Part 35

While thus it has been shown that life has been progressive, successive forms of life being the result of modification through descent, those faring the best in the Struggle for Existence surviving, by reason of some advantage, physical or otherwise, gained over their competitors, yet little, bearing specially upon man, has been expressed in this chapter. After he had acquired those intellectual and moral faculties which largely distinguish him from the lower animals in a state of nature, he would have been but little liable to have his bodily structure modified through Natural Selection or any other means, for man is enabled, through his mental faculties, “to keep with an unchanged body in harmony with the changing universe.” He has a most wonderful power of adapting his habits to altered conditions of life. Tools, weapons and various devices are invented by him for the procurement of food and bodily defence. And when he migrates into a colder climate, he uses clothes, builds sheds and makes fire, and by its aid cooks food that would otherwise be indigestible. The lower animals, however, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, or both, if they would successfully defend themselves from new enemies, or they must be reduced in proportions, so as to escape detection and danger. When they remove into colder climates they must become clothed in thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered, for failure to be thus modified must ultimately result in their ceasing to exist. But in the case of man’s intellectual and moral faculties, as has been shown by Wallace, it is widely different. These faculties are quite variable, and there is reason to believe that the variations tend to be inherited. Therefore, if they were formerly of high importance to palæolithic man and his ape-like progenitors, they would have been perfected or advanced through Natural Selection. But of the high importance of the intellectual faculties there can be no question, for man owes to them in a great measure his preëminent position in the world. It can be seen that, in the rudest state of society, the individuals who were the most sagacious, and who were the most skilful in the invention of weapons or traps, and who were the best able to defend themselves, would rear the greatest number of offspring, and that the tribes which included the largest number of men possessed of such superior endowments would increase in number and eventually supplant the other tribes. Numbers depend primarily on the means of subsistence, and this on the physical nature of the country, but in a much higher degree upon the arts therein practised. As a tribe increases and is victorious, it is often still further increased by the absorption of other tribes, and after a time the tribes which are thus absorbed into another tribe assume, as has been remarked by Mr. Maine in his “Ancient Law,” that they are the co-descendants of the same ancestors. Stature and strength in the men of a tribe are also of importance in its success, and these are dependent in part upon the character and the quantity of food that can be obtained. Men of the Bronze Period in Europe were supplanted by a larger-handed and more powerful race, but their success was probably due in a much higher degree to their superiority in the arts. All that is known by savages, as inferred from their traditions and from old monuments, shows that from the most remote times successful tribes have supplanted others. Relics of extinct tribes have been found on the wild plains of America and on the isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean. Civilized nations are everywhere at the present time supplanting barbarous peoples, excepting where climate opposes a fatal barrier, and they thus succeed in a great measure, though not exclusively, through the arts, which are the products of the intellect. With mankind, then, it is highly probable that the intellectual faculties have been gradually perfected through Natural Selection. Undoubtedly it would have been interesting to have traced the development of each separate faculty from the state in which it exists in the lower animals to that in which it exists in man, but this would have been a task of no easy accomplishment. As soon, however, as the progenitors of man became social, and this probably occurred at a very early period, the advancement of the intellectual faculties would have been aided and modified in an important manner, for if one man in a tribe, more sagacious than his fellows, had invented a new snare or a weapon, or other means of attack or defence, the plainest self-interest, with no great help of reasoning power, would have prompted the other members to have imitated him, and thus all would have been profited. Habitual practice of each new art must likewise in some slight degree strengthen the intellect. If the new invention were an important one, the tribe would increase in numbers, spread and supplant other tribes, and thus rendered stronger numerically there would be a better chance of the birth of other superior and inventive members. Should these last be so fortunate as to leave children to inherit their mental superiority, the chance of the birth of still more ingenious members would be somewhat better, and in a very small tribe would be decidedly better.

That primeval man, or his ape-like progenitors, should have become social, they must have acquired the same instinctive feelings which impel other animals to live in a body, and they doubtless exhibited the same general disposition. When separated from their companions, for whom they would have felt some degree of love, they would have experienced a feeling of uneasiness. They would have warned each other of danger, and have given mutual aid in attack or defence. All this implies some degree of sympathy, fidelity and courage. Such social qualities, whose paramount importance to the lower animals is undisputed, were doubtless acquired by the progenitors of men in a similar manner, namely, through Natural Selection, aided by inherited habit. In the never-ceasing wars of savages, fidelity and courage are all-important, and certainly when two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came into competition, the one that contained the greatest number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members, who were ever ready to warn each other of danger, and to assist and defend each other, would without doubt succeed the best and conquer the other. The advantage which disciplined soldiers have over undisciplined hordes follows mainly from the confidence which each soldier has in his comrades. Obedience is of the highest importance, for any form of government is better than none. Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. Thus, a tribe possessing these qualities in an eminent degree would spread and be victorious over other tribes. But, in the course of events, or all past history is a myth, this successful tribe would in its turn be overcome by some other more highly-endowed tribe; and thus would the social and moral qualities tend slowly to advance and be diffused throughout the world.

