Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    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 unfavourable circumstances, to be able to provide himself with some sort of dwelling, to make weapons, and to practise some simple kind of cookery. But, granting, it will be said, that he can go thus far, how does he ever proceed farther unprompted, seeing that many nations remain fixed for ever at this point, and seem unable to take one step in advance? It is 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 favour- able circumstances 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
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