CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF MAN AND OF

HIS SUPERSTITIONS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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THE ORIGIN OF MAN

AND OF HIS SUPERSTITIONS

BY

CARVETH READ, M.A.

LECTURER ON COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY (FORMERLY GROTE PROFESSOR

OF PHILOSOPHY) IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

CAMBRIDGE

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

1920

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,

BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E. 1,

AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

PREFACE

The volume now published explains in its first part an hypothesis that

the human race has descended from some ape-like stock by a series

of changes which began and, until recently, were maintained by the

practice of hunting in pack for animal food, instead of being content

with the fruits and other nutritious products of the tropical forest.

The hypothesis occurred to me many years ago, and was first published

(in brief) in _The Metaphysics of Nature_ (1805), Chap. XIII., and

again in _Natural and Social Morals_ (1909); but all it implied did not

become clear until, in lecturing on Comparative Psychology, there was

forced upon me the necessity of effecting an intelligible transition

from the animal to the human mind, and of not being satisfied to say

year after year that hands and brains were plainly so useful that

they must have been developed by Natural Selection. Then one day

the requisite ideas came to light; and an outline of the hypothesis

was read at the Meeting of the British Association (Section H) at

Birmingham in 1913, and printed in _Man_, November 1914. The Council

of the Anthropological Institute has kindly consented to my using the

substance of that article in the first chapter here following.

The article in _Man_ dealt chiefly with the physical changes which our

race has undergone. The correlative mental changes were explained in

the _British Journal of Psychology_ in an article which supplies the

basis of the second chapter of this book.

The hunting-pack, then, was the first form of human society; and in

lecturing on Ethnopsychology two questions especially interested me:

(1) Under what mental conditions did the change take place from the

organisation of the hunting-pack (when this weakened) to the settled

life of the tribe or group? and (2) Why is the human mind everywhere

befogged with ideas of Magic and Animism? They seemed at last to have

the same answer: these superstitions were useful and (apparently) even

necessary in giving to elders enough prestige to preserve tradition

and custom when the leader of the hunt was no longer conspicuous in

authority. A magic-working gerontocracy was the second form of society;

and the third form was governed by a wizard-king or a priest-king,

or by a king supported by wizards or priests. One must, therefore,

understand the possibility of these beliefs in Magic and Animism, and

how they arose and obtained a hold upon all tribes and nations; and

hence the second part of this volume—on Superstition.

Some results of inquiry into these matters were also published in the

_British Journal of Psychology_ (namely, much of the substance of

Chaps. III., IV., V., VI., and VIII.) and are here reproduced, with

the editor’s consent, enlarged and, for the most part, rewritten: the

least altered are Chaps. VI. and VIII. Chaps. VII., IX. and X. have not

hitherto been printed; but part of Chap. X. was read at the Meeting of

the British Association at Bournemouth last year.

Messrs. Williams and Norgate have given permission to use the diagram

in the footnote to p. 3, based on one of Prof. Keith’s in his

_Antiquity of Man_.

Extensive use has, of course, been made of the works of Darwin, Herbert

Spencer and E. B. Tylor, and (among living authors) of the volumes

of Sir J. G. Frazer and Prof. Ed. Westermarck. I am grateful to my

friends and colleagues, Prof. Spearman, Prof. J. P. Hill and Prof.

Arthur Keith for assistance in various ways. Mr. Pycraft, too, of the

Natural History Museum has given me important information; and my old

friend, Mr. Thomas Whittaker, has helped me, as usual, when my need was

greatest.

CARVETH READ.

_University College, London.

July 1920_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF MAN FROM THE ANTHROPOIDS 1

§ 1. _The Hypothesis._—That Man was differentiated from

the anthropoid stock by becoming a hunter; perhaps in

the Oligocene period 1-3

§ 2. _What the Hypothesis Explains._—World-wide range;

why the earliest known men were hunters; the erect

gait; specialisation of hands; reduction of arms;

and of teeth and jaws; modification of skull; social

co-operation; rudiments of speech; intelligence;

control of fire 4-13

§ 3. _Minor and Secondary Consequences._—Alimentary

canal; loss of seasonal marriage; naked skin;

cannibalism; division into races; Nordic sub-race 13-21

§ 4. _Prey and Competitors._—Climate and landscape

in Oligocene and Miocene; animals, herbivorous;

anthropoids and their stature in late Oligocene;

carnivorous contemporaries 21-8

§ 5. _Conclusion._—Summary 28-9

CHAPTER II

ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE HUMAN FROM THE ANTHROPOID MIND 30

§ 1. _Heredity, Adaptation, Accommodation_ 30-31

§ 2. _The Original Stock and the Conditions of

Differentiation._—Mind of the higher apes the best

clue to that of the original stock. Conditions of

differentiation: the hunting life; geographical

diffusion; social life; imaginations concerning Magic

and Animism 31-5

§ 3. _Primal Society._—Forms of gregariousness amongst

Mammalia; the hunting-pack most likely original of

human society. Other conjectures 35-40

§ 4. _Psychology of the Hunting-pack._—Interest in the

chase and in killing; gregariousness; various modes

of sympathy; aggressiveness; claim to territory;

recognition of leaders, submission to the pack,

emulation, precedency; strategy and persistence;

struggle to share the prey; intelligence. Different

mentality of the herbivorous herd 40-49

§ 5. _The Wolf-type of Man established by Natural

Selection._—Keith’s hypothesis as to epoch of

differentiation. Slow progress of culture; full

adaptation to hunting life prior to Neolithic culture 49-52

§ 6. _Some further Consequences of the

Hunting-life._—Growth of constructiveness; language;

customs—marriage; property; war; sports and games;

laughter and lamentation 52-61

§ 7. _Moralisation of the Hunters._—Character of

Anthropoids; human benevolence; moral sense; effect

of industry; of growing intelligence 61-6

§ 8. _Influence of the Imaginary Environment._—Belief in

Magic and Spirits often injurious; but on the whole

advantageous; especially by establishing government 66-70

CHAPTER III

BELIEF AND SUPERSTITION 71

§ 1. “_Superstition._”—Here used merely to include Magic

and Animism as imagination-beliefs 71-2

§ 2. _Imagination._—Various uses of the word; mental

“images”; in connection with reasoning; and

with literary fiction. Here means unverifiable

representation 72-6

§ 3. _Belief._—Nature of belief; degrees of probability;

tested by action; play-belief 76-9

§ 4. _Causes and Grounds of Belief._—Derived from

perception. Evidentiary causes, or grounds,

raising some probability; and non-evidentiary

causes which are not grounds. Memory, testimony,

inference so far as unverifiable are imagination.

Influence of apperceptive masses and of methodology.

Non-evidentiary causes have their own apperceptive

masses—derived from bad observation, memory,

testimony; influenced by emotion, desire and

voluntary action; by sympathy and antipathy, and by

suggestibility 79-85

§ 5. _The Beliefs of Immature Minds._—Non-evidentiary

causes more influential than with us;

picture-thinking more vivid; no common standard of

truth; feeble power of comparison, due perhaps to

undeveloped brain 85-92

§ 6. _The Reasoning of Immature Minds._—Fallacies

of induction; ignorance of the minor premise in

deduction; reasoning by analogy 92-8

§ 7. _General Ideas at the Savage Level._—Savages have

general ideas, though often not recognised or named;

force; relations of causation and equality 99-103

§ 8. _The Weakness of Imagination-beliefs._—Superficial

resemblance to perception-beliefs; more nearly allied

to play-belief 103-7

CHAPTER IV

MAGIC 108

§ 1. _Antiquity of Magic_ 108-9

§ 2. _What is Magic?_—Magic defined; imaginary impersonal

force contrasted with power of spirits; its action

uniform like laws of nature. Kinds of Magic 109-12

§ 3. _The Beginnings of Magic._—A matter of speculation.

The earliest were probably the simplest, and the

kinds that have prevailed most widely by tradition

and hereditary predisposition. The chief source of

belief in Magic is the mistaking of coincidence for

causation 112-19

§ 4. _Magical Force and Primitive Ideas of

Causation._—Idea of magical force derived from

physical force (empathy, Animatism, invisible action

at a distance, mana). How Animism and Magic corrupt

the ideas of causation 119-24

§ 5. _Magic and Mystery_ 124-6

§ 6. _Volitional Magic._—A relatively late idea 126-8

§ 7. _The Evolution of Magic—Direct Magic._—Growth and

differentiation; four stages; spells and charms; taboo 128-34

§ 8. _Indirect or “Sympathetic” Magic._—Principles

of Sympathetic Magic—mimesis and participation;

connection with Animism. Exemplary Magic 134-42

§ 9. _The Dissolution of Magic_ 143-4

CHAPTER V

ANIMISM 145

§ 1. _What is Animism?_—Hyperphysical and psychological

Animism. Not all savages think that every man has a

separable soul 145-7

§ 2. _Psychological Animism._—That everything is animated

not an universal or primitive illusion. Animatism.

