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Show 232 TilE DESCENT OF MAN. PAUT I. into consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these points are of so unimportant or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans differ as much from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the '·Beagle,'' with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours ; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate. He who will carefully read Mr. Tylor's and Sir J. Lubbock's interesting works 23 can hardly fail to be deeply impressed with the close similarity between the men of all races in tastes, dispositions and habits. This is shewn by the pleasure which they all take in dancing, rude music, acting, painting, tattooing, and otherwise decorating themselves,-in their mutual comprehension of gesture-language-and, as I shall be ~ble t~ shew in a future essay, by the same expression m their features, and by the same inarticulate cries, when they are excited by various emotions. This similarity, or rather identity, is striking, when contrasted ~ith. t~e different expressions which may be observed m chstmct species of monkeys. There is good evidence that the art of shooting with bows and arrows has not been handed down from any common progenitor of 21 Tylor's 'Early History of Mankind,' 18G5; for the evidence with respect to gesture-language, seep. 5-1. Luubock'::; • Prehistoric Times' 2nd edit. 1869. ' CHAP. VII. THE RACES OF MAN. 233 mankind, yet the stone arrow-heads, brought from the most distant parts of the world and manufactured at the most remote periods, are, as Nilsson has shewn/4 almost identical; and this fact can only be accounted for by the various races having similar inventive or mental powers. The same observation has been made by archreologists 25 with respect to certain widely-prevalent ornaments, such as zigzags, &c.; and with respect to various simple beliefs and customs, such as the burying of the dead under megalithic structures. I remember observing in South America,26 that there, as in so many other parts of the world, man has generally chosen the summits of lofty hills, on which to throw up piles of stones, either for the sake of recording some remarkable event, or for burying his dead. Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearlyallied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man. As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who were thus characterised. We thus gain some insight into the early state of man, 24 ''rhe Primitive InLabifants of Scandinavia,' Eng. translat. edited by Sir J. Lubbock, 1868, p. 104. 25 Hodder M. Westropp, on Cromlechs, &c., 'Journal of Ethnolop: ical Soc.' as given in 'Scientific Opinion,' June 2nd, 1869, p. 3. ~6 'Journal of Researches: Voyage of the" Beagle,"' p. 46. |