with worship), and on a small scale in making daring operations on theskull. Four thousand years ago is given as a probable date for thatearly community in Kent, but evidences of Neolithic man occur insituations which demand a much greater antiquity–perhaps 30,000 years.And man was not young then!

We must open one more chapter in the thrilling story of the Ascent ofMan–the Metal Ages, which are in a sense still continuing. Metals beganto be used in the late Polished Stone (Neolithic) times, for there werealways overlappings. Copper came first, Bronze second, and Iron last.The working of copper in the East has been traced back to the fourthmillennium B.C., and there was also a very ancient Copper Age in the NewWorld. It need hardly be said that where copper is scarce, as inBritain, we cannot expect to find much trace of a Copper Age.

The ores of different metals seem to have been smelted together in anexperimental way by many prehistoric metallurgists, and bronze was thealloy that rewarded the combination of tin with copper. There isevidence of a more or less definite Bronze Age in Egypt and Babylonia,Greece and Europe.

It is not clear why iron should not have been the earliest metal to beused by man, but the Iron Age dates from about the middle of the secondmillennium B.C. From Egypt the usage spread through the Mediterraneanregion to North Europe, or it may have been that discoveries made inCentral Europe, so rich in iron-mines, saturated southwards, followingfor instance, the route of the amber trade from the Baltic. Comparedwith stone, the metals afforded much greater possibilities ofimplements, instruments, and weapons, and their discovery and usage hadundoubtedly great influence on the Ascent of Man. Occasionally, however,on his descent.

Retrospect

Looking backwards, we discern the following stages: (1) The settingapart of a Primate stock, marked off from other mammals by a tendency tobig brains, a free hand, gregariousness, and good-humouredtalkativeness. (2) The divergence of marmosets and New World monkeys andOld World monkeys, leaving a stock–an anthropoid stock–common to thepresent-day and extinct apes and to mankind. (3) From this common stockthe Anthropoid apes diverged, far from ignoble creatures, and a humanoidstock was set apart. (4) From the latter (we follow Sir Arthur Keith andother authorities) there arose what may be called, withoutdisparagement, tentative or experimental men, indicated byPithecanthropus "the Erect," the Heidelberg man, the Neanderthalers,and, best of all, the early men of the Sussex Weald–hinted at by thePiltdown skull. It matters little whether particular items arecorroborated or disproved–e.g. whether the Heidelberg man came beforeor after the Neanderthalers–the general trend of evolution remainsclear. (5) In any case, the result was the evolution of _Homo sapiens,the man we are_–a quite different fellow from the Neanderthaler. (6)Then arose various stocks of primitive men, proving everything andholding fast to that which is good. There were the Pal?olithic peoples,with rude stone implements, a strong vigorous race, but probably, inmost cases, supplanted by fresh experiments. These may have arisen asshoots from the growing point of the old race, or as a fresh offshootfrom more generalised members at a lower level. This is the eternalpossible victory alike of aristocracy and democracy. (7) Pal?olithic menwere involved in the succession of four Great Ice Ages orGlaciations, and it may be that the human race owes much to thealternation of hard times and easy times–glacial and interglacial. Whenthe ice-fields cleared off Neolithic man had his innings. (8) And wehave closed the story, in the meantime, with the Metal Ages.

It seems not unfitting that we should at this point sound anothernote–that of the man of feeling. It is clear in William James’s words:

Bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, are these half-brutish prehistoric brothers. Girdled about with the immense darkness of this mysterious universe even as we are, they were born and died, suffered and struggled. Given over to fearful crime and passion, plunged in the blackest ignorance, preyed upon by hideous and grotesque delusions, yet steadfastly serving the profoundest of ideals in their fixed faith that existence in any form is better than non-existence, they ever rescued triumphantly from the jaws of ever imminent destruction the torch of life which, thanks to them, now lights the world for us.

