be that the negro has made a distinct and important advance mentally
beyond the Pygmy, reaching at adolescence the limit of mental evolution
which the Pygmy reaches at death. But the negro stops here, or goes
little beyond this limit. His cranial sutures close, the growth of the
brain is arrested, and the development of his mind comes to an end. In
the white the brain continues to expand, and the closing of the sutures
takes place later in life. Probably the latter is a result of the
former, mental development having overcome the tendency of the sutures
to close in early life. It may be further said of the negro that,
mentally, he is emotional far more than intellectual, and unmoral rather
than immoral, he being apparently incapable of comprehending the moral
conceptions of advanced man.
If we seek the Malaysian and Australasian region of the Eastern seas, we
find there another branch of the negro race, similarly in contact with,
and apparently derived from, a Pygmy stock. This Papuan race of blacks
covers a wide island region, but, like the African race, has become
greatly modified by mixture with alien peoples, largely of Malay origin.
Its purest type is to be found in New Guinea, where it approaches the
negro in general character, though with distinctive features of its own.
The Papuan is of medium height; fleshy rather than muscular; color a
sooty brown; forehead high, but narrow and retreating; nose sometimes
flat and wide at nostrils, but oftener hooked with depressed point; lips
thick and projecting; high cheek bones; prognathism general; hair black
and frizzly. He is negroid in appearance, and is said to resemble the
African of the coast region opposite Aden.
We need not pursue this subject further. It will suffice to offer the
general conclusion that the negroid race, while, through its change of
habits from the hunting to the agricultural status, it has made an
advance both mentally and physically beyond the Pygmy aborigines, does
not appear to have advanced greatly in either particular, the negro
reaching a mental limit at a low level, and being arrested physically
while still possessing marked characteristics of the man-ape.
For the higher development of man, under the stress of a more energetic
conflict with the conditions of nature, we must seek the continent of
Europe, whose human inhabitants had not only to subdue the wild beasts
and teach the earth to bring forth wholesome food in place of useless
plants, but also to battle with wintry climates, and overcome the
adverse influences of cold, sterility of soil, and other hostile
conditions of the northern zones.
One of the chief problems of biology has long been that of the
production of new varieties and species of animals as an effect of
gradual variation in structure. This is believed to be ordinarily due to
changes in the conditions of nature, animals and plants which have made
accordant changes in structure being preserved, those which have not
changed in accordance with the new conditions perishing. Where the
conditions of nature remain uniform, species may persist for long ages
unchanged, though even in the latter case changes in structure are apt
to occur, since variation in species is not wholly dependent upon
external changes. To a considerable extent it is due to causes existing
within the organism itself, fortuitous variations being occasionally
preserved when not out of harmony with the state of affairs prevailing
in the external world. Or variation may occur through the establishment
of new relations between the species inhabiting some locality while
inanimate nature remains uniform, or through migration into new
inanimate or animate surroundings. Variations, in short, may arise under
the influence of any change in the general environment which renders
necessary adaptive changes in structure. But this adaptation in some
cases takes place in the mind, new actions or methods of meeting the
contingency being adopted which render physical changes unnecessary. The
problem is a highly complicated one, and no doubt many causes have to do
with the multiplicity of effects.
There have very likely been many occasions where the changes in
structure took place rapidly, in consequence of sudden variations in
natural conditions. Such rapid changes in conditions necessarily exert a
severe stress or strain on organisms, either destroying them or causing
an equally rapid adaptation, physical or mental. In such instances it is
likely that many species perish, the change demanded being too great;
others escape by migration to better fitted localities; and others, more
mobile or less affected by the change, survive through adaptive
variations.
Of such periods of strain upon organic nature we know of only one in
recent geological times, that known as the Glacial Age, the vast
variation in climate which took place when the ice of the Far North
flowed down in mighty billows over northern Europe and America, burying
everything beneath its crushing weight, and bringing many forms of life
to a sudden and untimely end. No doubt a considerable number of species
of animals and plants perished before this frightful invasion. A notable
instance among these was perhaps that of the American horse, which
disappeared at about this period. Other species survived by a retreat to
more tropical regions, to return after the invasion had spent its force.
Still others may have survived by adapting themselves to the changed
conditions, emerging as new species or well-marked varieties.
Among the beings which passed unscathed through this extraordinary
change in climate was apparently man. And it seems safe to affirm that
man's contest with the glacial conditions, whose force was exerted upon
his mind instead of on his body, was one of the most potent influences
in the evolution of the human race. Man entered the contest at a low
level of mental development; he emerged from it at a comparatively high
level.
