Men In Remote Times May Have Had More Highly-Developed Instincts,
Which Enabled Them To Avoid Or Use Poisons; But The Late Archbishop
Whately Has Proved, That Wholly Untaught Savages Never Could Invent
Anything, Or Even Subsist At All.
Abundant corroboration of his
arguments is met with in this country, where the natives require but
little in the
Way of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs.
Although possessing a knowledge of all the edible roots and fruits in
the country, having hoes to dig with, and spears, bows, and arrows to
kill the game, - we have seen that, notwithstanding all these
appliances and means to boot, they have perished of absolute
starvation.
The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa. The
smelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the ores, are
also similar. Yellow haematite, which bears not the smallest
resemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, is employed near
Kolobeng for the production of iron. Malachite, the precious green
stone used in civilized life for vases, would never be suspected by
the uninstructed to be a rich ore of copper, and yet it is
extensively smelted for rings and other ornaments in the heart of
Africa. A copper bar of native manufacture four feet long was
offered to us for sale at Chinsamba's. These arts are monuments
attesting the fact, that some instruction from above must at some
time or other have been supplied to mankind; and, as Archbishop
Whately says, "the most probable conclusion is, that man when first
created, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, by the Creator
Himself, to a state above that of a mere savage."
The argument for an original revelation to man, though quite
independent of the Bible history, tends to confirm that history.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 439 of 505
Words from 118416 to 118714
of 136856