Transcriber's note

Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All otherinconsistencies are as in the original. 

 MAN AND HIS ANCESTOR

 _A STUDY IN EVOLUTION_

 BY

 CHARLES MORRIS

 AUTHOR OF "CIVILIZATION: AN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF ITS ELEMENTS, " "THE ARYAN RACE, " ETC. 

 New York

 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. , LTD. 

 1900

 _All rights reserved_

 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

 Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. --Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U. S. A. 

PREFACE

It would be difficult to find any intelligent person in this age of theworld who has not some theory or opinion in regard to the origin of man, and perhaps almost as difficult to find any such person who can give agood and sufficient reason for the faith that is in him. This isespecially the case with those who look upon man as a product ofevolution, a natural outgrowth from the world of lower life, since heresimple faith or ancient authority is not sufficient, as in the creationhypothesis, but scientific evidence and logical argument are necessary. It is to enable this class of readers to test the quality andsufficiency of their belief that this book has been prepared. 

The question of the evolutionary origin of man has been by no meansneglected by recent authors, yet it has been dealt with chiefly as aside issue in works of a more extended purpose, and largely in technicallanguage, simple to the scientist, but difficult to the general reader. The only work that makes this subject its leading theme, Darwin's"Descent of Man, " adds to it a still longer treatise on "SexualSelection, " so that the subject of man's evolutionary origin cannot besaid to have been yet dealt with for itself alone. Darwin's work, moreover, is now nearly thirty years old, and to this extent antiquated, while at best it cannot be considered as well suited for generalreading. 

These considerations have given rise to the present work, in which aneffort has been made to present the subject of man's origin in a popularmanner, to dwell on the various significant facts that have beendiscovered since Darwin's time, and to offer certain lines of evidencenever before presented in this connection, and which seem to add muchstrength to the general argument. 

The subject is one of such widespread interest as to make it probablethat a plain and brief presentation of it will be acceptable, both toenable those who are evolutionists in principle to learn on what groundstheir acceptance of this phase of evolution stands, and to aid those whoare at sea on the whole subject of man's origin to reach some fixedconclusion. For these purposes this little book has been set afloat, with the hope that it may carry some doubters to solid land and teachsome believers the fundamental elements of their faith. 

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I. EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 1

 II. VESTIGES OF MAN'S ANCESTRY 5

 III. RELICS OF ANCIENT MAN 21

 IV. FROM QUADRUPED TO BIPED 39

 V. THE FREEDOM OF THE ARMS 54

 VI. THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLIGENCE 68

 VII. THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE 100

 VIII. HOW THE CHASM WAS BRIDGED 111

 IX. THE FIRST STAGE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 130

 X. THE CONFLICT WITH NATURE 158

 XI. WARFARE AND CIVILIZATION 195

 XII. THE EVOLUTION OF MORALITY 206

 XIII. MAN'S RELATION TO THE SPIRITUAL 225

MAN AND HIS ANCESTOR

I

EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION

In any consideration of the origin of man we are necessarily restrictedto two views: one, that he is the outcome of a development from thelower animals; the other, that he came into existence through directcreation. No third mode of origin can be conceived, and we may safelyconfine ourselves to a review of these two claims. They are theopposites of each other in every particular. The creation doctrine is asold almost as thinking man; the evolutionary doctrine belongs in effectto our own generation. The former is not open to evidence; the latterdepends solely upon evidence. The former is based on authority; thelatter on investigation. The doctrine of direct creation can merely beasserted, it cannot be argued; the statement once made, there is nothingmore to be said; it is an _ipse dixit_ pure and simple. The doctrine ofevolution, on the contrary, founded as it must be on ascertained facts, is fully open to argument, and depends for its acceptance on thestrength and validity of the evidence in its favor. 

If the doctrine of the direct creation of man had been originallypresented in our own day, proof of the assertion would have been at oncedemanded, and the only evidence admissible would have been that ofwitnesses of the act of creation. There could, of course, have been nohuman witnesses, as there would have been no preceding human beings, andwitnesses not human have, in the present day, no standing in our courts. As the case stands, however, the doctrine arose in an age when man didnot trouble himself about evidence, but was content to accept hisopinions on authority; and this, strangely enough, is held by many to bea strong point in its favor, it gaining, in their minds, authenticityfrom antiquity. It is claimed, indeed, to be sustained by divineauthority, but this is a claim that has no warrant in the words of thestatement itself, and one to which no form of words could give warrant. To establish it, direct and incontestable evidence from the creativepower itself would be necessary, and it need scarcely be said that nosuch evidence exists. It is not easy, indeed, to conceive what form suchevidence could take. It would certainly need to be something far moreconvincing than a statement in a book. 

It might have been better for civilized mankind if the opening pages ofGenesis had never been written, since they have played a potent part inchecking the development of thought. As the case now stands, thecosmological doctrines they contain can no longer claim even a shadow ofdivine authority, since they have been distinctly traced back to a humanorigin. It has been recently discovered that they are simply arestatement of the Babylonian cosmology, as given in a literaryproduction ages older than the Bible, an epic poem of very remote date. They are, doubtless, an outgrowth of the cosmological ideas of earlyman, and those who accept them must do so on the basis of belief intheir probability; it is no longer permissible to claim for them thewarrant of divine origin. 

Modern science stringently demands facts in support of any assertion, the word "faith" having no place in its lexicon. Facts are absolutelyand necessarily wanting in support of the creation doctrine, and theonly argument its advocates can advance is one that deals in negatives, and demands its acceptance on the ground that the opposite doctrine hasnot been proved. Such an argument is valueless. Disproof of onestatement is never proof of another. Its effect is simply to leave bothunproved, and neither, therefore, in condition for acceptance. In thepresent case the weight of disproof is small. The facts in support ofthe evolution hypothesis are multitudinous, and many of them of greatcogency; the facts against it are few, and none of them absolute. It issimply argued that some questions remain unsolved, and that there arefacts which seem inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of development, and which no supplementary hypotheses have explained. But no advocatesof evolution hold that the Darwinian theory is final. Evolution is agrowing doctrine. It has been expanding ever since it was firstpromulgated. Various seeming difficulties have been explained away, andit is quite possible that all may disappear as investigation widens. Nosuch arguments add any weight to the opposite view, which has not andnever could have any standing in science, since it is impossible toadduce any facts to sustain it. We shall therefore dismiss it fromfurther consideration, and proceed to state certain general facts infavor of the evolutionary hypothesis of the origin of man. 

II

VESTIGES OF MAN'S ANCESTRY

When, some centuries ago, men began to find fossil remains of animals inthe rocks, a severe shock was given to the prevailing doctrine of therecent creation of the earth. The adherents of the old theology madestrenuous efforts to explain away this unwelcome circumstance. Theshells found had been dropped by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem;they were mineral simulations of shells; they had been created by theDeity and placed where found; they were anything but what they appearedto be, the existing evidences of a long ancient period of animal lifereaching back very far beyond the assumed date of creation. 

It need scarcely be said that these explanations, especially the onethat God had created fossil forms to deceive man, for someincomprehensible purpose, could not long be maintained. Some of themwere inconsistent with the facts, others with common sense, and in duetime it was everywhere admitted that the earth is of remote duration andhas been inhabited by animals and plants for untold ages. Its structurerevealed its history; its annals were found to be written in the rocks;its anatomy was full of the evidences of its origin. 

When, not many years ago, men began to find the fossil remains ofancient structures in the body of man himself, theology was brought faceto face with a problem as difficult to explain, from its special pointof view, as that of the fossils in the rocks. As the latter hadthreatened and finally disproved the doctrine of the special creation ofthe earth, so the former assailed the doctrine of the special creationof man, and annihilated it in the minds of many eminent scientists. Itformed a prominent argument in favor of the theory of organic evolution, and as such calls for consideration here, as a suitable groundwork forour special theme. 

The structures referred to may justly be called fossil, since theypresent strong evidence of being the useless remains of structures whichplayed an active part in the bodies of some former animals. Asignificant example of this exists in the vermiform appendix, a narrow, blind tube descending from the cæcum of man, and detrimental instead ofuseful, since it is the seat of the frequently fatal disease known asappendicitis. This tube, usually from three to six inches long and ofthe thickness of a goose quill, is occasionally absent in man, occasionally of considerable size. It is quite large, as compared withthe other intestines, in the human embryo, but ceases to grow after acertain stage of development. The cæcum is extremely long in some of thelower vegetable-eating animals, and the vermiform appendix seems to be arudiment of the formerly extended portion of this organ. It is large inthe anthropoid apes, especially in the orang, in which it is very longand spirally convoluted. Its survival in man as a useless and dangerousaborted organ is a powerful argument in favor of his descent from thelower animals. 

In the brain of man and many of the lower vertebrates, hanging by twopeduncles, or strands of nerve fibre, from the thalami, or beds of theoptic nerve, is a small rounded or heart-shaped body of about the sizeof a pea, known as the pineal gland. It is so destitute of any evidentfunction that Descartes, in lack of any more probable explanation of itspresence, ascribed to it the noble duty of serving as the seat of thesoul. Late research has been more successful in tracking this organ toits lair. It is larger in the embryo than in the adult man, still largerin some lower vertebrates, and in certain lizards has been found toexist as an eye, its parts plainly distinguishable under the microscope. It is placed in the middle of the forehead, between the other eyes, andwas no doubt an active organ of vision in some ancient batrachians. 

The pineal eye, as it is now named, once useful, long useless, haspersisted as a fossil structure through a far extended line ofdevelopment. No more convincing evidence that man gained his bodythrough descent from the lower animals could be asked for than thesurvival in the human brain of this wonderfully significant remnant ofa formerly useful organ. Like various other vestiges of ancient organs, it is not only useless but detrimental. It occasionally enlarges andbecomes the seat of large and complicated tumors, which may cause deathby their compression of the brain. 

Two other structures common to most of the vertebrate animals exist inman, though they render him little or no service. These are the thymusand thyroid glands, apparently vestigial structures. The thymus glandattains a considerable development in the embryo and shrinks away to themerest vestige in the adult. It begins to form early in the embryo lifeas an epithelial ingrowth from the throat, and extends from the neckinto the chest. It continues to grow after birth, but later begins toshrink and nearly disappears in the adult. 

The thyroid gland has a somewhat similar origin, it beginning as aningrowth from the lower section of the pharynx and extending down to thelower part of the neck. It subsequently loses its connection with thepharynx, and in adult life is a bilobed structure on either side of thewindpipe. Like the thymus it is a ductless gland, abundantly suppliedwith blood-vessels, and possesses a vast number of small cavities, linedwith cells and containing an insoluble jelly. So far as appears, boththese glands are useless, or nearly so, to man; or if the thyroidperforms any useful service it is a minor and obscure one. Suchfunctions as it may have could probably be performed by some of theother organs, while it is positively detrimental as the seat of goitre. This unsightly disease is due to its enlargement, either by a greatincrease of its blood-vessels or a development of the capsules andincrease of their contained jelly. Dr. S. V. Clevenger considers theseorgans to have had a branchial or respiratory origin, saying that thereare many reasons for believing them to be rudimentary gills. Owen saysthat the thymus appears in vertebrates with the establishment of thelung as the main or exclusive respiratory organ. It is wanting in allfishes, also in the gill-bearing batrachians, siren and proteus. Thethyroid appears in fishes, and Gegenbaur believes that it may have beena useful organ to the Tunicata in their former state of existence. 

Dr. Clevenger, in the _American Naturalist_ for January, 1884, pointsout another curious structure in man, whose significance does not seemto have been previously observed. This is a strange and striking factrelating to the formation of the veins. It is well known that theseorgans possess valves, which permit the free upward flow of the bloodtoward the heart, but resist its descent through the action of gravity, in this way aiding its return from the extremities. The rule holds goodthroughout the quadrupeds that the vertical veins possess valves, whilethey are absent from the horizontal veins, in which they would be of noutility. But the singular fact exists that in the human trunk the valvesoccur in the horizontal and are absent from the vertical veins. In otherwords, they exist where they are useless for their apparent purpose andare absent where they would be useful. 

The only conclusion that can reasonably be drawn from this strange factis that we are here dealing with a fossilized structure, a functionlesssurvival. It leads irresistibly to the inference that man has descendedfrom a quadruped ancestor, and that when his body took the uprightposition the structure of the veins, not being seriously detrimental, remained unchanged. Those which had been vertical became horizontal, andretained their now useless valves; those which had been horizontalbecame vertical, and remained destitute of valves. The veins of the armsand legs, vertical in both forms, retained their valves. 

Dr. Clevenger points out that the intercostal veins, which carry bloodalmost horizontally backward to the azygos veins and which would runvertically upward in quadrupeds, possess valves. These are not onlyuseless to man, but when he lies upon his back they are an actualhindrance to the free flow of the blood. In like manner, the inferiorthyroid veins, whose blood flows into the innominate, are obstructed byvalves at the point of junction. 

We quote from him as follows: "There are two pairs of valves in theexternal jugular and one pair in the internal jugular, but inrecognition of their uselessness they do not prevent regurgitation ofblood nor liquids from passing upward. An apparent anomaly exists in theabsence of valves from parts where they are most needed, as in the venæcavæ, spinal, iliac, hæmorrhoidal, and portal. The azygos veins haveimperfect valves. Place men upon 'all fours' and the law governing thepresence and absence of valves is at once apparent, applicable, so faras I have been able to ascertain, to all quadrupedal and quadrumanousanimals: _Dorsal veins are valved; cephalad, ventrad, and caudad veinshave no valves. _"

Of the few exceptions to this rule, he considers the valves of thejugular veins as in process of becoming obsolete, and the rudimentaryazygos valves as a recent development. Valves in the hæmorrhoidal veinswould be out of place in quadrupeds, but their absence in man is aserious defect in his organization, since the resulting engorgement ofblood gives rise to the distressing disease known as piles. The presenceof valves would obviate this. 

No one can argue that this useless and, to some extent, injuriouscondition is a designed result of creation. There could not, indeed, bestronger evidence that man has descended from a quadruped ancestor. Dr. Clevenger points out other serious results of the upright position ofthe body, from which quadrupeds are free. One of these is the liabilityto inguinal hernia, or rupture, which leads to much suffering andfrequent death in man. Prolapsis uteri is another, and a third to whichhe particularly alludes is difficulty in parturition. 

It has been suggested above that the thyroid gland may possibly be ofsome minor functional importance, and that the thymus is developed inthe embryo sufficiently to be functional. As regards the latter, no oneis likely to maintain that an act of direct creation would include theproduction of an organ of some slight and obscure utility to the embryoand useless in later life. The strong probability is that this glandbelongs in the same category with other embryonic survivals yet to bepointed out. As regards the seeming function of the thyroid, it may besaid that the surviving relic of an ancient functional organ is quitecapable of varying in structure and taking upon itself a new function, of minor value, which in its absence would be left undone or beperformed by some of the other organs. 

A highly interesting example of this exists in the swim-bladder of thefish, which there is good reason to believe is a survival of an ancientstructure used for quite a different purpose. It was originallydeveloped, in the opinion of the writer, [1] as an air-breathing organ, in a very ancient semi-amphibious class of fishes, from which theexisting bony fishes have descended. When the latter resumed thegill-breathing habit, this organ lost its original function, and itssubsequent history is a curious and significant one. In some modernfishes it has quite disappeared. In others it exists as a minute anduseless remnant, no larger than a pea. In many it has been convertedinto the swim-bladder, and in this form serves a useful purpose, butvaries very greatly in shape and size. Finally, in a few instances, itretains some measure of its probably original function of air-breathing. It is a fact of much significance, that those fishes without aswim-bladder do not seem to be at any disadvantage from its absence, butare able to make their way vertically through the water quite as well asthose which possess this organ. The presumption, therefore, is that itis of little utility to the fish, and that its employment for thispurpose is a mere resultant of its survival and character. Such an organcould never have been evolved as an aid in swimming, since its shrinkageto a useless rudiment in some cases and its complete extinction inothers show that this function is in no sense a necessary one. It isthere and has lost its old use, and is, in some cases, adapted toanother purpose; that is all that can be said. 

Man is the one hairless mammal, --or hairless except on a few parts ofhis body. Yet the whole body is covered with a thin growth of hair, useless for any purpose of protection, and only explainable as asurvival from the mammalian covering. The occasional considerabledevelopment of the hair is an indication pointing to such an origin. This applies not only to individuals, but to tribes or races, as in theinstances of the Ainos of Japan and some of the Pygmies of Africa. Thedisappearance of the hair in man has been traced to no well establishedcause. Darwin's view that it may have been a result of sexual selectionseems the most probable explanation. Certainly this is the case with thebeard, whose absence in women shows it to be of no utility, and whosepresence in man is in accord with the many structures in male animalsapparently due to this form of selection. 

Darwin has pointed out and explained a very curious peculiarity of thehair in man, which is absolutely inexplicable except on the theory ofdescent. This is the fact that the hairs on man's arms are directedtoward the elbow from above and below, thus growing in oppositedirections on the upper and lower arms. The same peculiarity exists inthe larger anthropoid apes and in some of the gibbons, but is not foundin the lower mammals. In the apes it is believed to be due to the habitof protecting the head from rain by covering it with the hands, thehairs turning so that the rain can run downward freely in bothdirections toward the bent elbow. This is so useless in man that it canbe explained only as a survival. 

There are some other survivals in man of ancient structures to which apassing allusion must suffice. In man's eye is a minute membrane, thesemilunar fold, which is absolutely useless in his economy. There isevery reason to believe that this is the rudiment of a membrane which isfully developed in many animals, and is especially useful to birds, thenictitating membrane, or third eyelid. Again, the muscles which move theskin in many animals, especially in horses, have left inactive remnantsin many parts of the human body. These are normally active only in theforehead, where they serve to lift the eyebrows, but they occasionallybecome active elsewhere. Thus there are some persons who can move theskin of the scalp. Darwin cites some who could throw heavy books fromthe head in this manner. The same may be said of the rudimentary musclesof the ear. There are persons who can move their ears in the same way asis done by the lower animals. Again, the whole external ear may belooked upon as a rudimentary structure, since it does not appear to aidthe hearing in man. As regards the pointed ear of man's probableancestor, Darwin calls attention to what seems a trace in man of thelost tip. 

Carrying this consideration farther, it may be asked, Of what use arethe five toes to man? Would not a solid foot have answered the purposeof walking quite as well? But as survivals their presence is fullyaccounted for, since they are indispensable to many of the loweranimals. Question may also be made of the utility of the large number ofbones in the wrist and heel of man. Equal flexibility of the joint couldcertainly have been obtained with a smaller number of bones. It is onlywhen these are traced back to their probable origin in the walkingorgans of the fish ancestor of the batrachians that their presencebecomes explainable. They are apparently survivals of a very ancientstructure, originated for swimming, and adapted to walking. 

As regards the wrist of man, a curious prediction that a certain bonefound in some of the lower animals, the _os centrale_, would be found inman has been made and verified, it being discovered as a very smallrudiment in the human embryo. The tail, so common a feature in the loweranimals, but absent from the higher apes and from man, has not vanishedwithout leaving its traces. In the human embryo it is plainly indicated;and while it vanishes in man beyond the embryo stage, it is simplyhidden beneath the skin, where its vertebrae are still apparent, usuallythree, sometimes four or five, in number. In addition to this, themuscles which move the tail have left traces of their presence, whichnot infrequently develop into true muscles. 

In the human embryo, indeed, we find ourselves in the midst of highlysignificant indications of man's origin. The body of man passes in itsearly development through a series of stages, in each of which itresembles the mature or the embryo state of certain animals lower in thestage of existence. It begins its existence as a simple cell, analogousin form to the amoeba, one of the lowest living creatures, and laterassumes the gastrula form supposed to have been that of the earliestmany-celled animals. From this state it progresses by successive stages, each of which has some relation in form to a lower class. 

The most significant of these is that in which the embryo is closelyassimilated to the fish, by the possession of gill slits. There are fourof these openings in the neck of the human foetus, and they are at timesso persistent that children have been born with them still open, so thatfluids taken in at the mouth could trickle out at the neck, the openingbeing sufficient to admit a thin probe. [2] These slits are utilized inthe developing embryo, one of them being devoted to an important duty, that of conversion into the external and middle ear. Thus the openingfor hearing is an adaptation of what was once an opening for breathing. Occasionally an ear-like outgrowth appears on the neck, indicative ofthe attempt of a second slit to develop into an ear. The purpose of thegill slits is made more apparent by the presence in the embryo of gillarches of the blood-vessels, like those normal to the fish. Thesedisappear in common with the slits. 

The temporary appearance of these gill slits is the strongest evidencethat could well be demanded that the human embryo passes through thevarious stages which the adult has assumed in its long development inpast time, and that one of these stages was the fish. And these formonly one of the evidences of man's origin to be found in the embryo. Another which may be mentioned is the wool-like hair which covers thefoetus, and whose presence is incomprehensible except on the theory ofdescent. Its most probable explanation is that it appears as a passingsurvival of the first permanent coat of hair of the lower mammals. 

In the milk teeth of man we have another useless and often annoyingsurvival of an ancient state of the dental organs. We cannot wellimagine that in any direct creation a set of temporary teeth would havebeen provided as preliminary to a permanent set--an utterly uselessprovision. But when we find that in a lower stage of animal life the oldteeth are periodically succeeded by new ones, we can understand how atrace of this condition has persisted in the mammalia. 

Other evidences of man's origin in the lower animals could be drawn fromthe phenomena of atavism, or arrest of development in parts or organs ofthe body. Atavism is usually confined within the line of human descent, conditions appearing in many of us which belonged to some of our humanancestors a few generations, occasionally many generations, in the past. But conditions now and then appear which are abnormal to man, but whichare normal to some of the lower animals. This tendency is exhibited byall organisms. In an occasional horse the long-lost stripes of thezebra-like ancestor reappear. Now and then a blue pigeon, like theancestral form, crops up in a pure breed of domesticated birds. Even inthe details of anatomy some long-vanished character suddenly appears. 

Many instances of this in man might be cited, embracing various featuresof the muscular and other internal organs. The abnormality of club-footmay be pointed to as a reversion to the shape of the foot in theanthropoid apes. This, however, is a retention of a condition existingin the foetus of man, the foot being drawn up and the sole turned inwardand upward. It is simply a passing testimony to the ancestral conditionof man. 

Again, we have the fact that man possesses normally only twelve ribs, one less than is found in the gorilla and the chimpanzee. This leads tothe possibility that man may have lost a rib in his development, and insignificant evidence of this is the fact that occasionally a thirteenthrib appears in the human framework. 

The functionless organs in men are, as above said, closely analogous tothe fossils in the rocks, in that both point back to a period in whichthey were active, vital forms occupying a definite place in the longline of animal life or animal structure. The argument that God directlycreated the fossils is no more absurd than the one that He directlycreated these useless and at times detrimental organs. It is impossibleto offer a reason for such a futile exercise of creative power, unlessthat it was intended to make it falsely appear that man arose from theworld of life below him. Will any one in this age assert that God placeduseless and dangerous structures in the body of man for the incrediblepurpose of deceiving him in regard to his origin? And will it be furtherasserted that the Deity placed similar stumbling-blocks to the humanreason in the embryo, in order to deceive those who should extend theirresearches to this low level? It would be difficult to conceive of amore preposterous idea, yet there is no other escape from what seems aself-evident fact, that man is a product of evolution from the loweranimals, and bears the marks of his ancestry thick upon him. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "On the Air Bladder of Fishes. " Proceedings of the Academyof Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1885. ]

[Footnote 2: Sutton, "Evolution and Disease. "]

III

RELICS OF ANCIENT MAN

If now, instead of seeking for evidences of man's ancestry within thehuman body, in survivals of ancient anatomical structures, we seek forthem within the crust of the earth, we find ourselves confronted withevidences of a great antiquity of the human race, partly in implementsof human manufacture, partly in ancient or fossilized bones of primitiveman. These indicate not only great remoteness of origin, but also a verygradual advance from the lowest stage of inventive ability to the highlevel now attained. 

These relics of primitive man are divided by Dana into ten varieties, (1) Buried human bones; (2) stone arrow and lance heads, hatchets, pestles, etc. ; (3) flint chips, left in the manufacture of implements;(4) arrow heads and other implements made of bone and deer horn; (5)bones, teeth, and shells bored or notched by human hands; (6) cut orcarved wood; (7) bone, horn, ivory, or stone graven with figures, or cutinto the shapes of animals; (8) marrow bones broken longitudinally toobtain the marrow for food; (9) fragments of charcoal and otherindications of the use of fire; (10) fragments of pottery. 

Relics of the kinds above cited have been found at intervals for manyyears past, but their age and significance were doubted, and only withinsome forty years has the great antiquity of man upon the earth beengenerally acknowledged by scientists. The most important early find ofancient implements was made by Boucher de Perthes in 1841 andsubsequently, in the high level gravels of the valley of the Somme, inPicardy, France. In deep layers of these gravels, which were depositedat a period when the river occupied a wider and higher channel than atpresent, he found rude flint weapons and tools, bearing plain evidencesof human workmanship, and mingled with the teeth and bones of animals, both of living and extinct species. Among the bones were those of themammoth and the hairy rhinoceros, species evidently contemporary withman, though they have long since vanished from the earth. At a somewhatearlier date, implements of men, mingled with bones of the cave-bear, cave-lion, hyena, and other species, had been found in the caves ofFrance and Belgium. These were frequently buried beneath deposits ofstalagmite and other materials that must have taken a long time toaccumulate. 

The significance of these discoveries was long in forcing itself uponthe attention of scientific men. Nearly twenty years passed beforeBoucher de Perthes could get the noted geologists of France and Englandto investigate the Somme gravels. When they did so they were quicklyconvinced of the genuine antiquity of these relics, and announced it asa fact beyond question that man had lived in the Somme valley andfashioned rude implements out of flint during what was known as theQuaternary or Drift Period of geology. 

The discoveries here made set men actively at work investigatingelsewhere. Excavations were made in other high level gravels, cavernswere carefully and minutely examined, Kent's Cavern, England, was dugout to its rock bottom, dozens of important finds resulted, and theantiquity of man was proved to extend back from thousands to tens ofthousands, if not to hundreds of thousands, of years. And thecoexistence of man with the animals whose bones accompanied his relicswas proved by unquestionable evidence, for drawings and carved forms ofthese animals were found, proving incontestably that man had gazed upontheir living forms. Thus the sketch of a mammoth, showing the long hairwhich served to protect this animal from the cold, was found engravedupon a piece of mammoth ivory, and one of a group of reindeer on a pieceof reindeer horn. There were also drawings of the cave-bear, the seal, etc. , and one very interesting group showing the aurochs, a number oftrees, and a man with a snake apparently biting his heel. The carvingsconsisted of the horn handle of a dagger, cut into the shape of areindeer, and other forms. 

That these relics belong to a far distant age is proved by the strongestevidence. It must suffice here to give some of the more striking ofthese proofs of antiquity. The flint hatchets found at St. Acheul, France, were obtained from a gravel bed which lay below twelve feet ofsand and marl. On the surface was a layer of soil, in which were gravesof the Gallo-Roman period, showing that it had been there for at leastfifteen hundred years. The time needed for the slow accumulation of thewhole series of deposits must have been very considerable. 

A much more decisive proof of antiquity is given by the position inwhich this and similar gravel beds lie. They are found along the sidesof rivers at a height often of a hundred or two hundred feet above theflood level of the streams. When they were deposited, the rivers musthave run at this elevation, so that time has since elapsed sufficientfor the streams to cut down their valleys to the present depths. Thestreams may have formerly been of greater volume, and had superiorcutting powers, and they may have been aided by the ice of the GlacialAge, yet, however we estimate, the conclusion is inevitable that the menwho dropped their implements into those gravels must have lived upon theearth ages before the beginning of historical times. 

The presence there of remains of animals which ages ago perished fromthe earth is another circumstance indicative of high antiquity. Theseembrace the mammoth, --the great hairy elephant of prehistoric times, --anextinct hair-clad rhinoceros, the large and powerful cave-bear andcave-lion, the great Irish elk, and still other animals of whoseexistence we know only by their bones. Others, which existed in commonwith men of later date, are the reindeer and the musk-ox, species ofwhich now inhabit the coldest regions of the north, and whose presencein southern Europe at that era seems to indicate a much colder climatethan that of historic times. 

The evidences of human antiquity here briefly presented are accompaniedby indications of a gradual development of the human intellect. If manhas "fallen from his high estate, " he has left no traces of this highestate on his downward path. We possess abundant indications of hisupward climb, we find none of a preceding descent. If we base ouropinions on known facts, the theory of development is the only one thatcan be sustained; the doctrine of a fall is absolutely without warrantoutside the pages of Genesis. 

The successive stages of man's mental development, as indicated in thework of his hands, are well and clearly marked. At the lowest level wefind tools and weapons of the palæolithic or old stone age, made ofroughly chipped stone, rude in form, and never ground or polished. Thesepresent some evidence of gradual improvement, but we must go to ahigher level to find implements of a decidedly higher order, the neatlyshaped and polished stone implements of the neolithic or new stone age. With the coming of these appears a much greater diversity in tools andweapons, and evidences of a growing skill in manufacture and aconsiderably greater power of invention. Still higher lie the depositsof the bronze age, in which metal replaces stone in human implements. Finally appears the age of iron, that in which we still remain. We needmerely refer in passing to the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, with theirmany interesting relics of man during the later stone, the bronze, andthe early iron eras; and the kitchen-middens, or refuse-heaps, of theDanish islands and elsewhere, which extend from the old stone age fardown toward the historic period. 

These are but a portion of the evidences of man's antiquity and hisgradual progress in the arts of manufacture. Others have been found inmany parts of the earth. Many of them exist in America, proving that manresided on this continent at a very distant era. When we consider thatlate discoveries in Babylonia appear to carry back the age ofcivilization and historical relics to some ten thousand years, and thatsemi-civilization must have extended very considerably beyond that time, the vista of man's gradual progress seems to recede interminably and theera of primitive man to stretch backward to an enormously remoteperiod. In truth, discoveries have been made which are claimed to carryman back beyond the Quaternary and into the Tertiary Period of geology, since cut and scratched bones have been found in Pliocene deposits, which some geologists of experience believe to have been the work ofhuman hands. Still more remote are some seemingly chipped flints andbones cut in a way that suggests human action, which have been found indeposits of the very far-distant Miocene Age. The immense remoteness ofthis epoch and the rudeness of the work have cast much doubt on thehuman origin of these remains, though their authenticity as the work ofman has been accepted by several competent observers, among them theable anthropologist, Quatrefages. 

If we confine ourselves, however, to the conclusions regarding ancientman which are generally accepted, we must say that he has not beenclearly traced back beyond the Glacial Period, though some of the relicsfound in the older river gravels and in the lowest cave accumulationsmay well be of pre-glacial age. Many geologists believe that he reachedEurope as early as the extinct mammals with which he was contemporaneousthere, but how far back in time this would carry his advent it isimpossible to say. 

Coming now to the consideration of more immediate human relics, thebones of man himself, it must be said that well-authenticated remainsof palæolithic or early neolithic man are not numerous. As long as manleft his bones to the unaided agencies of nature, they were littlelikely to be preserved. Of the anthropoid apes of Europe, probablynumerous in individuals, a few remains of one or two species alonesurvive. Of pre-glacial man none remain, but this may merely indicatethat he has shared the fate of numerous other species that died out andleft no trace. It was only when the growing cold drove man from the openwoods to seek shelter in caves that remnants of his body were likely tobe preserved, and only when a growing sense of human dignity led to theart of sepulture that the preservation of his bones became assured. 

The burial art was seemingly not practised by the hunters of theriver-drift period or by men of still earlier date. The only remains ofprimitive man known are those found in caves and rock shelters. A numberof human skulls have been discovered in these situations, and in a fewinstances skeletons have been exhumed. In the neolithic period intermentbecame more common and more carefully performed, and the progress ofthis period is marked by many remains of man, which in later times wereburied in elaborately constructed stone sepulchres, sometimes massive inmaterials and covered by great earth-mounds. 