Causes of the treatment of some inanimate things as

living or sentient 147-53

§ 3. _The Ghost Theory._—Originated chiefly by dreams;

which are regarded as objective experience 153-7

§ 4. _Extension of the Ghost Theory to

Animals._—Influence of shadows and reflections.

Generally, only things individually interesting have

ghosts. Examples 157-60

§ 5. _Ghosts and Soul-stuff._—Separated spirits need

bodies and food, that is, soul-stuff. Abstract ideas

of “spirit,” “force,” etc. 161-4

§ 6. _Ghosts and Spirits._—Ghosts first imagined, and

other spirits on their model. Some spirits, formerly

ghosts, now declared not to have been; others never

incarnate 164-9

§ 7. _How Ghosts and Spirits are imagined._—Have the same

attributes, and not at first immaterial; confused

with the corpse. Various conceptions. Number of souls

to each body. External souls 169-73

§ 8. _Origin and Destiny of

Souls._—Reincarnation—Transmigration—Liable to

second death. Place of the departed. Importance of

next life resembling the present 174-7

§ 9. _The Treatment of Ghosts._—Results partly from fear,

partly from affection. Funerary rites—extravagance

and economy. Simplicity of ghosts. Inconsistent

behaviour toward them 178-82

§ 10. _Evolution and Dissolution of Animism._—Popular

and priestly Animism. Different emotions excited by

ghosts and by gods 182-6

CHAPTER VI

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN MAGIC AND ANIMISM 187

§ 1. _The Question of Priority._—Wundt’s theory of

Animism and of the derivation from it of Magic.

Reasons for dissenting. Origins of Magic and of

Animism independent 187-93

§ 2. _Magic and Religion._—Frazer’s hypothesis as to

the superseding of Magic by Religion. Reasons for

dissenting. Alternative hypothesis. Caprice of

spirits the essential distinction of Animism 193-7

§ 3. _Ideas and Practices of Magic adopted by

Animism._—Invisible force. Power of charms ascribed

to spirits. Omens first magical, then spiritual

warnings. Spells become prayers. Magical rites become

religious ceremonies 197-203

§ 4. _Retrogradation._—Wundt’s theory explains the loss

in many cases of animistic ideas; Fetiches; Omens;

Prayers; religious ceremonies 203-7

§ 5. _Spirits know Magic, teach it, and inspire

Magicians._—Examples of spirits knowing and teaching

Magic. Inspiration and possession 207-12

§ 6. _Spirits operate by Magic._—Possession; smiting;

metamorphosis; charms and spells 212-16

§ 7. _Spirits are controlled by Magic._—Biological

necessity of controlling spirits—by fear—or by

Magic. Analogy with politics. The higher barbaric

religions. Magico-legal control of gods. Idea of

Fate. Free-will and uniformity 216-24

CHAPTER VII

OMENS 225

§ 1. _The Prevalence of Omens_ everywhere, in all ages.

Examples 225-6

§ 2. _Omens and Natural Signs._—Natural signs

all-important to hunters; and Omens are imaginary

signs 226-7

§ 3. _Some Signs Conceived of as Magical._—By coincidence

some events become signs of others by a mysterious

and infallible tie. Moods of elation or depression

favour belief in Omens; their validity may depend

upon acceptance. Antiquity of subjective Omens.

Whatever causes elation or depression is ominous.

Coincidence and analogy 227-32

§ 4. _Differentiation of Omens from General Magic._—Omens

are classed with charms, rites and spells, but

distinguished by being signs only, not causes. Other

differences 232-4

§ 5. _Omens Interpreted by Animism._—Omens resemble

warnings—at first given by friendly animals, then by

spirits, hence connected with Oracles and Dreams 234-8

§ 6. _Natural and Artificial Omens_—Natural Omens

not being always at hand, means are discovered

for obtaining them at any time; _e. g._ Dice,

Hepatomancy, Astrology 238-40

§ 7. _Divination and Oracles._—Diviners and the art of

Divination. Power of Diviners and Oracles. Ways of

obtaining oracles and of being inspired derived from

low savagery 240-45

§ 8. _Apparent Failure of Omens_—ascribed to faulty

observation or interpretation; frustration by

spirits, or by superior Magic; or by having been

symbolically fulfilled 245-7

§ 9. _Apology for Omens._—The Diviner or oracular person

tries to be well-informed. The Stoics and Divination.

Omens involved in Fate. Conditional and unconditional

Omens 247-61

CHAPTER VIII

THE MIND OF THE WIZARD 252

§ 1. _The Rise and Fall of Wizardry._—At first no

professionals. Early professionals unpaid; except

by influence; which enables them to maintain order.

Animism gives rise to sorcerers and priests. Priests

suppress sorcery and black Magic, and absorb white

Magic in religious rites. Societies of wizards 252-7

§ 2. _The Wizard’s Pretensions._—Control of Nature;

shape-changing and flying; the causing and curing of

diseases; Divination; control of ghosts and spirits.

General trust in them 257-9

§ 3. _Characteristics of the Wizard_—Intelligence and

knowledge; force of will and daring (initiation);

motives—attraction of mystery, reputation, power;

distinctive costume and demeanour of a “superman”;

jealousy of rivals; histrionic temperament;

hysterical diathesis. Suggestibility of his clients 259-76

§ 4. _The Wizard and the Sceptic._—Social delusion and

imposture. Scepticism frequent amongst chiefs and the

higher social ranks, and also amongst the people,

because of common sense. Still more difficult for

Wizards to maintain self-delusion 276-83

§ 5. _The Wizard’s Persuasion._—Honesty and fraud. The

Wizard by vocation. Fascination of Black Wizardry.

Artifices professionally necessary seem justified by

social utility. His belief strengthened by effects

of natural causes set going by himself or by his

clients, and by coincidences 284-92

CHAPTER IX

TOTEMISM 293

§ 1. _Meaning and Scope of Totemism._—Frazer’s

definitions. The Clan-Totem, and observances

connected with it 293-6

§ 2. _Of the Origin of Totemism._—Totemism not universal.

Totemic names sometimes recent, generally ancient.

Totemism has not the psychological necessity of Magic

and Animism. Originates with the names of individuals

or of groups? 296-9

§ 3. _The Conceptional Hypothesis of Frazer._—Belief in

Totems derived from the fancies of women as to cause

of pregnancy. Criticisms 299-304

§ 4. _Lang’s Hypothesis._—Names of animals or plants

given to groups probably by other groups.

Circumstances of origin having been forgotten,

explanatory myths are invented with corresponding

observances. Comments 304-7

§ 5. _Totemism and Marriage._—Exogamy, Totemism and

Marriage Classes. Westermarck’s hypothesis as to

Exogamy 307-11

§ 6. _The Clansman and his Totem_—perhaps believed to

have the same soul 312-14

§ 7. _Totemism and Magic._—Magical properties of names.

Transformation. Penalties on breach of observances.

Control of Totems 314-19

§ 8. _Totemism and Animism._—Totems in Australia

give warnings; are sometimes invoked in aid; the

Wollunqua. Fusion of Totem with spirit of hero in

Fiji; in Polynesia. Propitiation of guardian spirits,

“elder brothers,” species-gods in North and South

America. Zoolatry in Africa; in Egypt 319-25

CHAPTER X

MAGIC AND SCIENCE 326

§ 1. _Their Common Ground._—Both assume uniformity of

action. Differentiated in opposite directions from

common-sense 326-8

§ 2. _The Differentiation._—The Wizard a

physician—genuine and magical drugs; a surgeon with

some knowledge of Anatomy—effective remedies and

the sucking-cure; of Psychology and suggestion; his

Physiological Psychology. Knowledge of natural signs;

Natural signs and Omens; Astronomy and Astrology.

Rain-rites and Meteorology 328-37

§ 3. _Why Magic seems to be the Source of

Science._—Conducted for ages by the same people, and

develops faster 337-340

§ 4. _Animism and Science._—Naturally opposed as caprice

to uniformity; but, indirectly, Animism is the great

nurse of Science and Art. Animism and Philosophy.

Conclusion 340-42

INDEX 345

THE ORIGIN OF MAN AND OF HIS SUPERSTITIONS

CHAPTER I

ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF MAN FROM THE ANTHROPOIDS

§ 1. THE HYPOTHESIS

That the human species as we now see it, with its several races,

Mongolian, Negro, Mediterranean, etc., represents a Family of the

Primates is generally agreed; and there is evidence that the Family

formerly comprised other species that have become extinct. Our nearest

surviving zoological relatives are the Gorilla, Chimpanzee and Orang,

and (at a further remove) the Siamang and Gibbons; and in spite of the

fundamental anatomical resemblance between those apes and ourselves,

the difference is so great that some explanation of how it came about

is very desirable.

