n
ages. In his nature, it may be said, pre-historic man was the same as a
modern savage; it is only in his acquisition that he was different.

It may be objected that if man was developed out of any kind of animal
(and this is the doctrine of evolution which, if it be not proved
conclusively, has great probability and great scientific analogy in its
favour) he would necessarily at first possess animal instincts; that
these would only gradually be lost; that in the meantime they would
serve as a protection and an aid, and that pre-historic men, therefore,
would have important helps and feelings which existing savages have
not. And probably of the first men, the first beings worthy to be so
called, this was true: they had, or may have had, certain remnants of
instincts which aided them in the struggle of existence, and as reason
gradually came these instincts may have waned away. Some instincts
certainly do wane when the intellect is applied steadily to their
subject-matter. The curious 'counting boys,' the arithmetical
prodigies, who can work by a strange innate faculty the most wonderful
sums, lose that faculty, always partially, sometimes completely, if
they are taught to reckon by rule like the rest of mankind. In like
manner I have heard it said that a man could soon reason himself out of
the instinct of decency if he would only take pains and work hard
enough. And perhaps other primitive instincts may have in like manner
passed away. But this does not affect my argument. I am only saying
that these instincts, if they ever existed, DID pass away--that there
was a period; probably an immense period as we reckon time in human
history, when pre-historic men lived much as savages live now, without
any important aids and helps.

The proofs of this are to be found in the great works of Sir John
Lubbock and Mr. Tylor, of which I just now spoke. I can only bring out
two of them here. First, it is plain that the first pre-historic men
had the flint tools which the lowest savages use, and we can trace a
regular improvement in the finish and in the efficiency of their simple
instruments corresponding to that which we see at this day in the
upward transition from the lowest savages to the highest. Now it is not
conceivable that a race of beings with valuable instincts supporting
their existence and supplying their wants would need these simple
tools. They are exactly those needed by very poor people who have no
instincts, and