What is meant by the Glacial Age is probably well-known to most readers, but its close relations to ancient man render it important for thosewho are not familiar with its meaning that a passing description of itshould here be given. It will suffice to say that there are found overmuch of the northern portions of America and Europe accumulations ofclays, sands, and gravels, sometimes laid down in stratified beds, sometimes rudely piled together. In these occur blocks of stone, largeand small, and other blocks, occasionally of great size, are found inisolated localities. The solid rocks which lie beneath these heaps areoften scratched or polished, as if the material had been pushed overthem with great force. 

All geologists now believe that these accumulations were made by ice, atsome remote period when a very cold climate prevailed in the northernhemisphere, and great glaciers slowly made their way southward, grindingand rending as they went, and burying the land under their mountain-likeheaps, which sometimes were a mile or more in depth. In North Americathe glacial ice pushed southward to the 40th degree of north latitude. In Europe it extended to the Alpine region, but failed to reach thecountries bordering on the Mediterranean. 

The elaborate and minute investigation of the glacial deposits has madeit highly probable that there were two glacial eras, two periods inwhich the ice pushed down far to the south, and that these wereseparated by a period in which the ice retreated and an age of warmerweather intervened. This is known as the interglacial period. So far ascan be positively ascertained, all the authentic relics of man belong tothe Glacial Age. They seem first to become numerous in the interglacialperiod, and continue to increase and become diversified as we descendlower in time. How long ago it was that the sea of ice began itsdownflow over the earth it is impossible to say. Some place it back sixhundred thousand or seven hundred thousand years. Some seek to bring itdown to a quite recent date. It is still so uncertain and such a matterof controversy that the utmost we are able definitely to say is that itwas very long ago. 

While there is no positive proof that men dwelt in Europe before thecoming on of the glacial chill, we have no just reason to doubt it. Thathe lived there during glacial times is unquestionable, and we may bevery well assured that a naked tropical animal, destitute of the hairycovering of the other animals, would not have chosen that frozen periodto migrate to the north. The fact that he was there during the ice ageseems satisfactory evidence that he was there before that age, duringthe mild climate of late Tertiary times, and that--for a reason which weshall hereafter consider--he was caught there and unable to retreat, andwas forced to adapt himself to the new conditions. 

During the warm preceding period he probably wandered as a hunterthrough the European forests. But with the gradual coming on of a wintrychill, as the advance of the ice began, shelter of some kind becamenecessary, and he sought refuge in caves. From being a forest wandererhe became a troglodyte. Everywhere in southwestern Europe we find tracesof this period of man's existence. There is hardly a cave or rockshelter in that region within which he has not left his marks. He madehis way to England, which was probably then connected by land withEurope, and dwelt long in its caverns. His period of cave residence, indeed, appears to have been a very extended one. While it continued, deposits many feet in depth gradually accumulated on the floors of thecaverns, slowly filling them up. And that, in some cases at least, thiscave residence ended a very long time ago, we are assured, for sincethen a great thickness of stalagmite, which is deposited with extremeslowness, has spread over the lower cave deposits and sealed them in. 

It is in these caves that we find, not only the rude stone spearheads, scrapers, hammers, etc. , the bone awls, borers, and other implements ofpalæolithic man, but the bones of man himself. And it is significant ofhis primitive condition that these earliest relics indicate a man of avery low grade of development, mentally far above the ape, it is true, but mentally and physically much below modern man. 

The most ape-like of those human remains is the famous Neanderthalskull, found in 1856 in a limestone cavern of the Neanderthal Valley, between Düsseldorf and Elberfeld, in Rhenish Prussia. The relicsdiscovered consist of the brain cap, two femori, two humeri, and otherfragments. The fragment of the skull attracted wide attention by itsbestial aspect, it presenting a low, narrow and receding forehead, andan enormous thickness of the bony ridges over the eyes, like that seenin the gorilla. This skull, which was associated with remains of thecave-bear, hyena, and rhinoceros, is, with one exception, the mostape-like human relic yet found. Yet its cranial capacity is far abovethat of the highest apes, and is assimilated with that of Hottentot andPolynesian skulls. 

It has been maintained that this is a pathological specimen, and doesnot represent normal man. But this theory has been disproved by the factthat other skulls of similar cranial characters are now known, indicating that the Neanderthal cranium represents a type of man, not anabnormal individual. In the Spy Cavern, in the province of Namur, Belgium, there were found, in 1886, two nearly perfect skeletons of aman and a woman, both of them with very prominent eye ridges, low, retreating foreheads, and large orbits. This was strikingly the casewith the woman. The lower jaws in both were heavy, while the woman wasalmost destitute of a chin--a marked ape-like characteristic. The tibiawas shorter than in any known race and stouter than in most. Its curiousfeature was the articulation with the femur, which was such that tomaintain the equilibrium the head and body must have been thrownforward, as is the case in the anthropoid apes. 

In the cave of Naulette, near Dinant, Belgium, has been found the lowerjaw of a man of decidedly ape-like aspect. Its prognathism or protrusionis extreme, and the canine teeth were very strong, while the molars wereevidently large and increased in size backward, a non-humancharacteristic. At La Denise, in the upper Loire, France, have beenfound the frontal bones of a man like the Neanderthal man in type, theforehead being depressed and retreating, and the superciliary ridgeslarge and thick. Several other skulls of this general type are known, but the above will suffice as examples. 

Remains of palæolithic man of considerably higher type are not wanting. In the rock shelter of Cro-Magnon, France, were found the bones of threemen, one woman, and one child, of more advanced character. These, however, are of late date and may have been early neolithic. At Engis, near Liège, Belgium, a deeply buried skull, associated with many remainsof extinct animals, has been dug up, which is by no means ape-like incharacter. A still superior example of palæolithic man is the skeletonfound in a cavern at Mentone, east of Nice, France, which represents aman six feet in height, with rather large head, high forehead, and verylarge facial angle (85°). The cave contained bones of extinct animals, but no trace of the reindeer. 

There is no occasion to speak here of the many remains of neolithic manthat have been exhumed. Sparse in the early part of the age of polishedstone weapons, they gradually became numerous, and merged into the humanremains of late prehistoric times. The American continent is not withoutits relics of ancient man, the most famous of which is the Calaverasskull, found in 1886 in the auriferous gravels of Calaveras County, California, at an extraordinary depth. The miners, in excavating ashaft, passed through several layers of lava and gravel, forming a totalthickness of seventy-nine feet of lava and a considerable thickness ofgravel, making nearly one hundred and thirty feet in all. At this deptha skull was found imbedded in the gravel, which, if authentic, must havebeen overflowed by several successive thick outpours of lava in theancient volcanic era of that region. As its authenticity is, however, still a matter of controversy, nothing further need here be said aboutit. 

Leaving these evidences of human antiquity, we come to the mostremarkable and significant of all the known relics of man, if indeed itis man, for it seems to many a link between man and the ape, --not yethuman, while no longer simian. This is the fossil find made by Dr. Eugene Dubois in 1891 on the banks of the Bengawan River, Java, andnamed by him _Pithecanthropus erectus_, he maintaining that itrepresents a new genus of upright animals, or even a new family. Theremains found by him consisted of the upper part of a skull, a molartooth, and a femur, possibly not belonging to a single individual, asthey were somewhat separated. These were exhumed from a stratum ofvolcanic tufa, claimed to be of Tertiary age, but perhaps Quaternary, and lay at a depth of some forty feet beneath the surface. 

The femur very closely resembles that of a human being of average size, and its shape, articulating surface, and other characters show clearlythat the animal stood habitually erect. The principal significance liesin the tooth and the cranium. The former is like that of the chimpanzeein shape, but less rugose on its grinding surface. It seems to liebetween the ape and the human type of dentition. The cranium has a low, depressed arch, with a very narrow frontal region and highly developedsuperciliary ridges. The cranial capacity was apparently about onethousand, that of man being from thirteen hundred to fourteen hundred. It is therefore said to be "the lowest human cranium yet described, verynearly as much below the Neanderthal as that is below the normalEuropean. "

Professor O. C. Marsh, in a paper on the subject in the _AmericanJournal of Science_, for February, 1895, agrees with Dr. Dubois in hisview of the distinct position of this form in the animal kingdom, andsays that the discoverer "has proved the existence of a new prehistoricanthropoid form, not human, indeed, but in size, brain power, and erectposture much nearer man than any animal hitherto discovered, living orextinct. "

We have here given a short review of a long story. The evidences ofman's former existence upon the earth are multitudinous, but anyextended consideration of them is aside from our purpose, which ismerely to show that the proofs of man's descent found in his physicalstructure are strengthened by evidences which he has left strewn behindhim in his long march down the ages. Only a single conclusion can bedrawn from these vestiges of man excavated from caves and gravels, namely, that they indicate a gradual and steady progression upward froma very low condition, while they nowhere give evidence of thetraditional fall of man. 

This is certainly the case with the relics of human workmanship. Theybegin with the rudest chipped stones, and very slowly improve in formand finish and become more varied, as we move upward in our search. Theground and polished stones follow, and the variety of implementsconsiderably increases, until at length the age of metal, with itsdeveloped industries, is reached. The only seeming evidence of superiorintellect to be found in this gradual progress is that of the drawingsand carvings left us by one group of palæolithic men. But the actualmental development indicated by these becomes problematical when weconsider that similar drawings are made to-day by the Bushmen of SouthAfrica, a race of men occupying a very low mental stage. From this factwe may fairly conclude that the possession of a simple graphic art doesnot necessarily indicate any considerable intellectual advance. 

If we consider the remains of man himself, the few bones which mark hisearly pathway through time, a similar conclusion must be drawn. Beginning with Pithecanthropus, which science is yet in doubt whether toclass with the apes or with men, we pass upward to the bestialNeanderthal man and his fellows of the same low type. Of the sparseremains of palæolithic man that exist, the most are of this degradedtype. The cranial capacity is usually not small. They had the full braindevelopment of man. But this simply assimilates them with the low racesof existing savages, many of whom have not developed the simple art ofchipping stone to form weapons and yet have brains of normal humanweight. 

In truth, the influences under which the development of the brain tookplace were not what we now call intellectual. Developing man used hismental powers actively in his dealings with the hostile forces ofsurrounding nature, and nearly all the forces of evolution were broughtto bear upon the organ of the mind, the body remaining practicallyunchanged. His senses became acute, his cunning and alertness high, hisuse of weapons skilful, but his field of mental exercise was still theouter world, and the inner world of thought remained in its embryostate. The more recent development of the mind has been in itsintellectual powers, while its physical aptitudes have somewhatdeclined. This has not yielded any marked increase in the dimensions ofthe brain, but it may have had a decided effect upon the proportion ofits parts, the regions of the cerebrum devoted to intellectual activityprobably increasing at the expense of the motor and sensory regions, while the convolutions may have grown considerably more complicated. 

IV

FROM QUADRUPED TO BIPED

In the question which now confronts us, that of the evolution of manfrom the lower world of animals, it is necessary first to state in whatparticulars he has evolved, what are the conditions which distinguishhim from the lower animals. Four marked distinctions may be named: hiserect attitude, with the freeing of the fore limbs from use as agents inlocomotion; his employment of natural objects, instead of his bodilyorgans, as tools and weapons; his development of vocal language; and hisgreat mental superiority, with the general use of the mind in hisdealings with nature. 

In none of these particulars does man stand quite alone; in all of theman affinity with the lower animals exists. Steps of progress in thesedirections have been made by many animals, though none of them havegained any considerable advance. In man's strikingly developed socialhabit and organization he has no close counterpart among thevertebrates, but several among the insects. And it is of much interestto find that in the highest field of man's progress, his employment ofthe mind in his dealings with nature, he is chiefly emulated by suchlowly-organized creatures as the ants and the bees. 

We do not need to look far among the lower animals for the species whichcome nearest to man in structure and which seem to have immediatelypreceded him in the line of descent. We find these forms in the monkeysor apes, and especially in their highest representatives, the anthropoidapes. These possess in a partial degree all the special characteristicsof man. They are social in habit; some of them are semi-erect inposture, and their fore limbs partly freed from use in locomotion; theypossess some imperfect means of vocal communication; they employ themind to some extent in place of the body; in short, they seem arrestedforms on the road from brute to man, signal-posts on the highway ofevolution. In physical organization their approach to man is singularlyclose. In anatomy man and the higher apes are in most respectscounterparts of each other. The principal anatomical distinction hasbeen considered to be in the foot, which from the opposable character ofthe great toe was classed by Cuvier with the hand, the apes being namedQuadrumana, or four-handed, and man Bimana, or two-handed. Fullerresearch has shown that this distinction does not exist, the foot of theape being found to agree far more closely with the foot than with thehand of man. Estimated according to use, the hand is, in the wholeorder, the special prehensile organ; the foot, however prehensile itmay be, is predominantly a walking organ. And the opposability of thegreat toe is approached in some men, who have great mobility in thisorgan, and can use it for grasping. 

In regard to the brain, the organ of the mind, the difference betweenthe higher apes and man is almost solely one of comparative size, thelower intelligence of the apes being indicated by the smaller size oftheir brains. The largest ape brain is scarcely half the size of thesmallest human brain. But anatomically they are nearly identical. Allthe structural features of the brain are common to both, and the detailsare largely filled out in the anthropoid apes, the convolutions beingall present and the pattern of arrangement the same. The brain of theorang may be said to be like that of man in all respects except size andthe greater symmetry of its convolutions, which are less complicatedwith minor convolutions than in man. In truth, the difference betweenthe brains of man and the orang is almost insignificant as compared withthe difference between those of the orang and the lowest apes. Mr. E. W. Taylor, who has recently made an exhaustive study of the minute anatomyof the brain of the chimpanzee, remarks, "The similarity between thebrain of the anthropoid apes and of man is one of the most singular andinteresting facts of which we have knowledge. "

In any attempt, then, to consider the origin of man from the point ofview of evolution, we are irresistibly drawn to the ape tribe as thenext lower link in the long chain of development, and are led toconsider the characteristics of the apes as the intermediate stagebetween the quadruped and the biped, the bridge crossing this great gulfin organic development. This is by no means to suggest that some one ofthe existing anthropoid apes is the direct ancestor of man. Such an ideahas never been entertained by scientists. These animals cannot evenfairly be considered as brothers to man's ancestor, but must be lookedupon as more or less distant cousins, with a physical organization lessfavorable to high development than that of man. Man's ancestry lies muchfarther back in time, and his progenitor must have been constituteddifferently from any of the existing large apes. 

In the ape tribe we are able to trace nearly every step by which thegulf between quadruped and biped has been crossed, from the quadrupedalbaboon to the nearly erect gibbon. And in seeking to follow thisdevelopment through its successive stages, the first point to beconsidered is how the apes gained their special power of grasping, thatcharacteristic to which they undoubtedly owe the partial freedom oftheir hands and their tendency to assume the erect attitude. 

The most distinguishing characteristic of the apes and of the nearlyrelated lemurs has not hitherto been definitely pointed out. This isthat they form the only group of strictly arboreal animals. The tree isnot alone their native habitat, but they are specially adapted to it intheir organs of motion, a fact which cannot be affirmed of any otheranimal group. If we consider, for instance, the squirrels, one of thebest-known groups of tree-living animals, we find them to be members ofthe great order of rodents, whose native habitat is the land surface. Though the squirrels have taken to the trees, there has been no adaptivechange in the structure of their limbs and feet. The same may be said ofalmost all tree-dwellers except the lemurs and apes. The sloth, indeed, is specially adapted in organization to an arboreal residence, but thischange is individual, not tribal, this animal being an aberrant form ofthe ground-dwelling edentata. In the apes and lemurs, on the contrary, the ground-dwellers are the aberrant forms, stray wanderers from thehost. Nearly all the species live in trees, to which they are speciallyadapted by the formation of their feet. It remains to inquire how thisdeviation in structure arose, what were the steps of development of thegrasping foot and hand, the special characteristic of this group. 

In considering this question, the first fact to appear is that the apesand lemurs are plantigrade animals. Their natural tendency is to walk onthe sole of the foot, a habit which few other tribes of animalspossess. Most of the larger animals walk on the knuckles or the toes, and develop claws or hoofs, but the ancestral form of the ape, ages inthe past, was doubtless a sole-walking quadruped, its toes apparentlyprovided with nails instead of claws. What the story of this veryancient quadruped was we are quite unable to say. It may, in theexigencies of existence, have come to a parting of the ways; a sectionof the group, drawn by a love of fruit, developing the climbing habit;the remaining section continuing on the ground and following a separateline of evolution. Perhaps only a single species took to the trees; forit is quite possible for a single form, in a new and advantageoushabitat, to vary in time into a great number of species. 

Of all this we can know nothing: but of one thing we may feel assured, which is that the plantigrade foot is the only one that could havedeveloped into a grasping organ; such a development being impossible tothe digitigrade or the hoofed animals. One can readily see how the habitof walking on the sole might tend to a spreading of the toes, in orderto obtain a wider and firmer footing. And it is equally easy to see howa free and wide motion in the great toe would aid in this result. Theanimal may have been at first light in weight and able to support itselfon its unchanged foot, but as it increased in size and weight it wouldneed a firmer grasp, and the final result of spreading its toes forthis purpose may well have been the opposable great toe. 

It must be borne in mind, in this consideration, that the apes differfrom the other tree-dwellers in being destitute of claws. The squirrels, the opossums, and other arboreal animals have sharp claws, by whose aidthey can easily cling to the surface of the bark-covered boughs. Thenails of the apes are incapable of affording them this service, and itis not easy to perceive how a foot like theirs could become adapted tolocomotion in the trees otherwise than by the gaining of mobile actionand grasping power in the toes. 

The existing habits of the ape tribe lead us to the conclusion that theancestral animal may have soon begun to seek support from upper limbs. The plantigrade foot is one capable of readily curving into an organ ofsupport, and in the case of the forefoot the toes would tend to spreadand gain flexibility of motion, and the first toe to become opposable tothe others and yield a more complete grasping power. It does not seemdifficult to comprehend, from this point of view, how the feet of afive-toed plantigrade animal may in time have developed into graspingorgans, since there would be required only an increased flexibility ofthe joints, and a wider and fuller movement of the great toes. That sucha change took place in this instance the facts appear to indicate, themost simple and probable explanation of the development of the graspingpower in the hands and feet of the ape being seemingly that given above. 

The relation of the lemurs to the apes is not clearly defined. It may bean ancestral one, or the two animals may represent distinct lines ofdescent. In the latter case we would have two lines of animal evolutionin which the grasping power was gained and adaptation to arboreal lifecompleted. Whatever their relationship, they both possess the opposablethumb as the hall-mark of their arboreal habitat, and whenever foundwalking on the ground they may be looked upon as estrays from theirnative place of residence. 

Once the grasping power was gained, the first step of change from thequadrupedal to the semi-erect attitude was completed. The process mayhave begun in the effort to fit the sole of the foot to the roundedsurface of boughs; or its first stage may have been in the seizing ofoverhead branches with the flexible hand; or both influences may haveacted simultaneously. We see the result only, we cannot trace the exactprocess; but we have as an outcome the adoption of a method oflocomotion different from that of all other tree-dwellers, the forefootdeveloping into the hand with its opposable thumb, and the hindfootgaining a similar grasping power in the toes. 

The power of walking on a lower limb and grasping an upper one onceattained, a succeeding step in evolution quickly appeared, and one ofprime importance to our inquiry. The animal had ceased to be in a fullsense a quadruped, while not yet a biped, and a variation in the lengthof its limbs was almost sure to take place. This is an ordinary resultwhen animals cease to walk on all fours. In the leaping kangaroo andjerboa a shortening of the arms and lengthening of the legs appear. Herethe arms are relieved from duty and a double duty is laid on the legs, with the consequence stated. In the ancient dinosaurian reptiles, upright walkers, the same was the case. Those varied from quite small tovery large animals, but in all known instances the fore limbs weregreatly reduced in size. A similar condition may be seen in the birds, the bones of whose fore-limbs have largely aborted from lack ofemployment as walking organs. 

In the case of the apes and lemurs, while a similar effect has takenplace, an interesting difference appears, due to the difference inconditions. In these animals the fore limbs are not freed from duty asorgans of locomotion. In many cases, on the contrary, they have an extraduty put upon them, with the result that they have grown longer insteadof shorter. Very likely these animals differed considerably in the past, as they do to-day, in the degree of use of their legs and arms. Many ofthem walk in the quadruped manner, either on the ground or in trees. Others make much use of their hands and arms in grasping and swinging. Great differences in the use of the arms and legs may have arisen indifferent species. In some, the legs may have been mainly trusted to forsupport, and the hands used for steadying. In others the arms may havebeen the chief locomotive organs and the feet have given steadiness. Here the legs may have grown the longer, there the arms, the limbsdeveloping in accordance with their degree of employment. In the lowermonkeys and the lemurs, the bones of the pelvis are altogetherquadrupedal in character. This is not the case in the higher forms, andin the highest apes the pelvic bones approach those of man. 

Highly interesting examples of these varied results may be seen in theexisting anthropoid apes. In all of them it would appear that the armwas a prominent factor in locomotion, for in each instance it is longerthan the leg, --but it differs in proportional length in every instance. It is shortest in the chimpanzee, somewhat longer in the gorilla, stilllonger in the orang, and remarkably long in the gibbon. In all theseinstances the fact that the arms exceed the legs in length indicatesthat they must have played a large and important part in the work oflocomotion, and especially so in the case of the gibbon. It is wellknown, in fact, that the gibbons progress very largely by the aid oftheir arms, swinging from limb to limb and from tree to tree withextraordinary strength and facility. The legs lend their aid in this, but the arms are the principal organs of motion, and seem to havedeveloped in length accordingly. 

As regards the other anthropoid species, Wallace's observations on thehabits of the orang are of interest. This animal usually walks on allfours on the branches in a semi-erect crouching attitude, but ournaturalist saw one moving by the use of its arms alone. In passing fromtree to tree the arms come actively into play. The animal seizes ahandful of the overlapping boughs of the two trees and swings easilyacross the intervening space. While seeming to move very deliberately, its actual speed was found to be about six miles an hour. 

The organization of man, as he now exists, shows an interesting andimportant deviation from that of the manlike apes, and one which servesas strong evidence that none of these apes occupied a place in his lineof descent. This is that he is a long-legged and short-armed animal, acondition the reverse of that seen in the anthropoid apes. While man'shands reach barely to the middle of the thigh, those of the chimpanzeereach below the knee, of the gorilla to the middle of the leg, of theorang to the ankle, and of the gibbon to the ground. All these apes haveshort legs and long arms. Man, on the contrary, has long legs and shortarms. 

The natural presumption from this interesting fact is that man'sancestor, which we may provisionally call the man-ape, differedessentially in its mode of progression from the other apes. The smallerforms of these usually move on all fours in the trees, though the armsare always ready for a swing or a climb. The anthropoid apes also show atendency to a similar mode of progression, though with a difference intheir mode of walking, which, as we shall see later on, is never that ofthe quadruped. As for the man-ape, it may have originally walked in thesame manner as the related species, if we surmise that the variation inthe length of the limbs was a subsequent development. Certainly afterits limbs attained the proportions of those of man, its facility ofswinging from tree to tree must have been diminished, while it wouldhave found it inconvenient to move in the crouching attitude of theorang and its fellows. Its easiest attitude must then have been theerect one, and its motion a true biped walk, not the swinging andjumping movement of the other anthropoids. In short, the development ofman's ancestor into a short-armed animal, however and whenever it tookplace, could not but have interfered seriously with its ease of motionin the trees. Though this change may have begun in the trees, itprobably had its full development only after the animal made the groundits habitual place of residence. 

It is of interest to find that all the existing large apes arearboreal, the gorilla being the least so, probably on account of itsweight. Though they all descend at times to the ground, their awkwardmotion on the surface shows them to be out of their element, while theymove with ease and rapidity in the trees. The organization of manrenders it questionable if his primeval ancestor was arboreal to anysimilar extent. The indications would seem to be that it made the groundits habitual place of residence at an early period in its history, andthat the result of this new habit and of its erect attitude was a changein the relative length of its limbs. 

That this animal dwelt mainly in trees in the first stage of itsexistence, and possessed a powerful grasping power in its hands, we havecorroborative evidence in recent studies of child life. The humaninfant, in its earliest days of life, displays a remarkable graspingpower, being able to sustain its weight with its hands for a number ofseconds, or a minute or more, at an age when its other muscles areflabby and powerless. It appears in this to repeat a habit normal to theancestral infant, an instinct developed to prevent a fall from its homeamong the boughs. 

Yet it is doubtful if the man-ape long remained a specially arborealanimal. The varied length of arm in the anthropoid apes was doubtless ofearly origin, and in all probability man's ancestor had originally ashorter arm than its related species. If so, this must have rendered itless agile in trees than other forms. If we could see this ancientcreature in its arboreal home, we should probably find it more inclinedto stand erect than the other apes, walking on a lower limb, andsteadying itself by grasping an upper limb. This would be a more naturaland easy mode of progression to a short-armed animal than the crouchingattitude of the orang or the swinging motion of the gibbon, and itseffect would be to make the erect attitude to a large extent habitualwith this animal. 

In short, man's ancestor may have become in considerable measure a bipedwhile still largely a dweller in the trees, and to that degree set itsarms free for other duties than that of locomotion. Like the other apes, it probably often descended to the ground, where its habit of walkingerect on the boughs rendered the biped walk an easy one, or where thishabit may have been originally acquired. While this is conjectural, itis supported by facts of organization and existing habit, and for thereasons given it seems highly probable that the ancestor of man took toa land residence at an early period in its history, climbing again forfood or safety, but dwelling more and more habitually on the earth'ssurface. Even at this remote era it may have become essentially human inorganization, its subsequent changes being mainly in brain development, and only to a minor extent in physical form and structure. 

Fossil apes have not been found farther back than the Miocene Age ofgeology. It is quite probable, however, that they may yet be found inEocene strata, since examples of their highest representatives, theanthropoid or manlike apes, have been found in Miocene rocks. The factthat these large apes are now few in number of species, is no proof thatmany forms of them may not have formerly existed, and among these we mayclass the ancestor of man. 

V

THE FREEDOM OF THE ARMS

Man's ancestor is by no means the only form of ape that has made theearth's surface its place of residence. The baboon is one example of anumber of forms that dwell habitually upon the ground, though they havenot lost their agility in climbing. But these species have returned tothe quadruped habit, to which the equal length of their limbs adaptsthem. All the anthropoid apes dwell to some extent upon the ground, butthese can neither be called quadrupeds nor bipeds, their usual mode ofprogression being an awkward compromise between the two. The same may besaid of one of the lemurs, the propithecus, the only member of its tribethat attempts to move in the erect attitude. It does not walk, however, but progresses by a series of jumps, its arms being held erect, as iffor balancing. 

Of the apes, though many can stand upright, the gibbon is the only onethat attempts to walk in this position. This is a true walk, though nota very graceful one. The animal maintains a fairly upright posture, butwalks with a waddling motion, its body rocking from side to side. Itssoles are placed flat on the ground, with the great toes spreadoutward. Its arms either hang loosely by its side, are crossed over itshead, or are held aloft, swaying like balancing poles and ready to seizeany overhead support. Its walk is quickly changed to a different motionif any occasion for haste arises. At once its long arms are dropped tothe ground, the knuckles closed, and it progresses by a swinging orleaping motion, the body remaining nearly erect, but being swung betweenthe arms. 

None of the other anthropoid apes ever walk erect, though they assume attimes the upright posture. But though they use all their limbs aswalking organs, they show no tendency to revert to the habit of thequadrupeds. Their motion is like that of the gibbon when in haste, aseries of jumps or swings between the supporting arms. The shortness oftheir arms, however, prevents them from standing erect, like the gibbon, in doing this; and they bend forward to a degree depending on the lengthof their arms, the chimpanzee the most, the orang the least. 

As a rule, the flat sole of the foot is set on the ground, with the toesextended, as in man, but the toes are sometimes doubled under inwalking. The orang rarely touches the ground with the sole or the closedtoes, but walks on the outer edge of the foot, the feet being bentinward as if clasping the rounded sides of a bough. The other specieshave a tendency in the same direction, the legs being bowed and thegait rolling. In using the hands in walking, the closed knuckles areusually placed on the ground, though occasionally the open palm isemployed. The whole movement of these animals is strikingly awkward, andgoes to indicate that there can be no satisfactory compromise betweenlife in the tree and on the ground. 

The significant fact in these attempts to walk is that none of theanthropoid apes show any inclination to revert to the quadruped habit. Their attitude is in all cases an approach toward the erect one, whichposture is attained by the gibbon. The arms are used not as walking butas swinging organs. Evidently their mode of life in the trees hasovercome all tendency toward the quadruped motion in these apes anddeveloped a tendency toward the biped. But none of them have gained themuscular development of the leg known as the calf, nor an adjustment ofthe joints to the erect attitude, since none but the gibbon walks erect, and it does so only at occasional intervals. 

The conclusion to be derived from all this is that the man-ape was inits early days much more truly a biped than are any of the speciesnamed. Like them, it had no tendency to revert to the quadruped habit. The shortness of its arms was unsuited to this, while rendering itimpossible for the animal to progress in the semi-erect, swingingfashion of the other anthropoid apes. As a result of its bodilyformation, it may have begun to walk erect at a very remote date, witha consequent straightening of the joints and muscular development of thelegs. When this condition was fully attained, it was practically a manin physical conformation, though mentally still an ape, and with a longdevelopment of the brain to pass through before it could reach the humanlevel of mind. 

The far-reaching conclusions here reached are all based on one importantfact, the shortness of man's arms as compared with the disproportionatelength of arm in the anthropoid apes. This, for the reasons given, rendered the adaptation of the man-ape to life in the trees inferior tothat of the long-armed apes; while, as has just been said, it unfittedit to walk on the ground either as a quadruped or in the jumping methodof its fellow anthropoids. In short, the biped attitude was much thebest suited to its organization and the one it was most likely toassume. This once adopted as its habitual posture, efficiency in walkingwould be gained by practice. 

When once this animal became a ground walker, its facility of motion inthe trees was in a measure lost. When the feet became accustomed to theflat surface of the ground, they became less capable of grasping therounded surface of the bough. Fitness to the one situation entailed lossof fitness to the other. The feet of the apes can clasp the boughfirmly, by curving around its opposite sloping sides, and to this theseanimals doubtless owe their bowed legs and their disposition to walk onthe outer edge of the foot. This disposition the man-ape lost as itsfoot fitted itself to the surface of the ground. It was probablyretained in a measure by the young, after it had been lost by the matureform, and is still manifested in the position of the foot in the humanembryo. 

These considerations bring us to an important question: Why did theman-ape gain a length of arm not the best suited to its arborealhabitat? Why, in fact, do changes in physical structure ever take place?How does an animal succeed in passing from one mode of life to another, when during the transition period it is imperfectly adapted to either, and therefore at a seeming disadvantage in the struggle for existence?The study of animal development has given rise to certain difficultproblems of this character, some of which have been solved by showingthat the supposed disadvantage did not arise, or that it was balanced bysome equal advantage. In this way a considerable gap in life conditionshas perhaps occasionally been crossed. Small gaps have doubtless beenfrequently passed over in the same manner. 

In the case of the anthropoid apes, we perceive a considerable variationin the length of the arms, from the very long arms of the gibbon to thecomparatively short ones of the chimpanzee. These differences areprobably the result of some difference in their life habits, and accordwith the possibility of a still shorter arm in the man-ape. There is, however, some reason to believe, as we shall show later on, that the armof this animal was longer and the leg shorter than in man himself, theircomparative length perhaps not differing greatly from that of thechimpanzee. Aside from all other considerations, the use of the legs asthe sole organs of locomotion could not well fail to produce thisresult, the legs growing longer and stronger in consequence of theincreased duty laid upon them, and the arms growing shorter and weakerthrough their release from duty in locomotion. The case does not differin character from those of the dinosauria and the kangaroos, in both ofwhich instances a release of the arms from duty in walking was followedby a considerable decrease in length and strength, while the legs grewproportionally stronger. 

