Darwinism stated by Darwin himself · Charles Darwin
ALL CIVILIZED NATIONS ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF BARBARIANS.
Turning to the other kind of evidence: Sir J. Lubbock has shown that some savages have recently improved a little in some of their simpler arts. From the extremely curious account which he gives of the weapons, tools, and arts in use among savages in various parts of the world, it can not be doubted that these have nearly all been independent discoveries, excepting perhaps the art of making fire. The Australian boomerang is a good instance of one such independent discovery. The Tahitians when first visited had advanced in many respects beyond the inhabitants of most of the other Polynesian islands. There are no just grounds for the belief that the high culture of the native Peruvians and Mexicans was derived from abroad; many native plants were there cultivated, and a few native animals domesticated. We should bear in mind that, judging from the small influence of most missionaries, a wandering crew from some semi-civilized land, if washed to the shores of America, would not have produced any marked effect on the natives, unless they had already become somewhat advanced.
Looking to a very remote period in the history of the world, we find, to use Sir J. Lubbock’s well-known terms, a paleolithic and neolithic period; and no one will pretend that the art of grinding rough flint tools was a borrowed one. In all parts of Europe, as far east as Greece, in Palestine, India, Japan, New Zealand, and Africa, including Egypt, flint tools have been discovered in abundance; and of their use the existing inhabitants retain no tradition. There is also indirect evidence of their former use by the Chinese and ancient Jews. Hence there can hardly be a doubt that the inhabitants of these countries, which include nearly the whole civilized world, were once in a barbarous condition. To believe that man was aboriginally civilized and then suffered utter degradation in so many regions is to take a pitiably low view of human nature. It is apparently a truer and more cheerful view that progress has been much more general than retrogression; that man has risen, though by slow and interrupted steps, from a lowly condition to the highest standard as yet attained by him in knowledge, morals, and religion.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.