Races of Mankind

Given a variable stock spreading over diverse territory, we expect tofind it splitting up into varieties which may become steadied into racesor incipient species. Thus we have races of hive-bees, "Italians,""Punics," and so forth; and thus there arose races of men. Certain typessuited certain areas, and periods of in-breeding tended to make thedistinctive peculiarities of each incipient race well-defined andstable. When the original peculiarities, say, of negro and Mongol,Australian and Caucasian, arose as brusque variations or "mutations,"then they would have great staying power from generation to generation.They would not be readily swamped by intercrossing or averaged off.Peculiarities and changes of climate and surroundings, not to speak ofother change-producing factors, would provoke new departures from age toage, and so fresh racial ventures were made. Moreover, the occurrenceof out-breeding when two races met, in peace or in war, would certainlyserve to induce fresh starts. Very important in the evolution of humanraces must have been the alternating occurrence of periods ofin-breeding (endogamy), tending to stability and sameness, and periodsof out-breeding (exogamy), tending to changefulness and diversity.

Thus we may distinguish several more or less clearly defined primitiveraces of mankind–notably the African, the Australian, the Mongolian,and the Caucasian. The woolly-haired African race includes the negroesand the very primitive bushmen. The wavy-to curly-haired Australian raceincludes the Jungle Tribes of the Deccan, the Vedda of Ceylon, theJungle Folk or Semang, and the natives of unsettled parts ofAustralia–all sometimes slumped together as "Pre-Dravidians." Thestraight-haired Mongols include those of Tibet, Indo-China, China, andFormosa, those of many oceanic islands, and of the north from Japan toLapland. The Caucasians include Mediterraneans, Semites, Nordics,Afghans, Alpines, and many more.

There are very few corners of knowledge more difficult than that of theRaces of Men, the chief reason being that there has been so muchmovement and migration in the course of the ages. One physical type hasmingled with another, inducing strange amalgams and novelties. If westart with what might be called "zoological" races or strains differing,for instance, in their hair (woolly-haired Africans, straight-hairedMongols, curly-or wavy-haired Pre-Dravidians and Caucasians), we findthese replaced by _peoples_ who are mixtures of various races, "brethrenby civilisation more than by blood." As Professor Flinders Petrie hassaid, the only meaning the term "race" now can have is that of a groupof human beings whose type has been unified by their rate ofassimilation exceeding the rate of change produced by the infiltrationof foreign elements. It is probable, however, that the progress ofprecise anthropology will make it possible to distinguish the variousracial "strains" that make up any people. For the human sense of raceis so strong that it convinces us of reality even when scientificdefinition is impossible. It was this the British sailor expressed inhis answer to the question "What is a Dago?" "Dagoes," he replied, "isanything wot isn’t our sort of chaps."

Steps in Human Evolution

Real men arose, we believe, by variational uplifts of considerablemagnitude which led to big and complex brains and to the power ofreasoned discourse. In some other lines of mammalian evolution therewere from time to time great advances in the size and complexity of thebrain, as is clear, for instance, in the case of horses and elephants.The same is true of birds as compared with reptiles, and everyonerecognises the high level of excellence that has been attained by theirvocal powers. How these great cerebral advances came about we do notknow, but it has been one of the main trends of animal evolution toimprove the nervous system. Two suggestions may be made. First, theprolongation of the period of ante-natal life, in intimate physiologicalpartnership with the mother, may have made it practicable to start thehigher mammal with a much better brain than in the lower orders, likeInsectivores and Rodents, and still more Marsupials, where the periodbefore birth (gestation) is short. Second, we know that the individualdevelopment of the brain is profoundly influenced by the internalsecretions of certain ductless glands notably the thyroid. When thisorgan is not functioning properly the child’s brain development isarrested. It may be that increased production of certainhormones–itself, of course, to be accounted for–may have stimulatedbrain development in man’s remote ancestors.

Given variability along the line of better brains and given a process ofdiscriminate sifting which would consistently offer rewards to alertnessand foresight, to kin-sympathy and parental care, there seems no greatdifficulty in imagining how Man would evolve. We must not think of anAristotle or a Newton except as fine results which justify all thegroaning and travailing; we must think of average men, of primitivepeoples to-day, and of our forbears long ago. We must remember how muchof man’s advance is dependent on the external registration of the socialheritage, not on the slowly changing natural inheritance.

Looking backwards it is impossible, we think, to fail to recogniseprogress. There is a ring of truth in the fine description ?schylus gaveof primitive men that–

first, beholding they beheld in vain, and, hearing, heard not, but, like shapes in dreams, mixed all things wildly down the tedious time, nor knew to build a house against the sun with wicketed sides, nor any woodwork knew, but lived like silly ants, beneath the ground, in hollow caves unsunned. There came to them no steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit, but blindly and lawlessly they did all things.