The differences between Man and his nearest relatives are innumerable;

but taking the chief of them, and assuming that the minor details are

correlated with these, it is the hypothesis of this essay that they

may all be traced to the influence of one variation operating amongst

the original anthropoid conditions. That variation was the adoption

of a flesh-diet and the habits of a hunter in order to obtain it.

Without the adoption of a flesh-diet there could have been no hunting;

but a flesh-diet obtained without hunting (supposing it possible)

could have done nothing for the evolution of our stock. The adoption

of the hunting-life, therefore, is the essential variation upon which

everything else depends. We need not suppose that a whole ancestral

species varied in this way: it is enough that a few, or even one, of

the common anthropoid stock should have done so, and that the variation

was advantageous and was inherited.

Such a variation _must_ have occurred at some time, since Man is

everywhere more or less carnivorous; the earliest known men were

hunters; weapons are among the earliest known artefacts. And it

is not improbable that the change began at the anthropoid level;

because although extant anthropoids are mainly frugivorous, yet they

occasionally eat birds’-eggs and young birds; the gorilla has been said

to eat small mammals; and other Primates (cebidæ, macaques and baboons)

eat insects, arachnids, crabs, worms, frogs, lizards, birds; and the

crab-eating macaque collects a large portion of its food on the Malay

littoral. Why, then, should not one ape have betaken itself to hunting?

We need not suppose that our ancestors were ever exclusively

carnivorous: that is very unlikely. A mixed diet is the rule even

amongst hunting tribes, and everywhere the women collect and consume

fruits and roots. But if at first nearly omnivorous, our ancestor

(it is assumed) soon preferred to attack mammals, and advanced at a

remote date to the killing of the biggest game found in his habitat.

Everywhere savage hunters do so now: the little Semang kills the tiger,

rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo; and many thousands of years ago, in

Europe men slew the reindeer and the mammoth, the horse and the bison,

the hyæna and the cave-bear. It is true they had weapons and snares,

whilst the first hunter had only hands and teeth.

The change from a fruit-eating to a hunting life subserved the great

utility of opening fresh supplies of food; and, possibly, a failure

of the normal supply of the old customary food was the direct cause

of the new habit. If our ape lived near the northern limits of the

tropical forest, and a fall of temperature there took place, such as to

reduce (especially in winter) the yield of fruit and other nutritious

vegetation on which he had subsisted, famine may have driven him

to attack other animals;[1] whilst more southerly anthropoids, not

suffering from the change of climate, continued in their ancient manner

of life. A large anthropoid (_Dryopithecus_) inhabited Central Europe

in the Miocene, for his bones have been found; there may have been

others; and during that period the climate altered from sub-tropical

to temperate, with corresponding changes in fauna and flora. Hence it

formerly occurred to me that perhaps the decisive change in the life of

our Family happened there and then. It seems, however, that good judges

put the probable date of the great differentiation much earlier, in the

Oligocene;[2] and since I cannot find that any extensive alteration

of climate is known to have happened during that period, it seems

necessary to fall back upon “spontaneous” variation (as one must in

many other cases); that is to say, from causes which are at present

beyond our vision, the fateful ape did, in fact, prefer animal food

so decidedly as to begin a-hunting for it. That being granted, the

rest of the history was inevitable. The new pursuit was of a nature to

engross the animal’s whole attention and co-ordinate all his faculties;

and to maintain and reinforce it, his structure in body and mind may

reasonably be supposed to have undergone rapid modification by natural

selection; because those individuals that were in any organ or faculty

best adapted to the new life had an advantage, which was inherited and

gradually intensified.[3]

§ 2. WHAT THE HYPOTHESIS EXPLAINS

Let me run rapidly through the chief differences between Man and his

nearest congeners: some of them are obvious and can be stated very

briefly; others I shall return to in the next chapter. We shall see

that they all follow naturally from the above hypothesis.

(1) The anthropoids are never found out of the tropical forests of

Africa and Malaya (including Borneo and Sumatra). They feed chiefly on

the fruits and other highly nutritious vegetable products that, all

the year round, are only there obtainable. Although often coming to

the ground, especially the chimpanzee and gorilla, they are adapted

to living in the trees: that is their home. In contrast with their

habits, Man is at home on the ground, with unlimited range over the

whole planet from beyond the Arctic Circle to Tasmania and Tierra

del Fuego; because on the ground (chiefly) he everywhere finds his

food in the other animals whom he hunts and slays. This, then, is the

condition of his emancipation from the tropical forest. It is, indeed,

conceivable that a frugivorous animal, originally of the forest, should

obtain a wider range by taking to a coarser diet of roots and herbage,

such as suffices the Ungulates, browsing or grazing or digging with

their snouts; but this would not have led to the upright gait, or the

big brain, or any of the marks that distinguish Man. Not advance but

retrogression must have followed such a change.

(2) That the earliest men of whose condition of life we have any

knowledge were hunters agrees with the hypothesis. Any other view

of Man’s origin must explain how and when he became a hunter. There

seems to be no reason to put the change of habits (which certainly

occurred at some time) anywhere nearer than the beginning of our

differentiation. The further we put it back the better it explains

other modifications.

(3) The erect attitude was reached by the apes in the course of

adaptation to arboreal life;[4] but the erect gait as the normal mode

of progression is (if we neglect the gibbons’ imperfect performance)

peculiar to ourselves; and such a gait was attained because the

most successful hunters followed their prey afoot upon the ground.

The feeble ineffective shuffle of the anthropoids upon the ground,

supporting themselves with their arms where there are no overhanging

boughs to swing by and help themselves along, could not have served

the hunter, especially if he was to leave the forest. We may, indeed,

suppose that at first prey was sometimes attacked by leaping upon it

from the branch of a tree, as leopards sometimes do; but the less our

ancestor in his new career trusted to trees the better for him. Such

simple strategy could not make him a dominant animal throughout the

world; nothing could do this but the gradual attainment of erect gait

adapted to running down his prey. Hence the numerous modifications of

structure necessary to it, whenever from time to time they occurred,

were preserved and accumulated by natural selection: namely, the

curving of the vertebral column, the balancing of the head upon a

relatively slender neck, changes in the joints, bones and muscles of

the legs, the lengthening of the leg and the specialisation of the foot

(in which the heel is developed more than in the gorilla, and the great

toe is lengthened and lies parallel with the other toes).

(4) The specialisation of the legs and feet, as it proceeded, made

possible the specialisation of the hands: being gradually rid of the

task of assisting locomotion, whether in trees or on the ground, they

were used in grappling with prey, seconded by massive jaws and powerful

canine teeth. In course of time they brought cudgels and stones to the

encounter, and after many ages began to alter such means of offence

into weapons that might be called artefacts. These simple beginnings

probably occupied an immense time, perhaps more than half of the total

period down to the present. The utility and consequent selection of

hands had been great throughout; but their final development may be

referred to the making and using of weapons fashioned according to a

mental pattern. Those who had the best hands were selected because they

made the best weapons and used them best; but we know from remains of

several palæolithic stages of the art of manufacturing implements how

very slowly the art improved.

(5) Along with specialisation of the hands went a reduction in

the length and massiveness of the arms; and this must have been

disadvantageous in directly grappling with prey. But it was necessary

to the runner in order to lessen the weight and cumbersomeness of

the upper part of the body and to improve his balance and agility.

The change may also have been beneficial by affording physiological

compensation for the lengthening and strengthening of the legs. And as

soon as unwrought stones and clubs came into use there was mechanical

compensation for the shortening of the arms. The result is an adaptive

co-ordination of the total structure to the life of a two-footed hunter.

(6) Darwin says: “The early male forefathers of Man were, as previously

stated, probably furnished with great canine teeth; but as they

gradually acquired the habit of using stones, clubs, or other weapons,

for fighting with their enemies or rivals, they would use their jaws

and teeth less and less. In this case the jaws, together with the

teeth, would become reduced in size, as we may feel almost sure from

numerous analogous cases.”

(7) Hence the profile began to approach the orthognathous type; and it

progressed further in that direction on account of accompanying changes

in the skull. The skull became less thick and rough, (_a_) because, as

the hands (using weapons) superseded the teeth in fighting, jaws and

neck grew less massive, and their muscles no longer needed such solid

attachments; (_b_) because the head was less liable to injury when no

longer used as the chief organ in combat. At the same time the skull

slowly increased in capacity and became vaulted to make room for the

brains of an animal, which (as we shall see) acquired much knowledge

(parietal association area) and lived by the application of its

knowledge to the co-ordination of increasingly complex and continuous

activities (anterior association area).[5]

(8) Monkeys of most species, whether in the New World or in the Old,

are social, living in bands of from ten to fifty or more, and may

co-operate occasionally in mutual defence or in keeping watch. Baboons,

indeed, are seen in herds of several hundreds; and they are credibly

reported to co-operate in raiding plantations, and in defending

themselves against leopards, other baboons and even human hunters.[6]

Gibbons, again, are social, going in bands to the number of fifty. But

the large anthropoids live only in families—the male orang being even

of a somewhat solitary habit; three or four families of chimpanzees may

for a time associate together. Man, however, is everywhere—with a few

doubtful exceptions, probably degenerate—both social and co-operative;

and the purpose of his co-operation at the level of the Australian

or the Semang is instructive. It is not, as we might suppose, in

industry, but in hunting, war, or tribal ceremonies that tribesmen work

together—the last no doubt of comparatively recent origin: so that a

few thousand years ago there was no co-operation except hunting and war

(which come to the same thing).