If any disadvantage attended the shortening of the arms of the man-ape, to the extent that this may have taken place in the tree, it wasprobably correlated with some advantage. In the various instances ofshort-armed animals cited this appears to have been the case, and it wasprobably so in man's ancestral form. While the hands continued useful ingrasping and enabling the animal to maintain its place on the boughs, they may have been gradually diverted to some other service, with theresult that the animal found the tree less desirable than before as aplace of residence and sought the ground instead. This would beparticularly the case if the new duty was one best exercised upon theground. 

Shall we offer a suggestion as to this new use? Such changes are usuallythe result of some change of habit in the animal, frequently one thathas to do with its food. Change of diet or of the mode of obtaining foodis the most potent influencing cause of change of habit in animals, andthe one that first calls for consideration. 

The apes are frugivorous animals, though not exclusively so. Carnivoroustendencies are displayed by many of them. They rob birds' nests of theireggs and young, they capture and devour snakes and other small animals. In zoölogical gardens monkeys are often observed to catch and eat mice. It is evident that many of them might readily become carnivorous to alarge extent under suitable conditions. The large apes are usuallyfrugivorous, but some of them eat animal food. This is the case withboth the chimpanzee and the gorilla. The latter, while living usually onfruit and often making havoc in the sugar-cane plantations andrice-fields of the natives, also eats birds and their eggs, smallmammals and reptiles, and is said to devour large animals when founddead, though it does not attempt to kill them for food. The younggorilla which was kept in captivity at Berlin became quite omnivorous inits diet. 

With all this readiness to eat animal food, none of the existing apesare carnivorous to any large extent, but the fact of this inclinationmakes it not improbable that some of the apes of the past may have beenmuch more so. It is quite within the limits of probability, forinstance, that the man-ape at an early date became omnivorous in itsdiet. Its change in structure may well have been the result of a decidedchange in diet, such as that from fruit to flesh food. Such a radicalchange as that from vegetable to animal food would certainly demand amore active employment of the arms as agents in capture. Fruits and nutswait to be pulled; animals must be caught before they can be eaten. Theformer is an easy matter to an arboreal animal; the latter might prove adifficult one, especially if large animals were to be captured. 

In short, the pursuit and capture of any of the larger animals for preycould not fail to modify to a great degree the use of the arms. Theiremployment in locomotion would interfere seriously with their utility inthis direction. To succeed in capturing nimble prey by an animal withthe ape form of hands a considerable freedom of the arms would benecessary, and the feet would have to be mainly, if not wholly, dependedupon for motion. The ape has not the sharp claws of the carnivora withwhich to seize and hold its prey. It must have been obliged to use itspalms for this purpose, and this it could not well have done unless theywere free in their action. 

It is conceivable, indeed, that the man-ape may have run down its prey, or sprung upon it from covert, and seized it with the hands, but thereis good reason to believe that this was not its mode of capture. Theorganization of the ape tribe gives it a characteristic action which isnot to be found in any other group of the vast animal kingdom, that ofhandling and throwing missiles. In this it necessarily stands alone, since no other animal has a grasping palm. The power is one of primeimportance, for without it we cannot perceive how man could ever haveemerged from the general animal kingdom. The use of missiles is by nomeans uncommon with the monkeys. We cannot safely accept the story thatAmerican monkeys will throw cocoanuts from tree-tops at those who hurlstones at them from below, from the fact that the cocoanut seems tooheavy and too firmly fixed to its support for the strength of thosesmall species, but it is not uncommon for them to throw lighter objects. Yet in doing this they usually seem to have no idea of aim, but toss themissile aimlessly into the air. Of the large apes, the orang will breakoff branches and fling them at its tormentors, or will throw the thickhusks of the durian fruit, but with similar lack of aim. The mostskilful in this exercise are some species of baboons, which can hurlbranches, stones, or hard clods with much dexterity. 

It is of interest to find existing apes availing themselves of theirgrasping power in this manner, since it leads us irresistibly to theconclusion that the man-ape may have done the same thing. The specieswhich use missiles fail to take aim for two reasons, one that theyemploy them only occasionally, often in imitation of human action, theother that their arms are ill suited to this motion from their constantemployment in another duty. In the case of the man-ape we may justlylook for a more effective result, since if the arms became relieved fromduty in locomotion they were free to gain facility of action in otherdirections. 

If in addition to this the man-ape began to use missiles with a definitepurpose in view, that of striking down animal prey, so that the use ofsuch weapons became habitual instead of occasional, it would soon gainsome power of aim and a growing strength and skill in the throwingmotion. It is quite probable, also, that an early use of weapons was inthe form of clubs, which were retained in the grasp to strike down theprey when overtaken. In this case, we may imagine our primitive bipedrunning swiftly after its prey, club in hand, striking at it when withinreach; or, if it should prove too swift, hurling the club or a stonethrough the air with the hope of bringing it down in this manner. Such aflinging action, if now and then successful, would be likely soon tobecome habitual; while the arm would grow accustomed to this new motion, and attain skill in taking aim. We may reasonably infer, also, that theclub would be used for defence as well as for offence, in case theman-ape were in its turn pursued by larger animals. Instead of fleeingto the nearest tree, it might now stand its ground and beat off itsenemy. 

All must admit the probability, in a large tribe of animals withgrasping power in their hands, and in the habit of using missilesoccasionally, of one or more species coming to use them habitually. Allthe anthropoid apes are certainly intelligent enough to do this, if itshould prove advantageous to them. Its principal advantage, however, would seem to be to a species that became largely carnivorous and neededto capture running or flying prey. 

The habit of using implements is one of supreme importance in animalevolution. To it we owe man as he exists to-day. While animals confinedthemselves to their natural weapons of teeth and claws, theirdevelopment must have remained a very slow one and been confined withinnarrow limits. When they once began to add to their natural powers thoseof surrounding nature, by the use of artificial weapons, the first stepin a new and illimitable range of evolution was taken. From that day tothis, man has been occupied in unfolding this method, and has advancedenormously beyond his primal state. A crude and simple use of weaponsgave him, in time, supremacy over all the lower animals. An advanced useof weapons and tools has given him, in a measure, supremacy over natureherself, and raised him to a stage almost infinitely beyond that of theanimal which trusts solely to teeth and claws. 

So far as we know, only one of the innumerable species of animalsattained this development; unless, indeed, the various races of men hadmore than one ape ancestor. For the appearance of man there becamenecessary, first, the development of an order of animals with power ofgrasp in their hands; and, second, the development of one or more bipedspecies, with hands freed from duty as walking organs and capable of usein other directions. A third necessity was very probably the exchange ofthe frugivorous for the carnivorous habit, which would act as apredisposing agency in inducing the animal to desert the tree for theground, and to employ weapons in the chase. The final result of all thiswould be an erect, walking, and running animal, with arms and handsquite free from their old duty, except during an occasional return tothe tree, and with the necessary straightening of joints and developmentof supporting muscles. 

What has been advanced above is, no doubt, largely a series ofassumptions and conjectures, few of which are sustained by known facts. But as the matter stands, no other method of dealing with it can beadopted, since the facts in the case have in great part vanished. Whatwe know positively is that man exists, and that in physical structurehe is very closely related to the anthropoid apes. What we haveexcellent reason to feel assured of is that man has descended from thelower animals, and in all probability from an ape-like ancestor. We knowthat one or more species of anthropoid apes have become extinct, and canreasonably conjecture that one ancient species became modified into theform of man. We know that human remains have been found that, to somesmall extent, fill the gap between man and the ape. Correlative evidenceexists in the variations in length of limb in the existing anthropoids, their efforts to walk upright, their varied degree of dependence uponthe arms for locomotion, and the occasional use of missiles by these andlower forms. To these may be added the carnivorous tastes shown by manymembers of the ape family, with the indication that more decidedcarnivorous habits might readily be assumed. 

Taking the stand that such a partly carnivorous anthropoid ape, biped instructure, appeared and made the ground its usual place of residence, wefind ourselves on the direct trail of man. Long ago as this may havebeen, and far and difficult as was the journey to be made, the way wasthenceforth straight and well-defined. Such an animal, living largely onanimal food, and using weapons superior to its natural ones in thecapture of prey, was essentially a man, however low may still have beenits level of intelligence. Its feet were firmly fixed upon the upwardtrack, and only time and stress of circumstance were needed to carry itupward to the high level of civilized man. 

We may, indeed, go further than this. We are in a measure justified insaying what this man-ape was like, this creature which had left itsearly home in the trees and began to walk upright upon the earth, pursuing the larger animals and capturing them for food. It was probablymuch smaller than existing man, little if any more than four feet inheight and not more than half the weight of man. Its body was covered, though not profusely, with hair, the hair of the head being woolly orfrizzly in texture, and the face provided with a beard. The complexionwas not jet black, like the typical negro, but of a dull brown hue, thehair being somewhat similar in color. The arms were lank and ratherlong, the back much curved, the chest flat and narrow, the abdomenprotruding, the legs rather short and bowed, the walk a waddling motion, somewhat like that of the gibbon. It had small, deep-set eyes, greatlyprotruding mouth with gaping lips, huge ears, and in general a veryape-like aspect. Our warrant for this description of man's ancestor mustbe left for a later portion of our work. We shall only say here that itis based on known fact, not on fancy. 

VI

THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLIGENCE

The full adoption of the erect attitude gave the ancestor of man animmense motor supremacy over the lower animals, for it completelyreleased his fore limbs from duty as organs of support and set them freefor new and superior purposes. In all the animal kingdom below man thereexists but a single form that emulates him in this possession of agrasping organ which takes no part in walking or in other modes oflocomotion. This is the elephant, whose nose and upper lip havedeveloped into an enormous and highly flexible trunk, with delicategrasping powers. The possession of this organ may have had much to dowith the intellectual acumen of the elephant. Yet it is far inferior inits powers to the arm and hand of man; while the form, size, and food ofthe elephant stand in the way of the progress which might have been madeby an animal possessed of such an organ in connection with a bettersuited bodily structure. 

For a period of many millions of years the world of vertebrate lifecontinued quadrupedal, or where a variation from this structure tookplace the fore limbs remained to a large extent organs of locomotion. Finally a true biped appeared. For a period of equal duration the mentalprogress of animals was exceedingly slow. Then, with almost startlingsuddenness, a highly intellectual animal appeared. Thus the coming ofman indicated, in two directions, an extraordinary deviation from theordinary course of animal development. Both physically and mentallyevolution seemed to take an enormous leap, instead of proceeding by itsusual minute steps, and in the advent of man we have a phenomenonremarkable alike in the development of the body and the mind. 

So far our attention has been directed to the evolution of the humanbody, now we must consider that of the human mind. In seeking throughthe animal kingdom for the probable ancestor of man in his bodilyaspect, we were drawn irresistibly to the ape tribe, as the only onethat made any near approach to him in structure. In considering the casefrom the point of view of mental development we find a similarirresistible drawing toward the apes, as the most spontaneouslyintelligent of the mammalia. While many of the lower animals are capableof being taught, the ape stands nearly alone in the power of thinkingfor itself, the characteristic of self-education. 

Innumerable testimonials could be quoted from observers in evidence ofthe superior mental powers of the apes. Hartmann says of them that"their intelligence sets them high above other mammals, " and Romanesthat they "certainly surpass all other animals in the scope of theirrational faculty. " It is scarcely necessary here to give extendedexamples of ape intelligence. Hundreds of instances are on record, manyof them showing remarkable powers of reasoning for one of the loweranimals. The ape, it is true, is not alone in its teachableness. Nearlyall the domestic animals can be taught, the dog and the elephant to aconsiderable degree. And evidences of reasoning out some subject forthemselves now and then appear in the domesticated species; but theseare rare instances, not frequent acts as in the case of the apes. 

The apes, indeed, rarely need teaching. They observe and imitate to anextent far beyond that displayed by any others of the lower animals, andthe more remarkable from the fact that in nearly every instance theanimals concerned began life in the wild state, and had none of theadvantages of hereditary influence possessed by the domesticated dog andhorse. Among the most interesting examples of spontaneous acts ofintelligence of the ape tribe are those related by Romanes, in his"Animal Intelligence, " of the doings of a cebus monkey, which he keptfor several months under close observation in his own house. Instead ofselecting general examples of ape actions, we may cite some of thedoings of this intelligent creature. 

The cebus did not wait to be shown how to do things, but was an adept indevising ways to do them himself. He had the monkey love of mischiefwell developed, and not much that was breakable came whole from hishands. When he could not break an egg cup by dashing it to the ground, he hammered it on the post of a brass bedstead until it was infragments. In breaking a stick, he would pass it down between a heavyobject and the wall, and break it by hanging on its end. In destroyingan article of dress, he would begin by carefully pulling out thethreads, and afterward tear it to pieces with his teeth. His nuts hebroke with a hammer precisely as a man would have done and without beingshown its use. Ridicule was not pleasant to him; he strongly resentedbeing laughed at, and would throw anything within reach at his tormentorand with a skill and force not usual with monkeys. Taking the missile inboth hands and standing erect, he would extend his long arms behind hisback and hurl the article by bringing them forcibly forward. 

If any object he wanted was too far away to reach, he would draw ittoward him with a stick. Failing in this, he was observed to throw ashawl back over his head, and then fling it forward with all hisstrength, holding it by two corners. When it fell over the object, hebrought this within reach by drawing in the shawl. In his gyrations, the chain by which he was fastened often became twisted around someobject. He would now examine it intently, pulling it in opposite wayswith his fingers until he had discovered how the turns ran. This done, he would carefully reverse his motions until the chain was quitedisentangled. 

The most striking act of intelligence told of this creature was hisdealings with a hearth-brush which fell into his hands, and of which thehandle screwed into the brush. It took him no long time to find out howto unscrew the handle. When this was achieved, he at once began to tryand screw it in again. In doing so he showed great ingenuity. At firsthe put the wrong end of the handle into the hole, and turned it roundand round in the right direction for screwing. Finding this would notwork, he took it out and tried the other end, always turning in theright direction. It was a difficult feat to perform, as he had to turnthe screw with both hands, while the flexible bristles of the brushprevented it from remaining steady. To aid his operations he now heldthe brush with one foot, while turning with both hands. It was stilldifficult to make the first turn of the screw, but he worked on withuntiring perseverance until he got the thread to catch, and then screwedit in to the end. The remarkable thing was that he never tried to turnthe handle in the wrong direction, but always screwed it from left toright, as if he knew that he must reverse the original motion. The feataccomplished, he repeated it, and continued to do so until he couldperform it easily. Then he threw the brush aside, apparently taking nomore interest in that over which he had worked so persistently. No mancould have devoted himself more earnestly to learn some new art, andbecome more indifferent to it when once learned. These are a few only ofthe many acts of intelligence observed by Mr. Romanes in the doings ofthis animal. They will suffice as examples of what we mean byspontaneous intelligence. The cebus did not need to be shown how to dothings; it worked them out for itself much as a man would have done, performing acts of an intricacy far beyond any ever observed in otherclasses of animals in captivity. It may be said further that thedisplays of spontaneous intelligence shown by dogs, cats, and similaranimals have usually been intended in some way for the advantage of theanimal; few or none are on record which indicate a mere desire to knowwithout ulterior advantage; no persevering effort, like that with thebrush, which is purely an instance of self-instruction. 

Examples of intelligence of this advanced character could be cited fromobservation of monkeys of various species. The anthropoid apes have notbeen brought to any large extent under observation, but are notable fortheir intelligence in captivity. It is not easy to observe them in astate of nature, and nearly all we know is that the orang makes itselfa nightly bed of branches broken off and carefully laid together, and issaid to cover itself in bed with large leaves, if the weather is wet. The chimpanzee has a similar habit, and the gorilla is said to builditself a nest in which the female and the young sleep, the old maleresting at the foot of the tree, on guard against their dangerous foe, the leopard. 

It is the young animals of these species which are the most social anddocile and most approach man in appearance. As they grow older, theirspecific characters become more marked. Fierce and sullen as is the oldgorilla, the young of this species is playful and affectionate incaptivity and is given to mischievous tricks. The one that was kept fora time in Berlin showed much good-nature, playfulness, and intelligence, and some degree of monkey mischievousness. It was very cunning incarrying out its plans, particularly in stealing sugar, of which it wasvery fond. 

The chief examples of anthropoid intelligence are told of thechimpanzee, which has been most frequently kept in captivity. It isusually lively and good-tempered and is very teachable. Some of thestories of its intelligence may be apocryphal, as those told by CaptainGrandpré of a chimpanzee which performed all the duties of a sailor onboard ship, and of one that would heat the oven for a baker and informhim when it was of the right temperature. But there are authenticatedstories of chimpanzee intelligence which give it a high standing inthis respect among the lower animals. 

The emotional nature of the ape is also highly developed. It displays anaffection equal to that of the dog, and a sympathy surpassing that ofany other animal below man. The feeling displayed by monkeys for othersof their kind in pain is of the most affecting nature, and Brehm relatesthat in the monkeys of certain species kept under confinement by him inAfrica, the grief of the females for the loss of their young was sointense as to cause their death. More than once an ardent hunter hasseen such examples of tender solicitude among monkeys for the woundedand of grief for the dead as to resolve never to fire at one of the raceagain. 

James Forbes, in his "Oriental Memoirs, " relates a striking instance ofthis kind. One of a shooting party had killed a female monkey in abanian tree, and carried it to his tent. Forty or fifty of the tribesoon gathered around the tent, chattering furiously and threatening anattack, from which they were only diverted by the display of thefowling-piece, whose effects they seemed perfectly to understand. Butwhile the others retreated, the leader of the troop stood his ground, continuing his threatening chatter. Finding this of no avail, he came tothe door of the tent, moaning sadly, and by his gestures seeming to begfor the dead body. When it was given, he took it sorrowfully up in hisarms and carried it away to the waiting troop. That hunter never shot amonkey again. 

This deep feeling for the dead is probably not common among monkeys. Thegibbon, for instance, is said to take no notice of the dead. It is, however, highly sympathetic to injured and sick companions, and thisfeeling seems common to all the apes. No human being could show moretender care of wounded or helpless companions than has often been seenin members of this affectionate tribe of animals. 

Without giving further examples of the intelligence and sympathy of theapes, we may say that they possess in a marked degree the mental powersto which man owes so much, viz. Observation and imitation. The ape isthe most curious of the lower animals--that is, it possesses the facultyof observation in an unusual degree. What we call curiosity in the apeis the basic form of the characteristic which we call attention orobservation in man. Its seeming great activity in the ape is what mightnaturally be expected in an observant animal when removed from itsnatural habitat to a location where all around it is new and strange. Man under like circumstances is as curious as the ape, while the latterin its native trees probably finds little to excite its specialattention. In both man and the ape it needs novelty to excite curiosity. 

Again, the ape is imitative in a high degree. This faculty also it doesnot share with the lower animals, but does with man, imitation beingone of the methods by which he has attained his supremacy. Observation, imitation, education, are the three levers in the development of thehuman intellect. The first two of these the ape possesses in a markeddegree. It is susceptible also to the last, being very teachable. Education certainly exists to some extent among the apes in theirnatural habitat, perhaps to as great an extent as it did in primitiveman. In the latter case it is doubtful if there was much that could becalled designed education, the young gaining their degree of knowledge byobserving and imitating their elders. The same is certainly the caseamong the apes. 

We may reasonably ask what there is in the life and character of theapes to give them this mental superiority over the remaining loweranimals. It is certainly not due to the arboreal life and powers ofgrasp of these animals, for in those respects they resemble the lemurs, which are greatly lacking in intelligence. Whether the monkeys emergedfrom the lemurs or the two groups developed side by side is a questionas yet unsettled; at all events they are closely similar in conditionsof existence. Yet while the monkeys are the most intelligent andteachable of animals, the lemurs are among the least intelligent of themammalia. There is here a marked distinction which is evidently not dueto difference of structure or habitat, and must have its origin in someother characteristic, such as difference in life habits. 

There is certainly nothing in the diet of the ape to developintelligence. The frugivorous and herbivorous animals do not needcunning and shrewdness to anything like the extent necessary incarnivorous animals. They do not need to pursue or lie in wait for prey;and they escape from their enemies mainly through strength, speed, concealment, or other physical powers or methods. Escape mayoccasionally develop mental alertness, but does not usually do so. Certainly if the alert, watchful, suspicious habits of the apes are dueto the requisite of avoiding dangerous enemies, we might naturally lookfor similar habits in the lemurs, which are similarly situated. And ifwe consider the wide distribution of the apes throughout the tropics ofboth hemispheres, and their great diversity in species and condition, itseems very unlikely that in all these localities their relations withother animals would be such as to develop the mental alertness whichthey so generally display. The fact appears to be that, while this maybe a cause, it is not a leading cause, of mental development in animals, and that we must seek elsewhere for the origin of animal intelligence. 

Research, indeed, leads us to examples of intelligence where we shouldleast expect to find it. Among the mammalia we perceive one markedexample in the beavers, the only one in the great class of the rodents, with their nine hundred or more of species. But we must go still lower, to the insects, for the most striking examples, finding them alone inthe ants, the bees, and the termites, among the vast multitude of insectforms. Less marked instances appear in the elephants, in some of thebirds, and in certain other gregarious animals. 

From these examples, and what is elsewhere known of animal intelligence, one broad conclusion may be drawn, that all the strikingly intelligentanimals are strongly social in their habits, and that no decided displayof intelligence is to be found among solitary species. This conclusionbecomes almost a demonstration in the case of the ants and bees. Theants, for instance, comprise hundreds of species, spread over most ofthe world, mainly social, but occasionally solitary. The social species, while varying greatly in habit, all display powers of intelligence, andthese so diversified as to indicate many separate lines of evolution. The solitary ants, on the contrary, manifest no special intelligence, and do not rise above the general insect level. The same may be said ofthe bees. The hive bee, the most communal in habit, shows the highesttraits of intelligent activity. The bees which form smaller groups andthe social wasps stand at a lower level, and the solitary bees and waspssink to the ordinary insect plane. We arrive at like conclusions fromobservation of the social termites, or white ants, some species ofwhich are remarkable for their intelligent coöperation and division ofduties. 

Examples similar in kind may be drawn from the vertebrates. Among thebirds there are none more quick-witted than the social crows, none withless display of intelligence than the solitary carnivorous species. Birds are rather gregarious than social. There are few species whoseassociation is above that of mere aggregation in flight. Those moredistinctively social usually have special habits which indicateintelligence--as in the often cited instances of their seemingly tryingand executing delinquents. Among the carnivorous mammals the social dogor wolf tribe displays the intelligent habit of mutual aid. The horses, oxen, deer, and other gregarious hoofed animals have a degree ofdivision of duties, but their intelligence is of a lower grade than thatof the dogs and the elephants. On the whole, it may be affirmed that thesocial habit is frequently accompanied by instances of specialintelligence to which we find no counterpart among the solitary forms, and that the highest manifestations of intelligence in the lower animalsare found in those forms which possess communal habits, as the ants, bees, termites, and beavers. 

One important characteristic of the communal animals is that they becomementally specialized. They round up their powers, build barriers ofhabit over which they cannot pass, perform the same acts with suchinterminable iteration that what began as intellect sinks back intoinstinct. Each individual has fixed duties and is confined within alimited circle of acts, whose scope it cannot pass, or only to theminutest extent. 

The non-communal social animals, on the contrary, are not thusrestricted. Their intelligence is of a generalized character, and iscapable of developing in new channels. None are tied down to specialduties, each possesses the full powers of all, and they are thus moreopen to a continued growth of the intellect than the communal forms. Tothis class belongs the ape. Its intelligence is general, not special;broadly capable of development, not narrowed and bound in by thelimitation of certain fixed and special duties. 

The suggestions above offered point to three grades of community amonganimals, which may be designated the communal, the social, and thesolitary. Among these there are, of course, many stages of transitionfrom one to the other. The specially communal, including the ants, bees, termites, and beavers, are those in which there is almost a total lossof individuality, each member working for the good of the community as aunit, not for its personal advantage. The result consists in organizedindustries, division and specialization of duties, a common home, foodstock, etc. At a lower level in animal life, that of the hydroid polyps, communism has become so complete that the community has grown into anactual individual, the members not being free, but acting as organs ofan aggregate mass, in which each performs some special duty for the goodof the community. 

The social animals differ from the communal in that the individuality ofthe members is fully preserved. There is some measure of work for thegroup, some degree of mutual aid, some evidence of leadership andsubordination, but these are confined to a few exigencies of life, whilein most of the details of existence each member of the group acts foritself. The solitary animals are those which do not form groups largerthan that of the family, and into whose life the principle of mutualaid, outside the immediate family relations, does not enter. Each actsfor itself alone, and intercourse between the individuals of the speciesis greatly restricted. 

The advantages of social habits among animals are evident. There isexcellent reason to believe that all animals, and especially suchadvanced forms as the vertebrates and the higher arthropods, have somepower of mental development, some facility in devising new methods ofaction to meet new situations. Though their reasoning power may besmall, it is not quite lacking, and many examples of the exercise of thefaculty of thought could be cited if necessary. 

What we are here concerned with, is the final result of such exercisesof individual thought powers. In the case of the solitary forms, suchnew conceptions die with the individual. Though they may exert aninfluence on the development of the nervous system, and aid in thehereditary transmission of more active brain powers, they are lost asspecial ideas, fail to be taken up and repeated by other members of thespecies. This is not the case with the social animals. Each of these hassome faculty of observation and some tendency to imitation, and usefulsteps of advance made by individuals are likely to be observed andretained as general habits of the community. Anything of importance thatis gained may be preserved by educative influences. The facility ofmental communication between these creatures is perhaps much greaterthan is generally supposed, and acts of importance which are notdirectly observed might in many cases be transmitted through repetitionfor the benefit of the group. We know this to be the main agency inhuman progress. New ideas are of rare occurrence with man. Ideas ofpermanent value do not occur to one per cent. , perhaps not to onehundredth of one per cent. , of civilized mankind, yet few of such ideasare lost, and that which has proved of advantage to an individual soonbecomes the common possession of a community. 

Among the lower animals new and advantageous ideas are probably ofexceedingly rare occurrence. When they do occur, their advantage tosolitary forms is very slight, being that of minute steps of braindevelopment and hereditary transmission of the same. To social formsthey are doubly advantageous, since, while they tend to braindevelopment, they may also be preserved in their original form, andtransmitted directly to members of the group. They are still moreadvantageous to the communal animals, from the closer intercourse ofthese, and their constant association in acts of mutual aid. But in thelatter instance their influence is usually exerted for the benefit ofthe community as a unit, while in the case of social animals it is ofadvantage to the individual. 

The result of such a process of evolution in the case of the communalanimals is a strict specialism. A series of acts of advantage to thecommunity are slowly developed, and are repeated so frequently that theybecome instinctive, while a fixed circle of duties arises, through whoselinks it is almost impossible to break. There is no reason to believethat the individual initiative is wanting. The varied round of duties ofa community of ants, for instance, could only have arisen through stepafter step of progress from the condition of the solitary ants. If suchsteps have been made, others may be made, and are likely to be preservedif found advantageous. The ant individual preserves its powers ofobservation and thought and may initiate new processes. But most of theant communities are already so excellently adapted to the conditions oftheir life as to leave little opportunity for improvement, so that theadoption of new and advantageous habits are certain to be exceedinglyrare. 

It is an interesting fact that communalism has been confined to animalsof comparatively low organization. The most complete examples of itexist in the polyps and some other low forms, in which each communityhas become a compound individual, the members remaining attached to theparent stock. The next higher examples to be met are the frequentlycited ants and bees, belonging to the lowly organized class ofarthropoda, yet, through the advantage of association and mutual aid, developing actions and habits only found elsewhere in the human race. The only example among vertebrates is that of the beavers, members ofthe low order of rodents. With these the results are less varied andintricate than with the ants, in accordance with the much smaller sizeof the community. All the higher vertebrates are either social orsolitary in habit, and among them the narrow specialism of the communalforms does not exist. Each individual works in large measure for itself, its mental powers remain generalized, and it is not tied down to theperformance of a series of fixed hereditary acts from which escape iswell-nigh impossible. 

Of the social animals, man presents the most complete type, and the onefrom which we can best deduce the conditions of the class. A humancommunity is made up of individuals of many degrees of intellectualability, the mass remaining at a low level, the few attaining a highlevel. Yet those of high powers of intellect set the standard for thewhole, teach the lower either by precept or example, and aid effectivelyin advancing the standard of the community. A rope or chain is said tobe as weak as its weakest part. A human community, on the contrary, maybe said to be as strong as its strongest part. The standing of the wholeis dependent upon the thoughts and acts of the few, from whom thegeneral mass receive new ideas and gain new habits. The existingintellectual and industrial position of mankind is very largely a resultof ideas evolved by individuals age after age, and preserved as themental property of the whole. Destroy the books and works of art andindustry of any community, cut off its intellectual leaders, remove fromthe general mind the results of education, and it would at once fallback to a low level and be obliged to begin again its slow climb upward. The intellectual standing of any civilized nation depends upon twothings: the preservation in books, in memory, and in works of art andindustry, of the ideas of ancient workers and thinkers; and the mentalactivity of living thinkers and inventors, whose work takes its startfrom this standpoint of stored-up thought. Rob any community of all itsbasic ideas, and it would quickly retrograde to a primitive conditionof thought and organization, from which it might need many centuries toemerge. 

It has been said above that man is the highest example of the socialanimal. While that is the truth, it is not the whole truth. He is at thesame time the highest example of the communal animal. Mutual aid, organization into strictly rounded communities, labor for the good ofthe whole, is as declared in him as in the most developed community ofthe ants, and we admire the work of the latter simply because theyrepeat at a lower level the work of man. In truth, in man we have asplendid example of the existence of the individual initiative inconnection with the communal organization. Specialism exists in ahundred forms. Some nations have been tied down by it to conditionsalmost as fixed as those of the ants. But generalism exists in as full ameasure, new ideas are constantly modifying or replacing the old, andthe communism of man is a progressive one, steadily borne upward on thewings of new ideas. Individual thought has the fullest swing, and it isto the system of special reward for useful thought and act that man owesmuch of his great advance. On the other hand, reward without usefulservice has been one of the leading agencies that have acted to checkhuman progress. 

The lower animals do not possess the advantage of man in his power ofpreserving the thoughts and products of the past as a foundation fornew steps of progress. Memory may aid them to a slight degree, but theyhave no special means of recording useful ideas. This cannot fairly besaid of the communal forms, which possess the result of the labors offormer generations as useful object lessons. But in the higher animalsno means exist for the permanent preservation of ideas, and each step ofprogress must be due to the direct influence of living individuals andthe indirect result of natural selection. 

This is one cause of the slow mental advance of the lower animals. Asecond is the deficiency in educational influences, which have had somuch to do with human progress. Education is not quite wanting in thebrute creation. There are many instances on record of instruction givenby the adults to the young. But this agency is in its embryo stage, andits influence must be small. Again, each tribe of lower animals is aptto fall into a fixed circle of life acts, to become so closely adaptedto some situation or condition that any change of habits would be likelyto prove detrimental. This is a state of affairs tending to producestagnation and vigorously to check advance. Many instances of this couldbe cited from human history, while it is the common condition with theanimals below man. 

To return to the apes, the considerations above taken lead to theconclusion that it is chiefly, if not solely, to their social habitsthat they owe their mental quickness. While only in minor traitscommunal, they are eminently social, and have doubtless derived greatadvantage from this. The lemurs, which share their habitat and resemblethem in organization, are markedly unsocial, and are as mentally dull asthe apes are mentally quick. Possibly, the thought powers of the apesonce set in train, there may have been something in the exigencies ofarboreal life that quickened their powers of observation; but we areconstrained to believe that the main influence to which they owe theirdevelopment is that of social habits, in which they stand at a high, ifnot the highest, level among the distinctly social animals. 