Contrast this picture with the position of man to-day. He has masteredthe forces of Nature and is learning to use their resources more andmore economically; he has harnessed electricity to his chariot and hehas made the ether carry his messages. He tapped supplies of materialwhich seemed for centuries unavailable, having learned, for instance,how to capture and utilise the free nitrogen of the air. With histelegraph and "wireless" he has annihilated distance, and he has addedto his navigable kingdom the depths of the sea and the heights of theair. He has conquered one disease after another, and the young scienceof heredity is showing him how to control in his domesticated animalsand cultivated plants the nature of the generations yet unborn. With allhis faults he has his ethical face set in the right direction. The mainline of movement is towards the fuller embodiment of the true, thebeautiful, and the good in healthy lives which are increasingly asatisfaction in themselves.

Factors in Human Progress

Many, we believe, were the gains that rewarded the arborealapprenticeship of man’s ancestors. Many, likewise, were the results ofleaving the trees and coming down to the solid earth–a transition whichmarked the emergence of more than tentative men. What great stepsfollowed?

Some of the greatest were–the working out of a spoken language and ofexternal methods of registration; the invention of tools; the discoveryof the use of fire; the utilisation of iron and other metals; the tamingof wild animals such as dog and sheep, horses and cattle; thecultivation of wild plants such as wheat and rice; and the irrigation offields. All through the ages necessity has been the mother of inventionand curiosity its father; but perhaps we miss the heart of the matter ifwe forget the importance of some leisure time–wherein to observe andthink. If our earth had been so clouded that the stars were hidden frommen’s eyes the whole history of our race would have been different. Forit was through his leisure-time observations of the stars that early mandiscovered the regularity of the year and got his fundamentalimpressions of the order of Nature–on which all his science is founded.

If we are to think clearly of the factors of human progress we mustrecall the three great biological ideas–the living organism, itsenvironment, and its functioning. For man these mean (1) the livingcreature, the outcome of parents and ancestors, a fresh expression of abodily and mental inheritance; (2) the surroundings, including climateand soil, the plants and animals these allow; and (3) the activities ofall sorts, occupations and habits, all the actions and reactions betweenman and his milieu. In short, we have to deal with FOLK, PLACE, WORK;the _Famille_, _Lieu_, _Travail_ of the LePlay school.

As to FOLK, human progress depends on intrinsic racialqualities–notably health and vigour of body, clearness and alertness ofmind, and an indispensable sociality. The most powerful factors in theworld are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men of good will. Thedifferences in bodily and mental health which mark races, and stockswithin a people, just as they mark individuals, are themselves traceableback to germinal variations or mutations, and to the kind of sifting towhich the race or stock has been subjected. Easygoing conditions are notonly without stimulus to new departures, they are without the siftingwhich progress demands.

As to PLACE, it is plain that different areas differ greatly in theirmaterial resources and in the availability of these. Moreover, even whenabundant material resources are present, they will not make for muchprogress unless the climate is such that they can be readily utilised.Indeed, climate has been one of the great factors in civilisation, herestimulating and there depressing energy, in one place favouring certainplants and animals important to man, in another place preventing theirpresence. Moreover, climate has slowly changed from age to age.

As to WORK, the form of a civilisation is in some measure dependent onthe primary occupations, whether hunting or fishing, farming orshepherding; and on the industries of later ages which have a profoundmoulding effect on the individual at least. We cannot, however, say morethan that the factors of human progress have always had these threeaspects, Folk, Place, Work, and that if progress is to continue onstable lines it must always recognise the essential correlation offitter folk in body and mind: improved habits and functions, alike inwork and leisure; and bettered surroundings in the widest and deepestsense.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DARWIN, CHARLES, _Descent of Man_. HADDON, A. C., _Races of Men_. HADDON, A. C., _History of Anthropology_. KEANE, A. H., _Man Past and Present_. KEITH, ARTHUR, _Antiquity of Man_. LULL, R. S., _Organic Evolution_. MCCABE, JOSEPH, _Evolution of Civilization_. MARETT, R. R., _Anthropology_ (Home University Library). OSBORN, H. F., _Men of the Early Stone Age_. SOLLAS, W. J., _Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives_. TYLOR, E. B., _Anthropology and Primitive Culture_.

