The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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The animal at first absorbs its food and unites with its mate
as blindly and as helplessly as the crystal shapes itself into
its proper form, as oxygen combines with hydrogen, or as ships
roll towards each other in a calm. How then can a line be drawn
between the inorganic and the organic, the lifeless and the
alive? The cell that vibrates in the water, and the crystal
that forms in the frost, are each the result of certain forces
over which they have no control. But as the body of the animal
is developed in complexity, by the action of complex forces,
certain grey lumps of matter make their appearance within its
structure, and out of these rises a spirit which introduces the
animal to himself, which makes him conscious of his own
existence. He becomes aware that he is alive; that he has an
appetite; and that other animals have an appetite for him. His
mind, though feeble and contracted, is improved by experience.
He devises stratagems to avoid his enemies, or to seize his
prey. At certain seasons he becomes conscious of his desire for
a mate and that which, with his ancestors, was a blind
tendency, an inherited part of growth, becomes with him a
passion brightened by intelligence.
It is usually supposed that the transition of an ape-like
animal into man is the most remarkable event in the history of
animated forms. But this idea arises from human vanity and
ignorance. The most remarkable event, after the origin of
life, is certainly that to which we now allude; the first
glimmering of consciousness and reason. Yet even here we can
draw no dividing line. The animal becomes conscious that he
desires food, and at certain periods, a mate; but the desires
themselves are not new; they existed and they ruled him long
before. When developed to a certain point, he begins to βtake
notice,β as the nurses say; but his nature remains the same,
However, this intelligence becomes in time itself a force, and
gradually obtains to some extent the faculty of directing the
forces by which the animal was once despotically ruled. By an
effort of the human brain, for example, the reproductive force,
or tendency, or instinct, can be obliterated and suppressed.
What we have to say, then, respecting the origin of our early
ancestors is this: That when matter was subjected to a
complicated play of forces, chief among which was solar
influence, plants and animals came into life; and that when
animals were subjected to an ever-increasing variety of forces,
they became varied in their structure; and that when their
structure had attained a certain measure of variety they became
conscious of their own existence; and that then Nature endowed
them with the faculty of preserving their lives and that of
their species by means of their own conscious efforts. Next, it
will be shown that the successful competitors in the struggle
for existence not only obtained the food and females for which
they strove, but also, by means of the efforts which they made
in order to obtain them, raised themselves unconsciously in the
animated scale. And lastly, we shall find that men who, in the
savage state, are little better than the brutes, their lives
being absorbed in the business of self-preservation and
reproduction, are now in the civilised condition becoming
conscious of the scheme of Nature, and are beginning to assist
her by the methodical improvement of their mental powers.
The lower animals have a hard matter to earn their daily bread,
and to preserve their children from starvation; and with them
the course of true love does not by any means run smooth. Since
only a few can succeed in the scramble for food, and not all
can obtain mates, for polygamy frequently prevails, it follows
as a matter of necessity that those animals which are the
strongest, the swiftest, and the most intelligent will survive
and leave offspring, and by the continued survival of the
fittest the animated world improves from generation to
generation, and rises in the scale. So far as strength and
swiftness are concerned, limits are placed upon improvement.
But there are no limits to the improvement of intelligence. We
find in the lower kingdom muscular power in its perfection; but
the brain is always imperfect, always young, always growing,
always capable of being developed. In writing the history of
animal progress we must therefore concentrate our attention
upon the brain, and we shall find that the development of that
organ is in great measure due to the influence of the
affections.
Whether Nature has placed pain at the portals of love
throughout the animal kingdom as she has at the portals of
maternity, or whatever may be the cause, it is certain that the
female flees from the male at the courting season, and that he
captures her by means of his strength, swiftness, dexterity, or
cunning, in the same manner as he obtains his prey. He is also
obliged to fight duels in order to possess or to retain her,
and thus his courage is developed. But at a later period in
animal life a more peaceable kind of courtship comes into
vogue. The females become queens. They select their husbands
from a crowd of admirers, who strive to please them with their
colours, their perfumes, or their music. The cavaliers, adorned
in their bright wedding suits, which they wear only at the
lovemaking season, display themselves before the dames. Others
serenade them with vocal song, or by means of an apparatus
fitted to the limbs, which corresponds to instrumental music.
Rival troubadours will sing before their lady, as she sits in
her leafy bower till one of them is compelled to yield from
sheer exhaustion, and a feathered hero has been known to sing
till be dropped down dead. At this period sexual timidity
becomes a delicious coyness which arouses the ardour of the
male. Thus love is born: it is brought forth by the association
of ideas. The desire of an animal to satisfy a want grows into
an affection beyond and independent of the want.