The thought capacities of the ape intellect are general, not special. The mind of these animals remains free and capable of new thought in newsituations. It is fully alive to the needs and dangers of arboreal life, and advances no farther in its native habitat because there is nothingmore of importance to be learned. But while fixed it is not stagnant. When the ape is taken from its native woods and put among the many newconditions arising on shipboard and in human habitations, we quicklyperceive indications of its mental alertness. Its faculties ofobservation and imitation are actively exercised, and new habits andconceptions are quickly gained. Could the apes be made to breed freelyin captivity, so that a domestic race, comparable to that of the dogs, could be obtained, their mental powers might, perhaps, be cultivated toan extraordinary degree, yielding instances of thought approaching thatof man. The ape is especially notable for its tendency to attempt newacts of itself, not waiting to be taught, as in the case of otherdomesticated animals. In short, it seems by all odds to be the animalbest fitted mentally to serve as the basis of a high intellectualdevelopment, as it is the best fitted physically to change from theattitude of the quadruped to that of the biped. 

The anthropoid apes in general manifest a reversion from the socialtoward the solitary state, this condition reaching its ultimate in theorang, which is one of the most solitary of animals. The smaller formsare the most social, the gibbons being decidedly so. There is very goodreason to believe that the man-ape was highly social, if we may judgefrom what we find in all races of men, and all grades, from the savageto the civilized. This animal was thus in a position to avail itself ofall the advantages of the social habit, and to gain the mentaldevelopment thence arising. How long ago it was when it left the treesand made its home upon the ground, it is impossible to say. It may havebeen as far back as the early Pliocene or the late Miocene Period, oreven earlier. As yet its brain was probably no more developed than inthe case of the other anthropoids, perhaps less so than in the existingspecies. But in its new habitat it was exposed to a series of novelconditions that must have exerted a healthful and stimulating influenceupon its mind. 

If it had remained in the trees we should probably to-day have only aman-ape still. Leaving their safe shelter for the ground, it becameexposed to new dangers and was forced to fit itself to fresh conditions. Prowling carnivorous animals haunted its new place of residence, andthese it had to avoid by speed or alertness of motion, or combat them bystrength and the use of weapons. The carnivorous tastes which it had inall probability gained, made it a creature of the chase, pursuing swiftanimals, capturing them by fleetness or stratagem, or bringing them downwith the aid of clubs and missiles. Such a new series of duties anddangers could not fail to exert a vigorous influence upon a brainalready quick of thought and susceptible to fresh impressions, and wemay well conceive that the man-ape then entered upon a new and rapidphase of mental progress, its brain developing in powers and growing indimensions as it slowly became adapted to its new situation and grewable to cope with fresh demands and critical exigencies. 

There is still another influence which has had its share, perhaps a veryprominent share, in the intellectual development of animals, yet whichno writer seems to have considered from this point of view. Theprobable effect of this influence needs to be taken into account, inconclusion of this section of our subject. It is that of the comparativeagency of the senses in the development of the mind, and the effectslikely to arise from the dominance of some one of the senses. 

In the lowest animals touch was the predominant, if not the only sense, taste perhaps being associated with it. But these senses, which demandactual contact with objects, obviously could give none but the narrowestconception of the conditions of nature. The other senses, sight, hearing, and smell, give intimations of the existence and conditions ofmore or less distant objects, and their development greatly widened thescope of outreach in animals and must have exerted a powerful influenceupon the growth of mental conditions. 

It need scarcely be said that the sense which gives the fullest and mostextended information about existing things is necessarily the one thatacts most effectively upon the mind, and that this sense is that ofsight. Hearing and smell yield us information concerning certain localconditions of objects, but sight extends to the limits of the universe, while in regard to near objects it has the advantage of beingpractically instantaneous in action and much fuller in the informationit conveys. Sight, therefore, is evidently the most important of thesenses, so far as the broadening of the mental powers is concerned, andany animal in which it is predominant must possess a great advantage inthis respect over those species controlled to any great degree by one ofthe lower senses. 

It may be said here that sight only slowly gained dominance in animallife. Though the eye, as an organ of vision, is found at a low level inthe animate scale, the indications are that it long played a subordinatepart, and has gained its full prominence only in man. During long ageslife was confined to the sea, hosts of beings dwelling in thesemi-obscurity of the under waters, and great numbers at too great adepth for light to reach them. To vast multitudes of these sight waspartly or completely useless. The same may be said of hearing, theunder-water habitat being nearly or completely a soundless one. The onlyone of the higher senses likely to be of general use to these oceanicforms is that of smell, and it may be that their knowledge of distantobjects was mainly gained through sensitiveness to odors. 

Of invertebrate land animals the same must be said. The land mollusksand the great order of insects and other land arthropods only to a minorextent dwell in the open light. Very many species haunt thesemi-obscurity of trees or groves, hide among the grasses, lurk underbark, sticks, and stones, or dwell through most of their livesunderground. Hosts of others are nocturnal. To only a small percentageof insects can sight be of any great utility, while hearing seems alsoto be of slight importance. Smell is probably the principal sensethrough which these animals gain information of distant objects. 

There is existing evidence that the sense of smell in some insects isremarkably acute. The imprisoned female of certain nocturnal species, for instance, will attract the males from a comparatively immensedistance, under conditions in which neither sight nor hearing could havebeen brought into play. The emission of odors and acute sensibility tothem is the only presumable agency at work in those instances. Asregards the most intelligent of the insects, the ants and the termites, the former are largely subterranean, the latter not only subterranean, but blind. In the one case, sight can play only a minor part, in theother, it plays no part at all. Touch and smell seem to be the dominantsenses in these animals, and the degree of intelligence they displayshows of how high a development these senses are susceptible. Yet theintelligence arising from them must necessarily be local and limited inits application; it cannot yield the breadth of information and degreeof mental development possible under the dominance of sight. 

In the vertebrates we find a fully developed and broadly capable organof vision, and it might be hastily assumed that in those animals sightis the dominant sense. But there are numerous facts which lead to adifferent conclusion. Many of the vertebrates are nocturnal, many dwellin obscure situations, many in the total darkness of caverns, underground tunnels and excavations, or the ocean's depths. To all thesesight must be of secondary importance. Hearing also can be of nosuperior value, and the dominant sense must be that of smell. In thebats there would appear to be a remarkably acute power of touch, if wemay judge from the facility with which they can avoid obstacles at fullflight after their eyes have been removed. 

It might, however, be supposed that in the higher land vertebrates sightis predominant, and that the diurnal mammals depend principally upontheir eyes for their knowledge of nature. But there are facts whichthrow doubt upon this supposition. These facts are of two kinds, external and internal. That the quadrupeds, in general, are highlysensitive to odors is well known, and also that they trust very largelyto the sense of smell. Hunters are abundantly aware of this, and have tobe quite as careful to avoid being smelt by their game as to avoid beingseen. We have abundant evidence of the remarkable acuteness of thissense in so high an animal as the dog, which can follow its prey formiles by scent alone, and can distinguish the odors, not only ofdifferent species, but of different individuals, being capable offollowing the trail of one person amid the tracks of numerous others. 

The internal evidence of this fact is equally significant. In thevertebrates, in general, the olfactory lobe of the brain is largelydeveloped, much exceeding in size the lobe of the optic nerve. It formsthe anterior portion of the cerebrum, and in many instances constitutesa large section of that organ, being marked off from it by only a slightsurface depression. If we can fairly judge, then, by anatomicalevidence, the sense of smell plays a very prominent part in the life ofall the lower vertebrates. If we take our domestic animals as anexample, the olfactory lobe of the horse is considerably larger thanthat of man, though the brain, as a whole, is very much smaller, sothat, comparatively, this organ constitutes a much larger portion of thetotal brain. The other domestic animals yield similar evidence of thegreat activity of the sense of smell. 

While there is no doubt that sight is an active sense in all the higherquadrupeds, it evidently divides this activity with smell to a muchgreater degree than is the case with man, in whom smell plays a minorpart, sight a major part, among the organs of sense. 

This fact shows its effect in the comparative mental development of manand the lower animals. Man, depending so largely on vision, gains thebroadest conception of the conditions of nature, with a consequent greatexpansion of the intellect. The quadrupeds, depending to a considerabledegree upon smell for their conceptions of nature, are much narrower intheir range of information and lower in their mental development. Asregards the ape family, it occupies a position between man and thequadrupeds, and its intellectual activity may well be due in greatmeasure to an increased trust in sight and a decreased trust in smell ingaining its conception of nature. 

The question may arise, Why, if sight has this superiority over smell, did it not long since gain predominance, and relegate smell to a minorposition? It may be answered that the superiority of sight is notcomplete. In one particular this sense is inferior to smell. The leadingagency in the development of the sense organs of animals has been thestruggle for existence, including escape from enemies, and theperception of food-animals or material. In these processes acuteness ofsmell plays a very important part. It has, moreover, the advantage ofgathering information from all directions, while sight is very limitedin its range. The eye is so subject to injury that its multiplicationover the body would be rather disadvantageous than otherwise, while, localized as it is, a movement of the head is necessary to any breadthof vision, and the whole body must rotate to bring the complete horizonunder observation. It seems evident, from these considerations, thatsight is much inferior to smell in the timely perception of many formsof danger. Light comes in straight lines only, and a movement of thebody is necessary to perceive perils lying outside these lines. Odors, on the contrary, spread in all directions, and make themselves manifestfrom the rear as well as the front. 

In all probability this fact has had much to do with the continueddependence of animals on smell. In fishes and reptiles a full sweep ofvision is so slowly gained that some more active sentinel sense isrequisite to safety. In mammals the head rotates more easily, butvaluable time is lost in the rotation of the whole body. These animals, therefore, depend on both sight and smell, in some cases equally, insome more fully on one or the other of these senses. When we reach thesemi-upright ape, we have to do with a form capable of turning the bodyand observing the whole surrounding circle of objects more quickly andreadily than any quadruped. As a result, these animals have grown todepend more fully on vision and less on smell than the quadrupeds. Finally, in fully erect man, the power of quick turning and alertobservation of the whole circle of the horizon reaches its ultimate, andin man sight has become in a large degree the dominant sense, and smellhas fallen to a minor place. 

With this change in the relations of the senses has come a change in thedegree of mental development. It is highly probable that the dependenceof the apes on vision instead of smell has had much to do with theirmental activity, quickness of observation, and active curiosity. In manthere can be no question that it has played a great part in the rapiddevelopment of his intellectual powers, and in the extraordinary breadthof his conception of nature as compared with that of the lower animals. While hearing and smell advise us of neighboring conditions only, andhave their chief utility as aids to the preservation of existence, sightmakes us aware of the conditions of nature in remote localities, extending far beyond the limits of the earth. While this sense plays itspart as one of the protective agencies, it is still more useful as anagent in the acquisition of knowledge in general, and has much to dowith the development of the intellectual faculties. We may look, therefore, upon the increasing dominance of the sense of sight as aleading agency in the making of man as a thinking being, and may ascribeto this in a considerable measure the thirst for information and facultyof imitation so marked in the apes. 

VII

THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

One of the characteristics of man, of which we spoke as among those towhich his high development is due, is that of language. There is nothingthat has had more to do with the mental progress of the human race thanfacility in the communication of thought, and in this vocal language isthe principal agent and in the fullest measure is the instrument of themind. Human speech has, in these modern times, become remarkablyexpressive, indicating all the conditions, relations, and qualities, notonly of things, but of thoughts and ideal conceptions. And the utilityof language has been enormously augmented by the development of the artsof writing and printing. Originally thought could only be communicatedby word of mouth and transmitted by the aid of the memory. Now it can berecorded and kept indefinitely, so that no useful thought of ablethinkers need be lost, but every valuable idea can be retained as aneducative influence through unnumbered ages. 

In this instrumentality, which has been of such extraordinary value toman, the lower animals are strikingly deficient. They are not quitedevoid of vocal language, though it is doubtful if any of the soundsmade by them have a much higher linguistic office than that of theinterjection. But emotional sounds, to which these belong, are notdestitute of value in conveying intelligence. They embrace cries ofwarning, appeals to affection, demands for help, calls for foodsupplies, threats, and other indications of passion, fear, or feeling. And the significance of these vocal sounds to animals may often behigher than we suppose. That is, they may not be limited to the vaguecharacter of the interjection, but may occasionally convey a specificmeaning, indicative of some object or some action. In other words, theymay advance from the interjection toward the noun or the verb, andapproach in value the verbal root, a sound which embraces a completeproposition. Thus a cry of warning may be so modulated as to indicate tothe hearer, "Beware, a lion is coming!" or to convey some other specificwarning. We know that accent or tone plays a great part in Chinesespeech, the most primitive of existing forms, a variation in tone quitechanging the meaning of words. The same may be the case with the soundsuttered by animals to a much greater extent than we suppose. 

We know this to be the case with some of the birds. The common fowl ofour poultry yards has a variety of distinct calls, each understood byits mates, while special modulations of some call or cry are notuncommon among birds. The mammalia are not fluent in vocal powers, their range of tones being limited, yet they certainly convey definiteinformation to one another. Recent observers have come to the conclusionthat the apes do, to a certain extent, talk with one another. Theexperiments to prove this have not been very satisfactory, yet they seemto indicate that the woodland cries of the apes possess a certain rangeof definite meaning. 

We are utterly ignorant of what powers of speech the man-ape possessed. It must, in its developed state as a land-dwelling, wandering, andhunting biped, have needed a wider range of utterance than during itsarboreal residence. It was exposed to new dangers, new exigencies oflife affected it, and its old cries very probably gained new meanings, or new cries were developed to meet new perils or conditions. In thisway a few root words may have been gained, rising above the value of theinterjection, and expressing some degree of definite meaning, thoughstill at the bottom of the scale of language, the first stepping stonesfrom the vague cry toward the significant word. 

Between this stage and that of human language an immense gap supervenes, a broad abyss which it seems at first sight impossible to bridge. As thefacts stand, however, it has been largely bridged by man himself. Sideby side with the highly intricate languages which now exist, arevarious primitive forms of speech which take us far back toward theorigin of human language. So advanced a people as the Chinese speak alanguage practically composed of root words, the higher forms ofexpression being attained by simple devices in the combination of theseprimitive word forms. The same may be said, in a measure, of ancientEgyptian speech. We can conceive of an early state of affairs in whichthese devices of word compounding were not yet employed, and in whicheach word existed as a separate expression, unmodified by associationwith any other word. Among the savage races of the earth very crudeforms of language often exist, the methods of associating words intosentences being of the simplest character, though few surpass theChinese in simplicity of system. 

But all this represents an advanced stage of language evolution, adevelopment of thought and its instrument which has taken thousands ofyears to complete. We cannot fairly judge from it what the speech ofprimitive man may have been, for in every case there has been a longprocess of development; aided, no doubt, in many cases, by educativeinfluences acting from the more advanced upon the speech of the lessadvanced races. 

If we seek to analyze any of these languages, the most intricate as wellas the least advanced, we find ourselves in most instances able toisolate the root word as the basic element of speech. From this simpleform all the more developed forms seem to have arisen. Take away theircombining devices, and the root words fall apart like so many beads ofspeech, each with a defined significance of its own and fully capable ofexisting by itself. The Aryan and the Chinese especially offerthemselves to this analytic method. Strip off the suffixes and affixesfrom Aryan words, get down to the germinal forms from which these wordshave grown, isolate these germs of speech, and we find ourselves in alanguage of root forms, each of which has grown vague and wide insignificance as the modifying elements that limited its meaning havebeen removed. In the Chinese the problem is a much simpler one. We needsimply to take the existing words out of their place in the sentence andlet them stand alone, and we have root words at first hand. We may gothrough the whole range of human speech and, with more or lessdifficulty, arrive at a similar result. In short, the evidence seemsconclusive that the language of mankind began in the use of isolatedwords of vague and broad significance, and that all the subsequentdevelopment of language consisted in the combination of these words, with a modification and limitation of their meaning, the families ofspeech differing principally in the method of combination devised. 

It must, indeed, be said that in isolating the root forms of modernlanguages we reach conditions still far removed from those of primitivespeech. These roots are in a measure packed with meaning. Time has addedto their significance, and they lack the simplicity they probably oncepossessed. In particular, they have gained ideal senses, entered in ameasure into that broad language of the mind which has been graduallyadded to the language of outer nature. The recognition of the existenceof mind and thought doubtless came somewhat late in human development. Man long knew only his body and the world that surrounded it. Step bystep only did he discover his mind. And when it became necessary tospeak of mental conditions, no new language was invented, but old wordswere broadened to cover the new conditions. The mind is analogous to thebody in its operations, ideas are analogues of things, and it wasusually necessary only to add to the physical significance of words thecorresponding ideal significance. In this way a secondary languageslowly grew up, underlying and subtending the primary language, untilthe words invented to express the world of things were employed toinclude as vast a world of thoughts. 

In getting down, then, to the language of primitive man we are obligedto divest the root forms of speech of all this ideal significance, andconfine them to their physical meanings. In dealing with the languagesof the least advanced existing tribes of mankind, indeed, little of thisis requisite. The language of the mind with them has not yet begun itsgrowth or is in its first simple stages. Only half the work of theevolution of language is completed. There is, indeed, no tribe soundeveloped as to use the primitive forms of speech. The most savage ofthe races of mankind have made some progress in the art of combiningwords, gained some ideas of syntax and grammatical forms. Yet in certaininstances the progress has been very slight, and in all we can see theliving traces of the earlier method of speech from which they emerged. 

It is to the ability to think abstractly and to form words with anabstract significance that human language owes much of its highdevelopment. But this ability is largely confined to civilized mankind, savages being greatly or wholly lacking in it. This deficiency isindicated in their modes of speech. Thus a native of the SocietyIslands, while able to say "dog's tail, " "sheep's tail, " etc. , has noseparate word for tail. He cannot abstract the general term from itsimmediate relations. In the same way the uncivilized Malay has twentydifferent words to express striking with various objects, as with thickor thin wood, a club, the fist, the palm, etc. , but he has no word for"striking" as an isolated thought. We find the same deficiency in thespeech of the American Indians. A Cherokee, for instance, has no wordfor "washing, " but can express the different kinds of washing by no lessthan thirteen distinct words. 

All this indicates a primitive stage in the evolution of language, onein which every word had its immediate and local application, while ineach word a whole story was told. The power of dividing thought into itsseparate elements was not yet possessed. As thought progressed men gotfrom the idea of "dog" to that of "dog's tail. " They could not think ofthe part without the whole. Then they reached a word for "dog's tailwags. " But the idea of "wags" as an abstract motion was beyond theirpowers of thought. They could not think of action, but only of someobject in action. The language of the American Indians was an immediatederivation from this mode of word formation, every proposition, howeverintricate it might be, constituting a single word, whose component partscould not be used separately. The mode of speech here indicated is oneform of development of the root. Other forms are the compounding of theChinese and the Mongolian and the inflection of the Aryan and theSemitic, all pointing directly back to the root form as their unit ofgrowth. 

The inference to be drawn from all this is that the language ofprimitive man consisted of isolated words, sounds which may originallyhave been mere cries or calls, but which gradually gained somedefiniteness of meaning, as signifying some of the varied conditions ofthe outer world. This is the conclusion to which philologists have nowvery generally come. The recognition that language consists of rootwords, variously modified and combined, leads back irresistibly to aperiod in which those roots had not yet begun to be modified andcombined. The roots are the hard, persistent things in human speech. Grammatical expedients are the net in which these roots have been caughtand confined. Free them from the net, and it falls to pieces, while theroots remain intact, the solid and persistent primitive germs of speech. 

Yet in isolating root language as the basis of grammatical language wego far toward closing the gap between animal and human speech. It isstill, doubtless, of considerable width, yet the distinction is nolonger one of kind, but is simply one of degree. Primitive man had amuch greater scope of language than is possessed by any of the loweranimals, and the vocal sounds used had a clearer and more definitesignificance; but their nature was the same. They doubtless began incalls and cries like those in use by animals, and though these hadincreased in number and gained more distinct meanings, the difference incharacter was not great. In short, the analytic method employed bymodern philologists has gone far to remove the supposed vast distinctionbetween brute and human speech, and has traced back the language of manto a stage in which it is nearly related in character to the language ofanimals. The distinction has been brought down to one of degree, scarcely one of kind. A direct and simple process of evolution wasalone needed to produce it, and through that evolution man undoubtedlypassed in his progress upward from his ancestral stage. 

The language of the lower animals is a vowel form of speech. It lacksthe consonantal elements, the characteristic of articulation. In thisman seems to have at first agreed with them. The infant begins its vocalutterances with simple cries; only at a later age does it begin toarticulate. If we may judge from the development of language in thechild, man began to speak with the use of sounds native to the vocalorgans, and progressed by a process of imitation, endeavoring toreproduce the sounds heard around him: the voices of animals, the soundsof nature, etc. This tendency to imitate is not peculiar to man. Itexists in many birds, and in some attains a marked development. Themocking bird, for instance, has an extraordinary flexibility of thevocal organs and power of imitating the voices of other birds. Theparrot and some other birds go farther in this direction, being capableof using articulate language and clearly repeating words used by man. 

None of the mammalia possess this facility. It is not found in the apes, and probably was not possessed by the ancestor of man. But it is notdifficult to believe that in the efforts of the latter to gain a greatervariety of vocal utterance, its organs of speech became more flexible, and in time it gained the power of articulation. 

There are races of existing men whose powers of language seem still inthe transition stage between articulate and inarticulate speech. Thisseems the case with the Bushmen and Hottentots of South Africa, whosevocal utterances consist largely of a series of peculiar clicks that arecertainly not articulate speech, though on the road toward it. ThePygmies of the Central African forests seem similarly to occupy anintermediate position in the development of language. Those who haveendeavored to talk with them speak of their utterance as beinginarticulate in sound. It appears to be a sort of link betweenarticulate and inarticulate speech. In short, the great abyss which wasof old thought to lie between the languages of man and the lower animalshas largely vanished through the labors of philologists, and we cantrace stepping-stones over every portion of the wide gap. The languageof man has not alone been evidently a product of evolution, but also oneof development from the vocal utterances of the lower animals; and theman-ape, in its slow and long progress from brute into man, seems tohave gradually developed that noble instrument of articulate speechwhich has had so much to do with subsequent human progress. 

VIII

HOW THE CHASM WAS BRIDGED

In his bodily formation the man-ape differed little from man. Thedifferences which existed were probably of a minor character, no greaterthan could readily exist within the limits of a species. If thisassertion be questioned, it seems sufficient to call attention to therecent researches into the anatomy of the anthropoid apes, which differin species, if not in genera, from man, yet are closely similar to himin all their main features of organization. Even in the brain, to whosegreat development man owes his superiority, the only marked differenceis in size. Structurally, the distinctions are unimportant. If, then, these distant relatives so closely resemble man in physical frame, hisimmediate relative in the line of descent must have approached him stillmore closely in organization. After this ancestor had become a true, surface-dwelling biped, the differences in structure were probably soslight that physically the two forms were in effect identical. Theman-ape was, as there is reason to believe, considerably smaller thanman, perhaps about equal in size and stature to the chimpanzee, butthat does not constitute a specific difference. There may have been somedifferences in the skeletal and muscular structure. The vocal organs, for instance, probably differed, the evolution of language in man beingaccompanied with certain changes in the larynx. The skull was certainlymuch more ape-like. Yet variations of this kind, due to differences inmode of life, are minor in importance, and may easily come within thelimits of a species. While the great features of organization remainintact, small changes, due to new exigencies of life, may take placewithout affecting the zoölogical position of an animal. The moststriking difference between man-ape and man, that of the development ofthe brain to two or three times its size and weight, is similarlyunessential in classification while the brain remains unchanged instructure. That it has remained unchanged we may safely deduce from theclose similarity between the brain of man and those of the existinganthropoid apes. The cause of the increase in size is so evident that itneed only be referred to. Since the era of the man-ape, almost the wholesum of the forces of development have been centred in the mental powersof this animal, with the result that the brain has grown in size andfunctional capacity, while the remainder of the body has remainedpractically unchanged. 

That man as an animal has descended from the lower life realm, none whoare familiar with the facts of science now think of denying. This hasattained to the scientist, and to many non-scientists, the level of aself-evident proposition. But that man as a thinking being has descendedfrom the lower animals is a different matter, concerning which opinionis by no means in unison. Even among scientists some degree ofdifference of opinion exists, and such a radical evolutionist as AlfredRussell Wallace finds here a yawning gap in the line of descent, and isinclined to look upon the intellect of man as a direct gift from therealm of spirits. His explanation, it is true, is more difficult thanthe problem itself. There are no facts to sustain it, and even if hewere not able to see how man's mind could be developed by naturalselection, it is a sort of _reductio ad absurdum_ to call in the angelsto bridge the chasm. 

Romanes has dealt with the subject from a different and more scientificpoint of view, and seems to have succeeded in showing that man'sintellect at its lowest level is not different in kind from the bruteintellect at its highest level. Controversy on this subject is too aptto be based on the difference between the intellect of the brute andthat of enlightened man, in disregard of the great mental gap whichexists between the latter and the thought powers of the lowest savage. In the preceding section an effort was made to show how crude andimperfect must have been the language of primitive man. Its imperfectionwas a fair gauge of that of his powers of thought. His intellect stoodat a very low level, seemingly no further above that of the highest apesthan it was below that of enlightened man. 

In fact, enormous as is the interval between the mind of the brute andthat of the man of modern civilization, the whole long line of mentaldevelopment can be traced, with the exception of a comparatively smallinterval. This is the gap between the intellect of the anthropoid apeand that of primitive man, the one important last chapter in the storyof mental evolution. Supernaturalism, driven from its strongholds of thepast, has taken its last stand upon this broken link, claiming that herethe line of descent fails, and that the gap could not have been filledwithout a direct inflow of intellect from the world of spirits or animmediate act of creation from the Deity. 

This view of the case is not likely to be accepted as final. Science hasbridged so many gaps in the kingdom of nature that it is not likely toretire baffled from this one, but will continue its investigations inplace of accepting conclusions that have not the standing even ofhypothesis, since they are unsupported by a single known fact. At firstsight, indeed, the facts which bear upon this question seem stubbornthings to explain by the evolution theory. The gap in intellect betweenthe highest apes and the lowest man is a considerable one, which noexisting ape seems likely ever to cross. However the anthropoid apesgained their degree of mental ability, it does not appear to be on theincrease. They are in a state of mental stagnation and may have remainedso for millions of years. Something similar, indeed, can be said of thelowest savages. They also are mentally stagnant. The indications arethat for thousands, or tens of thousands, of years in the past theirintellectual progress has been almost nothing. Yet it is beyondreasonable question that the advanced thinker of to-day has evolved froman ancestor as low in the mental scale as this savage, probably muchlower; and this renders it very conceivable that a similar process ofevolution covered the interval between the ape intellect and that ofprimitive man. 

Somewhere, at some time in the far past, the mental stagnation of manwas broken, and the development of the mind began its long progressiontoward enlightenment. This was not in the localities in which the lowersavages are now found, the equatorial forests of Africa and SouthAmerica and other realms of savage life, the change in all probabilitytaking place elsewhere, under new and severe exigencies of life. Similarly we have much justification in saying that somewhere, at sometime, the mental stagnation of the ape was broken, and the longdevelopment of the mind from ape to man began. This did not take placein the instances of the existing anthropoids, and, as in the analogouscase of civilized man, its influencing cause must be looked for inexigencies of existence acting upon some form different in character andhabitat from these apes. 

The existing anthropoid apes may justly be compared in condition withthe existing low savages. In both cases a satisfactory adaptation totheir situation has been gained. These apes are still arboreal andfrugivorous, as their remote ancestors were. They have for ages been ina state of close adaptation to their life conditions, and the influencesof development have been largely wanting. Such evolution as took placemust have been extremely slow. In like manner the lowest savages live inintimate relations with the conditions surrounding them. All problems offood-getting, habitation, climate, etc. , have long since been solved, and in the tropical forests in which so many of them dwell they are inthorough accord with the situation. Mentally, therefore, they arepractically at a standstill and have remained so for thousands of years. The two cases are parallel ones. We can safely say that the laterdevelopment of man took place in other situations and under otherconditions. We may fairly say the same in regard to the ape. Vigorousinfluences must have been brought to bear upon the ancestor of man asthe instigating causes of its mental development into man; and similarlyvigorous influences must have been brought to bear upon primitive man toset in train his mental development into intellectual man. And thegeneral character of these influences in both cases may readily bepointed out. An extraordinary development has taken place in the humanintellect within a few thousands, or tens of thousands, of years, yielding the difference which exists between the cultivated man ofto-day and the debased savage who probably preceded him, and whosecounterpart still exists. This has undoubtedly been due to influences ofthe highest potency. If we can show that influences of equal potencyacted upon man's ancestor, we shall have done much toward indicating howthe ape brain may have grown into the brain of man. 

In both cases the main agency was in all probability that of conflict. Both ape and man, as we take it, developed through some form of warfare. In the former case it was warfare with the animal kingdom; in the latterit was warfare with the conditions of nature and with hostile man. Eachof these has been potent in its effects, and to each we owe thecompletion of a great stage in the evolution of man. 

In the tropics, the home of the anthropoid apes of to-day and, probably, of the animal we have named the man-ape, war between man and naturescarcely exists. Nature is not hostile to man. There is no occasion forclothing and little for habitation. Food is abundant for the sparsepopulations. Little exertion is called for to sustain life. Mentalstagnation is very likely to supervene. Yet there, as elsewhere, conflict has had much to do with such mental progress as exists. Masteryin warfare is due to superior mental resources, which gradually arisefrom the exigencies of conflict, and manifest themselves in greatershrewdness or cunning, superior ability in leadership, betterorganization, fuller mutual aid, and the invention of more destructiveweapons and more efficient tools. War acts vigorously on men's minds, peace acts sluggishly. In the former case man's most valued possession, his life, is in jeopardy, and his utmost powers are exerted for itspreservation. Every resource within his power is brought to bear to savehimself from wounds or death and to destroy his enemies. If the foes areequal physically, victory is apt to come to those which are superiormentally, which are quicker at devising new expedients, more alert inproviding against danger, more skilful in the use of weapons, abler incombining their forces to act in unison. In short, the whole story ofmankind tells us that mental evolution has been greatly aided by theinfluences of warfare, the reaction upon the mind of the effort atself-preservation, the destruction of those at a lower level ofintellectual alertness, the preservation of the abler and moreenergetic, the effect of conflict in bringing into activity all theresources of the intellect, and the hereditary transmission of thepowers of mind thus developed. It is, undoubtedly, to war between manand man, and the conflict with the adverse conditions of nature in thecolder regions of the earth, that man's development from his lowest tohis highest intellectual state has been largely due. This is by no meansto say that war is still necessary for this result. Other influences arenow at work, of equal or superior potency, and while the conflict withnature and the conditions of society is still of importance, war betweenman and man is no longer necessary as a mental stimulant. The time was, and that not very far in the past, when it was an essential element inhuman development. 

If we descend to the lowest existing savages, however, it is to findthis agency almost non-existent. We can perceive in them no organizedwarfare and no alert conflict with nature. They are as yet at the verybeginning of this stage of evolution, and it certainly exerts littleinfluence upon them. Nature is not adverse, life needs little thought orexertion, they accept the world as they find it, without question orrevolt, and their thoughts and habits are as unchangeable as the laws ofthe Medes and Persians. But the fact that active warfare does not nowexist among the lowest tribes of mankind, does not argue that such astate has never existed. In truth, we maintain that primitive man is theoutcome of an active and long-continued warfare, and that his settledand sluggish condition to-day is the ease that follows victory. He hasconquered and is at rest after his labors. 

