of the day. He cannot see reason in the argument presented on the other side that climatic circumstances influence men, as Abbé Domenech represents in his work on the Deserts of North America, where he says: "A country rich in the beauties of nature, possessing a mild climate and a fertile soil, abounding in natural resources, influences the moral character of its inhabitants to a considerable extent, by diminishing their physical wants, and the labour necessary to supply them, and by leaving more leisure and more strength for the development of their intellectual faculties." Sir John replies that the Tasmanians, &c., were "living in countries eminently suited to our domestic animals and to the cultivation of cereals, and were yet entirely ignorant both of the one and the other."
He then turns to the pre-civilization doctrine, remarking, "It is, I think, improbable that any race of men who had once been agriculturists and herdsmen should entirely abandon pursuits so easy and so advantageous; and it is still more improbable that, if we accept Usher's very limited chronology, all tradition of such a change shall be lost." He instances the fact that no fragment of pottery has ever been found belonging to Australia before the occupation by Europeans. He sees five stages of civilization: 1st, Omnivorous; 2d, the Hunting condition; 3d, the Pastoral; 4th, the Agricultural; 5th, when Letters and Coins were used. Sir John Lubbock, at the British Association at Dundee, carries out hopefully his views. "We shall not," said he, "be the less inclined to adopt them on account of the cheering prospect which they hold out to the future. If the past history of man has been one of deterioration, we have but a groundless hope of future improvement; but if, on the other hand, the past has been one of progress, we may fairly hope that the future will be so too,"
Captain Grey, the explorer of Western Australia, saw the same result. "We cannot argue," said the traveller, "that this race was originally in a state of civilization, and that from the introduction of certain laws among them, the tendency of which was to reduce them to a state of barbarism, or, from some other cause, they had gradually, sunk to their present condition; for, in that case, how would those laws, which provide solely for the necessities of a people in their present state, have been introduced amongst them?"
