'counting boys,' the arithmetical prodigies, who can work by a
strange innate faculty the most wonderful sums, lose that faculty,
always partially, sometimes completely, if they are taught to reckon
by rule like the rest of mankind. In like manner I have heard it
said that a man could soon reason himself out of the instinct of
decency if he would only take pains and work hard enough. And
perhaps other primitive instincts may have in like manner passed
away. But this does not affect my argument. I am only saying that
these instincts, if they ever existed, DID pass away--that there was
a period; probably an immense period as we reckon time in human
history, when pre-historic men lived much as savages live now,
without any important aids and helps.

The proofs of this are to be found in the great works of Sir John
Lubbock and Mr. Tylor, of which I just now spoke. I can only bring
out two of them here. First, it is plain that the first pre-historic
men had the flint tools which the lowest savages use, and we can
trace a regular improvement in the finish and in the efficiency of
their simple instruments corresponding to that which we see at this
day in the upward transition from the lowest savages to the highest.
Now it is not conceivable that a race of beings with valuable
instincts supporting their existence and supplying their wants would
need these simple tools. They are exactly those needed by very poor
people who have no instincts, and those were used by such, for
savages are the poorest of the poor. It would be very strange if
these same utensils, no more no less, were used by beings whose
discerning instincts made them in comparison altogether rich. Such a
being would know how to manage without such things, or if it wanted
any, would know how to make better.