Man, in the beginning, was not only ignorant of his proper food, but was not adequate even to the making of fishhooks, nets, bows, arrows, darts, snares for wild animals, could not make a canoe, or erect the rudest habitation. A revelation, he thinks, was made to the first, or to some subsequent generation. From this the rudest knowledge of the savages was originally derived. This revelation contained all necessary information; and without it man would have perished, or would have ever remained in his most ignorant and savage condition. Almost every people existing have traditions which, with singular unanimity, refer to a remote past, when such divine knowledge was communicated. These nations, in every instance, have a tradition of some being from heaven who first taught them the arts of life. "Thus the ancient Greeks attributed to Prometheus, a supposed super-human being, the introduction of the use of fire. Triptolemus, Cadmus and others, strangers from a distant country, introduced agriculture and other arts." Ceres taught men to entrust the seed-corn to the earth. Dyonysius, coming from India, taught the Greeks the planting of the vine. The Chinese ascribe their knowledge of the tea-plant, and the rearing of silk to divine interposition. The ancient Peruvians have a tradition of a person called Mancocapac, whom they represent as the offspring of the sun, and who taught their ancestors useful arts.

It is a general law, which the history of civilization illustrates, that a people left to themselves will not advance, but retrograde. The impetus, the incitement to progress, invariably comes from without. "A more improved man may be the introducer of civilization among savages; but in the beginning, since there was no man to effect it, it must have been the work of a Divine Being." "There must, in short, have been a revelation made to the first or to some subsequent generation of our species." This is the theory which his Grace entertains relative to the origin of civilization, and such is the proof by which it is established. To this conclusion he arrives, independently of any thing contained in the Scriptures.

Dr. Lieber also approaches the subject from other than Scripture grounds. The opening sentence of his lecture is strikingly profound and suggestive. "The origin of

the

important and extensive institutions, arts or contrivances, which present themselves to the inquirer, distinctly defined and in a certain state of completeness, has been generally ascribed to acts similarly distinct and definite-to conscious invention, deliberate agreement, united wisdom, sudden discovery, or direct inspiration." The Greeks and nearly all ancient nations ascribe the introduction of agriculture to a deity. These nations magnified into a divinity the person who introduced any noted improvement in the cultivation of the earth, or else, in contemplating the various processes which enter into agriculture, clearly perceived that it could not be the result of the invention of the highest human intellect. Or it might be perceived that before the uses of husbandry were known, the supposition of its invention involves a seeming contradiction. Yet agriculture, at some time, took its rise. Considering it in the comparative perfection in which it existed, they ascribed its beginning to inspiration, or to direct knowledge imparted by a deity.

Again. "Even the origin of so simple an article as bread, has been ascribed to a deity-to the god Pan." He who reflected upon the many different processes involved in making this article, at once perceived that no man unacquainted with it could possibly, by a single act, invent it. But we know that this article is found in every possible state of perfection; "from the simple boiling of maize, and partial evaporation of the liquid, even without grinding, to the most delicious accompaniment of a Parisian repast. Whoever will reflect upon the following suggestive remark of Dr. Lieber, will perceive that inattention to its truth has led to error in speculation. A mistake is often incurred "in allowing ourselves to be deceived by a distinct word for an indistinct idea, as if the latter were as concise and definite in our minds, as the sound of the first is distinct and definite in our ears. Languages in which it is grammatically easy to abstract, such as the Greek and German, are peculiarly apt to mislead the philosopher into this very serious error." Thus the Hindoos attribute their government to Menu, their law-giver, who gave them a complete code. Thus writers have spoken of contracts, or compacts by which society or governments were formed. Hugo Grotius speaks

of the " purposes and ends for which property was first established," and scholars have spoken of the invention of language, and even of religion. The words society, property, law, religion, agriculture, stand for these institutions, in every state of comparative completeness in which they may exist in different societies, and in different conditions of the same societies. These institutions have their basis in the nature of man; the thing must always be before the name. These characteristics of man develope into increasing_completeness with each advancing step in his progress. The idea, for instance, that a divinity instructed men in agriculture, carries with it the conception, that the early nations received a certain distinct and definite body of knowledge; whereas we know that improvement in husbandry has been a gradual process. A definite revelation could not have been made to the early nations, because we witness husbandry in every stage of progress in different communities, from the Oregon Indian, who, with a sharp stick, opens the earth for the depositing of his seed, to the most thorough subsoiling, as practiced by the best English or American farmer. Yet most nations have recorded that their ancestors were divinely instructed in agriculture. And so, too, as we have already remarked, the ancient Greeks attributed a knowledge of the making of bread to divine instruction. A distinct revelation of the varied processes which are involved, was, we are told, at a certain time, made to men. But this, we think, could not have been; for we witness in the history of tribes and nations, the process in its incipient state, and in every stage of its improvement to the most palatable loaf.