That the large anthropoids are neither gregarious nor co-operative

follows from their having no task in which co-operation would be

useful, no common purpose: they are able alone to defend themselves

and their families; and when families range apart through the woods

their food is in better supply. But the ancestor of Man found an object

for association and co-operation in the chase. Spencer, indeed, says

that a large carnivore, capable of killing its own prey, profits by

being solitary; and this may be true where game is scarce: in the

Oligocene and Miocene periods game was not scarce. Moreover, when our

ape first pursued game, especially big game (not being by ancient

adaptation in structure and instinct a carnivore), he may have been,

and probably was, incapable of killing enough prey single-handed; and,

if so, he will have profited by becoming both social and co-operative

as a hunter, like the wolves and dogs—in short, a sort of wolf-ape

(_Lycopithecus_). The pack was a means of increasing the supply of food

per unit; and gregariousness increased by natural selection up to the

limit set by utility. Hence (as will be shown at length in the next

chapter) Man is in character more like a dog or a wolf than he is like

any other animal.

(9) Some development of the rudiments of speech may be confidently

traced to social co-operation. The gibbon, most social, is also

the most vocal of anthropoids; but having no common task in which

united action is necessary, he uses his remarkable power of voice

(apparently) merely to express his feelings and to keep the troop

together. The chimpanzee and the gorilla enjoy probably a close and

affectionate family life, but one that makes little or no demand

for concerted effort. Hence their vocalisation is very rudimentary.

According to R. L. Garner, it is true speech: a chimpanzee (he says)

knows the meaning of the sounds he makes, and intends to convey it

to some definite individual at whom he looks. But he has at command

very few sounds, and those mainly expressive of natural wants.[7] If

it be urged that anthropoids do not talk because their lower jaw and

tongue have not the special adaptation to speech that is found in

Man, it should be considered (_a_) that if such structure had been

useful to them it would have been acquired, as at some time it must

have been by Man himself; and (_b_) that even without any change they

might have jabbered well enough to convey a good many discriminated,

objective meanings if they had needed to do so: for Man must have

begun in that way; he cannot have waited for the development of

physical structure before trying to talk. Sufficient intelligence is

not wanting to chimpanzees; for in captivity they learn to understand

a good deal that is said to them. What they wanted was a sufficient

motive for persistently trying to communicate, such that those who

made any progress in the art had a living advantage over others. Man

had such a motive; because co-operation was necessary to him, not (as

we have seen) in industry, but in hunting. In hunting, in planning

and directing the hunt, speech is plainly useful; and it is better

than gesture, which probably preceded, and generally accompanied it;

because, as speech became independent of gesture, it could go on

whilst the hands and body were otherwise employed, or where comrades

could not see one another—transferring, by a very profitable division

of labour, the whole business of expression to organs not otherwise

needed. It may not be much more than very simple beginnings of

articulate speech that can be traced to early co-operative hunting;

but in the beginning lies the whole difficulty. And the situation was

particularly favourable to the beginning of language by onomatopœia,

imitating the characteristic noises of different animals and of the

weapons and actions employed in pursuing and slaying them.

(10) The intelligence and extensive knowledge (compared with

anthropoids) that distinguish Man in his lowest known condition are

clearly accounted for by his adoption of the hunting life. Already

(as we may assume) the most intelligent of living animals, with great

knowledge of the forest, he had everything to learn about the world

beyond the forest as soon as he ventured into it, and everything to

learn about the art of hunting. Depending chiefly upon sight and

hearing, he had to learn by observation, and to remember, and to apply

all and more than all that the carnivore knows and does instinctively,

or learns by following its mother. He must have learned to discriminate

all sorts of animals, many of them new in a strange country; their

reactions to himself, manner of flight, or of attack, or defence; the

spoor of each and its noises; its habits and haunts, where it reposed

or went to drink, where to set snares or lie in wait for it. Advancing

to the use of weapons, he must have adapted them to his prey; he must

have discovered the best materials—wood, or stone, or bone—for making

weapons, the best materials for snares, and where to find such things.

He must have fixed in his mind this series: game, weapons, the making

of them, materials, where found; and must have learned to attend to

the items of the series in the necessary order without impatience or

confusion: a task far beyond the power of any other animal.

Further, the hunting life supplied a stimulus that had formerly been

wanting to our ape. There is some difficulty in comprehending why

the anthropoid should be as intelligent as he is; and, similarly, it

seemed to Wallace that the savage has intelligence above his needs—“in

his large and well-developed brain he possesses an organ quite

disproportionate to his actual requirements.”[8] This illusion results

from our not reflecting that the first task of increasing intelligence

is to deal appropriately with details in greater and greater number

and variety, and that the details of their life, with both savage and

anthropoid, are just what we cannot appreciate. Still, the anthropoid

seems to have a rather lazy time of it: especially, he seems to have

hardly any occasion for following out a purpose needing some time for

its accomplishment. This powerful stimulus the hunting life applies

to carnivores, above all to dogs and wolves; and in the same way it

affected our ape: compelling him to combine many activities for a

considerable period of time, along with his fellows, and direct them

to one end in the actual hunting, and (later) to prosecute still other

activities for a longer period in preparing weapons and snares to make

the hunting more effective. Add to these considerations the development

of gesture and rudiments of speech, exacting intelligence for their

acquisition and increasing intelligence by their attainment, and the

superiority of the lowest savage to an anthropoid is sufficiently

explained. Severe must have been the selection of those that were

capable of such progress, and correspondingly rapid the advance and

differentiation of the species.

(11) Using stones as weapons, and finding that broken stones do most

damage, and breaking them for that purpose, the progressive hunter

necessarily makes some sparks fly; and if these fall amongst dry

leaves or grass, he may light a fire. “In making flint implements

sparks would be produced; in polishing them it would not fail to be

observed that they became hot; and in this way it is easy to see how

the two methods of making fire may have originated.”[9] But if the

production of fire by friction had been suggested by the polishing of

flints, it could hardly have been discovered before the neolithic

stage; whereas hearths are known of much earlier date. And it may have

happened earlier whilst some one was polishing an arrow or a spear

with another piece of wood: a supposition which dispenses with the

long inference from a warm flint to a flaming stick. It is a curious

fact that to this day in Australia fire is sometimes made by rubbing

a spear-thrower upon a shield;[10] but I lay no stress upon this, as

if such a practice must be traditionary from the earliest discovery

of the method. Either in the chipping of flints or in the polishing

of spears it is far easier, and a more probable way, to learn the art

of making fire than by observing that dried boughs or bamboos driven

together by the wind sometimes catch fire; because those processes

include the very actions which the art employs: imitation of nature is

not called for. It is true that the natives of Nukufetan in the South

Seas explain the discovery of fire by their having seen smoke arise

from two crossed branches of a tree shaken in the wind;[11] but this,

probably, is merely the speculation of some Polynesian philosopher.

Volcanoes, too, have been pointed out as a possible source of fire;

and, in the myth, Demeter is said to have lit her torches at the crater

of Ætna—an action fit for a goddess. But were such an origin of fire

conceivable with savages, it would not show how they came to make it

themselves. Fire at first must have excited terror. Until uses were

known for fire no one could have ventured to fetch it from a volcano,

nor to make it by imitating the friction of boughs in the wind. Fires

were accidentally lit by man again and again, and much damage done,

before he could learn (_a_) the connection of events, (_b_) the uses

of fire, (_c_) purposely to produce it, (_d_) how to control it. The

second and fourth of these lessons are much more difficult than the

mere making of fire; they are essential, yet generally overlooked.

It seems necessary to suppose a series of accidents at each step, in

order to show the effects of fire in hardening wood, hollowing wood,

cooking game, baking and (later) glazing clay, and so forth. Perhaps

a prairie-fire disclosed the advantages of cooking game, and many a

prairie was afterwards burnt to that end before a more economical plan

was discovered. As to the effect of fire on clay, Lord Avebury observes

that clay-vessels may have been invented by (1) plastering gourds or

coco-nuts with clay to resist the fire when boiling water in them; (2)

observing the effect of fire on the clay; (3) leaving out the vegetable

part.[12] This must have been a comparatively recent discovery; though

there is some evidence of pottery having been made by palæolithic man.