For if we compare primitive man with the anthropoid apes, it is to findone striking and important difference between them. The anthropoids areat a level in position with their animal neighbors. Man is lord andmaster of the animal kingdom, the dominant being in the world of life. He has no rival in this lordship, but stands alone in his relation tothe animal kingdom. He is feared and avoided by the largest andstrongest beasts of field and forest. He does not fight defensively, butoffensively, and whatever his relation to his fellow-man, he admits noequal in the world of life below him. He is the only animal that hasmade a struggle for lordship. The gorilla is said to attack the lion anddrive it from its haunts. If it does so, it is not with any desire formastery, but simply to rid itself of a dangerous neighbor. The battlefor dominion has been confined to man, and in the winning of it no smalldegree of mental development must have taken place. 

The supremacy of man was not gained without a struggle, and that asevere and protracted one. The animal kingdom did not yield readily toman's lordship, and the war must have been long and bitter, settled asthe relations now seem. Rest has succeeded victory. The lower animalsare now submissive to man, or retire before him in dread of his strengthand resources, and the strain upon his powers has ceased. So far asthis phase of evolution is concerned the influences aiding the mentaldevelopment of man have lost their strength. The warfare is over, andman reigns supreme over the kingdom of life. 

Of all animals the man-ape was the best adapted for such a struggle. Theother anthropoid apes, while favored by the formation of their hands, lacked that freedom of the arms to which man mainly owes his success. Noother animal has ever appeared with arms freed from duty in locomotionand at the same time endued with the power of grasping, and these arethe features of organization to which the evolution of the humanintellect was wholly due in its first stages. The man-ape was not ableto contend successfully with the larger animals by aid of its naturalweapons. Its diminutive size, its lack of tearing claws, and its lesserpowers of speed, left it at a disadvantage, and had it attempted toconquer by the aid of its strength and the seizing and rending powers ofteeth and nails, its victory over the larger animals would never havebeen won. Even with the aid of the cunning and alertness of the apes, their power of observation, their combination for defence and attack, and their general mental superiority to the tenants of the animal world, their supremacy in the event of their becoming carnivorous must havebeen confined to the smaller creatures, and could not have beenestablished over the larger animals of their native habitat exceptthrough the aid of other than their natural powers. 

It was by the use of artificial weapons that the conquest was gained. The tendency to use missiles as weapons of offence and defence, which isshown by various species of monkeys, was in all probability greatlydeveloped by the man-ape, the only carnivorous member, if our premisesare correct, of the whole extensive family of the apes, and the only onewith the free use of its hands and arms. By the use of weapons of thiskind the powers of offence of this animal were enormously increased. Asskill was acquired in their use, and more efficient weapons wereselected or formed, the man-ape steadily advanced in controllinginfluence, and the lower animal world became more and more subordinated. No doubt the struggle was a protracted one. The previously dominantanimals did not submit without a severe and long-continued contest. Thousands of years may have passed before the larger animals weresubdued, for it is probable that the invention of superior weapons by ananimal of low mental powers was a very slow process. Each stage ofinvention gave higher success, but these stages were very deliberateones. 

However this be, we can be assured that the superiority of the ancestralman lay in his mental resources, and that his victory was due to theemployment of his mind rather than of his body. As a result, thedeveloping influence of the conflict was exerted upon his brain, theorgan of the mind, far more than upon his physical frame, and this organgradually increased in size, while the body as a whole remainedpractically unchanged. The conflict began with the man-ape on a level inpower and dominance with animals of its own size and inferior to thoseof greater size and strength. It ended with man dominant over all thelower animals. Such a progress, if made by any animal through variationin physical structure, must have caused radical and extraordinarychanges in size, strength, and utility of the natural organs of offence. If made, as in the instance in question, through development of theorgan of the mind alone, it could not but have produced a great increasein the size and power of this organ; and the dimensions of the brain inprimitive man, as compared with those of the brain in the anthropoidapes, do not seem too great for the magnitude of the result. 

The conflict ended, a new animal, man, finally and fully emerged fromthe family of the apes and settled down in the restful consciousness ofvictory, with a much larger brain and greatly superior mental powersthan were possessed at the beginning of the struggle, yet in physicalaspect not greatly changed from his ancestral form after it had firstfully gained the erect attitude. The powers gained enabled early maneasily to hold the position he had won, and there was no furtherspecial strain upon his faculties until a new contest began, thatbetween man and nature, supplemented by a still more vital struggle, that between man and man. 

To return to the point from which we set out, it may be said that, asthe man-ape gained facility in walking in the erect attitude, and itshands and arms became fully adapted to the use of weapons, its standingin the animal kingdom changed essentially from that before held. Fearand flight ended, retreat ceased, attack began, pursuit succeededflight, and the great battle for mastery entered upon its long course. An element which aided materially in the victory was the social habit ofthe animal in question, and the mutual aid which the members of anygroup gave one another. Educative influences also naturally followassociation, every invention or improvement devised by one becomes theproperty of the whole, and nothing of importance once gained is lost. 

The stages of this progress were, undoubtedly, in their outer aspect, stages of improvement in weapons. We seem to see ancestral man, in hisearly career as a carnivorous animal, seizing the stones and sticks thatcame readily to hand, and flinging them with some little skill at hisprey, in the same manner as we can perceive the baboon doing the samething. In like manner we observe him breaking off branches from thetrees and using them as clubs. One of the first steps of developmentfrom this crude stage in the use of weapons would be the selection ofstones suited by size and shape for throwing, and the choice of clubs ofsuitable length and thickness, the latter being stripped of their twigs. 

For a long time fresh weapons, those immediately at hand, would beseized and used for every new conflict; but as the idea of thesuperiority of some weapons to others arose, a second stage of evolutionmust have begun. The selected club, broken from the tree and preparedfor use with some care, and thus embodying a degree of choice and labor, would be too valuable to fling idly away, and might be retained forfuture use, the first personal possession of inchoate man. Similarly, stones carefully chosen for their suitability for throwing would beprobably kept, and a small store of them collected. In short, we mayconceive of the man-ape thus gathering a magazine of weapons, --clubs andstones, --sought or shaped during hours of leisure for use in hours ofconflict. In this way our animal ancestor doubtless slowly became askilful hunter, carrying his weapons with him in the chase, and usingthem efficiently in the conquest of prey. 

A third stage in this progress was reached when to some wise-headed oldman-ape came the idea of combining the two forms of weapon in use, offastening in some way the stone to the club in order that a moreeffective blow might be struck. The vegetable kingdom furnishes naturalcords, flat stones with more or less cutting edges could be chosen andbound to the end of the club, and the earliest form of the battle-axewould be produced. With its formation the man-ape made another importantstep of progress and added greatly to his powers of offence. Stage bystage he was bringing his animal competitors under his control. 

The formation of an axe or hatchet, however crude it may have been, would naturally lead to another step in advance. With it the ancestralman had passed beyond the possession of a weapon into the possession ofa tool. The shaping of his clubs previously had been done by a rudetearing or hammering off of their twigs. These could now be cut off, andin addition the club might be wrought into a better shape. Manufacturehad begun. Our ancestor stood at one end of a long line, at the otherend of which we behold the steam-engine, the electric motor, and aninterminable variety of other instruments. 

Primitive manufacture was not confined to the shaping of wood. Theshaping of stone followed in due time. If a tree branch could be mademore suitable for its purpose by cutting it into shape with a rude stoneaxe or hatchet, a stone of better shape might be obtained by hammering. Doubtless the chipping effect of striking stone upon stone had beenoften observed before the idea arose that this could be made useful, andthat where stones of the desired shape were not to be found, the shapeof those at hand might in this way be improved. 

If we seek for some turning-point, some stage of progress, in which theman-ape fairly emerged into man, perhaps it would be well to select thatwhich we have now reached, that in which the animal in question, whichhad hitherto used the objects of nature in their natural form, firstgained the idea of manufacture and began to shape these objects by theuse of tools. In truth, the dividing line between man-ape and man wasimperceptibly fine. Various points of demarcation might be chosen, eachfounded on some important step in evolution. But among them all that inwhich the effort to convert the objects of nature into better weapons bythe use of tools is perhaps the best, as it was probably the first stepin that long process of manufacture to which man owes his wonderfuladvance. 

With this early effort at manufacture, man had reached a stage in whichhe was first able to make a permanent record of his existence upon theearth--aside from that of the very infrequent preservation of his bonesas fossil remains. A chipped stone is a permanent object. Even a veryrudely shaped one bears some indications of its origin upon its surface, some marks pointing back to man in his early days. Unfortunately foranthropologists, natural agencies sometimes produce effects resemblingthose achieved by man's hands, and some degree of skill in manufactureand well-marked design is necessary before one can be sure that aseeming stone weapon has not been shaped by nature instead of man. Within a recent period research for the evidence of early man in theshape of chipped stones has been diligently made, with an abundance ofundoubted and a number of doubtful results. Some of these reach very farback in time, and if actually the work of man he must have lived uponthe earth as a manufacturing animal for years that may be numbered bythe million. Seemingly chipped stones have been found that belong to theremote Miocene geological age. With the latter are some scratches uponbones that also seem the work of tools. But these Miocene relics arequestionable. They do not seem to surpass the shaping power of natureherself. Unless some more indubitable relics are found, we must placethe advent of man as a tool-using animal at a much later date. How farback he may have existed as a man-like biped is another question, whichwe are not likely soon to solve. 

It is scarcely necessary to pursue this branch of our subject farther. We have reached one end of a line of development, the succeeding courseof which is well known. From the earliest rudely chipped stones andflints that are certainly the work of man, we can easily trace hisprogress upward through better examples of the chipped and later throughthose of the polished stone implement, until the age of metal began. And with these stones have been found many other indications of theprogressing powers of man, in the shaping of bone, the invention and useof a considerable variety of implements and ornaments, and the earliestefforts of art, as stated in a preceding section. There is no occasionto go into the detail of these steps of progress. When they are reached, this section of our work ends. We are concerned here simply with man'sancestor and man in his earliest stage of existence, not with man in hislater course of development. 

IX

THE FIRST STAGE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION

The question has often been asked, if man has descended from an apeancestor why is it that no traces of this ancestral form have been foundin a fossil state? If man has gone through such an extended course ofdevelopment, why has he left no remains? This question, looked upon asunanswerable by many of those who ask it, is really of minor importance. A half-dozen answers, each of considerable weight, could easily be madeto it. In the first place, it may be said that the absence of remainsreferred to is far from a single instance, but one out of thousands. Itis generally admitted that the species of animals found fossil are veryfar from representing all the species that have existed upon the earth, and probably form but a minute percentage of them. In the second place, the remains of man's ancestor have not been sought for in its nativelocality, the tropical regions. In the third place, man belongs to theclass of animals least likely to be preserved in the fossil state, sincethey dwell in the depths of forests and at a distance from the lakes andstreams in whose muddy bottoms the remains of so many animals have beenfossilized. Another answer is, that of the various species of anthropoidapes that probably existed in the past, a few relics only of a singlespecies have been found. If there were this one species alone, itsnumber of individuals must have reached into the millions, yet of thosehosts only a few fugitive bones are known to exist. There could not wellbe a more striking instance of the imperfection of the geologicalrecord. The sparse remains of Dryopithecus, the species in question, with some few other fossils of doubtfully anthropoid species, save usfrom a total blank, and open the vista to a myriad of active arborealcreatures which had their dwelling-place in the old-time Europeanforests, but have almost utterly vanished from human knowledge. 

These are not the only answers that can be made to the questionpropounded. Though the bones of the man-ape have not been found, relicsof several stages of developing man exist. Most significant among these, until recently, was the celebrated Neanderthal skull, which in facialaspect departs widely from the ordinary human and approaches the simiantype. More significant still is the Pithecanthropus cranium, indicativeof an animal that stood midway between man and ape, a creature fullyerect in posture, as its thigh bone proves, but with a brain that hadattained but the halfway stage of development. In this notable find weseem to see man in the making, the body already fully man-like, thebrain advanced much beyond the stage of the ape intellect, but still farbelow that of man. It is the remnant of a creature significantly on thedividing line between man-ape and man. 

So much for the response to the question as hitherto made. As the casestands, we are not obliged to stop at this point. Within the lattersection of the nineteenth century discoveries have been made which fitin admirably with our argument. Rediscoveries, perhaps, we should callthem, for they were imperfectly known in ancient times, but onlyrecently have they fairly come within human ken. We refer to the Pygmytribes of the African forests, not definitely offered hitherto as aidsto the elucidation of this problem, yet which seem to adapt themselvesclosely to it, and certainly help essentially in filling the gap betweencivilized man and his ape-like ancestor. 

We have already said that there appear to have been two separate anddistinct stages in the evolution of man: one, that of his conflict withthe animal world, ending in his mastery of the brute creation; thesecond that of his conflict with nature, ending in his mastery of theresources of the earth. Overlapping and succeeding the second there hasbeen a third, that of the conflict of man with man, ending in thesurvival of the fittest of the human race. In the discussion of thisproblem, as hitherto made, these distinct stages of evolution, withtheir intermediate resting stages, have not been recognized; argumentbeing based on man as a whole, and no thought directed to thepossibility that existing man may represent several separate processesof development, with broad lapses between. The argument we propose tooffer is that man as he was at the completion of his first stage, thatof the subjugation of the animal world, and before the beginning of theconflict with nature, still exists, the first derivation from theman-ape, living in the location and possessing much of the appearanceand many of the habits of this ancestral form. 

Late travellers in Africa have found more than trees and streams in theforest depths. They have found there a distinct and peculiar race ofmen, negro-like in many particulars, yet differing from the negroes inothers, and specially marked by their dwarfish stature, which isindicated in the name of Pygmies, usually given them. These diminutivebeings were known as long ago as the days of Homer, and their legendarycombats with the cranes are spoken of by him in his poems. He was notaware of what is known now, that these forest dwarfs would disdain thecranes as antagonists, and are quite capable of overcoming the lordlyelephant. In truth, they know no equals in the forest, and, whiledestitute of any knowledge of agriculture, are the most skilful, considering the primitive character of their weapons, of the hunters ofthe earth. 

The forest is the home of the Pygmy, as in all probability it was of theman-ape. He dwells in its deepest recesses, its moist and sultry depths, and pines when removed from his native realm in the heart of the tropicwoods. In truth, he is almost as fully arboreal as was his tree-dwellingancestor and as are his forest relatives, the anthropoid apes of to-day;not inhabiting the limbs of trees, indeed, but living under their shade, and forming the true man of the woodland, the nomad hunters of the vastequatorial forests. It must be said, however, that this is not whollythe case. There are tribes seemingly belonging to this race in SouthAfrica who dwell in the open desert, but retain there, in great measure, the habits of their forest kin. 

The first of modern travellers to see the Pygmies was Du Chaillu, in hisjourney through the African woodlands in 1867. He describes them asaveraging four feet seven inches in height, their complexion of a paleyellow brown, the hair of their head short, but their bodies coveredwith a thick growth of hair, as if the loss of their ancestral coveringhad not been completed. The tribe seen by him was known as the Obongo, and dwelt in Ashango Land, occupying the forest region between theGaboon and the Congo. 

Dr. Schweinfurth, whose exploration extended from 1868 to 1870, was thenext to meet these nomads of the forests, of whom he has given aninteresting description in his "Heart of Africa. " He met with them inthe country of the Manbuttoo, on the Welle River, between three degreesand four degrees north latitude. The tribe seen by him, known as theAkka, was made up of very diminutive individuals, none being over fourfeet ten inches high, and some only four feet. Their bodies were in dueproportion to their height, so that they resembled half-grown boys insize. 

The Akkas, as described by him, have large heads, huge ears, and veryprognathous faces. Their arms are long and lank, the chest flat andnarrow, widening below to support a huge hanging abdomen, the legs shortand bandy, and the walk a waddling motion, there being a sort of lurchwith each step. In this latter respect they recall the gibbon in itseffort to walk. The gaping aspect of the mouth has a suggestiveresemblance to that of the ape. They are also ape-like in theirincessant play of countenance, twitching of eyebrows, rapid gestures ofhands and feet, nodding and wagging of the head, and remarkable agility. Their skin is of a dull brown color, "like partly roasted coffee, " anddestitute of the covering of hair seen by Du Chaillu on the Obongos. Thehair of the head and the beard is scanty and of woolly texture. 

Stanley, who frequently met those forest dwarfs in his expedition forthe relief of Emin Pacha, gives much information concerning them in his"In Darkest Africa. " He found, indeed, two types of dwarfs, one theWambutti, who were of attractive aspect, having large, round eyes, fulland prominent round faces with broad foreheads, jaws slightlyprognathous, hands and feet small, figures well formed thoughdiminutive, and complexion of a brick red hue. The other type, the Akka, he describes as having "small, cunning, monkey eyes, close and deeplyset. " One woman described by him had "protruding lips overhanging herchin, a prominent abdomen, narrow flat chest, sloping shoulders, longarms, feet strongly turned inward, and very short lower legs. " She was"certainly deserving of being classed as an extremely low, degraded, almost a bestial type of a human being. " The language of the Akka is ofa very undeveloped type, and seems a link between articulate andinarticulate speech. 

Stanley, in his journey down the Congo, heard many stories of the forestdwarfs, who were described to him as a yard high, with long beards andlarge heads. Other traditional accounts of them similarly speak of theirlong beards, though Stanley saw none answering to this description. Thefirst individual seen by him in this journey was four feet six and ahalf inches high, and measured thirty inches round the chest. He was ofa light chocolate color, with a thin fringe of whiskers, his legs bowedand with thin shanks, the calf being undeveloped. His body was coveredwith a thick, fur-like hair, nearly half an inch long, in this respectagreeing with those described by Du Chaillu. 

The Batwas, seen and measured by Dr. Ludwig Wolfe in the middle Congobasin in 1886, were of an average height of four feet three inches. Theyresemble the Akka in general appearance, and have longish heads, longnarrow faces, and small reddish eyes. They bounded through the tallherbage "like grasshoppers" and were remarkably agile in climbing. 

For several years past there have been rumors of a race of Pygmies inthe interior of the Cameroons, but these reports were not verified untilthe year 1898, when the Bulu expedition of the German military forcesucceeded, with much difficulty, in seeing several individuals of thisrace, secured through the aid of a native chief. One woman was measuredand proved to be just four feet high. The color was from chocolate-brownto copperish, except the palms, which were of a yellowish white. Thehair was deep black, thick, and frizzled; the skull broad and high; thelips full and swollen. Like other Pygmy tribes, these are very shy, wandering from place to place in the forest, and avoiding frequentedroutes of travel. They are skilful hunters and collect much rubber, which they dispose of to the negro tribes. 

In the same year Mr. Albert B. Lloyd made a journey in Central Africa, following Stanley's route down the Congo. He was alone, with theexception of a few carriers, and had the good fortune of passing throughthe country of the Pygmies and that of the cannibals of the Aruwimiwithout conflict or injury, entering into cordial relations with bothpeoples. He journeyed for three weeks in the Pygmy forest and hadexcellent opportunities for examining its inhabitants. 

After entering the great primeval forest Mr. Lloyd went west for fivedays without the sight of a Pygmy. Suddenly he became aware of theirpresence by mysterious movements among the trees, which he at firstattributed to the monkeys. Finally he came to a clearing and stopped atan Arab village, where he met a great number of the diminutive nomads. "They told me, " says Mr. Lloyd, "that, unknown to me, they had beenwatching me for five days, peering through the growth of the forest. They appeared very much frightened, and even when speaking covered theirfaces. I asked a chief to allow me to photograph the dwarfs, and hebrought a dozen together. I was able to secure a snap-shot, but did notsucceed in the time exposure, as the Pygmies would not stand still. ThenI tried to measure them, and found not one over four feet in height. Allwere fully developed, the women somewhat slighter than the men. I wasamazed at their sturdiness. The men have long beards, reaching halfwaydown the chest. They are very timid, and will not look a stranger inthe face, their bead-like eyes constantly shifting. They are, it struckme, fairly intelligent. I had a long talk with a chief, who conversedintelligently about their customs in the forest and the number of thetribesmen. Both men and women, except for a tiny strip of bark, werequite nude. The men were armed with poisoned arrows. The chief told methe tribes were nomadic, and never slept two nights in the same place. They just huddle together in hastily thrown-up huts. Memories of a whitetraveller, --Mr. Stanley, of course, --who crossed the forest years ago, still linger among them. "

The discovery of these forest Pygmies has directed attention to theBushmen of South Africa, a desert-dwelling race, long known thoughcomparatively little regarded in their ethnological significance. Theyare now by many regarded as an outlying branch of the forest Pygmies, the chief difference being in the shape of the skull, which is ratherlong in the Bushmen, rather short in the Pygmies. These degradedwanderers inhabit an area extending from the inner ranges of themountains of Cape Colony, through the central Kalahari desert, to nearLake Ngami, and thence northwestward to the Ovambo River. Into these, the most barren portions of the South African deserts, they have beendriven by the encroachments of Kaffirs, Hottentots, and Europeans. 

They closely resemble the Akka tribes of the north, averaging about fourand a half feet in height, and possessing deep-set, crafty eyes, smalland depressed nose, and a generally repulsive countenance. Theircomplexion is of a dirty yellow. Their hair grows in small, woollytufts. In the vicinity of Lake Ngami, Livingstone found them to be oflarger stature and darker color, while Baines measured some in thisregion who were five feet six inches in height. In disposition theBushmen are strikingly wild, malicious, and intractable, while theircerebral development is classed by Humboldt as belonging to almost thelowest class of the human species. 

Close in affinity with the Bushmen, and in various respects unlike thedark races around them, are the Hottentots, the original inhabitants ofCape Colony, a race of herdsmen who are much superior in culture to thedegraded desert nomads. They are not dwarfish, being of medium stature, but they resemble the Bushmen in complexion, in which and in generalcast of features they present some similarity to the Chinese. Theirhair, like that of the Bushmen, grows in tufts, with spaces between, andthey are like them in language, their method of speech consistinglargely in a series of clicking sounds. Their manner of talking has beencompared to the clucking of a hen, and by the Dutch to the "gobbling ofa turkeycock. " The Hottentots present every appearance of being adeveloped branch of the Pygmy family, or the result of a cross betweenBushmen and negroes. 

These tribes of dwarfs, now extended throughout the equatorial forestsand over the South African deserts, were probably once far morewidespread, inhabiting much of the continent and reaching as far asMadagascar, where a branch of them, known as Kinios or Quinias, arethought still to exist. They extended north to the Mediterranean, andhave left their representatives in Morocco in a tribe of dwarfs, aboutfour feet high, who differ widely in appearance from all other people ofthat country. As to their origin, there is a diversity of opinion. Someanthropologists look upon them as a primeval race, distinct from thenegroes, who came among them later. Professor Virchow, on the contrary, is of the opinion that their only important difference from the negroesis that of size, and regards them as the remains of a primitivepopulation from whom the negroes have descended. 

In a preceding section a statement was made as to what was the probablegeneral appearance of the man-ape. It was based upon the physical aspectof the Pygmies, whom we hold to form the immediate derivative of man'sape ancestor, and to have made no radical change in personal appearance, if we may judge from the various ape-like characteristics which theystill present. Mentally they have made a very considerable advance, andhave reached the stage of men of low intellectual powers; but whiletheir brains have been growing their bodies have not greatly changed, and the marks of their origin are thick upon them. There has probablybeen little change in size, the diminutive stature and small bodilydimensions being in accord with their incessant activity, while thedifficulties of traversing the thick growth of the tropical forest mayhave helped to keep them small. As it is, they are of about half thesize of civilized man, the weight of a full grown adult male beingprobably not over ninety pounds. 

Taking the Pygmies as a whole, it may be said that, though many of theAkkas are disproportionate in shape and tottering in gait, on the wholethese people are well made, their protuberant paunch being probably aresult of their habits of eating. Captain Guy Burrows says that a Pygmywill eat twice as much as would suffice a full-grown man, and that oneof them will devour a whole stalk of bananas at a meal, with other food. Some tribes are described as physically and mentally degenerate, andprognathism is in many cases strongly declared, the lower part of theface having an ape-like contour, and the protruding chin, that featurepeculiar to man, being very deficient. In their great abdominaldevelopment the adult Akkas resemble the children of Arabs and negroes. This, therefore, seems the retention of a primitive feature which hasbecome a passing characteristic in the more advanced types of mankind. 

The Pygmies are not destitute of intelligence, and are capable ofreceiving some of the elements of education. Two of them were brought toItaly about 1875, who within two years' time learned to read and writeand to speak Italian with much fluency. They showed themselves superiorin school studies to European children of ten or twelve years of age, and one of them became somewhat proficient in music. In their habitsthey resembled children, being sensitive and impulsive, fond of play, and very quick in their motions. Their readiness in gaining the elementsof education is in accord with experience in the case of other savages. It is when studies requiring abstruse thought are reached that thefacility in acquisition of the savage races comes to an end. 

With this consideration of the characteristics and habitat of thePygmies we may proceed to a review of their habits. The weapons whichthey seem to have developed during their long upward progress, and towhich their supremacy over the wild beasts of the forest is probablydue, consist of two, the bow and arrow and the spear. The bow and arroware small and insignificant in appearance, and would be of little valuebut for the poison which the Pygmies have somehow learned how to obtain, and which makes them dreaded, not only by beasts, but by men. Whereverfound, from the deserts of the south to the forest of the Welle andAruwimi on the north, the poisoned arrow is a mark of affinity asdecided in its way as their physical resemblance. Its wide distributiongoes to indicate that it was the general weapon of the Pygmies ages ago, when, presumably, they had all Africa for their own, and ruled supremeover the animal world in that continent. 

It is true, indeed, that the use of the poisoned arrow is not peculiarto them, but is a somewhat common possession of savage tribes in allparts of the earth. This makes it quite possible that it was notoriginal with the Pygmies, but was derived by them from other tribes. Onthe other hand, in view of its great value in giving them supremacy overthe lower animals, it may well have been a primeval Pygmy invention, andthese tribes the original source of its existing wide distribution. 

They possess more than one poison; one being a dark substance of thecolor and consistence of pitch, which is supposed to be made out of aspecies of arum. It is laid in the splints of their wooden arrows, orspread thickly upon their iron arrowheads, when they possess these. Another poison is of a pale glue color, which is supposed by Stanley tobe made of crushed red ants. When fresh these poisons are deadly, producing excessive faintness, palpitation of the heart, nausea, anddeep pallor, soon followed by death. In Stanley's experience one mandied within a minute, from a mere pin prick in the breast. Others livedduring different intervals, extending up to one hundred hours. Thedifference in virulence seems to have depended on the degree offreshness of the venom, which apparently lost its strength as it becamedry. 

The possession of a weapon so deadly as this, together with the agilityand daring and the unerring marksmanship of the forest dwarfs, seemsufficient to give them absolute control of the animals of the Africanwilds. The lion, the elephant, and the buffalo, the largest and fiercestof the beasts of field and forest, are powerless before the virulentvenom of the arrows of the Pygmies, and doubtless for ages they haveheld dominion as the fearless rulers of wood and wild. Captain Burrowssays of the skill with the bow of the Pygmy that "he will shoot three orfour arrows, one after the other, with such rapidity that the last willhave left the bow before the first has reached its goal. "

The bow and spear are not their only means of obtaining food. They havecertain of the arts of the trapper, perhaps original with them, perhapsborrowed from their larger neighbors. They sink pits in the pathways oftheir game, covering them with light sticks and leaves and sprinklingearth over the whole. They build hut-like structures, and lay nuts orplantains beneath, for the purpose of tempting chimpanzees, baboons, orother apes. A slight movement causes the hut to fall on the incautiousanimals. Bow traps are placed along the tracks of civets, ichneumons, and rodents, which snap and strangle them. The Pygmies do not hesitateto attack the elephant, spearing it from beneath, and hunting it for itsivory, which they trade with the settled tribes. In short, they are ofunsurpassed agility, and are the best of woodsmen and hunters, theirskill being taken advantage of by the settled tribes, who trade withthem vegetables, tobacco, spears, knives, and arrows for meat, honey, the feathers of birds, the ivory of the elephant, and other forestspoil. So destructive are they of game that they would soon denude thesurrounding forest if they stayed long in one spot, so that they arecompelled to move frequently. Schweinfurth speaks of them as cruel andfond of tormenting animals. 

They serve the settled natives in other ways, acting as scouts andinforming them of the coming of strangers while still distant. Everyforest road runs through their camps, their villages command everycrossway, and no movement can take place in the forest without theirknowledge, while they are adept in the art of concealment. 

The superior woodcraft, the malicious disposition, and the poisonedarrows and good marksmanship of these forest folks make them formidableenemies, and the settled tribes hold them in dread and are glad to keepon good terms with them. Yet they find them much of a nuisance, sincetheir dwarfish neighbors claim free access to their gardens andplantain fields, where they help themselves to fruit in return for smallsupplies of meat and furs. In short, they are human parasites on thelarger natives, who suffer from their extortions, yet fear to provoketheir enmity. Burrows says that they will never steal, but that they payvery inadequately for the plantains they take, leaving a very smallpackage of meat in return for an ample supply of food. 

The Pygmies build their camps two or three miles away from the negrovillages, living in groups of sixty to eighty families. A large clearingmay have eight to twelve of these Pygmy camps around it, with perhapstwo thousand inmates. Their dwellings are of the shape of an oval cutlengthwise, and are built in a rude circle, the residence of the chiefoccupying the centre. The doors are two or three feet high. On everytrack leading to the camp, at about one hundred yards' distance, is asentry house large enough to hold two of the little folks, its doorwaylooking up the track from the camp. While wandering in the forest theybuild the flimsiest of leaf shelters. 

The intelligence of the Pygmies is of a very low order. In the artswhich they have been developing for ages they are experts, they arethoroughly familiar with the habits of animals, and as hunters they areunsurpassed. But in intellect they are decidedly lacking. They aredestitute of agriculture, possess no animals except a few dogs, andhave none of the elements of culture. The Bushmen, for instance, cancount only up to two; all beyond that is "many. " Yet this low tribe ofdesert nomads is, as we have said, skilled in the art of drawing, itssketches of men and animals being widely distributed through CapeColony. 

The Pygmies seem greatly lacking in the social sentiments. Burrows, inhis "Land of the Pygmies, " says that they do not possess even the mostordinary ties of family affection. Such common and natural feelings ofaffinity as those between mother and son, brother and sister, etc. , seemed to be wanting in them. 

It is a fact of great interest that the Pygmy race does not seemconfined to Africa, for tribes of men resembling the Pygmies in statureand in various other particulars are found in widely removed localities, as in Malacca, the Andaman Islands, and the Philippine Archipelago, while there are indications that they once spread widely over thisisland region of the earth. Those of the Philippines, known as Negritosor Aetas, have been somewhat closely observed and may be brieflydescribed. 

The Negritos are similar in stature to the Pygmies of Africa, the menaveraging four feet eight inches high, and they are like them in generalappearance. They are darker in complexion, some being as sable asnegroes, and all of them darker than the African Pygmies. Their featuresare coarse and ill-shaped, their nose depressed, lips full, hair blackand frizzled. In body, like the Pygmies, they are thin andspindle-legged. The calf of the leg is not developed in any of thesedwarfish people. The Negritos possess one marked and significantcharacteristic, --the separation of the great toe. This, while it has notthe full power of movement shown in the apes, is much more separatedfrom the others than in the whites, and can be readily used in grasping. By its aid the Negrito can not only pick up small objects, but candescend the rigging of a ship head downward, holding on like a monkey byhis toes. It may be said that among uncivilized and barefoot people thegreat toe is usually very mobile. The artisans of Bengal can weave, theChinese boatmen can row, with its aid, and it adds much to facility inclimbing. 

