| OF THE INDIAN MIND. 271
way, for the demands of nature in respect to shelter
and clothing.
Again, with the art of writing the progress
made in each separate generation is recorded, and
thus the goal attained in one age becomes the
starting point in the next. It follows from this
that a race that possesses the art of writing may
be decisively progressive, but one which is without
that art can only be so in a very limited degree.
In this latter case the greatest part of what any
one genius discovers or learns dies with him, and
the next genius that arises must commence the
work anew. Thus the nation, even if it is always
rising, is always sinking back again to where it
was before. Nothing but the art of writing, to
provide each generation with the means of recording
what it has discovered, will enable it to keep
its hold and go on continually ascending.
The Indians accordingly, being without this art,
made no advance whatever. If they did not even
retrograde, they lived from generation to genera-
tion the same.
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