It is impossible to say when fire was discovered; but it was certainly

known to the Mousterian culture—say, 50,000 years ago: probably very

much earlier; and it was made by hunters.

§ 3. MINOR AND SECONDARY CONSEQUENCES

(1) The extensive adoption by Man of a flesh-diet many hundreds

of thousands of years ago might be expected to have shortened his

alimentary canal in comparison with that of the anthropoids; but not

much evidence of it is obtainable. Topinard, giving a proportionate

estimate, says that in Man it is about six times the length of the

body, in the gibbon about eight times. Dr. Arthur Keith, in a private

communication with which he has favoured me, says that the adult

chimpanzee’s intestine is slightly longer than the adult man’s, but

that the measurements are for certain reasons unsatisfactory, and that

there have not been enough measurements of adult chimpanzees. We must

remember that, on the one hand, the chimpanzee is not exclusively

frugivorous, and that, on the other hand, it is not likely that Man has

been at any time exclusively carnivorous; though the return of large

populations to a vegetarian diet by means of agriculture is recent.

(2) Man has lost the restraint of seasonal marriage, common to the

anthropoids with other animals, as determined by food-supply and

other conditions of infantile welfare; though, according to Prof.

Westermarck, traces of it may still be found in a few tribes.[13]

That our domestic carnivores have also lost this wholesome restraint

on passion and population points, probably, to some condition of a

steadier food-supply as determining or permitting the change amongst

ourselves. No growth of prudence, however, or habit of laying up stores

can explain the steadier supply of food; since the lower savages have

no prudence and no stores. On the whole, the change may be attributed

(_a_) to an omnivorous habit being more steadily gratified than one

entirely frugivorous or carnivorous; (_b_) to our ancestors having

wandered in quest of game from country to country in which the seasons

varied, so that the original correspondence of birth-time with

favourable conditions of welfare was thrown out. There may also have

been causes that kept down the normal numbers of the pack, so as to

be equivalent, in scarce seasons, to more abundant food: the hunter’s

life, whilst securing a richer normal diet, involved many destructive

incidents. And this (by the way) was favourable to rapid selection

and adaptation; though if the destruction had been great enough to

counterbalance the advantages of animal food, it must have frustrated

the whole experiment.

(3) There is one characteristic difference of Man from the anthropoids

which his hunting habits do not clearly explain—his relatively naked

skin. Darwin attributed this condition to sexual selection.[14] He

argued that, on the one hand, so far as Man has had the power of

choice, women have been chosen for their beauty; and that, on the other

hand, women have had more power of selection, even in the savage state,

than is usually supposed, and “would generally choose not merely the

handsomest men, according to their standard of taste, but those who

were at the same time best able to defend and support them.” Hence,

if a partial loss of hair was esteemed ornamental by our ape-like

progenitors, sexual selection, operating age after age, might result in

relative nakedness. “The faces of several species of monkey and large

surfaces at the posterior end of the body have been denuded of hair;

and this we may safely attribute to sexual selection.” The beard of

the male, and the great length of the hair of the head in some races,

especially seem due to this cause. The greater hairiness of Europeans,

compared with other races, may be a case of reversion to remote

ancestral conditions. But as all races are nearly naked, the common

character was probably acquired before the several races had diverged

from the common stock.

The species of monkey that have lost the hair on various parts of their

bodies, and the beard of males (together with the longer head-hair of

women) of our own race are cases that strongly support the ascription

of such secondary sexual characters to sexual selection. Yet, going

back to the time before the division of modern Man into races (say,

600,000 years), it seems incredible that any women then went unmarried,

hair or no hair, if they were healthy (and the unhealthy soon ceased

to exist); or that any man went unmarried, if he could do his share

in the hunting-field (and, if not, he also soon ceased to exist). No

facts observed amongst extant savages—the choice exerted by women, or

the polygamy of chiefs—throw much light upon that ancient state of

affairs. There were then no chiefs: the hunt-leader of pack or clan

had no authority but his personal prowess, no tradition of ancestry or

religion, nor probably the prestige of magic, to give him command of

women. Unless, at that time, relative nakedness was strongly correlated

with personal prowess in the male and efficiency in the female, it is

difficult to understand how it can have been preserved and increased

by sexual selection. Forgive me for adding an unkind remark: if the

selection of women for their beauty has gone on for hundreds of

thousands of years, and has had a cumulative effect upon the race,

is not the result disappointing? Go into the street and look. That

“women have become more beautiful, according to the general opinion,

than men,” is not an objective, truly æsthetic judgment, but one

determined by causes of which “general opinion” is falsely unconscious.

Schopenhauer[15] thought that men are better looking than women; and of

average specimens this seems to be true; though, to be sure, he was a

sort of misogynist.

Another explanation of Man’s nakedness was suggested by Thomas Belt,

based on the parallel case of certain races of naked dogs, namely,

that he is the better able to free himself from parasites.[16] Darwin

mentions this hypothesis and, in a footnote, cites in its favour “a

practice with the Australians, when the vermin get troublesome, to

singe themselves”; but he says, in the text, “whether this evil is of

sufficient magnitude to have led to the denudation of the body through

natural selection, may be doubted, since none of the many quadrupeds

inhabiting the tropics have, as far as I know, acquired any specialised

means of relief.”[17] It appears, too, that against the probability

of such a result must be set the actual disadvantage of nakedness,

as insisted upon by Wallace, who says that savages feel the want of

protection and try to cover their backs and shoulders.[18] Still, the

disadvantage implied in occasionally feeling the want of protection

would not prevent the loss of hair, if this would deliver the race

from serious dangers from vermin; and the force of the argument from

the condition of other tropical quadrupeds depends, at least in some

measure, upon whether or not there is something peculiar in the case of

naked dogs and men.

Belt argues that the naked dogs with dark, shining skins, found in

Central America and also in Peru,[19] and which were found there at

the Spanish conquest, have probably acquired their peculiar condition

by natural selection, because they are despised by the natives, and no

care is taken of their breeding, and yet they do not interbreed with

the common hairy varieties, as usually happens with artificial stocks.

The advantage of a naked skin being the greater freedom it gives from

ticks, lice and other vermin, the advantage is especially great for a

domestic animal living in the huts of savages, where, because they are

inhabited year after year, vermin are extraordinarily abundant. The

naked dog, then, differs from tropical quadrupeds which are adapted

from a dateless antiquity to such vermin as infest them, by having been

thrown by human companionship amongst not only strange vermin, but

vermin in extraordinarily dense aggregation. Belt would have guarded a

weak point in his case, had he explained why naked races of dogs are so

scarce. Hairy races may have been more recently domesticated, or bred

for their hairiness, or less addicted to an indoor life.

The case of our own forefather also differs somewhat from that of

other tropical mammalia; because, by hypothesis, he underwent pretty

rapidly such an extraordinary change of life; which may have brought

him into circumstances where vermin, formerly negligible, became highly

injurious. “Monkeys,” as Belt observes, “change their sleeping-places

almost daily”; the Orang is said to construct a fresh nest every

night; this is also reported of the Gorilla. Not improbably, then,

daily change of locality was the practice of the original anthropoid

stock, whence we also are descended: thereby avoiding the accumulation

of vermin. Did the hunting life introduce a new habit? In the old

frugivorous forest life, the custom was to get up into some tree for

the night, and within a short radius there were hundreds equally

suitable; and, therefore, there was nothing to check the natural

preference for a fresh one. When, however, the hunting pack began to

make its lair on the ground, there was no such wide choice amongst

caves, rock-shelters, or thickets: one might be better than any

other for miles around. If, then, they settled down there as in a

common lair, the circumstances were, for the time, favourable to the

multiplication of vermin, and therefore to nakedness of skin, in order

the more easily to be rid of them. Perhaps, then, this difference of

Man from the anthropoids may be referred to one common cause with all

the others—the hunting life. There, too, the defilement of blood made

fur inconvenient to animals not apt to cleanse themselves, like those

in the true carnivorous heredity and tradition.

When we consider how injurious some insects are to vertebrate life,

being suspected of having caused in some cases the extinction of

species, can it be said that facility in ridding oneself of such vermin

as lice and ticks is an inadequate cause of human nakedness, or not one

that might outweigh the drawbacks of cold and wet? It is not, however,

incompatible with the action of sexual selection, tending to the same

result; nor, again, with the preferential destruction of hairy children

if ever infanticide was practised. A further possible ground of

deliberate selection may have been the mere ambition of differing from

other animals; for a tribe on the Upper Amazons is reported to depilate

to distinguish themselves from the monkeys, and the wish to be superior

to other animals led a tribe in Queensland to pretend that they, unlike

kangaroos, etc., have no fathers according to the flesh.[20] Admitting

that this last motive can hardly have been primitive, still, our

nakedness may be a resultant of several causes.

