5. And if, with the illustrious author to whom we have just referred,[2] we liken the fossil remains, by which the geologist determines the age of his strata, to the Medals and Coins in which the antiquary finds the record of reigns and dynasties; we must still recollect that a _Coin_ really discloses a vast body of characteristics of man, to which there is nothing approaching in the previous condition of the world. For how much does a Coin or Medal indicate? Property; exchange; government; a standard of value; the arts of mining, assaying, coining, drawing, and sculpture; language, writing, and reckoning; historical recollections, and the wish to be remembered by future ages. All this is involved in that small human work, a Coin. If the fossil remains of animals may (as has been said) be termed Medals struck by Nature to record the epochs of her history; Medals must be said to be, not merely, like fossil remains, records of material things; they are the records of thought, purpose, society, long continued, long improved, supplied with multiplied aids and helps; they are the permanent results, in a minute compass, of a vast progress, extending through all the ramifications of human life.
6. Not a coin merely, but any, the rudest work of human art, carries us far beyond the domain of mere animal life. There is no transition from man to animals. No doubt, there are races of men very degraded, barbarous, and brutish. No doubt there are kinds of animals which are very intelligent and sagacious; and some which are exceedingly disposed to and adapted to companionship with man. But by elevating the intelligence of the brute, we do not make it become the intelligence of the man. By making man barbarous, we do not make him cease to be a man. Animals have their especial capacities, which may be carried very far, and may approach near to human sagacity, or may even go beyond it; but the capacity of man is of a different kind. It is a capacity, not for becoming sagacious, but for becoming rational; or rather it is a capacity which he has in virtue of being rational. It is a capacity of progress. In animals, however sagacious, however well trained, the progress in skill and knowledge is limited, and very narrowly limited. The creature soon reaches a boundary, beyond which it cannot pass; and even if the acquired habits be transmitted by descent to another generation, (which happens in the case of dogs and several other animals,) still the race soon comes to a stand in its accomplishments. But in man, the possible progress from generation to generation, in intelligence and knowledge, and we may also say, in power, is indefinite; or if this be doubted, it is at least so vast, that compared with animals, his capacity is infinite. And this capacity extends to all races of men its characterizing efficacy: for we have good reason to believe that there is no race of human beings who may not, by a due course of culture, continued through generations, be brought into a community of intelligence and power with the most intelligent and the most powerful races. This seems to be well established, for instance, with regard to the African negroes; so long regarded by most, by some probably regarded still, as a race inferior to Europeans. It has been found that they are abundantly capable of taking a share in the arts, literature, morality and religion of European peoples. And we cannot doubt that, in the same manner, the native Australians, or the Bushmen of the Cape of Good Hope, have human faculties and human capacities; however difficult it might be to unfold these, in one or two generations, into a form of intelligence and civilization in any considerable degree resembling our own.