The Negritos wear little clothing, have no fixed abodes, and pass awandering life in the forests, living on game, honey, wild fruits, rootsof the arum, and other forest food. Their weapons consist of a bamboolance, a bow of palm wood, and a quiver of poisoned arrows. It iscertainly a striking fact that, wherever found, from South Africa to theFar East, the Pygmy tribes possess the art of poisoning their weapons. This art is not practised by the surrounding peoples, and is thestrongest evidence of a community of origin. It seems to point back to aremote period when the Pygmy peoples spread far through the tropics ofthe Eastern hemisphere, though in the region now under considerationthey have almost vanished through the assaults of the Malays. 

The Negritos are very alert physically, being remarkably fleet of foot, while they can climb like monkeys. They live in groups of about fiftyfamilies, shelter being obtained by a simple erection of sloping polesand leaves, though in their more settled locations they built bamboohuts like those of the Malays. They are a short-lived race, seldomliving more than forty years. Mentally, they are stupid and apparentlyincapable of improvement, seeming to stand at the foot of the humanscale. Attempts to instruct them have been made, but all provedfailures. Efforts to make agriculturists of them have proved similarlyfutile. They are hereditarily hunters, and hunters they are likely toremain. 

The only Eastern locality of which the Pygmy race remained in fullpossession until recent times is that of the Andaman Islands. This is nolonger the case. Great Britain made a penal settlement of these islandsafter the mutiny in India, and as a consequence the Mincopies, as theirnative inhabitants are called, have begun to disappear. These islandersare rather taller than the Philippine Negritos, ranging from four and ahalf to five feet in height, but otherwise there is a somewhat closeresemblance between them. Their color is dark brown or black, their hairwoolly, and inclined to grow in tufts, like that of the Bushmen. Thehead, though large in proportion to the body, is really very small andof low cranial capacity. That of the men is only 1244 cubic centimetres, as contrasted with 1554 cubic centimetres of a large number of maleParisians measured by Broca. That of the women differs in the sameproportion. Flower says that the Mincopies rank lowest among the humanraces in this respect; but it must be remembered that the brain usuallydecreases in size with decrease in stature. 

Small as these islanders are, however, their strength is relativelygreat. They use with ease bows which the strongest English sailorscannot string, though practice may have much to do with this facility. And they can send arrows with a force that seems out of accord withtheir size. Their agility is remarkable. Travellers speak of the speedof the bullet in describing their running--doubtless with someexaggeration. Their senses are strikingly acute. It is said that theycan distinguish fruits by their odor when hidden in the foliage of thejungle, and have wonderful powers of sight and hearing. As in the caseof the Aetas, their life is short, though the age of puberty is nearlyas great as with us. Fifty is extreme old age with these people, andtwenty-two is said to be their average length of life. 

Mentally, they are at a low level, the lowest, in the opinion of Owen, among the races of mankind. In counting they have words for only oneand two, but can count up to ten by touching the nose with each of thefingers in succession, saying each time, "this one also. " Their languageis of a primitive type, and in various respects they manifest lowintelligence. Yet, as in the case of the Akkas mentioned, they can betaught to the level of other children of twelve or fourteen years. Theirmind, in the opinion of Dr. Brander, seems rather to be asleep thanincapable. One child was taught to read and write, and to speak Englishfluently, and gained some knowledge of arithmetic; and this was not anexceptional case. 

It does not seem at all remarkable, when we consider the ease with whichmonkeys can be taught many arts and acts new to them, that thosedwarfish men, like other savages, greatly superior as they are in brainpower to the apes, should be capable of acquiring the minor elements ofeducation. It is not what they can be taught, but what they have taughtthemselves, that we must consider in assigning them to their comparativeplace in intellectual development. In this respect the Mincopies are ona very low plane. They have not even acquired the art of making a fire, though this is almost universal with mankind. All they know is how tokeep a fire alive, and in this they are very assiduous. It is probablethat they may have obtained fire at first from volcanoes on neighboringislands. 

They are lacking, like the Pygmy races in general, in the art ofchipping stone, one of the earliest arts acquired by man. Their onlymeans of shaping stone is to put it into the fire until it breaks orsplinters, when they can use the sharp splinters for their purposes. They are quite destitute of the art of drawing, and have no means ofcommunicating their thoughts except by speech. 

Yet with these deficiencies, they have made some progress in theindustrial arts. They make wooden vessels, and can produce pottery whichstands the fire and in which they cook most of their food. They makenets of considerable size, which they use to fish with in the narrowstreams. They have arrows and harpoons, whose points are fastened to theshaft by a long cord. The fish or land animal struck unwinds this cordin trying to get away, and its speed being checked by the shaft which itdrags along, it is easily caught. 

The Mincopies possess boats, and these seem to have been earlypossessions of the Negrito populations, by whose aid they were able tomigrate from island to island. Their canoes have nautical qualitieswhich have astonished English sailors. At one time they were probablybold and daring fishermen and navigators, until driven to the forestsand mountains by the invasion of the Malays. 

As the Pygmies were in all probability the aborigines of Africa, so theNegritos appear to have been the aboriginal people of the Easternislands, if not of India. Quatrefages, in his work "The Pygmies, " findsreason to believe that even at the present day traces of them, pure ormixed, can be found from southeast New Guinea to the Andaman Islands, and from the Sunda Islands to Japan. On the continent their rangeextends, according to him, "from Annam and the peninsula of Malacca tothe western Ghauts, and from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas. "

In one part of India the Negrito-like population are called_Bander-lokh_ (literally "man-ape") by the neighboring tribes. TheSemangs of Malacca are jet-black in color, with thick lips, flat nose, and protruding abdomen. In regard to the characteristic of prognathism, it is possessed in various degrees, the most pronounced instance beingseen in the photograph of one of the Kalangs of Java, a tribe which hasrecently become extinct. The face of this individual is strikinglyape-like in profile. 

Everywhere that these dwarfish people are found, whether in Africa, India, or Malaysia, they present the appearance of being an aboriginalrace, now largely annihilated by the incursions of larger andbetter-armed people, but once widespread and numerous. As to their placeof origin, whether in Africa, India, or the island region, it is uselessto speculate, as the facts on which an opinion could be based are notknown. Wherever found they are in close relation to the black races, thenegroes of Africa, the Papuans of Polynesia, and evidences of aconsiderable degree of mixture of races exist. This is especially thecase in Polynesia and India, where the Negritos appear to shade off intothe full-sized blacks through an intermediate series of half-breeds. 

Yet one fact of ethnological importance needs to be mentioned. TheNegritos and Pygmies are everywhere brachycephalic, or short-headed, with the exception of the Bushmen, who are dolichocephalic, or partiallyso. Negroes and Papuans are strongly dolichocephalic. In this respectthe Pygmy peoples agree more closely with the short-headed Mongolian oryellow races than with the long-headed negro or black races, though ingeneral features they come near the latter. 

In truth, this race of dwarfs may be the primitive stock from which theMongolians branched off on the one hand, and the Negroes on the other, since they are in some measure intermediate between the two. Latham saysof the Rajmalis mountaineers, "Some say their physiognomy is Mongolian, others that it is African. " Quatrefages is strongly of the opinion thatthe negro is of Indian origin, and reached Africa through migration. Hebases his opinion on the negroid characters of existing tribes in India, Persia, and elsewhere in Asia, and on the similar characters of theaboriginal Polynesians. As regards the Pygmies, they probably spreadover the whole of this section of the earth at a period of remoteantiquity, and very long ago developed the racial differences whichappear to exist between separate tribes. Distinctions of this kind canbe seen in the East, and a marked one is pointed out by Stanley betweenthe Wambutti and the Akka, as already stated. 

Wherever found the Pygmies are hunters, usually making the deep foresttheir home, and are masters through their agility, cunning, and deadlyweapons of the whole world of lower animals. Physically they areprobably not far removed from the man-ape, their remote ancestor, forthey retain various ape-like characters, as in aspect of face, shape ofbody, occasional hairiness, diminutive size, shortness of legs, imperfect development of the calf, occasional waddling gait in walking, and the other particulars above pointed out. There are certainlyabundant reasons for believing them to be, as we have suggested, thefinal result of the first great conflict in the evolution of man, thatwith the lower animals. 

This assured mastery once gained, the occasion for further developmentof this people ceased while they remained in the forest habitat whichthey had inherited from their ape ancestors. Here the problem of foodgetting was fully solved and there was nothing to instigate any new stepin evolution. The period of conflict ended, a period of rest supervened, and, so far as the Pygmies are concerned, this period still continues. Though later races, their probable descendants, have left the forestand set up new stages of development through new conflicts with adverseconditions, the Pygmies remain in their resting state, and, if left tothemselves, might continue in this state for ages in the future as theyhave done for ages in the past. As the case now stands, however, annihilation threatens some of them, while educative and otherinfluences from without may bring to an end the physical and mentalisolation of the others. 

In considering the Pygmies as they exist to-day, in fact, it isimpossible to say how far their habits and possessions are original withthemselves and how far they have been derived from others. There can beno question that they have been influenced by the customs of surroundingpeoples of higher culture, and that they have received implements andmethods from without. To get down to the pure Pygmy, as an outcome ofevolution within himself, we would need to strip off all theseadventitious aids, if we could distinguish them from the conditionsnative to the race, and thus behold him as he was before he fell underthe influence of men of higher grade. Were it possible to isolate him inthis way, and present his original self, we should have before us anethnological specimen of the highest interest and importance, as theultimate resultant of the first great stage in the evolution of man fromhis ape ancestor. 

X

THE CONFLICT WITH NATURE

It has been a frequently debated question whether man comprises a singlespecies or two or more species of animal descent. If a line be drawnfrom the Gold Coast in tropical Africa to the steppes of Tartary incentral Asia, it will present two markedly distinct races of men at itstwo extremities. At its southwestern end we find the most long-headed, prognathous, frizzly-haired, dark-skinned race of mankind. At itsnortheastern end is the most round-headed, orthognathous, straight-haired, and yellow-skinned race. Midway between these appearintermediate peoples, with heads round, oval, or oblong, hair straightor curly, skin fair or dark, faces upright or protruding, men possibly, to judge from their physical character, a result of the amalgamation ofthese two distinct races. 

These differences may be the result of original difference in species ormay be due to climatic and other influences of nature. Some writersaccept the one view, some the other, and neither is sustained by anygreat weight of facts. The Pygmy race presents somewhat similardifferences. Usually round-headed, these small men are in someinstances long-headed, while such marked distinctions appear at timesthat Stanley classed two neighboring tribes as separate races. Here theypresent features of the Mongolian, there they are similar to the Negro. This goes to indicate that the distinction between the Negro and theMongolian began far back in time, but it does not prove that it is theresult of original difference in species, or that two distinct forms ofape separately developed into man. While this is quite possible, thetheory of a single species has been most widely accepted. The chiefwriters on the subject think that the differences arose during thatundeveloped stage of mankind when resistance to the transforminginfluences of nature was still weak, and when the structure of the humanframe may have yielded readily to agencies which would have little or noeffect upon it now. 

Of one thing we can be sure, which is that there was a wide migration ofthe apes in remote times. Leaving the tropics, many species spread tothe north, extending into Europe, which at that time seems to have beenconnected by land bridges with Africa, and spreading far through Asia. There was probably nothing at that time in atmospheric conditions tocheck such a migration. The Tertiary climate of Europe is believed tohave been quite mild. And the ape family is by no means necessarilyconfined to warm regions. Monkeys are found to-day at high elevationson the mountains of India, enduring the chill of ten thousand feet ofaltitude. 

Of the migration to Europe abundant evidence exists, fossil remains ofmonkeys having been found in many localities of that continent. Amongthese residents of early Europe was at least one representative of theanthropoid apes, the fossil species known as Dryopithecus, from themiddle Miocene deposits of St. Gaudens, France. This species, apparentlymost nearly allied to the chimpanzee, was taller than any existing ape. Two or three other fossil remains, possibly of anthropoid apes ofsmaller size, have been found, and Europe seems to have been wellsupplied with apes of a considerable degree of development at a remotegeological period. Among those may have been the form we have designatedthe man-ape, the ancestor of the human race, though no fossil relicattributable to such a species has been recognized. 

Coming down to a much lower period, we begin to find traces of man, first in his rudely chipped and later in his polished stone weapons andtools. And the bones of man himself appear, extending through what isknown as the Quaternary or Pleistocene period. Nearly all these remainshave been preserved by the art of burial, a fact indicating some degreeof mental progress, though their residence in caves and the rudeness oftheir implements are evidence that the race was still low in culture. 

An interesting fact in connection with these ancient human remains isthat most of them indicate a small race, with narrow skulls andprognathous jaws, recalling the Pygmies in general structure. This rudeand small race continued until a late period of prehistoric time. Itextended down from the cave bear and mammoth period through the laterreindeer period, as is proved by discoveries made in the caves of theBelgian province of Namur. And there is good reason to believe that itcontinued into the age of bronze, for the small size of the handles ofbronze weapons show they must have been intended for men with smallhands. 

These diminutive people seem to have been not over four feet eightinches high. They were not alone, however. Men of normal height were inEurope with them. The northward migration of the Pygmies seems to havebeen accompanied or followed by that of a full grown people. Yet thePygmies have held their own in Europe as in Africa, with certainmodifications. In Sicily and Sardinia, which form part of a supposedformer land bridge between Africa and Europe, a small people about fivefeet high still exist, whom Dr. Kollman looks upon as representing adistinct race, the predecessors of the tall Europeans. In the Lapps ofnorthern Europe we possess another small race, possibly the linealdescendents of the Quaternary Pygmies. Everywhere the small man hasbeen forced to retire into forests, deserts, and icy barrens before thetaller and stronger man. The folk-lore of Europe is full of traditionsof a race of dwarfs, and its conflict with men of larger mould, andthere are various indications that this race was once widespread. 

What has been said here of the migration of man into Europe and hisdevelopment in that country is preliminary to a consideration of thesecond great stage of human development, that due to the conflict withnature. The conflict with the animal world appears to have ended in theproduction of a dwarfish, forest-dwelling variety of man, in the lowesthuman stage of mental evolution. The conflict with nature ended in thedevelopment of a full-sized variety of man, dwelling largely in the opencountry and much superior in intellect, as indicated by his higherpowers of thought and advanced degree of organization. 

The conflict with nature took several forms, in accordance with theconditions of the several regions inhabited by man. Its result was tosubdue nature to the use and benefit of mankind, and the methods, in thetropical localities of original man, consisted in the reduction ofanimals to the domestic state and a similar domestication of foodplants. In other words, one of its early stages was the development ofthe herding habit, while a far more important one was that of theappearance of the agricultural industries. In Europe a third and stillmore vigorous influence supervened, that of the conflict with cold andman's gradual adaptation to the conditions of a frigid climate. 

If the nomad dwarfs were the aboriginal men, all later races must havedeveloped from them. While remaining in the forest and retaining theirprimitive habits, the Pygmies presented an instance of arrestedevolution. For a new development to begin it was necessary to abandonthe old locality and with it the old habits, and this they probablybegan to do at a remote period. When, indeed, the earth was theirdominion, there was no reason for their remaining restricted to a forestresidence, as they have been since the larger races took possession ofthe open country. We do not need to go back far in time in the East tofind the Pygmy race in full control of the Philippine and other islands, and probably of Malacca and parts of Hindostan. Their presentrestriction and partial extermination have been due to the incursions ofthe warlike Malays. The Andaman Mincopies remained undisturbed until arecent date, and added fishing to their hunting pursuits. And the canoeswhich these islanders now possess were probably the invention of theirrace, and furnished the means by which the aborigines spread from islandto island of those thickly studded seas. 

In Africa the only existing indication of a migration of the forest folkinto the open country is found in the Bushmen and Hottentots of the farsouth. The former, confined to the desert, remain nomad hunters andpresent no step of advance beyond the Akka and other equatorial tribes. The Hottentots, on the contrary, have made an important step ofprogress. While still nomads and addicted to hunting, they havedomesticated cattle and sheep and become essentially a herding people, though mentally the lowest race of herders on the face of the earth. 

With this change in habits, the Hottentots have significantly increasedin stature. While still of medium height, they are considerably largerthan their Bushmen kindred, to whom they present a close resemblance inother respects. This increase in size is a common result of a change inhabits which insures a fuller supply of food with less strain upon themuscular organization in obtaining it; a fact of which the lower animalworld is full of illustrations. The life of the forest and deserthunters is one of incessant activity, and their food supply isprecarious. The Hottentots, on the contrary, take life easily and areinclined to indolence, their herds supplying them with food in abundancewith little exertion. They retain enough of the primeval strain to befond of hunting, and while thus engaged display the activity of theirancestral race, but ordinarily they pursue an idle, wandering life, andtheir increase in size may well be a result of their change in habits. 

The Hottentots, while still low in the human scale, are mentally astage in advance of the Bushmen, they having a more developed socialorganization and superior powers of thought. The latter is indicated bytheir myths and legends, of which they have a considerable store, thoughthey are in great measure destitute of religious conceptions, suchreligion as they possess taking in great part the primitive form ofancestor worship. Under the influence of Europeans they are graduallyabandoning their old habits and adopting those of civilized life, butwhile improving in social and industrial conditions there is littleevidence of intellectual advance. 

The development in method of food-getting displayed by the Hottentotswas really but the completion of the old battle for dominion with theanimal host. It consisted in subjecting some of the docile herbivoramore fully to human mastership. The hunter has to do with hostilebeasts, victims but not servants of man. The herder has reduced some ofthese animals to servitude, and no longer has to overcome them throughthe arduous labors of the chase. He is able to obtain, as we have said, more food with less exertion, a larger population can live in a limiteddistrict, and the beneficial effects upon the mind of a closer socialintercourse are shown. 

But the most important event in this stage of evolution was thesubjection of the plant world to man. For ages of interminable lengththis was not thought of. Fruits and other vegetable products formedpart of man's food; but these were the growth of wild nature, and theplant world was left to its own will, with no effort to bring it underhuman control. There is nothing to show that the idea of agricultureever entered the mind of a Pygmy. Of the plants surrounding him, far thegreater number were useless for food, only the few were available; butthe conception of favoring the few at the expense of the many apparentlynever occurred to him. There is, indeed, some crude and simpleagriculture pursued by a few of the Negritos of Luzon, but evidently asan imitation of the Malay agriculture or as a result of direct teaching, certainly not as an original conception. The conflict of the Pygmieswith nature has been confined to the animal world, and reached itshighest level in the herding industries of the Hottentots. 

Where and when the subjugation of the plant world began it is impossibleto say. It very probably had its origin in the fertile open lands of thetropics. But that it originated in the central region of Africa, or thatthe agriculturists of that region were of native origin, are bothsubjects open to question. The forest folk may have spread into the opencountry, there developed a crude agriculture, favored the growth of foodplants at the expense of useless shrubs and trees, and graduallyadvanced in this new form of industry. This would be in accordance withthe opinion of Virchow, who looks upon the negro as the descendant ofthe Pygmy. No great change was necessary to convert the one into theother. The Pygmy is negro-like in cast of countenance and bodilyformation. He differs in size, in complexion, and in shape of head. Butnew conditions may have given rise to these differences. The fierce sunsof the African lowlands may well have caused an increased deposit ofpigment, changing the yellowish hue of the Pygmy to the deep black ofthe negro. An increase in size is a natural result when exertiondiminishes and food increases. And a tendency for the head to changefrom the short to the long shape is shown in the Bushmen. 

On the other hand, certain anthropologists, of whom we may nameQuatrefages, take an opposite view, and believe that the negroesmigrated from Asia or the Eastern islands to Africa, being, like thenegro-like Papuans, descendants of the sable or dark brown Negritos ofthe East. In this case agriculture may have originated in Asia and havebeen brought by migrants to Africa. All we know historically concerningit is that the earliest traceable seats of agriculture appear to havebeen the fertile valleys of India, Babylonia, and Egypt. But the knownculture of the earth in these regions goes back only a few thousands ofyears, while for the first crude stages of agriculture we must probablymeasure years by tens of thousands. 

The degree of subjection of nature to man's needs, as displayed intropical agriculture, was comparatively small, and its effect on thedevelopment of the human intellect, while important, was limited. It hadthe highly useful result of a great increase in population, the growthof village and town life, an advance in social relations, and thebeginning of political relations. New implements were needed, betterhouses were erected, the settled condition of the people gave rise todirect efforts at education, and added the important element ofcommerce, in its earliest form, to the industries of mankind. The resultmust have been a fresh start in the development of the intellect, thoughone that probably soon reached its culminating point in the centraltropics. 

The highest results of the development of agriculture in tropicalcountries, unaided by secondary influences, seem to have been thoseexisting in the highly fertile regions of Egypt and Babylonia at theopening of the historical period. The density of population in thosecountries, due to their prolific production of food stuffs, gave rise toconsiderably developed political and social institutions, and laid thefoundations for a great subsequent advance under the influence ofwarfare, invasion, and the other more potent causes of human progress. Only for such ulterior influences the agriculturists of these countrieswould perhaps to-day remain dormant in the stage of mental progress theyhad attained ten thousand years ago. 

In considering the existing conditions of the forest nomads and theAfrican agriculturists, it is not safe to credit them with theorigination of all the arts and implements they possess. The negroes, for instance, have been for ages in more or less close association withthe Pygmies, and may have taught them many things which they would nothave attained through their own limited powers of thought. The bow andpoisoned arrow are very likely original with them. They possess thisweapon throughout the wide range from the African Hottentots to thePhilippine Negritos, while it is not a weapon of the surroundingpeoples. The spear is probably also original. The same cannot safely besaid of their traps and snares for game. These seem beyond their powerof invention, and may well have been taught them by the negro tribes. Their habitations, aside from the mere leaf shelters, had probably asimilar origin. In Africa the huts doubtless had their model in those ofthe negroes. In the Philippines they are pile-supported bamboo huts ofthe pattern of those of the Malays. If, then, we take from the forestfolk the arts taught them or imitated by them, we reduce them to a verylow level of intellect and a remarkable paucity of products from theirown powers of thought. 

Similar reasoning may be applied to the settled natives of Africa. Forthousands of years past they have been in contact on their northernborders with civilized peoples, numerous immigrants have made their wayinto the country, and a considerable degree of amalgamation has verylikely taken place. We cannot, therefore, safely credit them with allthe arts and implements they possess nor with all their political andsocial progress. No doubt much came to them from without, much wastaught them from within, and a mixture of blood with superior races mayhave aided considerably in improving their stock. We are justified, then, in their case as in that of the Pygmies, in believing that theirstage of mental and social development is only in part original withthem, and is largely due to the influences of education andamalgamation. 

The pure negro is not a very numerous element of the population ofAfrica. He stands in a measure intermediate between the nomad Pygmies ofthe forest and the desert, and the mixed races who may be called negroidbut cannot strictly be called negro. With their foreign blood, most ofthese have obtained foreign arts and elements of culture, and stand at adistinctly higher physical and mental level than the unamalgamatednegro. 

For the pure or nearly pure negro we must seek the lowlands of theGuinea coast, the seat of the most pronounced existing negro type. Otherlocalities are in the region of the Gaboon, along the lower Zambesi, andin the Benue and Shari basins. Here we find the true native African, arace strikingly uniform in aspect, and, next to the Pygmies, the lowestin physical characteristics of mankind. The features of structure inwhich the negro appears to occupy a position intermediate between thewhite man and the man-ape--lower than the former and approaching thelatter--are the following: First, his abnormal length of arm, whichaverages about two inches longer than that of the Caucasian, and, whenin the erect position, sometimes reaches the knee-pan, being littleshorter proportionately than that of the chimpanzee. Second, hisprognathism, or projection of the jaws--his index of facial angle beingabout 70, as compared with the Caucasian 82. Third, his weight ofbrain--average European 45 ounces, negro 35, highest gorilla 20. Fourth, his short, flat, snub nose, deeply depressed at the base, wide and withdilated nostrils at the extremity. Fifth, his thick protruding lips. Sixth, his high and prominent cheek bones. Seventh, his great thicknessof cranium, which resists blows that would break the skull of an averageEuropean. Eighth, the weakness of his lower limbs, the broad, flat footand low instep, the projecting heel and somewhat prehensile great toe. 

These characteristics the negroes possess in common with the Pygmies andthe Negritos. Others of less significance could be named. One importantcharacter is that of the cranial sutures, which close much earlier inthe negro than in higher races, thus checking the development of thebrain while the body is still growing. To this many ascribe the mentalinferiority of the negro race. A close observer records, as a result oflong observation on the plantations of the southern United States, that"the negro children were sharp, intelligent, and full of vivacity, buton approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellectseemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence. " This is very probably the case withthe Pygmies, who similarly reach a mental limit beyond which they cannotadvance; but this limit is set in the adult period. In other words, theadult Pygmy is on the mental level of the negro child. If the AfricanPygmy is as short lived as his Eastern congener, he does not survive, asa rule, many years beyond the age of adolescence, and continues in astage of childhood, mentally considered, until death. 

The conclusion to be derived from this interesting fact would appear tobe that the negro has made a distinct and important advance mentallybeyond the Pygmy, reaching at adolescence the limit of mental evolutionwhich the Pygmy reaches at death. But the negro stops here, or goeslittle beyond this limit. His cranial sutures close, the growth of thebrain is arrested, and the development of his mind comes to an end. Inthe white the brain continues to expand, and the closing of the suturestakes place later in life. Probably the latter is a result of theformer, mental development having overcome the tendency of the suturesto close in early life. It may be further said of the negro that, mentally, he is emotional far more than intellectual, and unmoral ratherthan immoral, he being apparently incapable of comprehending the moralconceptions of advanced man. 

If we seek the Malaysian and Australasian region of the Eastern seas, wefind there another branch of the negro race, similarly in contact with, and apparently derived from, a Pygmy stock. This Papuan race of blackscovers a wide island region, but, like the African race, has becomegreatly modified by mixture with alien peoples, largely of Malay origin. Its purest type is to be found in New Guinea, where it approaches thenegro in general character, though with distinctive features of its own. 

The Papuan is of medium height; fleshy rather than muscular; color asooty brown; forehead high, but narrow and retreating; nose sometimesflat and wide at nostrils, but oftener hooked with depressed point; lipsthick and projecting; high cheek bones; prognathism general; hair blackand frizzly. He is negroid in appearance, and is said to resemble theAfrican of the coast region opposite Aden. 

We need not pursue this subject further. It will suffice to offer thegeneral conclusion that the negroid race, while, through its change ofhabits from the hunting to the agricultural status, it has made anadvance both mentally and physically beyond the Pygmy aborigines, doesnot appear to have advanced greatly in either particular, the negroreaching a mental limit at a low level, and being arrested physicallywhile still possessing marked characteristics of the man-ape. 

For the higher development of man, under the stress of a more energeticconflict with the conditions of nature, we must seek the continent ofEurope, whose human inhabitants had not only to subdue the wild beastsand teach the earth to bring forth wholesome food in place of uselessplants, but also to battle with wintry climates, and overcome theadverse influences of cold, sterility of soil, and other hostileconditions of the northern zones. 

One of the chief problems of biology has long been that of theproduction of new varieties and species of animals as an effect ofgradual variation in structure. This is believed to be ordinarily due tochanges in the conditions of nature, animals and plants which have madeaccordant changes in structure being preserved, those which have notchanged in accordance with the new conditions perishing. Where theconditions of nature remain uniform, species may persist for long agesunchanged, though even in the latter case changes in structure are aptto occur, since variation in species is not wholly dependent uponexternal changes. To a considerable extent it is due to causes existingwithin the organism itself, fortuitous variations being occasionallypreserved when not out of harmony with the state of affairs prevailingin the external world. Or variation may occur through the establishmentof new relations between the species inhabiting some locality whileinanimate nature remains uniform, or through migration into newinanimate or animate surroundings. Variations, in short, may arise underthe influence of any change in the general environment which rendersnecessary adaptive changes in structure. But this adaptation in somecases takes place in the mind, new actions or methods of meeting thecontingency being adopted which render physical changes unnecessary. Theproblem is a highly complicated one, and no doubt many causes have to dowith the multiplicity of effects. 

There have very likely been many occasions where the changes instructure took place rapidly, in consequence of sudden variations innatural conditions. Such rapid changes in conditions necessarily exert asevere stress or strain on organisms, either destroying them or causingan equally rapid adaptation, physical or mental. In such instances it islikely that many species perish, the change demanded being too great;others escape by migration to better fitted localities; and others, moremobile or less affected by the change, survive through adaptivevariations. 

Of such periods of strain upon organic nature we know of only one inrecent geological times, that known as the Glacial Age, the vastvariation in climate which took place when the ice of the Far Northflowed down in mighty billows over northern Europe and America, buryingeverything beneath its crushing weight, and bringing many forms of lifeto a sudden and untimely end. No doubt a considerable number of speciesof animals and plants perished before this frightful invasion. A notableinstance among these was perhaps that of the American horse, whichdisappeared at about this period. Other species survived by a retreat tomore tropical regions, to return after the invasion had spent its force. Still others may have survived by adapting themselves to the changedconditions, emerging as new species or well-marked varieties. 

Among the beings which passed unscathed through this extraordinarychange in climate was apparently man. And it seems safe to affirm thatman's contest with the glacial conditions, whose force was exerted uponhis mind instead of on his body, was one of the most potent influencesin the evolution of the human race. Man entered the contest at a lowlevel of mental development; he emerged from it at a comparatively highlevel. 

No one to-day questions that man was an inhabitant of Europe during theGlacial Age. The proofs of this are too numerous and positive to bedoubted. He may have inhabited America in the same period, though ofthis there still remains some doubt. Claims have been made of thediscovery of evidences of man in Europe long before the glacial epoch, reaching as far back as the Pliocene and even the Miocene Age. But theseclaims have not been established beyond question, and the earliestgenerally acknowledged traces of man are confined to glacial Europe. 

Yet we are forced to acknowledge that if man existed in Europe duringthe prevalence of the ice age, he, or his ancestor, must have been therebefore that period. It is absolutely certain that no animal accustomedto tropical conditions would have chosen this period of extreme cold tomigrate from the warm tropics to the frozen north. The fact that man wasin Europe during glacial times is the very strongest evidence that hereached there during the milder preceding period, when a genial anduniform climate is believed to have prevailed throughout southern andcentral Europe. If we could accept as fact the seeming very ancientevidences of man's handiwork, we would be obliged to consider him aninmate of Europe long ages before the glacial epoch. 

If, as there is reason to believe, the man of Africa at that remoteperiod was the ancestor of the forest-dwelling Pygmy of to-day, lower inmental level and more bestial in aspect than any of his descendants, yet much advanced in mind beyond the man-ape of earlier ages, then wemay with some assurance accept this as the type of the primitive man ofEurope. He could have reached there by the land bridges which arethought to have connected Europe and Africa at that time, one closingthe straits at Gibraltar, the other extending south from Italy by way ofSicily. These were the routes by which the apes are supposed to haveentered Europe, and by which man may well have followed in a later age. It is possible, indeed, that man reached the northern continent fromanother locality, the habitat of the Negrito race in southeastern Asiaand the Malaysian islands. The fossil man-ape of Java, Pithecanthropus, is a strong argument that this was the region, or one of the regions, inwhich the development of man took place. However this be, we can beassured that primitive man was far more likely to widen his field ofoccupation through migration than any other animal, and may conjecturethat he spread over Europe and Asia in the mild preglacial times, andperhaps even reached America, giving rise to the early man of thathemisphere. 

The advent of man in Europe was not probably followed by anyconsiderable intellectual development. The mild and equable climatewhich at that time seems to have prevailed, was not likely to make astringent demand on his mental resources. Food was very likely abundantand easily obtained, animals of the chase being plentiful, and edibleroots and fruits by no means lacking. Thus he could readily obtain themeans of subsistence by aid of the arts and weapons employed by him inthe tropical forests. It is not unlikely that some changes, bothphysical and mental, took place, but these were probably not great. There may have been some change in color and form, a first step towardthe distinctions which separate the white from the black man, and adegree of mental adaptation to certain exigencies of the new situation;but in neither direction were the variations likely to be very decided. 