Dr. Lieber gives a list of the principal characteristics of man. These characteristics, he alleges, manifest themselves even in his lowest condition; but they appear more distinctly with each advancing step in his progress. "The

first starting in the different branches necessary for civilization, is not left to the option of man, but is closely connected with the material world, and is the inevitable result of the relations in which man, with his peculiar organization, and his expansive intellect, is placed to the material world around him." These practical characteristics are, 1, Language; 2, Individual Property; 3,

Exchange; 4, Sexual Shame; 5, Family Authority or Government; 6, Religion; 7, Taste, or the Love of the Beautiful; 8, Punishment for Wrong. Man, in contact with the material world, manifests these characteristics, and they become more conspicuous as he advances in his progress. Every characteristic above specified can be discerned in man's original state. Consider his capacity for language. This capacity exists in his nature in the beginning. Brought into relations with his kind, and into contact with the external world, he begins immediately to manifest this characteristic. He devises his vocabulary, which is limited or extended in proportion to his wants. He is created a linguistic being, and he at once forms a language, when his necessities require it. Being created with this potential capacity, he has no need of direct instruction or inspiration. Again, consider man's desire for property, which is an original principle in his constitution. This appears early in the child,-its existence is traced even in the deaf, dumb, and the idiotic. This elementary principle appears more distinctly with each advancing step in civilization. And in like manner do all the practical characteristics of mankind above enumerated manifest themselves. "We never find men, even the lowest, destitute of them, though they may be but in their incipient stages; and they rise in importance, develop themselves in variety of detail, and acquire a more distinct character of their own, as society advances toward the highest degrees of civilization."

But leaving out of view the speculations of philosophers relative to the origin of civilization, Dr. Lieber has it in his power to appeal to facts which, when once admitted, seem to put this question at rest, and to make all further theorizing useless. Those blind and deaf mutes, who are always subjects of deep interest-Laura Bridgman and Oliver Caswell, at Boston, Julia Brace, in Connecticut, Anna Temmermans, at Bruges, James Mitchell, at Nairn, in Scotland, and many others,-"all these unfortunate beings, who, from earliest infancy, were enveloped in lasting darkness and stillness, shut out from all communication with the world, show the practical characteristics above enumerated, so far as their privation of the senses admits them." "Every blind-surd," says Dr.

Lieber, "shows a decided consciousness of mine and thine, and a consequent perception of the value of exchange. They deeply blush if detected in filching. All show a decided sense of decorum, a consciousness of right and wrong, and resentment at injustice; all willingly acknowledge superiors, even among themselves. All have shown the internal necessity of language, which promptly manifested itself as soon as ingenuity and wisdom had contrived the means of breaking through the thick walls which kept their souls immured, and of establishing a bridge of communication with the outer world." "They show a decided desire of adornment; and Laura elevated herself to the idea of a superior Being, by perceiving the rain, learning that it was a great benefit, and finding, upon inquiry, that no fellow mortal of hers can produce it."

Dr. Lieber unfolds his views with great particularity, tracing minutely the starting of civilization, and illustrating the origin and formation of language in the history of the blind and deaf mutes above named. Space will not allow us to follow him in his account of the genesis of language, as exemplified in the history of these unfortunate persons. It may not, however, be uninteresting to state that Laura Bridgman, in whose education Dr. Howe, of Boston, has so well succeeded, manifests such an innate tendency to phonetic language, that at one time she had proceeded so far as to originate thirty or forty "noises" for the various persons of her acquaintance. From this we readily infer man's innate capacity for language, and his ability to attain to a phonetic expression of his various thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

When men have contemplated a thing so wonderful as the language of a cultivated people, so flexible, so adapted to express the manifold thoughts, feelings, and sentiments of a great nation, it is difficult to conceive that man's unaided wisdom has wrought out so wonderful an instrument. Even alphabetic writing has been attributed to divine revelation; but since "Champolion has deciphered the hieroglyphics, we have all the stages of the art of writing before us, from the first pictorial, the direct symbolic and faded symbolic, or conventional hieroglyphic, the phonetic hieroglyphic, up to the alphabetic phonetic signs." Slowly through the ages has man attained to