Praise and the blame of our fellow-men are much more powerful stimuli to the development of the social qualities. These virtues are primarily due to the instinct of sympathy, and this instinct, like all other social instincts, was doubtlessly acquired through Natural Selection. How early man’s progenitors, in the course of their development, became capable of feeling and being impelled by the praise or blame of their fellow-men, we are unable to say. Even dogs appreciate encouragement, praise and blame, and it would be strange if such could not be predicated of beings higher in the scale. The wildest savages feel the sentiment of glory. This is clearly shown by their preservation of the trophies of their bravery, by their habit of excessive boasting, and even by the extreme care they take of their personal appearance and adornments. Unless, however, they regarded the opinion of their comrades, such habits would be without meaning and senseless. How far the savage experiences remorse, is doubtful. He certainly feels shame and contrition for the breach of some of the lesser rules of his tribe. It is true that remorse is a deeply-hidden feeling, but it is hardly credible that a being who will sacrifice his life rather than betray his tribe, or give himself up as a prisoner rather than violate his parole, would not feel remorse, though he might, if he failed in a duty which he held sacred, hide it from view.

Primeval man must have been, at a very remote time, influenced by the praise and blame of his fellows. That the members of the same tribe would approve of conduct that appeared for the general good, and reprobate such as seemed to carry with it evil, there can be no question. To do good unto others, or to do unto others as you would that they should do unto you, is the foundation-stone of morality. It is, therefore, hardly possible to place too high an estimate upon the importance of the love of praise and fear of blame during rude, barbaric times, for a man, who was not impelled by any profound instinctive feeling to sacrifice his life for the good of others, but who was raised to such a noble action by a sense of glory, would by his example excite a similar wish for glory in the bosoms of other men, and would thereby engender and strengthen by exercise the laudable feeling of admiration. With increased experience and reason, those more remote consequences of his actions, such as temperance, chastity, etc., which during his very early times were utterly disregarded, would come to be highly esteemed or even held sacred. And ultimately there would have been developed from the social instincts a highly-complex sentiment which, largely guided by the approbation of his fellow-men, and ruled by reason, self-interest, and latterly by deep religious feelings, confirmed by teaching and habit, would constitute his moral sense or conscience. Although a high standard of morality gives but little if any advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe, yet it must be borne in mind that it is an advancement in the standard of morality and an increase in the number of well-endowed men that certainly give a telling advantage to a tribe over another, for the tribe that includes many members who, from possessing in an eminent degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage and sympathy, and who were always prepared to give aid to each other, and to sacrifice themselves for the common weal, would be victorious over most other tribes. And this would be Natural Selection. Tribes at all times throughout the world have supplanted other tribes. Now, as morality is one element in their success, the standard of morality and the number of well-endowed men will thus everywhere tend to rise and increase.

Very difficult it is to form any judgment why one particular tribe and not another has been successful in the Struggle for Existence and has risen in the scale of civilization. Many savages are still in the same condition of degradation as when first discovered. The greatest part of mankind has never evinced the slightest desire that their civil institutions should be improved. Progress is not, as we are apt to consider, the normal rule in human society. Many concurrent favorable conditions, far too complex to be followed out, seem to determine human progress. A cool climate, it has been remarked, by leading to industry and the various arts, has been indispensable thereto, but if the climate has been too severe, as in the Arctic regions, there is a check to continual progress. Pressed by hard necessity, the Esquimaux have succeeded in many ingenious inventions, but they can never attain, for the reason already assigned, to any very great success. Nomadic habits, whether along the shores of the sea, or over wide plains, or through dense tropical forests, have in all cases proved detrimental. Perhaps, the possession of some property, a fixed abode, and the union of many families under a leader or chief, are indispensable requisites for civilization, as such habits almost necessitate the cultivation of the ground. From some such accident as the falling of the seeds of a fruit-tree on a heap of refuse and producing an unusually fine variety may probably have resulted the first steps in cultivation, for if the fruit were profitable and good for food, it would be a very dull intellect that could not readily perceive, especially among a people that had given up a roving habit of life, the advantage which would accrue from the planting of some more trees of a similar kind. They would undoubtedly be led to cultivation for themselves by a simple observation of the plan by which nature contrives in keeping up a continuation of her many kinds of plants. Instead of dropping the seeds upon the ground as nature is prone to do, and trusting to their burial by accident or otherwise, seeing the advantage to be gained by burying them out of the reach of noxious influences, whether of climate or animal life, they would soon learn to take the matter of planting under their own watchful care rather than leave it to the seemingly thoughtless provision of nature. But the problem of the first advance of palæolithic man toward civilization, is at present much too difficult to be solved, for it involves the consideration of certain elements which we know too little about, and their disentanglement from others whose value is of recognized significance in the domain of biological science.

