Part 13

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.

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

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

In the more fertile regions of the earth man had become an agriculturist, each clan holding its section of the earth as common property. A different though primitive form of political organization arose here, that of the village community, in which there was no distinction of rich and poor, all men were equal in rights and privileges, all were content with their situation, and the mental condition was largely that of stagnation. This political condition we find to have been widespread over the earth, alike in the eastern and western hemispheres, as the one into which all developing agricultural communities emerged, and in which they persisted unchanged until forced to adopt new relations through a new influence still to be described. As the patriarchal clan is persistent on the Asiatic steppes and deserts, so is the village community on the Russian plains and among the Aryans of Hindostan. It has been generally overcome in other localities, but it was broadly extended until within comparatively recent times, and traces of it may still be found in many parts of the earth.

The political organization of these primitive communities of herders and farmers was of the simplest. Over the herding clan a patriarchal chief presided, his authority based on his position as representative of the ancestor of the community. The head man of the agricultural clan was elected by the free choice of his fellows, his equals in rank and station. But the supposed most direct descendant from the clan ancestor was apt to be chosen. In both cases the political organization was of the family type, being but an extension of family government, and the widely prevailing system of ancestor worship had much to do with the reverence in which the chief was held and the authority which he exercised.

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

We have no concern here with the development of religious systems, other than to say that in the primitive agricultural community a succession of ideas of man's relation to the unseen arose, yielding, in addition to the widespread ancestor worship, a system of shamanism, or belief in the presence and power of malignant spirits, and one of fetichism, which developed into mythology, or worship of the great powers of nature. What we are concerned in is the fact that from these religious conceptions a priesthood everywhere arose, beginning in the simple conjurer or the healer by spells and incantations, and developing into a priestly establishment whose leading members had a vigorous control over the people through their beliefs, fears, and superstitions.