for the most part, mere dumb dogs. What light does either of these
branches of knowledge throw on the past of the man of the New World,
if we except the Central Americans and the Peruvians; on that of the
Africans, save those of the valley of the Nile and a fringe of the
Mediterranean; on that of all the Polynesian, Australian, and central
Asiatic peoples, the former of whom probably, and the last certainly,
were, at the dawn of history, substantially what they are now? While
thankfully accepting what history has to give him, therefore, the
ethnologist must not look for too much from her.

Is more to be expected from inquiries into the customs and handicrafts
of men? It is to be feared not. In reasoning from identity of custom
to identity of stock the difficulty always obtrudes itself, that
the minds of men being everywhere similar, differing in quality and
quantity but not in kind of faculty, like circumstances must tend to
produce like contrivances; at any rate, so long as the need to be
met and conquered is of a very simple kind. That two nations use
calabashes or shells for drinking-vessels, or that they employ
spears, or clubs, or swords and axes of stone and metal as weapons and
implements, cannot be regarded as evidence that these two nations
had a common origin, or even that intercommunication ever took place
between them; seeing that the convenience of using calabashes or
shells for such purposes, and the advantage of poking an enemy with a
sharp stick, or hitting him with a heavy one, must be early forced
by nature upon the mind of even the stupidest savage. And when he had
found out the use of a stick, he would need no prompting to discover
the value of a chipped or wetted stone, or an angular piece of native
metal, for the same object. On the other hand, it may be doubted
whether the chances are not greatly against independent peoples
arriving at the manufacture of a boomerang, or of a bow; which last,