Such, as we conceive it, was the man of early Europe, in great measure acounterpart of the forest nomad of the tropics of Africa and the East, the monarch of the animal kingdom, but not the lord of the earth. He mayhave made some progress in the contest with inanimate nature. Vegetablefood in his new home was less abundant than in his old, and theinstigation to agricultural pursuits was stronger. And though Europe wasthickly wooded, it probably presented more open land than Africa. Boththe incitement to agriculture and the facilities for its exercise were, in all probability, greater than in Africa, and man may have begun tocultivate the earth here at an earlier date than in his native realm. Weare free at least to speculate that European man gained some slightknowledge of agriculture in the pre-glacial period, but this isdoubtful, and the relics of early man yield no evidence in its favor. Mentally it is questionable if he was advanced beyond the level of theleast developed negro tribes, and perhaps not beyond that of the forestpygmies. 

But at length the shadow of a mighty coming change began to fall uponthe fair face of Europe. Year by year the winters grew colder. The icesheet, which was in time to bury half of Europe under its chilly mantle, had begun its slow movement toward the south. It advanced very slowly. Centuries elapsed during its deliberate march. Had it moved withrapidity, few animals could have survived its effects. Some of themfound time for changes in structure to fit themselves to the newconditions. Others perished as the wintry chill increased. Constitutedfor tropical warmth, they were unable to endure severe cold. The apesand monkeys may have been among the early victims. To-day the apes ofGibraltar are the only ones existing in a wild state in Europe, and itis doubtful if they are of an original stock. There is good reason tobelieve that escape by migration southward was cut off by the sinking ofthe ancient land bridges, so that the animals north of the Mediterraneanhad no choice between adaptation and annihilation. 

Among the animals thus taken prisoner by the glacial chill was Europeanman. He could not escape, and was forced to remain, exposed to thealternatives of perishing from cold and hunger, or fitting himself toendure the new conditions which were coming upon his northern home, perhaps the most adverse to animal life that had ever been known. Manwas about to be subjected to an extraordinary strain, which he couldonly meet by an extraordinary adaptation. 

The changes by which he met these new conditions were in a very smalldegree physical; they were almost wholly mental. In all animals of thehigher orders, adaptive variations are apt to be in a measure of thischaracter, the body being relieved from the need of structural changethrough some new activity of the mind. In man this was undoubtedly thecase in great, probably in very great, measure. There may have been anincrease in size and strength, some variations in color, in thebreathing organs, in power of resistance of the cuticle to cold, etc. , but the principal physical change was in a growth of the brain andexpansion of the cranium, giving rise to a less bestial physiognomy andan advanced mental power. 

One physical change that would seem necessary to enable an animal toendure severe cold, the development of a thick protective covering offur or hair, did not take place in man. The change was more likely inthe other direction, since the hairy cover which is possessed by many ofthe forest folk has disappeared. This loss of hair by man has beenreferred by Darwin to sexual selection, that powerful influence towhich animals seem to owe so many physical structures of no apparentuse, and some of them seemingly disadvantageous. In the case of man inthe circumstances now under consideration, exposed without naturalcovering to the growing chill of the advancing ice sheet, the influenceof sexual selection would certainly have found a strong counteractingforce in natural selection, had not some other means of escaping theinfluence of the cold been found. 

As it was, the difficulty was undoubtedly overcame in great measure bythe adoption of artificial clothing. The mind came to the aid of thebody. The man who could chip a stone into the shape of an axe or spearhead, was sufficiently advanced mentally to conceive the idea ofcovering his body with leaves fastened together in some way, with othervegetable fabrics, or with the skins of slain animals. Protection fromthe cold was also sought in caverns and rock shelters, and for a verylong period man remained a cave-dweller. There is hardly a cavern inwestern Europe in which he has not left some trace of his residence. Where caves were not available, rude artificial shelters were probablybuilt. Even the orang builds a shelter of this kind, and we can readilyconceive of man at a very early period making himself a shelter ofleaves and boughs, from which, as the cold increased, he might easilyevolve a hut composed of a wooden framework covered with skins such ashe used for clothing. 

When and where the most important of discoveries, that of fire, wasmade, it is impossible to say. Fire arising from natural causes, such asconflagrations started by lightning, no doubt early taught man theadvantage of this agency as a protection from cold, but the artificialproduction of fire was a process too intricate to be arrived at byundeveloped man except as a result of accident. It has never beenachieved, as we have seen, by the Andaman Mincopies. The rudiments ofthe fire-making art were possessed by primitive man. In chipping flintsinto arrow or lance heads sparks must frequently have been struck fromthe hard stone, and at times these may have fallen upon and kindledinflammable material. The rubbing requisite in shaping and polishing warclubs may have yielded a heat occasionally causing fire. In boring theholes necessary to make the needles found among primitive implements, aprocess resembling that of the fire-drill must have been employed. Inshort, it is not difficult to conceive of more than one way in which thefire-making art could have been gained by accident, though it may havebeen late in coming, since some, perhaps all, of the arts described werenot attained until the Glacial Age. Once possessed, this important artwould scarcely have been suffered to disappear. With its aid man coulddefy the effects of the glacial chill, so far as its direct action uponhis body was concerned; and with it he also gained a new and efficientmeans of defence against carnivorous animals, which have ever sincefeared fire more than weapons. 

The discovery of methods of artificial fire-making was perhaps precededby a utilization of the flames caused by lightning and other naturalcauses, the fire being conveyed by torches from hearth to hearth andkept alive with sedulous care. Even after artificial methods offire-making were invented, our savage ancestors were exceedingly carefulto keep their fires alive, as the Mincopies are to-day, and this heedfulattention left its traces until very recent times. So important was theapparatus for kindling a flame deemed that in India the fire-twirl wasmade a god and became one of the chief deities of that polytheisticland. In many other places, especially in Persia, the element of flamewas raised to the dignity of a deity and worshipped among the highergods. Among the semi-civilized Americans the peril of the loss of firegave rise to a serious religious ceremony. At certain set intervals allthe fires within the limits of a tribe or nation were extinguished, anda period of gloom, despondency, and dread of the malignant powerssucceeded. Then the "new fire" was kindled on the temple altar, and theflame was conveyed by swift messengers from hearth to hearth throughoutthe land. This done, the period of gloom was followed by one of generaljoy and festivity. The malignant deities were banished; the gods oflight and warmth were dominant again; happiness and security hadreturned to man. 

The beginning of the use of clothing, of artificial shelter, and of fireformed one of the most vital periods in the history of human evolution. Coincident with them was the production of a much greater variety ofimplements than had been previously possessed, and many of these muchsuperior to the older and ruder forms. The struggle with the glacialcold had roused man's mind out of its old sluggishness, and brought itactively into operation in devising means of counteracting the perils ofhis situation and fitting him to the new conditions of existence. 

Among the important steps of progress was very likely a considerableadvance in the use of language, enabling the men of that period morereadily to consult with and advise one another, to give adequate warningof danger, to aid in the chase or in industrial pursuits, to educate theyoung and impart new ideas or teach new discoveries to the old. Themental powers of the best-trained individuals then as now served thewhole community, and nothing of value that was once gained was likely tobe lost. Discovery and invention at that early period probably went onwith interminable slowness as compared with the progress in later ages, yet even then new ideas, one by one, came into men's minds, and step bystep the methods of life were improved. 

One important effect of the glacial chill needs to be adverted to. Theseverity of the weather was not the only thing to be provided against. The discovery of fire and the invention of clothing and habitation werenot enough to insure man's preservation. For the severe cold must havegreatly changed the conditions of the food supply, and the man of theperiod found it a difficult matter to obtain the first necessaries oflife. The easy-going man of the earlier age, living amid an abundance offruits and vegetables and surrounded by numbers of game animals, ordwelling beside streams which were filled with easily taken fish, probably found the question of subsistence one of minor importance. Thecoming on of the Glacial Age made this question one of major importance. The supply of fruits and vegetable substances was greatly decreased bythe biting chill, and the number of food animals was correspondinglyreduced; while through much of the year the effects of frost drove thefish from the streams, and cut off effectually this source of food. Manwas brought into a situation in which only the most active exertion ofhis powers of thought could preserve him from annihilation. 

He now found the exercise of the art of hunting more difficult than everbefore, one that needed a new development of courage, cunning, alertness, and endurance, the scarcity of animals obliging him to makelong journeys and attack the strongest creatures. Whether or not hepossessed the poisoned arrow, which the Pygmies now find so effective, cannot be said, but in all probability he was forced to invent new andmore destructive weapons, a necessity that gave fresh exercise to hispowers of invention. So far as our actual knowledge goes, the art ofchipping stones into weapons and implements was not possessed beforethis period, and it may have been a result of the severe exigencies ofthe situation and the mental stimulation thence resulting. This art isnot possessed by any of the Pygmies, the nearest approach to it beingthe splitting of stone by fire and using the splinters as weapons. Verylikely preglacial man was similarly destitute of this art. 

Under the severe strain of the glacial conditions the weak and incapabledoubtless succumbed to the cold and deficiency of food; the strong andcapable survived, gained superior powers, devised new weapons andimplements, and became adapted to a new and decidedly adverse situation. From long depending, in considerable measure, on his physical powers, man came to trust more fully than before in his mental faculties, theresult being a much greater variation in the size and activity of hisbrain than in other portions of his physical structure. While it hadbecome more difficult to find and capture food animals, he was at thesame time in greater danger from carnivorous beasts, which were forcedby partial starvation to overcome their dread of man. He was thusobliged to become as alert and ready in defence as he was in attack, toassociate himself more fully with his fellows in his hunting excursionsand his other labors, and to adapt the forms and forces of nature stillmore to his needs, his career as a tool-making animal being greatlystimulated by the necessities of his situation. 

It is conceivable that the art of agriculture may have been one of theoutcomes of the situation in which man now found himself. The decreasein the food supply must have put all his powers of invention to thetest, and the probable diminution in number and productiveness of foodplants may have served as an instigation to the cultivation of usefulplants, and the preservation of their products, where possible, forwinter supply. It is not unlikely that in this way and under thisstimulation agriculture began, and that it made its way subsequentlyfrom this locality to more southern regions. In this, however, we cannotgo beyond conjecture. 

It seems useless to pursue this topic further, since the absence offacts forces us to confine ourselves largely to suggestions andprobabilities. We have arrived at two definite hypotheses: first, thatthe original stage of man's progress upward from the apes was completedwhen he gained dominion over the animal kingdom and attained thecondition of the forest pygmies; second, that an advanced stage wasreached when he achieved the conquest of nature, so far as overcomingthe exceedingly adverse conditions of the Glacial Age was concerned. Atthe close of this period of frigid cold man emerged as a higher beingthan the forest nomad or the agricultural people of the tropics, possessed of much superior arts and implements and with largely enhancedmental powers. The long and bitter struggle for existence through whichhe had passed had lifted him to a much higher level in the upwardprogress of life. 

He was a savage still, and at the close of the struggle he settled downinto a second stage of stagnation. The conflict was at an end, he wasthe victor in the fight, he could rest upon his laurels and take lifeeasy. In addition to his mechanical gains, man had advanced much insocial and political relations, and continued to advance until hisprimitive form of organization was perfected. At the end of it all wefind him existing under two conditions, depending upon differences inthe character of the country in which he lived. 

In the steppes and deserts of Asia and the deserts of Africa he was anomad herdsman, his life being spent in the care of his flocks andherds, his political organization the patriarchal, his possessions few, his needs small, his mind at rest, his progress largely at an end. Thushe still lives, and this organization and mode of life still persist, little affected by the long centuries that have passed and not greatlymodified by the many wars in which he has been engaged. Mentally, theman of the steppe and the desert is to-day little advanced beyond hispredecessors of thousands of years ago. 

In the more fertile regions of the earth man had become anagriculturist, each clan holding its section of the earth as commonproperty. A different though primitive form of political organizationarose here, that of the village community, in which there was nodistinction of rich and poor, all men were equal in rights andprivileges, all were content with their situation, and the mentalcondition was largely that of stagnation. This political condition wefind to have been widespread over the earth, alike in the eastern andwestern hemispheres, as the one into which all developing agriculturalcommunities emerged, and in which they persisted unchanged until forcedto adopt new relations through a new influence still to be described. Asthe patriarchal clan is persistent on the Asiatic steppes and deserts, so is the village community on the Russian plains and among the Aryansof Hindostan. It has been generally overcome in other localities, but itwas broadly extended until within comparatively recent times, and tracesof it may still be found in many parts of the earth. 

The political organization of these primitive communities of herders andfarmers was of the simplest. Over the herding clan a patriarchal chiefpresided, his authority based on his position as representative of theancestor of the community. The head man of the agricultural clan waselected by the free choice of his fellows, his equals in rank andstation. But the supposed most direct descendant from the clan ancestorwas apt to be chosen. In both cases the political organization was ofthe family type, being but an extension of family government, and thewidely prevailing system of ancestor worship had much to do with thereverence in which the chief was held and the authority which heexercised. 

The development of this phase of human progress did not stop here. Kingdoms and empires arose as direct resultants of this condition ofaffairs. In some localities, such as Egypt and Babylonia, the greatfertility of the soil in the time gave rise to a dense population, largely gathered in towns and villages, where industries other thanagriculture developed and closer social relations existed. The simpleorganization of the village or the clan was not sufficient for such apopulation, and a more intricate governmental system arose; but it seemsto have been simply an extension of the older system of chieftainship, based on the family or paternal relation, and on the growth of religiousinfluence and priestly control. It seems, in fact, to have been throughthe influence of religious ideas that men first rose to power and becamesupreme over their fellows. 

We have no concern here with the development of religious systems, other than to say that in the primitive agricultural community asuccession of ideas of man's relation to the unseen arose, yielding, inaddition to the widespread ancestor worship, a system of shamanism, orbelief in the presence and power of malignant spirits, and one offetichism, which developed into mythology, or worship of the greatpowers of nature. What we are concerned in is the fact that from thesereligious conceptions a priesthood everywhere arose, beginning in thesimple conjurer or the healer by spells and incantations, and developinginto a priestly establishment whose leading members had a vigorouscontrol over the people through their beliefs, fears, and superstitions. 

This priestly system was the basis of the first imperial organization. Kingly authority was not gained at first through power over men'sbodies, but through influence over their minds. There is much reason tobelieve that the chief of the clan or tribe, who led in its publicworship and was looked upon as the representative of its divineancestor, retained the influence thence arising as the tribe developedinto the nation, adding the power and position of the high priest tothat of the tribal chief. 

There is abundant evidence that in this simple and direct manner theimperial organization everywhere grew out of the primitive village andpatriarchal systems. In the early days of Egypt, before its era ofconquest began, the Pharaoh was the high priest of the nation, weak intemporal, strong in spiritual power; and the political organization ingeneral probably grew out of the sacerdotal establishment. Very likelythe Babylonian kingdom was organized in the same manner, though wars andchanges of dynasty have obscured its early state. In China the patriarchof a nomad horde became emperor of a nation retaining ancestor worshipas its chief religious system. He held, and still holds, the position offather of his people, the representative of the original ancestor, andhigh priest of the nation. 

In India the priestly establishment was differently organized. It was ademocracy instead of an aristocracy. There was no high priest to seizethe reins of government. As a result, no empire arose in India. A simpleoutgrowth of the tribal system developed, each tribe under its chief, while the priesthood as a whole remained the real rulers of the people. 

If we come to America, we discover a similar condition of affairs, thehead of the religious establishment becoming everywhere the head of thenation. This was the case in Mexico, where the Montezuma was highpriest, and derived his power largely from this position. It was thecase in Peru, where the Inca was the direct representative on earth ofthe solar deity. It was the case with the agricultural communities ofthe southern United States, whose Mico was at once high priest andautocrat. It was doubtless the case with the Mound Builders, of whomthese communities were probably the descendants. 

Such seems to have been the final outcome of the contest with nature, where permitted to develop in its natural and unobstructed way. A seriesof empires of a simple type of organization arose, their rulers unitingtemporal and spiritual power, and becoming autocrats in a double sense, supreme lords of body and soul. It was in its nature a persistent type. Once reached, it tended to continue indefinitely, stagnation followingthe era of growth. But war and invasion have broken it up everywhereexcept in China, a country largely defended by nature against invasionand inhabited by an innately peaceful people. As the forest Pygmy grouprepresents to-day the completion of the first stage of human evolution, so the patriarchal empire of China represents that of the second. Stagnation there long since succeeded development. For several thousandyears China has almost stood still. It comes down to us as thefossilized representative of an antique system, physically active butmentally inert, its organization rigidly fixed, and not to be disturbedunless the empire itself is rent to pieces. 

XI

WARFARE AND CIVILIZATION

Long before the second phase of the evolution of man had been completedthe third phase had begun, that of the conflict of man with man. Theanimal kingdom once subdued, and nature made man's friend and servant, the human race increased and multiplied until the borders of communitiesmet and hostile relations arose between them. A fight for place began, astruggle for dominion, a fierce and incessant contest for supremacy, andfor ages men locked arms in a terrible and merciless strife, in whichthe weak and incompetent steadily went to the wall, the strong, daring, and aggressive rose to power and control. 

It was the final act in the great drama of "natural selection, " whichhad been played upon the stage of the earth since the first appearanceof living forms; the last and most ruthless of them all, for theinstigating cause was no longer merely the pressure for a share of thefood supply, but to this was added the lust for power and place, thehunger for wealth and dominion, the insatiable appetite for autocraticcontrol. Millions upon millions of men were swept away by the sword, and by its attendant demons, famine and pestilence; and still thestronger and abler climbed to the top, the weaker and inferiorsuccumbed; and the intellectual evolution of man went on with enhancedrapidity as the harvest of the sword was gathered in, and the mercilessreapers of men swept in successive columns over the earth, each a stagehigher in mental ability than the preceding. 

This phase of human evolution is that of the era of human history. Before its advent man had no history. It would be as useful to attemptto give the history of the gorilla as of man in the early stages of hisprogress. History is the record of individuality, and in primitive timesequality and communism prevailed, and the individual had not yetseparated himself from the mass. Man had settled into the dull inertnessof a stagnant pool, and the fierce winds of war were needed to break uphis mental slothfulness and stir thought into healthful activity. Theremust be leaders before there can be history; the annals of mankind beginin hero worship; the relations of superior and inferior need to beestablished; and individual action and supremacy are the foundationsupon which all history is built. Only by stirring up the deep pool ofhuman life into seething turmoil and unrest could the tendency tostagnation be overcome, the best and most aspiring rising to the top, the dull and heavy sinking to the bottom, and the element of thoughtpermeating the whole with its vitalizing spirit. 

When this phase of evolution is reached, we cease for the first time todeal with species and genera in the mass and begin to deal withindividuals, who now emerge from the general group and stand above andapart like great signal posts on the highway of progress. These heroesare not alone those of the sword. They are the leaders in art, inliterature, in science, in thought, in every domain; the men who stand, above, supreme and shining, and toward whose elevation the whole massbelow surges slowly but strenuously upward. The third phase of humanevolution, therefore, is that of the emergence of the individual as theleader, lawgiver, teacher of mankind, each leader forming a goal for theemulation of all below. And this condition is the legitimate outcome ofwar, which, terrible as it always has been, was the only agency thatcould rapidly break up the stagnancy of early communism and send manupward in a swirl toward the heights of civilization. 

To give the history of this phase of evolution would be to give thehistory of mankind, and would be aside from the purpose of this work. All that need be attempted, in support of our argument, is to presentsome general deductions from human history, indicating the leadingfeatures of the service man has received from war. 

Conflict between man and man was at first vague and inconsequential. Itwas only after settled and organized communities, based originally onthe family relation, and held together by the possession of property incommon, had been formed, that war became more effective in its results. The chief of these results, in the early days, were two: the breaking upof the old equality of power and possession, and the development oflarger and more powerful communities. The head man of the villagecommunity, or the herding clan, possessed some delegated authority butno political supremacy over his fellows. Equality existed alike intheory and in fact. Battle between neighboring clans was the first steptoward breaking this up. The conquered clan became subordinated to thevictorious one, and the chief of the victors, as the representative ofhis clan, exercised an authority over the subject community which he didnot possess at home. The degree of subordination differed from the mildform of tribute-paying to that of personal slavery. But in either casewe see the old condition of equality vanishing, and that of classdistinctions and the relation of superior and inferior arising, whilethe power of the chief advances from a delegated authority to anestablished supremacy. 

The second outcome of this early phase of war was an increase in thesize of political groups. The conquered were forced to aid theconquerors in war as in peace; clans combined to resist aggression;minor communities grew into organized tribes; tribes developed intonations as a result of warlike operations. This growth in politicalorganization was a necessary and inevitable result of continued warfare. The aggressors gathered all the strength possible. The assailed peoplesdid the same. Temporary alliances grew into permanent ones. Largerarmies were formed, larger communities were organized, nationaldevelopment advanced at a rate tenfold, probably a hundredfold, morerapidly than it would have done had peaceful conditions persisted. 

Side by side with tribal and national consolidation went on the growthin leadership. The head man became a war chief, the war chief a king. Success made him a hero to his people. He grew to be the lord ofconquered tribes; into his hands fell the bulk of the spoils; therelation of equality of possessions vanished as the plunder taken by thearmy was distributed unequally among the victors. Below the principalleader came his ablest followers, each claiming and receiving aproportionate share in the new division of power and wealth. In short, when the era of war had become fully inaugurated, the old social andpolitical relations of mankind were broken up with great rapidity;equality of power was replaced by inequality, which steadily grew moreand more declared; equality of wealth in like manner vanished; in alldirections the individual emerged from the mass, class distinctionsbecame intricate, and the relations of rich and poor, of king, noble, citizen, and slave, completely replaced the old communal organization ofmankind. 

War was the great agent in this evolution. It might have emerged slowlyin peace; it came with almost startling rapidity in war, and reached adegree of power on the one hand and subordination on the other thatcould scarcely ever have appeared had conditions of peace prevailed. With this growth of great nations came a rapid development in politicalscience, in legal institutions, in social relations. An enormous advancewas made, in a limited period, in the civilization of mankind; as aresult, not of the devastation and slaughter of war, but of itsinfluence upon human organization. 

It was the principle of reward for ability to which the leaders of menowed their supremacy. When nations were organized this same principletook another and very useful form. The distribution of wealth had becomestrikingly unequal. There were endless grades of distinction between thesupremely wealthy and the absolutely poor. The wealthy were ready tolavish their money in return for articles of pleasure and luxury. Thepoor, in their thirst for a share of wealth, were strongly stimulated toinventive activity in producing new and desirable wares. Inequalitybecame the mainspring of business activity; thought and inventiveingenuity were strongly exercised; a rapid progress went on in theproduction of new devices, new methods, and new articles of necessityand luxury; manufacture flourished, commerce increased, civilizationappeared, the whole as a legitimate outcome of the conditions broughtabout by war. 

This phase of human evolution, as may be seen, was radically differentfrom that already considered, arising from the development of sacerdotalinfluence and priestly power. They worked together, no doubt. Theestablishment of the great primitive empires, as a peaceful process, wasgreatly complicated by war, which tended steadily to increase thetemporal power of the ruler and enable him in time to control by thesword alone. But it is interesting to find that long after the oldsystem was practically overthrown its shadow still lay upon the nations. The powerful war monarchs of Assyria led their armies to conquest in thename of the national deity, whose vicegerents they claimed to be. Theautocratic emperors of Rome went so far as to claim in some cases to begods themselves. Even in modern Russia some of this dignity pertains tothe emperor, as the supreme head of the national church. Old ideas areproverbially hard to kill. 

But the mission of the priesthood by no means stopped here. The priestsrose to influence as the teachers as well as the leaders of the people. The members of this class, set aside from manual occupations, anddevoted to thought upon the relations of man to the divine, played animportant part in the development of the human mind. As a result oftheir speculative activity of thought the old religious systems sankinto the background; the simple worship of primitive times wasovershadowed by intricate mythological systems, splendid in worship andcreed; cosmogonies and philosophies were devised; and human thought, once fairly set loose in this field, went on with great energy andimaginative fervor. 

Literature arose as a result of this activity of thought. It took atfirst the form of hymns, speculative essays, magical formulas, dogmas, ordinances of worship, etc. By degrees it grew more secular in form, until in the end secular literature arose. This was greatly stimulatedby the conditions of inequality arising from war. In the same manner asthe reward for merit in invention stimulated men to activity in themechanical arts, so the hope of reward for literary production stirredup men to the composing of poems, histories, and other works of thought. In both directions, physical and mental, men were stimulated to the mostactive exertions by the conditions of inequality in wealth and power, and the consequent desire to obtain a share of the money lavished by therich and the authority similarly lavished by the powerful. 

The broad general view here taken must suffice for our consideration ofthis phase of human evolution. It brings the story of the development ofman closely up to the present stage of political and socialorganizations and relations. It may be said, in conclusion of thissection of our work, that the powerful agency of war, so active andimportant in the past, has in great part lost its utility in thepresent, and bids fair to be brought to an end before the world is mucholder. It is no longer needed, nearly or quite all that it is capable ofdoing for mankind being accomplished, while the equally powerfulagencies of commerce, travel, leagues of nations, and other conditionsof modern origin have taken its place. 

War, while yielding many useful results, has given rise to others whoseutility is questionable, and whose ill-effects it will take much timeand effort to set aside. The inequality of power to which war gave risecontinues in many parts of the world, and the inequality of wealth showssigns of increase instead of diminution. Once useful, they havedeveloped to an injurious extent. The result is a state of unrest, discontent, and more or less active opposition, which constitutes acondition of permanent conflict, a deep dissatisfaction with existinginstitutions abnormal to a justly organized society. War has become ingreat measure useless; but the scaffolding from which it built up theedifice of civilization remains, and stands as a tottering ruinthreatening to engulf mankind in its fall. 

Ever since the triumph of autocracy in the Roman empire, the masses ofmankind have steadily protested against an inequality that is alien tothe natural rights of man. For century after century the struggleagainst undue exercise of power has gone on, and the hereditary lords ofmankind have lost, stage by stage, their usurped power, until in themodern republic they have been replaced by the servants and chosenagents of the people. But the autocracy of wealth still holds its own, and is growing more and more formidable, and against this the wave ofopposition is now rising. Everywhere man is earnestly and sternlydemanding an equitable distribution of the productions of nature andart. What the outcome of this demand will be it is impossible to say. Itmust inevitably lead to some readjustment of the wealth of mankind; butonly the slow process of social evolution can decide what this shall be. 

We have endeavored in this brief treatise to trace the development ofman from his primeval state as a tree-dwelling animal in the depths ofthe tropic woods, through the phases of his later condition as an erectsurface dweller, his conflict with and dominion over the animal kingdom, his subsequent contest with the adverse powers of nature, and his finalwarfare with his fellows and emergence into civilization. Each of thesecontests has left its results; the first in the forest nomads of theeastern tropics, the second in the patriarchal herding tribes of thesteppes and deserts, the village communities of Russia and the paternalempire of China, the third in the enlightened nations of Europe andAmerica. 

For how long a period this mighty drama of evolution has continued it isimpossible to say. Its first phase must have been of interminableslowness; its second, while more rapid, still very deliberate; its thirdof much greater rapidity, yet extending over several thousands of years. Millions of years have probably passed away since it began, yet theperiod involved is none too long for the magnitude of the results, whosegreatness can be seen if we contrast man's mental development with thatof the lower animals during this period. Physically, the development ofman has been inconsiderable--much less apparently than that of manyother animals. Mentally, it has been enormous. The whole of nature'sinfluences, in new and often adverse situations, have been brought tobear upon man's mind, and as the result we have civilized man ascontrasted with the anthropoid ape. And the end is not yet. The era ofwar in man's development is near its close, and a new era of peace, under conditions of advanced mental and physical activity, seems aboutto begin. Its outcome no man can predict, but it may far surpass inbeneficial results all that has gone before, and carry man upward to anextraordinarily elevated mental plane. 

XII

THE EVOLUTION OF MORALITY

The evolution of man from his animal ancestry has been a compositephenomenon, one by no means confined to the physical and intellectualconditions which we have so far considered, but embracing also featuresof moral and spiritual progress. The origin and growth of these needalso to be reviewed, if we would present a fully rounded sketch of humanevolution. So far as his physical form is concerned, man becamepractically completed ages ago, as the supreme effort of nature in themoulding and vitalizing of matter. When the arena of the struggle forexistence became transferred from the body to the mind, variation in thebody, once so active, rapidly declined; and with the full employment ofthe intellect in the conflict with nature, physical evolution ceased, except in minor particulars, and the organic structure of man becamepractically fixed. The human animal, therefore, as a physical species, has reached a stage of permanence. And this may be regarded as thesupreme result of material evolution in animals; or at least it may beaffirmed that, while man continues to exist, no member of the loweranimal tribes can possibly develop to become his rival. 

But though man is not markedly distinct as a physical species from hisanthropoid ancestor, the process of evolution has not ceased, but hasgone on in him rapidly and immensely. The strain has simply beentransferred from the body to the mind, and to the extent that the mentalcharacteristics are more flexible and yield more readily to formativeinfluences, the mind has surpassed the body in rapidity of evolutionaryvariation. Within a period during which the lower animals have remainedalmost unchanged, man has varied enormously in mental conditions, andto-day may be looked upon, not merely as a distinct species, butpractically as a new order, or class, of animals, as far removedintellectually from the mammals below him as they are from the insectsor mollusks. 

If now we turn from the physical and intellectual to the ethical stageof development, it will be to perceive as marked and decided a processof evolution. The change has, perhaps, been even greater, since in thelower animals the moral faculties are more rudimentary than theintellectual. But, on the other hand, the moral development in man hasbeen much inferior to the intellectual. Therefore, though the foundationwas lower, the edifice has not reached nearly so great a height, and manto-day stands in moral elevation considerably below his intellectuallevel. 

It was formerly the custom to look upon man as the only intellectual andmoral animal, the forms below him being credited solely with hereditaryinstincts. This belief is no longer entertained by those familiar withthe results of modern research. Evidences of unquestionable powers ofthought have been traced in the lower animals, imagination and reasonbeing alike indicated. The elephant, for instance, is evidently athinking animal, and is capable of overcoming difficulties and adaptingitself to new situations, using methods not unlike those which manhimself might display under similar circumstances. Its gratitude forfavors and remembrance of and revenge for injuries are evidences of itspossession of the moral attributes. The recorded instances of displaysof reason in the dog, man's constant companion, are innumerable. Intellectual attributes are still more pronounced in the ape tribe, asindicated in a preceding chapter, where it was argued that man began hisdevelopment in intellect at a somewhat advanced stage. 

The same cannot be said in regard to his moral evolution. In thisrespect the level from which man emerged was a much lower one. If hismoral growth may be symbolized as a great tree, it is one not verydeeply rooted in the world below him. Yet it doubtless has grown out ofthe soil of animal life, and its finer tendrils and fibres may be tracedto a considerable depth in this fertile soil. 

Before proceeding with this subject, it is important to devote someattention to the characteristics of the moral attributes, concerningwhich there is much diversity of opinion. There has been abundance oftheorizing upon the principles of ethics, thinkers dividing themselvesinto two widely separated groups. In the one school, the intuitive, theprinciples of morality are looked upon as inherent in the soul of man, unfolding as the plant unfolds from its seed. In the other school, theinductive, morality is claimed to be founded upon selfishness, themoving principle of human actions being the desire to avoid pain andattain pleasure. Each school makes a strong argument, which goes far toindicate that each is based upon a truth, and therefore that neither hasthe whole truth. 

The fault would appear to lie in the attempt to make morality a unit. Inour view this unity does not exist. While both schools may be partlyright, neither would seem to be wholly right, and they appear to bepulling at the two ends of a single chain. Ethics, in short, may beregarded as composed of unlike halves, which unite centrally to form awhole. It may aid to reconcile the conflicting systems of theorists ifit be held that the inductive half of ethics is the product of thereasoning powers and outer experience, the intuitive half the product offeeling and inner development; while both meet and harmonize in life asreason and feeling harmonize in the mind. 