While it has been shown how it has been possible for primeval man to have acquired a moral sense or conscience, yet it must not be forgotten that the lower animals, at least such as have come under the civilizing influence of man, have also come into possession of the same highly complex sentiment which has been of such inestimable service to man for his progressive advancement. Other faculties, such as the powers of imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined sense of beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of excitement or novelty, have also been of immense importance in this direction, for they could not fail to have led to the most capricious changes of customs and fashions. Caprice, it has been rather oddly claimed by a recent writer, is “one of the most remarkable and typical differences between savages and brutes.” It is not only possible to perceive how it is that man is capricious, but the lower animals, as has been previously shown, are capricious in their affections, aversions and sense of beauty. And there is good reason to suspect that they love novelty for its own sake. Self-consciousness, individuality, abstraction, general ideas, etc., which have been held by several recent writers as making the sole and complete distinction between man and the brutes, seem useless subjects for discussion, since hardly any two authors agree in their definitions of these high faculties. In man, such faculties could not have been fully developed until his mental powers had advanced to a high state of perfection, and this implies the use of a highly-developed language. No one supposes that one of the lower animals reflects whence he comes or whither he goes, or what is death or what is life, but can one feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory, and some power of imagination as shown by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures in the chase? And this would be a form of self-consciousness. On the contrary, as Büchner ably remarks, how little can the hard-worked wife of an Australian savage who scarcely uses any abstract words and whose ability to count does not extend beyond four, exert her self-consciousness, or reflect on the origin, nature and aim of her own existence. That animals retain their mental individuality is unquestioned, for when any voice awakens a train of old associations in the mind of some favorite dog, as in the case of my dog Frisky, already referred to, he must have retained his mental individuality, although every atom of his brain had probably undergone change more than once during the five or six years he lived in my family. Animals have some ideas of numbers. The crow has been known to count as far as the number six, and a dog I once had knew as well as I did when Saturday came. The sense of beauty, which has been declared peculiar to man, is innate in birds. Certain bright colors and certain sounds, when in harmony, excite in them pleasure as they do in man. The taste for the beautiful, at least so far as female beauty is concerned, is not of a special nature in the human mind, for it differs widely in the different races of man, and is not quite the same even in the different nations of the same race. If we are to judge from the hideous ornaments and the equally hideous music admired by most savages, it might be urged that their æsthetic faculty was less highly developed than it is in some species of birds. No animal, it is obvious, would be capable of admiring the nocturnal heaven, a beautiful landscape, or refined music. And this should not be wondered at, for such high tastes, dependent as they are upon culture and complex associations, are not even enjoyed by barbarous or by uneducated persons.

Seeing that man in a state of nature has no preëminence above the lower animals so far as his mental and moral qualities are concerned, and in many instances ranks far below the so-called brute, let us examine fora short time his religious nature. No evidence exists to show that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary, ample evidence, not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, can be adduced to show that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea. If under the term religion is included the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is entirely different, for this belief seems to be almost universal with the less civilized races. Nor is it difficult to understand how it originated. With the development of the imagination, wonder and curiosity, and of a moderate power of reasoning, man would naturally have craved to understand what was going on around him, and even have vaguely speculated on his own existence. According to McLennan man must, in his efforts to arrive at some explanation of the phenomena of life, feign for himself. Judging from the universality of this life, the same author remarks that “the simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess.” Probably, as has been clearly shown by Tyler, dreams may have first given rise to the notion of spirits. Savages do not readily discriminate between subjective and objective phenomena. When a savage dreams, the figures which appear in his vision are believed to have come from a distance and to stand over him, or the soul of the dreamer goes out on a journey and returns with a remembrance of what has been seen. That tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by living or spiritual beings may be illustrated by a little fact which I have frequently noticed. Standing on the corner of a street, waiting for a closed snow-sweeper, which was driven by electricity, to pass, my attention was directed to a young horse that was geared to a hansom. The horse was at rest, and its driver, evidently awaiting some one, sat upon the box. Upon the appearance of the sweeper the horse reared, turned his face directly toward the object of his fear, pawed the pavement in the most impatient manner possible, and then looked wistfully and pleadingly at his master, as though imploring protection from some fearful and gigantic monster. Another sweeper passed while I was still in waiting, and the poor animal went through the same trying and fearful ordeal as before. He must, I think, have reasoned in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, which was about to do him some serious physical harm. Belief in spiritual agencies would thus easily pass into a belief in the existence of one or more gods, for savages would naturally ascribe to spirits the same passions, the same line of vengeance or simple form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves experienced.

Religious devotion is a highly complex feeling. Love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future and other elements enter into its composition. No being could experience so complex an emotion unless his intellectual and moral faculties had attained a moderately high level. Some approach to this high state of mind is visible in the profound love of a dog for his master, for it is associated with complete submission, some fear, reverence, gratitude and perhaps other feelings. A dog’s behavior towards his master, after a long absence, is widely different from that which he shows towards his fellows, for his transports of joy in the latter case are less intense, and his every action savors of a mere sense of equality. But upon his master, as Prof. Braubach goes so far as to maintain, he looks as on a god.

These high mental faculties, which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, and subsequently in fetishism, polytheism and monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained at a very low level, to various strange superstitions and customs, many of which, such as the sacrifice of human beings to a blood-loving god and the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire, are too terrible to contemplate. It is well, however, to reflect occasionally on these superstitions, for they show us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to improved reason, science and accumulated knowledge. How much better is the life of civilized man than that of the savage, for as Lubbock has well remarked, “it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters every pleasure.”