(4) Cannibalism, where it has been found amongst extant peoples, or

is known to have been formerly practised, was often justified by

certain magical or animistic ideas, but sometimes frankly by dietetic

taste, or by the satisfaction of revenge or of emphatic triumph

over an enemy. Was it an ancient and perhaps general custom? The

excavations at Krapina in Croatia disclosed along with remains of the

Neanderthal species, which seems to have had a habitation there, those

of rhinoceros and cave-bear and of some other kind of Man; and “some

of the human bones had been apparently split open: on that slender

basis the Krapina men have been suspected of cannibalism.”[21] If the

suspicion is valid, the practice existed (say) 50,000 years ago in one

species of Man; and perhaps much earlier, if we consider how it was

merely an extension of the practice of devouring game to include the

slain members of a hostile pack; for as primitive Man, or Lycopithecus,

his pre-human forebear, no doubt regarded other animals as upon the

same level as himself, so he will have regarded human enemies as upon

the same footing with other animals. That true carnivores are not

generally cannibals may be put down to their more ancient and perfect

adaptation to a predatory life. For them persistent cannibalism would

have been too destructive, and for us it belongs to the experimental

stage of history; though, of course, even in recent times, under stress

of famine, reversion to the practice is not unknown to civilised men.

(5) The extraordinary variability of modern Man (considered as one

species) in stature, shape of skull, size and power of brain, colour,

hairiness, quality of hair, and other characters, physical and mental,

may be referred chiefly to his having become adapted to various local

conditions upon settling here or there for long periods of time after

wandering over the world in quest of game. The settling of offshoots

of the original stock in certain regions long enough for them to

undergo adaptation to local circumstances is the simplest explanation

of existing races: the Negro adapted to equatorial Africa; the Asiatic

stock (“Mongolian”) to Central Asia; the Mediterranean race to the

neighbourhood of the sea after which it is named. As to the Nordic

sub-race (of the Mediterranean, we may suppose), with its fair hair

and skin, it has the appearance of an Arctic beast of prey, like the

Polar bear. The snow-leopard of the Himalaya is found at a midway

stage of such adaptation. Some geologists and zoologists now believe

that, during the Glacial Period, the climate of Northern Europe was

not everywhere such as necessarily to destroy the local fauna and

flora, and in that case our ancestors may for ages have maintained

themselves there; or, if that was impossible (as the absence of

palæolithic remains in Scandinavia seems to indicate), they may have

roamed for many ages along the borders of glaciation, perhaps as far

as the Pacific Coast. Chinese annals refer to fair tribes in Eastern

Siberia 200 years before the Christian era;[22] and it seems requisite

to imagine some extensive reservoir of mankind in order to explain the

origin of the vast hordes which in prehistoric as in historical times

again and again invaded Europe—hordes

“which the populous North

Poured ever from her frozen loins, to pass

Rhene or the Danau; when her barbarous sons

Came like a deluge on the South, and spread

Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.”

That the race was formerly fairer than it is now may be inferred from

the whiteness of its children’s hair: the trait has outlived its

utility. The occurrence of a fair complexion in some mountain tribes,

in the Alps, _e. g._, has occasioned the conjecture that it may be due

in some way to mountainous conditions,[23] of which snow might be one;

but, if we suppose that the Nordic race extended during the Glacial

Period into Western Europe (having already acquired its distinctive

characters), a fair complexion in the Alps may be understood by

supposing that, whilst the greater number of them followed the

ice-sheet back to the north-east, some followed it southward up into

the mountains—if the complexion is really ancient there.

Two objections to this hypothesis will occur to every one: (i) Why are

not the Esquimo fair? Because, I suppose, they are much more recent

immigrants into the Arctic regions, and perhaps were fully clothed when

they arrived there. (ii) Could the Nordic people have existed in such

circumstances unclothed? Whether this was possible physiologists must

judge. We see the Fuegians maintain themselves, practically naked,

under very inclement conditions. And it is not necessary to assume that

the Nordic hunters were entirely naked; since the correlation between

the hair, eyes and all parts of the skin is such that, if the whitening

of any part (say the hair) was sufficiently advantageous to determine

natural selection, the remainder of the body would be similarly

affected. And, no doubt, the Mediterranean race was always whitish.

The Amerinds seem to have been derived chiefly from the Asiatic race.

Pygmies and Australians may represent separate and still older stocks.

But, as a result of migrations and conquests, most peoples are of mixed

descent; and hence (i) individuals in the same locality sometimes

vary greatly, because they inherit the blood of different strains in

different proportions; and (ii) classification is difficult, so that

whilst some observers are content to find half a dozen races, Deniker

enumerates twenty-nine.

Besides general racial differences, there exist within each race and

within each national group further differences between individuals in

their physical, and still more in their mental, stature and ability. As

it was necessary that Man should vary greatly in undergoing adaptation

to the hunting life (as well as to different local environments), he

was in an organic condition favourable to further variation.[24] And

this has been utilised in his adaptation to a certain special condition

of his gregariousness, namely, life in the hunting-pack; for this

requires a difference of personality between leaders and followers,

first in the chase and later in war. A good democrat may think it would

have been a better plan to make all men equal from the first; and I

would it had been so; for then the head of the race would not have had

to drag along such an altogether disproportionate tail: a tail so huge

and unwieldy that one may doubt whether it can ever be extricated from

the morass of barbarism. But in the early days of gregariousness, a

pack could not have held together, or have hunted efficiently, if all

had been equal and each had exercised the right of private judgment.

So in successful packs one led and the rest followed; as they still

do, and will continue to do, of whatever kind may be the leader. And

of all structures that make up a human being the most variable is the

brain: the differences between men in stature and physique are trifling

compared with those in mental power. Whatever feat of strength your

Samson can perform, half a dozen ordinary men can also accomplish; but

in every generation tasks are carried out by intellectual athletes,

toward which all the ordinary men in the world, uniting their efforts,

could do nothing—absolutely nothing.

§ 4. PREY AND COMPETITORS

If we suppose the differentiation of the _Hominidæ_ from the

_Anthropoidea_ to have begun in the Upper Oligocene, and that the

decisive change was initiated by some ape that adopted the life of a

hunter, it is interesting to consider what the world was like in which

he lived, what sort of animals surrounded him, what animals probably

became his prey, and what were his rivals in the chase.[25]

The surface of the planet was less mountainous than at present; in

Europe the Pyrenees had risen, but the Alps were only beginning to

rise; and in Asia the Himalayas began to dominate the world only in

the middle of the next epoch, the Miocene. The distribution of land

and water, too, was very different in the Oligocene from that which

we now see: Europe was divided from Asia by a broad gulf stretching

from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic Circle, and an arm of this gulf

toward the west submerged a great part of Central Europe; Asia was

broadly connected with North America, where now the sea penetrates

between Siberia and Alaska; Africa had no connection with either

Europe or Asia; North and South America were separated—perhaps at

Panama. In the Miocene, Europe, Asia and Africa became united. These

physiographic changes may have affected climate; for during the Eocene

tropical conditions prevailed far to the north, and coal-beds were laid

down in Alaska; but from the Oligocene onwards there was a gradual

fall of temperature, slow at first, but ending (for the present) in

the cataclysms of the Glacial Period. There was also a decrease in

some regions of atmospheric moisture, which determines the density of

vegetation. In its general character the vegetation was similar to

that which now prevails in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions

of the world. The species of plants now existing had not yet arrived;

but of the same genera and families as those we see, conifers, palms

and dicotyledonous flowering plants crowded the forests and overhung

the rivers. The forests were more extensive and continuous than ours

outside the tropics; for by degrees browsing animals, feeding down

the young trees, check the renovation of forests and clear open

spaces, where grasses grow; changes of temperature limit the northern

or southern extension of certain kinds of plants, and a failure of

humidity starves all the larger kinds; converting, at successive

stages, forest into steppe and steppe into desert.

Animals, especially mammalia, with which chiefly we are concerned,

were, at the close of the Oligocene, very different from any that now

roam the lands; all the species, most genera, many families and some

whole orders have since disappeared. But there were plenty to eat and a

good many to dread. Until we know the neighbourhood in which our ape’s

adventures began, nothing precise can be said of his circumstances.

Probably it was somewhere in the Old World, and probably it was in

Asia. Unfortunately, we know nothing of the zoological antiquities of

Asia until the early Miocene, and even then a very small selection

of what must have existed, because geologists have hitherto explored

a very small part of the continent—a few beds in north-western and

northern India and in Burmah. But there is so much evidence of the

migrations of animals in successive ages of the Tertiary Period, that

any remains from the Oligocene and Miocene will help us to understand

what sort of neighbours our remote ancestors had to live amongst.

