir J. Lubbock that the “first being worthy to be called a man” was born of some inferior creature, or whether we believe with Whately, that he was truly human in his powers, but required some “elementary instruction to enable his faculties to begin their work.” In any case we may safely assume that man must have begun his course in some one or more of those portions of the earth which are genial in climate, rich in natural fruits, and capable of yielding the most abundant return to the very simplest arts. It is under such conditions that the first establishment of the human race can be most easily understood; nay, it is under such conditions only that it is conceivable at all. And as these are the conditions which would favor the first establishment and the most rapid increase of man, so also are these the conditions under which knowledge would most rapidly accumulate, and the earliest possibilities of material civilization would arise.