No one to-day questions that man was an inhabitant of Europe during the
Glacial Age. The proofs of this are too numerous and positive to be
doubted. He may have inhabited America in the same period, though of
this there still remains some doubt. Claims have been made of the
discovery of evidences of man in Europe long before the glacial epoch,
reaching as far back as the Pliocene and even the Miocene Age. But these
claims have not been established beyond question, and the earliest
generally acknowledged traces of man are confined to glacial Europe.
Yet we are forced to acknowledge that if man existed in Europe during
the prevalence of the ice age, he, or his ancestor, must have been there
before that period. It is absolutely certain that no animal accustomed
to tropical conditions would have chosen this period of extreme cold to
migrate from the warm tropics to the frozen north. The fact that man was
in Europe during glacial times is the very strongest evidence that he
reached there during the milder preceding period, when a genial and
uniform climate is believed to have prevailed throughout southern and
central Europe. If we could accept as fact the seeming very ancient
evidences of man's handiwork, we would be obliged to consider him an
inmate of Europe long ages before the glacial epoch.
If, as there is reason to believe, the man of Africa at that remote
period was the ancestor of the forest-dwelling Pygmy of to-day, lower in
mental level and more bestial in aspect than any of his descendants,
yet much advanced in mind beyond the man-ape of earlier ages, then we
may with some assurance accept this as the type of the primitive man of
Europe. He could have reached there by the land bridges which are
thought to have connected Europe and Africa at that time, one closing
the straits at Gibraltar, the other extending south from Italy by way of
Sicily. These were the routes by which the apes are supposed to have
entered Europe, and by which man may well have followed in a later age.
It is possible, indeed, that man reached the northern continent from
another locality, the habitat of the Negrito race in southeastern Asia
and the Malaysian islands. The fossil man-ape of Java, Pithecanthropus,
is a strong argument that this was the region, or one of the regions, in
which the development of man took place. However this be, we can be
assured that primitive man was far more likely to widen his field of
occupation through migration than any other animal, and may conjecture
that he spread over Europe and Asia in the mild preglacial times, and
perhaps even reached America, giving rise to the early man of that
hemisphere.
The advent of man in Europe was not probably followed by any
considerable intellectual development. The mild and equable climate
which at that time seems to have prevailed, was not likely to make a
stringent demand on his mental resources. Food was very likely abundant
and easily obtained, animals of the chase being plentiful, and edible
roots and fruits by no means lacking. Thus he could readily obtain the
means of subsistence by aid of the arts and weapons employed by him in
the tropical forests. It is not unlikely that some changes, both
physical and mental, took place, but these were probably not great.
There may have been some change in color and form, a first step toward
the distinctions which separate the white from the black man, and a
degree 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 a
counterpart 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 may
have made some progress in the contest with inanimate nature. Vegetable
food in his new home was less abundant than in his old, and the
instigation to agricultural pursuits was stronger. And though Europe was
thickly wooded, it probably presented more open land than Africa. Both
the incitement to agriculture and the facilities for its exercise were,
in all probability, greater than in Africa, and man may have begun to
cultivate the earth here at an earlier date than in his native realm. We
are free at least to speculate that European man gained some slight
knowledge of agriculture in the pre-glacial period, but this is
doubtful, and the relics of early man yield no evidence in its favor.
Mentally it is questionable if he was advanced beyond the level of the
least developed negro tribes, and perhaps not beyond that of the forest
pygmies.
But at length the shadow of a mighty coming change began to fall upon
the fair face of Europe. Year by year the winters grew colder. The ice
sheet, 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 with
rapidity, few animals could have survived its effects. Some of them
found time for changes in structure to fit themselves to the new
conditions. Others perished as the wintry chill increased. Constituted
for tropical warmth, they were unable to endure severe cold. The apes
and monkeys may have been among the early victims. To-day the apes of
Gibraltar are the only ones existing in a wild state in Europe, and it
is doubtful if they are of an original stock. There is good reason to
believe that escape by migration southward was cut off by the sinking of
the ancient land bridges, so that the animals north of the Mediterranean
had no choice between adaptation and annihilation.
Among the animals thus taken prisoner by the glacial chill was European
man. He could not escape, and was forced to remain, exposed to the
alternatives of perishing from cold and hunger, or fitting himself to
endure the new conditions which were coming upon his northern home,
perhaps the most adverse to animal life that had ever been known. Man
was about to be subjected to an extraordinary strain, which he could
only meet by an extraordinary adaptation.