For prey there was great variety of birds and reptiles (everywhere

eaten by savages) and fishes; but we are most concerned with the

mammalia, which he may be supposed to have pursued afoot. Of these

the most important are the hoofed animals, which fall into two great

groups, perhaps not closely connected—the odd-toed (Perissodactyls)

and the even-toed (Artiodactyls). During the Oligocene there lived in

Europe, or in North America, or in both—and, therefore, probably in

Asia—numbers of the odd-toed group: tapirs; rhinoceroses of several

species, some without horns, some with, some amphibious (Amynodonts),

all smaller than their modern representatives; chalicotheres, strange

beasts something like horses, but instead of hoofs they had claws

on their toes—perhaps survived in China into the Pleistocene;

small predecessors of the horse with three toes on each foot;

titanotheres, hugest animals of their age, extinct in the middle of

it—something like the rhinoceros and nearly as big as an elephant

(_Brontotherium_). Of the even-toed group, pig-like animals abounded,

and some true pigs appeared; entelodonts, or giant-pigs, were common;

anthracotheres, somewhat pig-like in size and shape; ancestral camels

about the size of sheep were to be had in North America; oreodonts,

unfinished-looking creatures of many species; primitive deer and other

ruminants, small in size and not having yet grown any horns. In Europe,

during the Upper Oligocene, cœnotheres, small and graceful animals,

lived in large herds around the lakes. There were also primitive

proboscidia about half the size of modern elephants; many insectivores;

and, amongst rodents, beavers and tailless hares. Generally, animals

of this age that have left descendants were smaller than their modern

representatives; and notably their brains were smaller.

In the Lower and Middle Miocene there appeared also horned cervuline

deer, chevrotaines, and horned antelopes; dinotheres and mastodons,

probably from Africa; primitive hedgehogs, moles and shrews; and in the

Upper Miocene, hipparion, true hares, several varieties of hornless

giraffe, true deer, and ancestral sheep. True horses and cattle are

first known from Pliocene beds; but it is needless to follow the story

further: the fauna becomes more and more modern in its character, and

uncouth forms die out.

Anthropoids are first met with in the Miocene and in Europe:

pliopithecus, allied to the gibbons, in the Lower; and dryopithecus,

related to the chimpanzee, in the Middle Miocene; but they are believed

to have come from Asia. There, in Pliocene beds of the Siwaliks

(southern foot-hills of the Himalayas), occur the orang and chimpanzee,

besides macaques, langurs and baboons. Since the orang is now found

only in Borneo and Sumatra, and the chimpanzee only in Africa,

southern Asia seems to have been the centre from which the anthropoids

dispersed; and this seems to be the chief positive ground for believing

that the human stock began to be differentiated in that region. Since,

again, by the Middle Miocene a chimpanzee form had already migrated

into Europe, it may be assumed that the orang was already distinct from

it (and perhaps had spread eastward): the differentiation of these

genera must, therefore, have happened earlier; and, therefore, also the

differentiation of the human stock; so that this event cannot be put

later than some time in the Oligocene.

How big was Lycopithecus to begin with? The answer to this question

must affect our view of his relations both to prey and to enemies.

Inasmuch as the three extant anthropoids and Man are all of about the

same size, there is a presumption that their common ancestor was in

stature superior to the gibbons and to the largest monkeys—in fact,

a “giant” ape (to borrow a term from Dr. Keith). Dryopithecus “was

smaller than the chimpanzee, but much larger than the gibbon.”[26]

Awaiting further evidence of fossils, which is much to be desired,

it is probable, on the whole, that Lycopithecus weighed less on the

average than modern man, but more than the wolf.

As to competitors and aggressive enemies, there were snakes and

crocodiles; but, confining our attention to carnivorous mammals, the

time seems to have been favourable to the enterprise of a new hunter.

By the middle of the Oligocene, the ancient Creodonts (primitive

flesh-eaters which had flourished in the Eocene) were nearly extinct,

represented in the deposits by their last surviving family, the

Hyœnodonts. Ancestors of the modern carnivores, such as may be called

by anticipation dogs and cats, derived (according to Prof. Scott) from

the Creodont Family of the Miacidæ, were becoming numerous, but for the

most part were still of small size. Apparently, the primitive dogs and

their allies must, for some time, have been more formidable adversaries

than the primitive cats, especially if we suppose them to have already

begun to hunt in pack; and this is not improbable, both on account of

their structure and because several distinct varieties and even genera,

now extant, have that habit—such as wolf, jackal, dingo, dhole, Cape

hunting-dog, etc. In the Upper Oligocene of North America, occurs a

dog as big as a large modern wolf, and in Europe the bear-like dog,

Amphicyon, of about the same size, but said to have been clumsy and

slow-moving. There were several other dog-like species; they continue

in the Miocene, and some of them increase in bulk; but true modern dogs

or wolves (_Canis_) do not appear before the Pliocene. Then, too, first

occur true bears (_Ursus_); hyænas in the Upper Miocene. “Cats” belong

to two sub-families: (i) the true felines, our modern species and

their ancestors; and (ii) the machærodonts, or sabre-toothed cats. The

latter first appear in North America in the Lower Oligocene; the former

in Europe in the Middle Oligocene. The sabre-tooths are so called from

their thin, curved upper canines; which were so long (3 to 6 inches)

that it is not easy to understand how they could open their mouths

wide enough to bite with them. That they were effective in some way

is proved by the fact that machærodonts, first appearing in the Lower

Oligocene, increased in numbers and diversity of species for ages, and

some of them in bulk. In North America, in the Upper Oligocene, one

species was as large as a jaguar, and some of the biggest and most

terrifying were contemporary with Man, and only became extinct in the

Pleistocene. Their limbs were relatively shorter and thicker than those

of the _Felinæ_. These, the true cats, at first progressed more slowly

than the _Machærodontidæ_; but in the Siwalik deposits (Pliocene)

there occur, along with machærodonts, forms resembling the leopard

and the lynx, with others as large as tigers. The largest of all this

group seems to have been the cave-lion, perhaps a large variety of

the common African lion, which also lived with Man in Europe in the

Pleistocene. These were serious competitors in the hunting-life of

Lycopithecus and of primitive Man; and the effect of such competition

in exterminating inferior forms is shown by the fate of the carnivorous

marsupials of South America (allied to _Thylacinus_), which were the

predatory fauna of that region, until in the Pliocene, North and South

America having become united by continuous land, cats and dogs came

in from the northern continent and put an end to them; and also by

the fate of the creodonts, which in the Oligocene seem everywhere to

have been exterminated by the new carnivores. In both cases the beaten

competitors were very inferior in the size and complexity of their

brains; and if Man has succeeded in the struggle for life against the

same foes, in spite of his inferior bodily adaptation, it is probably

due to his very superior brains. This may also be the reason why

modern Man (_Homo sapiens!_), wandering everywhere over the world,

has everywhere exterminated such experiments in human nature as

Pithecanthropus, Eoanthropus, and Neanderthalensis; as others are soon

to follow them into the Hades of extinct species.

These few pages give a ridiculously faint sketch of the animal world

amidst which our remote ancestors began their career. But it may

serve to indicate that there was always plenty to eat if you could

kill it, and plenty of rivals who wanted their share. After the

disappearance of the dinosaurs at the close of the Cretaceous period,

the mammalia, already numerous, developed rapidly, and spread in ever

multiplying numbers and diverging shapes over the whole area of the

land. We may take it that from the Middle Eocene (at least) onwards

the earth has always been as full of wild beasts as it would hold. To

understand what it was like in the Middle Oligocene, one should read

the adventures of hunters in South Africa seventy or eighty years

ago (their verisimilitude is vouched for by Livingstone),[27] before

a gun in the hands of every Kaffir had begun to thin the vast herds

that then covered the whole landscape, and in whose numbers the wild

hunters and the lions could make no appreciable diminution. The little

Bushmen regarded themselves and the lions as joint owners and masters

of all the game. The masters fought one another, indeed; but there was

no necessity to fight, for there was more than enough for both: lions

were then sometimes met in gangs of ten or a dozen. Game throughout

the Cainozoic ages was abundant and of all sizes: many small, many

middle-sized and some prodigious. Even in the Eocene, some of the

Amblypoda (_Dinoceras_, Am.) and of the Barypoda (_Arsinotherium_,

Af.) were as big as rhinoceroses; in the Oligocene, Titanotheres not

much smaller than elephants; in South America, in Miocene and Pliocene

times, the Toxodonts; in the Pleistocene, Ground-sloths of huge

bulk, and Glyptodonts. Of Families still represented amongst living

animals, dinotheres and mastodons occur in the Miocene; and elephant,

rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffe have abounded from the Pliocene to

recent times, in many species, over most of Africa and the northern

hemisphere. Even the marsupials in Australia produced a species

(_Diprotodon_) as large as a rhinoceros with a skull three feet long.

Any one of these would have been a meal for a whole pack of hunters, if

they could kill it—as we may be sure they could.

