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Show l64 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKINO. new language. I have seen c hl'uL.lJ ren .•t n othde r tl· ~i·rcowuimn · stauces amuse themselyes by_ concoctmg an . · d I be~ into the family circulahon entirely new ~~rds' ~n I lieve I am running little risk of contradiCtiOn wh en .dsdaly that there is scarce-ly a f: am1- 1Y even a moncor st t e m1 e 1 . ·r f classes of this countrv who have not some -pecu dtari tes 0 t pr•o nunci.a tiO• n and sy"n tax, w 11_ ·1 C h h ave origmate Aalml othn gs themselves it is hardly posstble to say how. d h ese thincrs bei~O' considered, it is easy to understan ow mankind ha~e come at length to possess between three and four thousand langua~es, all different, at least as much as French German and EnO'lish, though, as has ~een show~, the trades of a c~>mmon ~rigin are o~servable In thexnk~ d What has b~en said on the qu~~twn w~ether man lll \Vere ori()"inally barbarous or civihzed, wlll have pr~pared the r~ader for understan~in_g_ ho~v t~e arts and sciel!-ces and the rudiments of c1 VIhzatwn Itself, ~ook t_heu ris~ amongst 1nen. The only source of falla~wus v1ews on this subject is the so frequent obse_rvatwn ?f arts, sciences, and social modes, forms, and Ideas_, b~tng not indi(J'enous where we see them now tlounshtng, but kno~n to have been derived elsewhere: thus Rome. borrowed from Greece, Gree~e fro~ ~gy~t, and Egypt 1tself, lost in the mists of histone anttquuy, 1s now supposed ~o have obtained the light of knowledge f~om some shU earlier scene of intellectual cultu!e· Th1s has caused to many a great diffi~u.l~y ii?- suppostng a natural or spontaneous orio-in for civthzatJOn and the att_end~nt arts. But, in the fir~ place, several stages of. de't't vat. on are. n_o c<~nclusive ar(.l"ument acrainst there having been an ongtnahty at some ~arlier st~O'e. In the second, such obs~rvers have not looked far ~enough, for, if. t_hey_ had, th~y c?ul_d have seen various instances of ctvLlizatwns whtch It IS impossible, with any plausibility, to trace back to. a common ot·igin with others; such .are th~s~ .of ~h1na .a:d America. They would also have seen CLVIhz~twn Sf?rin~ing /up, as it were, like oases amongst the and p~atns ~f barbarism, as in the case of the Mandans. A still mme attentive study of the subject would have shown, amon.gst li vi no- men, the very psychological procedure on ~v htch the o~·i..(, Tination of civilization and the arts and sctences depended. . , These things, like language, are stmply the ~ffects o. the spontaneous working of certain mental faculties, each EARLY HIBTOR Y OF MANX.IND. 16~ 1n relation to the things of the external world on which it was intended by creative Providence to be exercised. The monkeys themselve~, wi~hout i~struction from any quarte~·, learn to use sticks In fighting, and some build houses-an act which cannot in their case be considered as one of instinct, but of intelligence. Such being the case, there is no necessary difficulty in supposing how man, with his superior mental organization, (a brain five times heavier,) was able, in his primitive state, without instruction, to turn many things in nature to his use, and commence, in short, the circle of the domestic arts. He appears, in the most unfavorable circumstances, to be able to provide himself with some sort of dwelling, to make weapons, and to practice some simple kind of cookery. But, granting, it will be said, that he can go thus far, how does he ever proceed further unprompted, seeing that many nations remain fixed forever at this point, and seem U:fiable to take one step in advance? It 1s perfectly true that there is such a fixation in many nations; but, on the other hand, all nations are not alike in mental organization, and another point has been established, that only when some favorable circuinstance~ have settled a people in one place do arts .and social arrangements get leave to flourish. If we were to limit our view to humbly endowed nations, or the common class of minds in those called civilized, we should see absolutely no conceivable power for the originat~on of new ideas anrl devices. But let us look at the inventive class of minds which stand out amongst their fellowsthe men who, with little prompting or none, conceive new ideas in science, arts, morals-and we can be at no loss to understand how and whence have arisen the elements of that civilization which history traces from country to country throughout the course of centuries. See a Pascal, reproducing the Alexandrian's problems at fifteen; a Ferguson, making clocks from the suggestions of his own brain, while tending cattle on a• Morayshire heath: a boy Lawrence, in an inn on the Bath road, producing, without a master, drawings \V hich the educated could not but admire; or look at Solon and Confucius, devising sage laws, and breathing the accents of all but divine wisdom, for their barbarous fellow-countrymen, three thousand years ago-and the whole mystery is e10l ved at once Amongst the arrangements of Provi· |