The changes by which he met these new conditions were in a very small
degree physical; they were almost wholly mental. In all animals of the
higher orders, adaptive variations are apt to be in a measure of this
character, the body being relieved from the need of structural change
through some new activity of the mind. In man this was undoubtedly the
case in great, probably in very great, measure. There may have been an
increase in size and strength, some variations in color, in the
breathing organs, in power of resistance of the cuticle to cold, etc.,
but the principal physical change was in a growth of the brain and
expansion of the cranium, giving rise to a less bestial physiognomy and
an advanced mental power.
One physical change that would seem necessary to enable an animal to
endure severe cold, the development of a thick protective covering of
fur or hair, did not take place in man. The change was more likely in
the other direction, since the hairy cover which is possessed by many of
the forest folk has disappeared. This loss of hair by man has been
referred by Darwin to sexual selection, that powerful influence to
which animals seem to owe so many physical structures of no apparent
use, and some of them seemingly disadvantageous. In the case of man in
the circumstances now under consideration, exposed without natural
covering to the growing chill of the advancing ice sheet, the influence
of sexual selection would certainly have found a strong counteracting
force in natural selection, had not some other means of escaping the
influence of the cold been found.
As it was, the difficulty was undoubtedly overcame in great measure by
the adoption of artificial clothing. The mind came to the aid of the
body. The man who could chip a stone into the shape of an axe or spear
head, was sufficiently advanced mentally to conceive the idea of
covering his body with leaves fastened together in some way, with other
vegetable fabrics, or with the skins of slain animals. Protection from
the cold was also sought in caverns and rock shelters, and for a very
long period man remained a cave-dweller. There is hardly a cavern in
western Europe in which he has not left some trace of his residence.
Where caves were not available, rude artificial shelters were probably
built. Even the orang builds a shelter of this kind, and we can readily
conceive of man at a very early period making himself a shelter of
leaves and boughs, from which, as the cold increased, he might easily
evolve a hut composed of a wooden framework covered with skins such as
he used for clothing.
When and where the most important of discoveries, that of fire, was
made, it is impossible to say. Fire arising from natural causes, such as
conflagrations started by lightning, no doubt early taught man the
advantage of this agency as a protection from cold, but the artificial
production of fire was a process too intricate to be arrived at by
undeveloped man except as a result of accident. It has never been
achieved, as we have seen, by the Andaman Mincopies. The rudiments of
the fire-making art were possessed by primitive man. In chipping flints
into arrow or lance heads sparks must frequently have been struck from
the hard stone, and at times these may have fallen upon and kindled
inflammable material. The rubbing requisite in shaping and polishing war
clubs may have yielded a heat occasionally causing fire. In boring the
holes necessary to make the needles found among primitive implements, a
process resembling that of the fire-drill must have been employed. In
short, it is not difficult to conceive of more than one way in which the
fire-making art could have been gained by accident, though it may have
been late in coming, since some, perhaps all, of the arts described were
not attained until the Glacial Age. Once possessed, this important art
would scarcely have been suffered to disappear. With its aid man could
defy the effects of the glacial chill, so far as its direct action upon
his body was concerned; and with it he also gained a new and efficient
means of defence against carnivorous animals, which have ever since
feared fire more than weapons.
The discovery of methods of artificial fire-making was perhaps preceded
by a utilization of the flames caused by lightning and other natural
causes, the fire being conveyed by torches from hearth to hearth and
kept alive with sedulous care. Even after artificial methods of
fire-making were invented, our savage ancestors were exceedingly careful
to keep their fires alive, as the Mincopies are to-day, and this heedful
attention left its traces until very recent times. So important was the
apparatus for kindling a flame deemed that in India the fire-twirl was
made a god and became one of the chief deities of that polytheistic
land. In many other places, especially in Persia, the element of flame
was raised to the dignity of a deity and worshipped among the higher
gods. Among the semi-civilized Americans the peril of the loss of fire
gave rise to a serious religious ceremony. At certain set intervals all
the fires within the limits of a tribe or nation were extinguished, and
a period of gloom, despondency, and dread of the malignant powers
succeeded. Then the "new fire" was kindled on the temple altar, and the
flame was conveyed by swift messengers from hearth to hearth throughout
the land. This done, the period of gloom was followed by one of general
joy and festivity. The malignant deities were banished; the gods of
light and warmth were dominant again; happiness and security had
returned to man.