§ 5. CONCLUSION

From the addiction of some ancestral ape to animal food, and to

the life of a hunter in order to obtain it, then, the special

characteristics of Man seem to be natural consequences. The

hypothesis from which everything follows is exceptionally simple and

moderate. It is generally admitted that our ancestor was a large

anthropoid—possibly more gregarious than others, possibly more apt to

live upon the ground; but neither of these suppositions is requisite.

He was adapted to his life, as the chimpanzee and gorilla are to

theirs: in which, probably, they have gone on with little change for

ages. But into his life a disturbing factor entered—the impulse to

attack, hunt and eat animals, which extensively replaced his former

peaceable, frugivorous habit. The cause of this change may have been a

failure in the supply of his usual diet, or an “accidental variation”

of appetite. Not a great number need have shared in the hunting

impulse; it is enough that a few should have felt it, or even one. If

advantageous and inheritable, it would spread through his descendants.

It was advantageous (_a_) in enlarging their resources of nutrition,

and (_b_) in enabling them to escape from the tropical forest. On

the other hand, to those least fit for the new life it brought the

disadvantages of more strenuous exertion and of competition with other

carnivorous types. But with hands and superior intelligence, those

that had the requisite character succeeded. There was rapid selection

of those whose variations of structure, character, activity were most

effective in dealing with game and with enemies; especially of those

who combined and co-operated, and learned to direct co-operation by

some rudimentary speech.

But, again, the hunting impulse here assumed to have possessed some

anthropoid was not something entirely new; anthropoids and many

other Primates are known to seize and devour birds, lizards and even

small mammals when chance offers an easy opportunity. It is merely a

greater persistence in this behaviour that turns it into hunting.

How very improbable that such a change should _not_ sometimes occur!

Is it not likely to have occurred often, and with many failures?

Similarly, of the resulting changes: the differentiation of our hands

and feet is only an advance upon what you see in the gorilla; as for

our ground-life, can the adult male gorilla be fairly called arboreal?

Several Primates use unwrought weapons; most of them lead a gregarious

life, to which our own is a return; they are co-operative at least in

defence; like many other animals, they communicate by gestures and

inarticulate vocal cries. Co-operative hunting, indeed, seems to be

new in our Order; but since wolves and dogs, or their ancestors, fell

in with it some time or other, why should it be beyond the capacity of

apes? On second thoughts, is the co-operative raiding of plantations

by baboons something altogether different from hunting in pack? Thus

at each occasion of change in structure or function, Lycopithecus

merely carried some tendency of the other Primates a little further,

and a little further; until, certainly, he went a long way. The whole

movement can be distinctly pictured throughout, and it has an air of

being natural or even inevitable. Few hypotheses ask us to grant less

than this one.

Moreover, if the story is not true, Man is an exception to the rule

of animal life, that the structure of every organism is made up

of apparatus subserving its peculiar conditions of nutrition and

reproduction. Indeed, conditions of nutrition are the ground of the

differentiation of animals and plants. Conditions of reproduction need

not here be considered, as the apparatus is the same in the anthropoids

and in ourselves. With many species to avoid being eaten and to mate

are the reasons for some secondary characters, such as protective

armour or coloration, fleetness with its correlative structures,

nuptial plumage, and so forth. But to avoid being eaten and to mate,

it is first of all necessary to eat and live; and accordingly, for

each sort of animal, starting from the organisation of some earlier

stock, its structure and activities are determined by the kind of food

it gets, and the conditions of getting it: in our case, the hunting of

game afoot.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This was suggested to me by Mr. G. A. Garfitt.

[2]

[Illustration]

Estimated duration of the Cainozoic Period, assuming that the thickness

of the deposits is about 63,000 feet, and that deposits accumulate at

the rate of 1 foot in 100 years. Drawn to the scale of 1 mm. to 100,000

years. The estimate is given and explained by Prof. Sollas in the

_Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society_, LXV. (1909). The “tree”

is based on that given by Dr. A. Keith in _The Antiquity of Man_, p.

509.

If we suppose the differentiation of the _Hominidæ_ to have begun

before the close of the Oligocene, about (say) 3,500,000 years are

allowed for the evolution of the existing species of Man. All these

reckonings are provisional.

[3] That Man was from the first a hunter has been suggested by several

authors; but the consequences of the assumption have never (as far as I

know) been worked out. A. R. Wallace, in _Darwinism_ (p. 459), has the

following passage: “The anthropoid apes, as well as most of the monkey

tribe, are essentially arboreal in their structure, whereas the great

distinctive character of man is his special adaptation to terrestrial

locomotion. We can hardly suppose, therefore, that he originated in a

forest region, where fruits to be obtained by climbing are the chief

vegetable food. It is more probable that he began his existence on the

open plains on high plateaux of the temperate or subtropical zone,

where the seeds of indigenous cereals, numerous herbivora, rodents,

game-birds, with fishes and molluscs in the lakes and rivers and seas

supplied him with an abundance of varied food. In such a region he

would develop skill as a hunter, trapper or fisherman, and later as a

herdsman and cultivator—a succession of which we find indications in

the palæolithic and neolithic races of Europe.”

Prof. MacBride, in his popular introduction to _Zoology_ (p. 84), also

traces the specialisation of Man to the hunting life.

My friend Mr. Thomas Whittaker has sent me the following extract

from Comte’s _Politique Positive_, I. pp. 604-5: “L’obligation de se

nourrir d’une proie qu’il faut atteindre et vaincre, perfectionne à

la fois tous les attributs animaux, tant intérieurs qu’extérieurs.

Son influence envers les sens et les muscles est trop évidente pour

exiger ici aucun examen. Par sa réaction habituelle sur les plus

hautes fonctions du cerveau, elle développe également l’intelligence

et l’activité, dont le premier essor lui est toujours dû, même chez

notre espèce. A tous ces tîtres, cette nécessité modifie aussi les

races qui en sont victimes, d’après les efforts moins énergiques, mais

plus continus, qu’elle y provoque pour leur défense. Dans les deux

cas, et surtout quant à l’attaque, elle détermine même les prémières

habitudes de co-opération active, au moins temporaire. Bornées à

la simple famille chez les espèces insociables, ces ligues peuvent

ailleurs embrasser quelquefois de nombreuses troupes. Ainsi commencent,

parmi les animaux, des impulsions et des aptitudes qui ne pouvaient se

développer que d’après la continuité propre à la race la plus sociable

et la plus intelligente. Enfin, la condition carnassière doit aussi

être appreciée dans sa réaction organique. Une plus forte excitation,

une digestion moins laborieuse et plus rapide, une assimilation

plus complète produisant un sang plus stimulant: telles sont ses

propriétés physiologiques. Toutes concourent à développer les fonctions

supérieures, soit en augmentant l’énergie de leurs organes, soit en

procurant plus de temps pour leur exercice.”

[4] F. Wood Jones, _Arboreal Man_, pp. 117-22.

[5] On these paragraphs—(3), (4), (5), (6), (7)—see Darwin’s _Descent

of Man_, 2nd ed., pp. 49-54: whence, of course, I have freely borrowed.

[6] Numerous references might be given, from which I select Hagenbeck,

_Beasts and Men_, p. 63.

[7] R. L. Garner, _Gorillas and Chimpanzees_, ch. vi.: where

mention is made of such meanings as “food,” “calling to some one,”

“affection,” “good” (said, I suppose, of food), “warning cries,” “cold

or discomfort,” “drink,” “illness,” “dead”: the entire vocabulary,

perhaps, not more than twenty signs. The value of Garner’s work is

disputed.

[8] _Natural Selection_, p. 193.

[9] Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, 7th ed., p. 578.

[10] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 619.

[11] Turner’s _Samoa_, p. 285.

[12] _Op. cit._, p. 579.

[13] _Primitive Marriage_, ch. ii.

[14] _Descent of Man_, 2nd ed., pp. 595-604.

[15] _Parerga and Paralipomena_, B. II, Kap. 27.

[16] _A Naturalist in Nicaragua_, ch. xi.

[17] _Op. cit._, p. 57.

[18] _Natural Selection_, pp. 195-7.

[19] Naked races of dogs have also been reported to exist in China,

Manila and South Africa; but I can learn no particulars of them.

[20] W. E. Ling Roth, _North Queensland Ethnology_, Bulletin V. § 81.

[21] A. Keith, _The Antiquity of Man_, p. 134.

[22] M. A. Czaplicka, _My Siberian Year_, p. 230.

[23] Ripley, _The Races of Europe_, pp. 76-7.

[24] Darwin, _Animals and Plants under Domestication_, Pop. ed., II. p.

308.

[25] The contents of this section lie outside my own studies, and have

been taken from various books of Geology and Palæontology: I must

especially mention Prof. Osborne’s _Age of Mammals_ (1910) and Prof.

Scott’s _Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere_ (1913). I have also

profited by inspecting the Palæontological Gallery at South Kensington

with the help of its excellent Guide-Book.

[26] A. Keith, _The Human Body_, p. 58.

[27] _Travels and Researches in Western Africa_, ch. vii.