VI

EVOLUTION GOING ON

EVOLUTION GOING ON

Evolution, as we have seen in a previous chapter, is another word forrace-history. It means the ceaseless process of Becoming, linkinggeneration to generation of living creatures. The Doctrine of Evolutionstates the fact that the present is the child of the past and the parentof the future. It comes to this, that the living plants and animals weknow are descended from ancestors on the whole simpler, and these fromothers likewise simpler, and so on, back and back–till we reach thefirst living creatures, of which, unfortunately, we know nothing.Evolution is a process of racial change in a definite direction, wherebynew forms arise, take root, and flourish, alongside of or in the placeof their ancestors, which were in most cases rather simpler in structureand behaviour.

The rock-record, which cannot be wrong, though we may read it wrongly,shows clearly that there was once a time in the history of the Earthwhen the only backboned animals were Fishes. Ages passed, and thereevolved Amphibians, with fingers and toes, scrambling on to dry land.Ages passed, and there evolved Reptiles, in bewildering profusion. Therewere fish-lizards and sea-serpents, terrestrial dragons and flyingdragons, a prolific and varied stock. From the terrestrial Dinosaurs itseems that Birds and Mammals arose. In succeeding ages there evolved allthe variety of Birds and all the variety of Mammals. Until at last arosethe Man. The question is whether similar processes of evolution arestill going on.

We are so keenly aware of rapid changes in mankind, though theseconcern the social heritage much more than the flesh-and-blood naturalinheritance, that we find no difficulty in the idea that evolution isgoing on in mankind. We know the contrast between modern man andprimitive man, and we are convinced that in the past, at least, progresshas been a reality. That degeneration may set in is an awfulpossibility–involution rather than evolution–but even if going backbecame for a time the rule, we cannot give up the hope that the racewould recover itself and begin afresh to go forward. For although therehave been retrogressions in the history of life, continued throughunthinkably long ages, and although great races, the Flying Dragons forinstance, have become utterly extinct, leaving no successors whatsoever,we feel sure that there has been on the whole a progress towards nobler,more masterful, more emancipated, more intelligent, and _better_ formsof life–a progress towards what mankind at its best has always regardedas best, i.e. affording most enduring satisfaction. So we think ofevolution going on in mankind, evolution chequered by involution, but onthe whole _progressive evolution_.

Evolutionary Prospect for Man

It is not likely that man’s body will admit of _great_ change, but thereis room for some improvement, e.g. in the superfluous length of thefood-canal and the overcrowding of the teeth. It is likely, however,that there will be constitutional changes, e.g. of prolongedyouthfulness, a higher standard of healthfulness, and a greaterresistance to disease. It is justifiable to look forward to greatimprovements in intelligence and in control. The potentialities of thehuman brain, as it is, are far from being utilised to the full, and newdepartures of promise are of continual occurrence. What is of greatimportance is that the new departures or variations which emerge in finechildren should be fostered, not nipped in the bud, by the socialenvironment, education included. The evolutionary prospect for man ispromising.

But it is very important to realise that among plant and animalslikewise, _Evolution is going on_.

The Fountain of Change: Variability

On an ordinary big clock we do not readily see that even the minute handis moving, and if the clock struck only once in a hundred years we canconceive of people arguing whether the hands did really move at all. Soit often is with the changes that go on from generation to generation inliving creatures. The flux is so slow, like the flowing of a glacier,that some people fail to be convinced of its reality. And it must, ofcourse, be admitted that some kinds of living creatures, like theLamp-shell _Ligula_ or the Pearly Nautilus, hardly change from age toage, whereas others, like some of the birds and butterflies, are alwaysgiving rise to something new. The Evening Primrose among plants, and theFruit-fly, Drosophila, among animals, are well-known examples oforganisms which are at present in a sporting or mutating mood.

Certain dark varieties of moth, e.g. of the Peppered Moth, are takingthe place of the paler type in some parts of England, and the same istrue of some dark forms of Sugar-bird in the West Indian islands. Veryimportant is the piece of statistics worked out by Professor R. C.

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