It is interesting to find that it is the intuitive, not the inductive, element of the moral attributes that we find principally developed inthe lower animals. This is the outgrowth of instinct, not of thought;the development of that principle of attraction which manifests itselfin all nature, and which, when associated with consciousness, becomeswhat we know as love, affection, or sympathy. It is a powerful andpervading force in all matter, intelligent and unintelligent, and inconscious beings falls naturally among the emotions. Like all thepassions, it is instinctive in origin, though it may come under thecontrol of the intellect as the mind develops. In the lower animal worldit is manifested as a vigorous attraction, the sexual. In the higheranimals this attraction expands and grows complex. The attractionbetween the sexes becomes love, and in its full unfoldment may join twoindividuals together for life and influence most of their actions. Tothe attraction between the sexes should be added that between parentsand children, the parental and filial, and that between associates, thetribal or social, the latter, though weaker, of the same character. 

With these bonds reason has nothing to do. It does not form them andwould seek in vain to sever them. They belong to a part of the mentalconstitution which lies outside the kingdom of thought, and they, therefore, often act counter to the selfish consideration of personalsafety. The love bond, indeed, in its full strength, seems toconstitute a partial loss of individuality. Mates will suffer pain andendure physical injury for each other or for their offspring to as greatan extent as if these constituted a part of themselves, and as if theiractions were performed in self-defence. 

With this brief review of the philosophy of the ethical sentiments, wemay proceed to a consideration of the facts. While the rudimentary formof the sentiment in question is manifest far down in the descendinggrades of animal life, it expands into what we may fairly term love oraffection only in the higher forms. Romanes, in his "AnimalIntelligence, " remarks: "As regards emotions, it is among birds that wefirst meet with a conspicuous advance in the tenderer feelings ofaffection and sympathy. Those relating to the sexes and the care ofprogeny are in this class proverbial for their intensity, offering, infact, a favorite type for the poet and moralist. The pining of the'love-bird' for its absent mate, and the keen distress of a hen onlosing her chickens, furnish abundant evidence of vivid feelings of thekind in question. Even the stupid-looking ostrich has heart enough todie for love, as was the case with a male in the Rotund of the Jardindes Plantes, who, having lost his mate, pined rapidly away. "

Among social and communal animals the sentiment of sympathy widens toembrace all the members of the tribe, a characteristic which is verystrongly manifested in so low an organism as the ant. As an example ofthis feeling among birds, Romanes quotes an interesting illustrationfrom Edward, the naturalist. The latter had shot and wounded a tern, butbefore he could reach it, the helpless bird was carried off by itscompanions. Two of these took hold of it by the wings and flew with itseveral yards over the water. They then relinquished their burden to twoothers, and the process continued in this way until they at lengthreached a rock at some distance. When the hunter, eager for his prize, pursued them, the sympathetic birds again took up their woundedcompanion and flew off with it again over the water. 

Abundant instances of this sentiment of social affection could be quotedfrom the mammalia. It is by no means confined to members of a species, but may extend to very unlike species. No one needs to be told of thewarm affection so often shown by the dog for its master, a love whichwill lead it to dare wounds or death in his service, or in theprotection of his property. This altruistic sentiment strongly exists inthe monkeys. Examples of the ardent feeling of these animals for theirfellows have been given in a preceding chapter, and many more might bequoted, if necessary. It must suffice here to quote a single furtherinstance cited by Romanes, and relating to a small monkey which wastaken ill on shipboard, where there were several others of differentspecies. 

"It had always been a favorite with the other monkeys, who seemed toregard it as the last born and the pet of the family; and they grantedit many indulgences which they seldom conceded to one another. It wasvery tractable and gentle in its temper, and never took advantage of thepartiality shown to it. From the moment it was taken ill, theirattention and care of it redoubled; and it was truly affecting andinteresting to see with what anxiety and tenderness they tended andnursed the little creature. A struggle often ensued between them forpriority in these offices of affection; and some would steal one thingand some another, which they would carry to it untasted, howevertempting it might be to their own palates. They would take it up gentlyin their forepaws, hug it to their breasts, and cry over it as a fondmother would over her suffering child. "

With the human race the love sentiment does not usually display thesingleness of energy shown among the lower animals. It is affected andoften checked in its development by an intricate series of influences, which act on savage and civilized man alike. The family formed theprimitive human group, its linking elements being the sexual attractionbetween man and woman and the fervent affection between parents andchildren. These feelings, while strong in certain directions, were crudeand uneven. In savage tribes to-day the wife is an ill-treated drudge. Yet the husband will protect his wife and children from danger at riskof his life. The maternal instinct seems still stronger. The motheroften acts as if the child were an actual part of herself. Danger orinjury to it produces in her a mental agony, the close equivalent of itsfear or pain, and she will endure suffering and peril in its protectionwith an impulse beyond the control of reason. 

This sentiment, in a weakened form, extended from the family to thegroup; and the success of man in gaining the mastery over the otheranimals was doubtless greatly aided by the strong bond of socialaffinity existing between the members of a group. They worked togetherin a fuller sense than any other animals except the ants and bees. 

From the original social group another and closer community seemsgradually to have developed, the group of kindred. This was a naturaloutgrowth from the family, whose bond of affection was extended toinclude more distant relatives, until there emerged the organized groupof kindred known as the "Village Community, " which seems everywhere tohave preceded civilization. This bond of kindred gradually extended, combining men into larger and larger groups, until the clan, the horde, and the tribe emerged, their members all linked together by the realityor the fiction of common descent. Such was the form of organization thatexisted in Greece and Rome in their early days, and made its influencefelt far down into their later history. It existed indeed, at someperiod, over almost all the earth. 

As the group widened, the bond of sympathy weakened. Love in the familyfound its counterpart in fellow-feeling in the tribe, in patriotism inthe nation. It is undoubtedly true that desire for personal protectionis one of the strong influences which bind men into societies. The hopeof advantage in other directions and the pleasure of social intercourseare other combining forces. Yet below these rational elements has alwaysabided the emotional element, the sympathetic attraction which bindskindred closely together, and which exerts some degree of influence onall members of the same group or nation. 

The development of the ethical principle in mankind is largely due tothe extension of the sentiment of social sympathy. For ages it wasconfined to the immediate group. Such was the case even in civilizedGreece, intellectually one of the most advanced of peoples, but morallyvery contracted. The Greeks were long divided into minor groups, withthe warmest sentiment of patriotism uniting the members of eachcommunity, while their common origin bound all the Hellenes together. But this feeling failed to cross the borders of the narrow peninsula ofGreece, all peoples beyond these borders being viewed as barbarians, inwhose pleasures and pains no interest was felt, and whose misfortunesproduced no stir of sympathy in the Grecian heart. Even Aristotle taughtthat Greeks owed no more duties to barbarians than to wild beasts, and aphilosopher who declared that his affection extended to the whole peopleof Greece was thought to be remarkably sympathetic. 

The Romans were equally narrow in their early days, and not until theempire extended to the outer borders of the civilized world did thisnarrowness give way to a more expanded sympathy. The brotherhood ofmankind, indeed, was taught by Socrates, Cicero, and others of theancient moral philosophers, yet these seeds of philosophy fell in verysterile soil and took root with discouraging slowness. Philosopherselsewhere taught the dogma of universal love, --Confucius among theChinese, Gautama among the Hindoos, --but their teachings have bornelittle fruit in the great, stagnant peoples of Asia, in whom thenarrowness of semicivilization prevails. 

The teachings of Christ, whose code of morality was the intuitive one, "Love one another, " have been far more effective. Christianity becamethe religion of Europe, since then the most progressive part of theworld, and with every step of progress in civilization the Christdoctrine of charity and sympathy reached a higher and broader stage. To-day it has attained, in Europe and America, a wide degree ofdevelopment, and the vast extension of human intercourse through themediums of travel, commerce, and telegraphic communication is, for thefirst time in human history, beginning to lift the doctrine of theuniversal brotherhood of man from the plane of a philosophic dogmatoward that of an established fact. The range of sympathy is narrow yet, selfishness predominates, the truly altruistic are the few, the feeblysympathetic and coldly selfish are the many; yet it must be admittedthat there has been a great development of altruism during thenineteenth century, and the promise of the coming of Christ's kingdom onthe earth is greater to-day than at any former period in the history ofmankind. 

The love principle is the innate moral element of the universe. Itsrudimentary form is the attraction between atoms, which expands into theattraction between spheres. We see a development of it in the magneticand electric attractions, and a higher one in the sexual attraction thatexists in the lowest organisms. Its expansion continues until it reachesthe high level of human love and social sympathy. But throughout itswhole development consciousness takes no part in its origin. Whileconscious of its existence, we do not consciously call it intoexistence. Men and women "fall in love"; they do not reason themselvesinto affection. Those we love become in a measure a part of ourselves, we feel their sufferings and endure their afflictions, not through thenerves of the body, but through the finer ones of the mind, --a plexusof spiritual nerves which stretch unseen from soul to soul. So strong isthis sympathetic affinity that Comte was induced to look upon mankind asan organism, and it gave rise in the mind of Leslie Stephens to theconception of a common "social tissue. "

Love and law rule the universe. It is this second moral element, that oflaw, which we have next to consider. Inductive morality had its originin experience; it assumed the form of social restriction, then of fixedlaw and precept, and culminated in the sense of duty--a conscientiousavoidance of that which was thought to be wrong, and an earnest desireto do what was looked upon as right. 

The history of this phase of morality differs essentially from that ofthe phase we have just considered. The sense of duty, the conscientioussentiment, so highly developed in man, seems largely non-existent in thelower animals, so far as observation has taught us. Yet it is not quitewanting, its rudiment is there, and this rudiment is capable ofdevelopment. It may be, indeed, that a highly developed sense of dutyexists in the ants and bees, to judge from their diligent labors for thebenefit of the community. But the clearest examples of conscientiousperformance of duty are those seen in the case of the dog, in whichanimal intimate association with man has developed something stronglyapproaching a conscience. A dog needs only to be well treated todisplay a sense of dignity and a self-respect analogous to thesefeelings in man. A sensitive resentment against injustice in high-casteand carefully nurtured dogs has often been observed; while shame for anact which the animal knows to be forbidden has been seen in a hundredinstances. The sense of duty is occasionally very strongly developed. Many striking examples of this are on record. A dog will often defendhis master's property with the greatest devotion, letting no temptationdraw him away from the path of duty. 

An instance has been related to the writer in which an extraordinarydisplay of this feeling was made. A gentleman, on coming home at night, found he had forgotten his key, and attempted to enter the house by thewindow of a room in which his dog was on duty as a night-watch. To hissurprise and annoyance the animal would not permit him to enter, andattacked him every time he tried to climb in. The animal knew him well, responded to his attempts to fondle it, but the moment he made anattempt to enter the window it became hostile and seemed ready to springupon him. In its small brain was the feeling that no one, master orstranger, had the right to enter that house at night by the window, andit was there to perform its duty without regard to persons. In the end, the gentleman was obliged to leave and seek shelter elsewhere. 

The development of the sense of duty and the growth of moralrestriction in primitive man were probably very slow, much more so thanthe evolution of intelligence. The social habit of man doubtlessrendered necessary, at an early period, some restraints on the actionsof individuals, and these in time gained the strength of unwritten law;but many of them were scarcely what we should call moral obligations. Many such restrictions exist among savage tribes to-day, and to these wemust turn for examples of their character. We, for instance, look upontheft and lying as immoral practices, but such is not the case withsavages generally, most of whom will steal if the opportunity offers, while they will lie in so transparent and useless a manner as toindicate that they see nothing wrong in this practice. And yet theaborigines of India, many of whom are very immoral according to ourstandard, are often strongly averse to untruthfulness. "A true Gond, "says Mr. Grant, "will commit a murder, but he will not tell a lie. " Itis well known that truthfulness was one of the chief virtues of theancient Persians, a virtue that was accompanied by much which we wouldcall immoral. The Hindoo devotee is exceedingly tender of the lives ofanimals, while he is often callous to human suffering. Disregard ofhuman suffering, indeed, showed itself strongly through all the pastages, men being slaughtered with as little compunction as if they wereso many wild beasts, while frightful tortures were inflicted with anextraordinary absence of humane feeling. And these excesses werecommitted by persons who in the ordinary affairs of life were frequentlytender in feeling and conscientious in action. 

In truth, moral development from this point of view has always shown aone-sidedness that goes far to discredit the doctrine of intuitiveconceptions of right and wrong. The indications are strong that rules ofconduct are not inherent in the human mind, that men become moral to theextent that they are taught the principles of justice, and growone-sided in their ideas of virtue through incompleteness in their moraleducation. What we call sinfulness is largely a matter of custom andconvention. Men cannot properly be said to sin when their actions arechecked by no conscientious scruples, and what one people would consideratrocious instances of wrong-doing, might be looked upon as innocent andeven estimable by a people with a different moral standard. Religion hasmuch to do with this. The human sacrifices and cannibal feasts of theAztec Indians, for instance, were regarded by them as good deeds, obligations which they owed to their gods. Yet this people had attainedto some of the refined practices and moral ideas of civilization. 

The leading principles of correct human conduct are few and simple. Theywere arrived at early in the history of human thought, and little hassince been added to them. They arose as results of human experience, asnecessary principles of restraint in developing communities, and werenearly all extant in prehistoric times as the unwritten laws of socialorganization. What creed-makers did was to put these ancient axioms ofmorality on record, and offer them to the world as codes of religiousobservance. They could not have been of primitive origin, since the mostof them do not exist among the savage tribes still with us. There isnothing, indeed, to show that any idea of sinfulness exists in the mindsof the lowest savages, the rules of conduct which they possess beingsuch regulations as are necessary to the existence of the mostundeveloped community. 

Of the various codes of morals, much the best known to us is that givento the Israelites by Moses, the famous "Ten Commandments. " The most ofthese--as of all such codes--were evidently legal in origin, rulesnecessary for the existence of a civilized society, restrictionscontrolling the conduct of men toward one another. It was thecreed-makers who first gave such legal restrictions the strength ofmoral obligations, and announced that their infraction would be punishedby divine agencies, even if they should escape human retribution. 

Many hurtful acts, indeed, came to be viewed as crimes alike against Godand man, and punishable in the interests of both. Political and moralobligations thus shaded together; some of the evils of the world beingpunished by human agencies alone, some by divine, some by both. It mustbe said, however, that throughout the whole progress of humancivilization the influence of moral obligations has been rising, whilethe necessity for political laws has declined in like proportion. Inancient times the penalties for crimes against the community wereterribly severe, while religion threatened those who offended the divinepowers with frightful future punishments. The necessity for such severerestrictions has long been decreasing, and the more vividly it is feltthat immoral deeds or debased thoughts and purposes will be visited by aspiritual retribution, the less necessity is there for laws andpenalties. Thus the limitation of human actions by government is growingless necessary than of old, in conformity with the growing sense ofspiritual degradation in evil and of spiritual elevation in good deeds. Mild laws have succeeded the severe edicts of the past, and with aconsiderable section of the community restrictive laws have becomeuseless, conscience taking the place of law. In such men the impulse toevil deeds dies unfulfilled, and the penalty for wrong-doing withinthemselves may be more severe than that which the community wouldinflict. In the souls of such men sits a spiritual tribunal by whichevil thoughts are tried and punished before they can develop into evilacts. 

This consideration of the development of the moral principles and dogmashas been necessarily brief. In what direction it is leading must beevident to all, and we can with assurance look forward to a condition ofhuman society in which conscience will have become a stronger element ofthe intellect than now, the sense of moral obligation a more prevailingsentiment, and legal restriction a less necessary governmentalrequirement. 

Of all the isms of the day altruism is far the noblest and mostpromising. In this opponent of selfism, this regard for the rights andhappiness of others equally with our own, we find the link which bindstogether the two halves of the moral principle. The love sentiment onthe one hand, the sense of duty on the other, meet and combine in thezeal of altruism, for which a truly developed conscience is merelyanother term. Those who have the good of others strongly at heart, whoare truly Christian in a practical realization of the brotherhood ofmankind, can safely be set free from all the reins of law, and trustedto do the right thing from innate feeling instead of outside compulsion. And, trusting in the future full development of the altruisticsentiment, we can hopefully look forward to a time in which the morallaw will exist alone, conscience become the controlling force in humanactions, and government let fall the whip which it has so long held inthreat over the shrinking back of man. 

XIII

MAN'S RELATION TO THE SPIRITUAL

The purpose of this work has been to trace the evolutionary origin ofman, in his ascent from the lower animal world to his full stature asthe physical and intellectual monarch of the kingdom of life. But toround up the story of human evolution it seemed necessary to considerman from the moral standpoint, and it now appears equally desirable toreview his relations to the spiritual element of the universe. Havingdealt with the development of man as a mortal being, we have now toregard him as a possibly immortal being. 

This outlook into the supreme domain of nature lifts us, for the firsttime in our work, definitely above the lower world of life. There isnothing to show that the animals below man have any conception of thespiritual. It is true that there are various statements on record whichseem to indicate in some animals, the horse and the dog, for instance, adread of unseen powers, a recognition of some element in nature which isinvisible to the eyes of man. But what these facts indicate, whatinfluences affect the rudimentary intellect of these animals in suchinstances, no one is able to say. Though some vague recognition ofpowers or existences beyond the visible may arise in their narrow minds, it does not probably pass beyond the level of instinct, and doubtlesslies almost infinitely below man's conception of the spiritual. In thisstage of intellectual development, then, we have to do with a conditionwhich seems to belong solely to man, or has but a germinal existence inthe lower organic kingdom. 

In fact, primitive man may well have been as devoid of the conception ofa realm of spirit as was his anthropoid ancestor. The lowest savages ofto-day are almost, if not quite, lacking in such a conception, and aredestitute of anything that can fairly be called religion. Where apparentreligious ideas exist among them we cannot be sure to what extent theyhave been infused by civilized visitors, or how far ardent missionaries, in their anxiety to discover some trace of religion in savages, havethemselves inadvertently suggested the beliefs which they triumphantlyrecord. The Pygmies of Africa, the Negritos of Oceanica, and variousdebased tribes elsewhere, may possibly be quite destitute of nativereligious conceptions, at least of a higher grade than those which movethe horse and dog to a dread of the unseen. It should be borne in mindthat these tribes have for thousands of years been in some degree ofcontact with more developed races and subject to educative influences, and the crude religious conceptions which some travellers attribute tothem may well have been derived, not original. 

Investigation in this field certainly gives us abundant warrant tobelieve that primitive man, on whose mind no influences of educationcould act, was destitute of religion, and that man's conception of theunseen arose gradually, as one important phase of the development of hisintellect. Any attempt to trace the stages of this religious developmentis far beyond our purpose, even if we were capable of doing it. It mustsuffice to say that man everywhere, when he emerges into history as asemicivilized being, is abundantly supplied with mythological and otherreligious conceptions which indicate a long preceding evolution in thisfield of thought. 

For extended ages the realm of the unseen has been acting upon the mindof man; filling him with dread of malevolent and reverence forbeneficent powers, inspiring him to acts of worship, peopling hisimagined heavens with imagined deities, and giving rise to anextraordinary variety of deific tales and mythological ideas. Theliterature of this subject would fill a library in itself, and is almostabundant enough to supply one with reading for a lifetime. Yet it islargely, if not wholly, ideal; it is in great part based on falseconceptions and misdirected imaginings; it rarely adduces evidence, andsuch evidence as is offered is always questionable; in short, scientificinvestigation and the critical pursuit of facts have taken no part inthe development of religious systems, and a deep cloud of doubt envelopsthem all. 

It is by no means our purpose to seek to throw discredit on any of thegreat religions of the world. To say that they have been products ofevolution is not to invalidate them. Much that is true and solid hasarisen through evolution. To say that they lack scientific evidence isnot to question their validity. Many of the subjects with which theydeal lie beyond the reach of scientific evidence. Science has hithertodealt strictly with the physical; it has made almost no effort to testthe claims of the spiritual. In fact, the highest of these claims, thatof the existence of a deity, must lie forever beyond its reach. God mayexist, and science grope for Him through eternity in vain. Finite factscan never gauge the infinite. Proofs and disproofs alike have beenoffered of the existence of an infinite deity, but the problem remainsunsolved. None of these proofs or disproofs are positive; they alldepend on ideal conceptions, and ideas are always open to question;positive facts on either side of the argument are, and are always likelyto be, wanting, and the belief in God must be based on other thanscientific grounds. 

But when we come down to the lower levels of the domain of the spiritualwe find ourselves on firmer ground. Here we are dealing with the finite, not with the infinite, and nothing that is finite can lie beyond theboundaries of investigation, however long it may take to reach it. Thequestion of the existence of spirits, for instance, --that much mootedproblem of the immortality, or at least of the future existence, of man, which forms so prominent an element in modern religion, --dwells withinthe possible reach of science, and the attempt to deal with it byscientific evidence may reasonably be made. When we pass beyond therealm of the senses we find ourselves in a kingdom peopled by stupendousforms and forces, --space, time, matter, energy, and perhaps infiniteconsciousness, --all in their ultimate conditions too vast for the finitemind to grasp, all presenting problems open to speculation, but beyondthe reach of demonstration. But below these lie finite possibilitieswhich the human mind may now be, or may become, capable ofcomprehending, and prominent among these lies the problem justmentioned, that of the existence of a spiritual substratum in man, asoul which is capable of surviving the death of the body. This is asubject with which all of us are deeply and intimately concerned, and itmay be well to close this volume with a brief glance at its status as ascientific question. 

The belief in the immortality of man is comparatively modern in origin. There is no satisfactory evidence that any such belief existed among theold Jews, or that it arose in Palestine before the time of Christ. Itarose at an earlier period in India and Persia, but everywhere it waslate in its appearance as a well-defined doctrine. Yet, while positiveevidence is wanting, there can be little doubt that crude and vaguelyformulated ideas of the existence of man after death have been very longentertained. The traditions of all peoples that have a faith above thatof fetichism contain stories of the apparition of spirits of humanorigin, and when we reach civilized peoples and more advanced religionswe find these in abundance. The annals of Christendom are full of them. They are equally abundant in the centres of other developed forms offaith. If we could accept these legends of the emergence of spiritsthrough the thin veil that separates time from eternity as establishedfacts, the problem would no longer need solution. As it stands, however, the great mass of such narratives are utterly lacking in evidence of acharacter which science can admit. They are bare, unsustainedstatements, thousands of which would be far outweighed by a single onefortified by demonstrated facts. Occasionally, indeed, the story of anapparition has been closely investigated, and there are a few cases ofthis kind handed down from the past which seem reasonably wellestablished. But any statement coming from prescientific days is open todoubt; methods of investigation then were not what they are now; thedogma of the existence of spirit is too important a one to be acceptedon any but incontrovertible evidence, and the vast sum of statements ofapparitions which have come to us from the past, or from thenon-scientific peoples of the present, must be dismissed with the oneverdict, not proven. 

There is one important fact, however, connected with the question ofspiritual appearances, which is worthy of some consideration. It is afixed rule in the history of opinions that beliefs founded onimagination or misconception have declined with the advance ofenlightenment, and many conceptions, once strongly entertained, havefaded and vanished in the light of new thought, or where retained havebeen so only by the ignorant and unreasoning. It is of interest to findthat this has not been the case with the belief in spiritualmanifestations. This has held its own to the present time, and, while itis largely sustained by the unintelligent and credulous, it can claim aconsiderable body of intelligent adherents to-day, even in the mostenlightened nations. This belief, known as spiritism, with themanifestations upon which it is founded, lies open, therefore, to modernscientific investigation; and this has been, to some extent, applied toit, with, in various instances, rather startling results. 

It is certainly of significance to find that a number of prominentscientists, thoroughly skilled in the arts of investigation, haveattacked this problem with the purpose of annihilating it, and haveended in becoming convinced of the truth of spiritism. It may sufficeto mention two of the most striking instances of this. In the early daysof the spiritist propaganda, Robert Hare, a famous chemist ofPhiladelphia, entered upon an investigation of the so-called spiritualphenomena with the declared purpose of proving them to be fraudulent. His observations were long continued, his tests varied and delicate, andhe ended by himself ardently adopting the belief he had set out toabolish. Somewhat later William Crookes of London, an equally famouschemist and physicist, entered upon a similar investigation, and withlike results. The tests applied by these men were strictly scientific, and of the exhaustive character suggested by their long experience inchemical investigation; and their conversion to the tenets of spiritism, as a result of their experiments, was a marked triumph to the advocatesof the doctrine. Various others of admitted high intelligence, who madea similar investigation and were similarly converted, might be named. Two of the best known of these were Judge Edmonds, of the circuit courtof New York, and Alfred Russel Wallace of England, who shared withDarwin the honor of originating the theory of natural selection. 

While these, and others of scientific education, were converted tospiritism, many investigators came to an opposite conclusion, while asimilar negative result was reached in the investigations of severalcommittees of scientists. The latest and most persistent attempt tosearch into the reality of phenomena of this character has been thatmade by the London Society for Psychical Research, whose investigationshave extended over years and have yielded numerous striking andsuggestive results. The most important conclusion at which the membersof this society have so far arrived is the hypothesis of Telepathy, orthe seeming power of one mind to influence the thoughts of another, occasionally over long distances, in a method that appears analogous tothat of wireless telegraphy. The evidences in favor of this doctrine areso numerous that it has been somewhat widely accepted, and the titleapplied to it has come into general use. It indicates, if true, remarkable powers in the mind of man, capabilities that seem far totranscend those of the ordinary intellectual activities. 

This is one side of the case. The other side now calls for presentation. This is that the great body of scientists utterly reject the theory ofspiritism, and look upon its manifestations as due to fraud, misconception, credulity, or some other of the weaknesses to which humannature is liable. As regards the opinions arrived at by the prominentscientists mentioned, these men are looked upon by their fellows of thegreat scientific body as mentally warped, or as having allowedthemselves to be victimized by impostors. The fact that ProfessorCrookes has continued one of the most acute and deep searching ofinvestigators into the phenomena of physics, and that his results inthis direction are accepted without question, and that Professor Wallaceis acknowledged to be one of the leading thinkers of the day, has notsufficed to clear them of the doubt which rests upon their sanity ortheir critical judgment in this particular, and the very attempt of anyone to investigate the so-called spiritual manifestations is widelylooked upon as an evidence of credulity or some greater mental weakness. 

This result may seem singular, yet it is not without abundant warrant. It must be borne in mind that the phenomena in question differessentially in character from those with which science is usuallyconcerned. The field of scientific investigation is distinctly thematerial; the facts with which it deals are those apparent to thesenses, or which can be tested by material instruments; its discoveriesare generally susceptible of but one interpretation; its methods arecapable of being indefinitely repeated, and its results, if justlyinterpreted, are unvarying in character. None of these postulates fullyapplies to the spiritistic investigation. Here the conditions differ, the results vary, the methods can rarely be exactly repeated, consciousbeings, instead of unconscious instruments, are the agents employed, andthe secret thoughts and purposes of such agents are very likely tovitiate the result, and open a field of doubt which does not exist inthe investigation of the inorganic world. 

This is one of the causes of the doubt of scientists. It is not the onlyor the chief cause. The latter is the fact that the claims of spiritismlift man into an entirely new domain of the universe, remove him fromthe great field of the material with which he is physically affiliatedand to which his senses are closely adapted, and place him in a regionbeyond the scope of the senses, a vast kingdom which is held to underlieor subtend the physical, and which the ordinary outlook of the scientistfails to perceive. It requires no strain of the imagination to admit theexistence of a new constituent of the atmosphere. It requires a greatstrain to admit the existence of a new constituent of the universe, avast spiritual substratum to the domain of matter. Religion, with itsideal tests, has long maintained this to be a fact. Science, with itsrigid material tests, sternly questions it, and demands that theexistence of an inhabited spiritual realm shall be incontestably provedby scientific evidence before it can be accepted. 

This demand is a reasonable one. The world is growing rapidly morescientific, and the old method of arriving at conclusions is dailylosing strength. Beliefs based on ideal or imaginative postulates, oncestrong, are now weak. Faith founded on ancient authority is activestill, but promises to become obsolete. The way of science is growingto be the way of the world, and in the time to come intelligent men willdoubtless demand incontestable evidence of any fact which they are askedto accept. 

As regards the phenomena in question, however, it cannot be said thatthey have been fairly or fully investigated by scientists. They havebeen set down as the work of charlatans, and their apparent resultsascribed to fraud, collusion, credulity, and mental obliquity ingeneral. The fact, that of the scientists who have exhaustivelyinvestigated the spiritistic phenomena, a considerable number haveaccepted them as valid, has had no effect upon scientists as a body, who, in this particular, occupy the position which they accusenon-scientists of maintaining, that of forming opinions withoutinvestigating phenomena. 

This attitude of the scientific world toward these problematicaloccurrences is quite comprehensible. Throughout the nineteenth centurythe attention of scientists has been almost wholly directed toward theinvestigation of the forms and forces of matter, the phenomena andprinciples of the visible universe. In this they entered, at the openingof the century, upon an almost virgin field, which they have wroughtwith great diligence and with remarkable results. It is very possible, however, that in the twentieth century no such undivided allegiance willbe given to the phenomena of matter, but that the attention ofscientists will be largely diverted from the physical to the psychicalfield of investigation, which may prove to be a far broader and moreintricate domain than we now have any conception of. 

Psychical phenomena have attracted some attention during the recentcentury. One by one the problems of hypnotism, unconscious cerebration, double consciousness, telepathy, spiritism, and the like, all at firstset down as unworthy of consideration, have forced themselves upon theattention of observers, and each of them has been found to presentconditions amply worthy of investigation. This work has hitherto beenperformed by occasional individuals, but the number of workers inexperimental psychics is steadily increasing, and their domain ofresearch broadening, and we may reasonably look forward to resultsapproaching, perhaps exceeding, in interest those reached in materialinvestigation. 

There is a whole world before us, that of the mind and its phenomena, fully equal in interest and importance to the world of matter, andpresenting as numerous and difficult problems. Hitherto it has largelybeen dealt with from the ideal or metaphysical standpoint; only recentlyhas it been subjected to physical analysis, and already with strikingresults. During the century before us it is likely to attract a wide andactive circle of investigators, with what results it is impossible topredict. This is the only way in which the problem of the existence ornon-existence of a spiritual life can be solved to the satisfaction ofthose of a scientific turn of mind, and this solution must be left tothe future to attain. 

In the present work we are concerned with man's past rather than hisfuture. It is what man has come from, not what he is going to, thatforms the subject of our inquiries. We have been led into these remarkssimply as an outcome of a brief consideration of man's relations to thespiritual element of the universe, and may close our work with thesuggestion that the problem of human evolution may be immensely greaterthan that involved in the study of the ancestry of man. 

THE DAWN OF REASON Or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals

By JAMES WEIR, Jr. , M. D. 

_Author of "The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and SexualDesire" etc. _

16mo. Cloth. $1. 25

 * * * * *

Review of Reviews. 

"This book presents evidences of mental action of the lower animals in aclear, simple, and brief form. The author has avoided technicalities, and has also resisted the temptation of the psychologist to indulge inmetaphysics. Dr. Weir has relied for evidence on the results of his ownindependent study of biology at first hand, disregarding the second-handdata used by many of the authors once regarded as standard authoritiesin this department of research. "

The Nation:

"The title raised in our mind some vague fears that we might findphysiology and psychology mixed up inexpertly with metaphysics; but wesee in the writer a close observer, who takes his stand on firm ground, and goes into the objective world of animals for his facts. "

 * * * * *

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

 * * * * *

Transcriber's note

The following changes have been made to the text:

Page 133: "these forests dwarfs" changed to "these forest dwarfs". 

Page 146: "adepts in the art of concealment" changed to "adept in theart of concealment".