The beginning of the use of clothing, of artificial shelter, and of fire
formed one of the most vital periods in the history of human evolution.
Coincident with them was the production of a much greater variety of
implements than had been previously possessed, and many of these much
superior to the older and ruder forms. The struggle with the glacial
cold had roused man's mind out of its old sluggishness, and brought it
actively into operation in devising means of counteracting the perils of
his situation and fitting him to the new conditions of existence.
Among the important steps of progress was very likely a considerable
advance in the use of language, enabling the men of that period more
readily to consult with and advise one another, to give adequate warning
of danger, to aid in the chase or in industrial pursuits, to educate the
young and impart new ideas or teach new discoveries to the old. The
mental powers of the best-trained individuals then as now served the
whole community, and nothing of value that was once gained was likely to
be lost. Discovery and invention at that early period probably went on
with 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 by
step the methods of life were improved.
One important effect of the glacial chill needs to be adverted to. The
severity of the weather was not the only thing to be provided against.
The discovery of fire and the invention of clothing and habitation were
not enough to insure man's preservation. For the severe cold must have
greatly changed the conditions of the food supply, and the man of the
period found it a difficult matter to obtain the first necessaries of
life. The easy-going man of the earlier age, living amid an abundance of
fruits and vegetables and surrounded by numbers of game animals, or
dwelling beside streams which were filled with easily taken fish,
probably found the question of subsistence one of minor importance. The
coming on of the Glacial Age made this question one of major importance.
The supply of fruits and vegetable substances was greatly decreased by
the biting chill, and the number of food animals was correspondingly
reduced; while through much of the year the effects of frost drove the
fish from the streams, and cut off effectually this source of food. Man
was brought into a situation in which only the most active exertion of
his powers of thought could preserve him from annihilation.
He now found the exercise of the art of hunting more difficult than ever
before, one that needed a new development of courage, cunning,
alertness, and endurance, the scarcity of animals obliging him to make
long journeys and attack the strongest creatures. Whether or not he
possessed the poisoned arrow, which the Pygmies now find so effective,
cannot be said, but in all probability he was forced to invent new and
more destructive weapons, a necessity that gave fresh exercise to his
powers of invention. So far as our actual knowledge goes, the art of
chipping stones into weapons and implements was not possessed before
this period, and it may have been a result of the severe exigencies of
the situation and the mental stimulation thence resulting. This art is
not possessed by any of the Pygmies, the nearest approach to it being
the splitting of stone by fire and using the splinters as weapons. Very
likely preglacial man was similarly destitute of this art.
Under the severe strain of the glacial conditions the weak and incapable
doubtless succumbed to the cold and deficiency of food; the strong and
capable survived, gained superior powers, devised new weapons and
implements, 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, the
result being a much greater variation in the size and activity of his
brain than in other portions of his physical structure. While it had
become more difficult to find and capture food animals, he was at the
same time in greater danger from carnivorous beasts, which were forced
by partial starvation to overcome their dread of man. He was thus
obliged to become as alert and ready in defence as he was in attack, to
associate himself more fully with his fellows in his hunting excursions
and his other labors, and to adapt the forms and forces of nature still
more to his needs, his career as a tool-making animal being greatly
stimulated by the necessities of his situation.
It is conceivable that the art of agriculture may have been one of the
outcomes of the situation in which man now found himself. The decrease
in the food supply must have put all his powers of invention to the
test, and the probable diminution in number and productiveness of food
plants may have served as an instigation to the cultivation of useful
plants, and the preservation of their products, where possible, for
winter supply. It is not unlikely that in this way and under this
stimulation agriculture began, and that it made its way subsequently
from this locality to more southern regions. In this, however, we cannot
go beyond conjecture.
It seems useless to pursue this topic further, since the absence of
facts forces us to confine ourselves largely to suggestions and
probabilities. We have arrived at two definite hypotheses: first, that
the original stage of man's progress upward from the apes was completed
when he gained dominion over the animal kingdom and attained the
condition of the forest pygmies; second, that an advanced stage was
reached when he achieved the conquest of nature, so far as overcoming
the exceedingly adverse conditions of the Glacial Age was concerned. At
the close of this period of frigid cold man emerged as a higher being
than the forest nomad or the agricultural people of the tropics,
possessed of much superior arts and implements and with largely enhanced
mental powers. The long and bitter struggle for existence through which
he had passed had lifted him to a much higher level in the upward
progress of life.