Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/265

 latter was not so clear–he was forced to the conclusion that Civilisation must have originated, he would not say suddenly, but at all events in some definite locality of the earth's surface, and out of local conditions.

Mr. said that Dr. Tylor had requested him to say for him in his absence, as far as he understood the point, that the inference to be drawn from Dr. Tyloi-'s book, published in 1865, and to which Mr. Stuart-Glennie had alluded in the beginning of his paper, was to the eiifect that he did not think that Civilisation was derived from one sole source. Speaking for himself, he thought what we wanted, among other things, was a definition of Civilisation. Mr. Stuart-Glennie had said that he believed civihsation to be the result of the conflict between higher and lower races; but surely the higher race must at the moment of the conflict have possessed civilisation; if not, in what had they been higher? He was inclined to say that civilisation arose from the existence of one supremely-gifted race, so that civilisation did not cover the rest of the world. He observed that the lecturer traced the result of the supposed conflict until the higher race came out with white skins and rosy brides. But had there been no marriage-laws before that? In that case civilisation must have been extremely rudimentary. What was the state of their marriage-laws, and how did they get it? Were they to suppose that the first man appeared in the world with everything handy, with a ball of string and a box of tools? He supposed that man had been naked, at all events until he broke a branch off a tree. He must also have been devoid of all ideas, unless all these things, which he did not mean to deny, had been planted in him by a Supreme Being. However, he knew nothing about primitive man: he might have been an angel; but the problem was one which would probably never be solved.

Mr. said that Mr. Stuart-Glennie had touched, in his short sketch of the development of organised mythology, upon the rôle which priesthood had played. He had given us to understand that a great number of the early myths had been held in one sense by the priesthood, and in a different sense by the people. That was such a reactionary point of view, that he, for his part, could never believe that the priesthood in general could have held these doctrines in an esoteric sense, and this theory could therefore not in the slightest degree serve as an explanation of the origin of these rites.

Mr. said he would reply to the interesting remarks and objections stated, in the order in which the speakers had followed each other. First, then, as to the remarks of the Chairman (Professor Rhys). It was probably true that more had been done by eliminating the question of differences of race than would have been