not be denied, the facts which have lately been
brought to light in regard to one such personage and the community in
which he lived may have a peculiar interest and significance in their
bearing on the general question of the mental capacity of uncivilized
races.

It is well known that the Iroquois tribes, whom our ancestors termed the
Five Nations, were, when first visited by Europeans, in the precise
condition which, according to all the evidence we possess, was held by
the inhabitants of the Old World during what has been designated the
Stone Age. Any one who examines the abandoned site of an ancient
Iroquois town will find there relics of precisely the same cast as those
which are disinterred from the burial mounds and caves of prehistoric
Europe,--implements of flint and bone, ornaments of shells, and fragments
of rude pottery. Trusting to these evidences alone, he might suppose
that the people who wrought them were of the humblest grade of intellect.
But the testimony of historians, of travellers, of missionaries, and
perhaps his own personal observation, would make him aware that this
opinion would be erroneous, and that these Indians were, in their own
way, acute reasoners, eloquent speakers, and most skilful and far-seeing
politicians. He would know that for more than a century, though never
mustering more than five thousand fighting men, they were able to hold
the balance of power on this continent between France and England; and
that in a long series of negotiations they proved themselves qualified to
cope in council with the best diplomatists whom either of those powers
could depute to deal with them. It is only recently that we have
learned, through the researches of a careful and philosophic
investigator, the Hon. L. H. Morgan, that their internal polity was
marked by equal wisdom, and had been developed and consolidated into a
system of government, embodying many of what are deemed the best
principles and methods of political science,--representation, federation,
self-government through local and general legislatures,--all resulting in
personal liberty, combined with strict subordination to public law. But
it has not been distinctly known that for many of these advantages the
Five Nations were indebted to one individual, who bore to them the same
relation which the great reformers and lawgivers of antiquity bore to the
communities whose gratitude has made their names illustrious.

A singular fortun