In the same manner the love of the young for its parents grows
out of its liking for the food which the parents supply; and the love
of parents for the young, though more obscure, may perhaps also
be explained by association. The mother no doubt believes the
offspring to be part of herself, as it was in fact but a short
time before, and thus feels for it a kind of self-love. The
affection of the offspring for the parents, and of parents for
the offspring, and of spouses for each other, at first endures
only for a season. But when the intelligence of the animals has
risen to a certain point, their powers of memory are improved,
they recognise their parents, their spouses, their young, long
after the business of the nest is over, and consort together to
renew their caresses and endearments. In this manner the flock
is formed; it is based upon domestic love. And soon experience
teaches them the advantages of union. They are the better able
when in flocks to obtain food, and to defend themselves against
their foes. They accordingly dwell together, and by means of
their social habits their intelligence is quickened, their
affections are enlarged. The members of animal societies
possess in a marvellous degree the power of co-operation, the
sentiment of fidelity to the herd. By briefly describing what
the lower animals do, and what they feel, we shall show that
they possess in a dispersed and elementary condition all the
materials of which human nature is composed.
In their communities there is sometimes a regular form of
government and a division into castes. They have their monarch,
their labourers, and soldiers, who are sterile females like the
Amazons of Dahomey. They have slaves which they capture by
means of military expeditions, attacking the villages of their
victims and carrying off the prisoners in their mouths. They
afterwards make the slaves carry them. They have domestic
animals which they milk. They form alliances with animals of a
foreign species or nationality and admit them into the
community when it can be profited thereby. They build houses or
towns which are ingeniously constructed, and which, in
proportion to the size of the architects, are greater than the
Pyramids. They have club-houses or salons which they decorate
with flowers and bright shells. They march in regular order;
when they feed they post sentries which utter alert cries from
time to time, just as our sentries cry βAllβs wellβ. They combine
to execute punishment, expelling or killing an ill-conducted
member of the tribe. As among savages, the sick and the weakly
are usually killed: though some times they are kept alive by
alms; even the blind being fed by charitable persons. They
labour incessantly for the welfare of the community; they bear
one anotherβs burdens; they fight with indomitable courage for
the fatherland, and endeavour to rescue a comrade even against
overwhelming odds. The domestic virtues are strong among them.
Their conjugal love is often intense and pure; spouses have
been known to pine to death when parted from each other. But if
they have human virtues, they have also human vices; conjugal
infidelity is known among them; and some animals appear to be
profligate by nature. They are exceedingly jealous. They sport,
and gamble, and frisk, and caress, and kiss each other, putting
mouth to mouth. They shed tears. They utter musical sounds in
tune. They are cleanly in their persons. They are ostentatious
and vain, proud of their personal appearance, bestowing much
time upon their toilet. They meditate and execute revenge,
keeping in memory those who have offended them. They dream.
They are capable of reflection and selection; they deliberate
between two opposite desires. They are inquisitive and often
fall victims to their passion for investigating every object
which they have not seen before. They profit by experience;
they die wiser than they were born, and though their stock of
knowledge in great measure dies with them, their young ones
acquire some of it by means of inheritance and imitation.
These remarkable mental powers were acquired by the lower
animals partly through the struggle to obtain food, which
sharpened their intelligence; and partly through the struggle
to obtain the favours of the females, which developed their
affections. In all cases, progress resulted from necessity.
Races change only that they may not die; they are developed, so
to speak, in self-defence. They have no inherent tendency to
rise in the organic scale as plants grow to their flower, as
animals grow to their prime. They have, however, a capacity for
progress, and that is called forth by circumstances acting upon
them from without. The law of growth in the lower kingdom is
this, that all progress is preceded by calamity, that all
improvement is based upon defect. This law affords us the clue
to a phenomenon which at first is difficult to understand. That
animal which has triumphed over all the rest was exceedingly
defective in its physique. The race has not been to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong. But the very defects of that
animalβs body made it exclusively rely upon its mind; and when
the struggle for life became severe, the mind was improved by
natural selection, and the animal was slowly developed into
man.
Our ape-like ancestors were not unlike the existing gorilla,
chimpanzee, and orang-utang. They lived in large herds and
were prolific; polygamy was in vogue, and at the courting
season love-duels were fought among the males. They chiefly
inhabited the ground, but ascended the trees in search of
fruit, and also built platforms of sticks and leaves, on which
the females were confined, and which were occasionally used as
sleeping-places, just as birds sometimes roost in
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