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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These animals went on all fours, rising to the upright posture
now and then, in order to see some object at a distance, but
supporting that posture with difficulty, holding on to a branch
with one hand. They were slow in their movements; their body
was almost naked, so scantily was it clothed with hair; the
males had but poorly developed tusks, or canine-teeth; the ears
were flattened from disuse, and had no longer the power of
being raised; the tail as in all great apes had disappeared
beneath the skin. This defenceless structure resulted from the
favourable conditions under which, during many ages, these
animals had lived. They inhabited a warm tropical land; they
had few enemies, and abundant food; their physical powers had
been enfeebled by disuse, But nothing is ever lost in nature.
What had become of the force which had once been expended on
agility and strength? It had passed into the brain.
The chimpanzee is not so large a creature or so strong as the
gorilla; but, as I was informed by the natives in that country
where the two species exist together, the chimpanzee is the
more intelligent of the two. In the same manner our ape-like
ancestors were inferior to the chimpanzee in strength and
activity, and its superior in mental powers.
All gregarious animals have a language, by means of which they
communicate with one another, Some times their language is that
of touch: cut off the antennae of the ant, and it is dumb. With
most animals the language is that of vocal sound, and its
varied intonations of anger, joy, or grief may be distinguished
even by the human ear. Animals have also their alarm-cries,
their love-calls, and sweet murmuring plaintive sounds, which
are uttered only by mothers as they fondle and nurse their
young. The language of our progenitors consisted of vocal
sounds, and also movements of the hands. The activity of mind
and social affection developed in these animals through the Law
of Compensation, made them fond of babbling and gesturing to
one another, and thus their language was already of a
complicated nature, when events occurred which developed it
still more. Owing to causes remotely dependent on geological
revolutions, dark days fell upon these creatures. Food became
scanty; enemies surrounded them. The continual presence of
danger, the habit of incessant combat, drew them more closely
together. Their defects of activity and strength made them rely
on one another for protection. Nothing now but their unexampled
power of combination could save their lives. This power of
combination was entirely dependent upon their language, which
was developed and improved until at length it passed into a new
stage. The first stage of language is that of intonation, in
which the ideas are arranged on a chromatic scale. We still use
this language in conversing with our dogs, who perfectly
understand the difference between the curses, not loud but
deep, which are vented on their heads, and the caressing
sounds, which are usually uttered in falsetto; while we
understand the growl, the whine, and the excited yelp of joy.
The new stage of language was that of imitation. Impelled
partly by necessity, partly by social love, combined with
mental activity, these animals began to notify events to one
another by imitative sounds, gestures, and grimaces. For
instance, when they wished to indicate the neighbourhood of a
wild beast, they gave a low growl; they pointed in a certain
direction; they shaped their features to resemble his; they
crawled stealthily along with their belly crouched to the
ground. To imitate water, they bubbled with their mouths; they
grubbed with their hands and pretended to eat, to show that
they had discovered roots. The pleasure and profit obtained
from thus communicating their ideas to one another led them to
invent conversation. Language passed into its third stage β
the conventional or artificial. Certain objects were pointed
out, and certain sounds were uttered, and it was agreed that
those sounds should always signify the objects named. At first
this conventional language consisted only of substantives; each
word signified an object, and was a sentence in itself.
Afterwards adjectives and verbs were introduced; and lastly
words, which had at first been used for physical objects, were
applied to the nomenclature of ideas.
Combination is a method of resistance; language is the
instrument of combination. Language, therefore, may be
considered the first weapon of our species, and was improved,
as all weapons would be, by that long, never-ceasing war, the
battle of existence. Our second weapon was the hand. With
monkeys the hand is used as a foot, and the foot is used as a
hand. But when the hand began to be used for throwing missiles,
it was specialised more and more, and feet were required to do
all the work of locomotion. This separation of the foot and
hand is the last instance of the physiological division of
labour; and when it was effected, the human frame became
complete. The erect posture was assumed; that it is modern and
unnatural is shown by the difficulty with which it is
maintained for any length of time. The centre of gravity being
thus shifted, certain alterations were produced in the physical
appearance of the species; since that time, however, the human
body has been but slightly changed, the distinctions which
exist between the races of men being unimportant and external.
Such as they are, they have been produced by differences of
climate and food acting indirectly upon the races throughout
geological periods; and it is also possible that these
distinctions of hair and skin were chiefly acquired at a time
when manβs intelligence being imperfectly developed, his
physical organisation was more easily moulded by external
conditions than was afterwards the case. For while with the
lower animals the conditions by which they are surrounded can
produce alterations throughout their whole structure, or in any
part; with men, they can produce an alteration only in the
brain. For instance, a quadruped inhabits a region which, owing
to geological changes, is gradually assuming an Arctic
character. In the course of some hundreds or thousands of
centuries the species puts on a coat of warm fur, which is
either white in colour, or which turns white at the snowy
period of the year. But when man is exposed to similar
conditions he builds a warm house and kills certain animals,
that he may wear their skins. By these means he evades the
changed conditions so far as his general structure is
concerned. But his brain has been indirectly altered by the
climate. Courage, industry, and ingenuity have been called
forth by the struggle for existence; the brain is thereby
enlarged, and the face assumes a more intelligent expression.
Of such episodes the ancient history of man was composed. He
was ever contending with the forces of nature, with the wild
beasts of the forest, and with the members of his own species
outside his clan. In that long and varied struggle his
intelligence was developed. His first invention, as might be
supposed, was an improvement in the art of murder. The lower
animals sharpen their claws and whet their tusks. It was merely
an extension of this instinct which taught the primeval men to
give point and edge to their sticks and stones; and out of this
first invention the first great discovery was made. While men
were patiently rubbing sticks to point them into arrows, a
spark leapt forth and ignited the wood-dust which had been
scraped from the sticks. Thus fire was found. By a series of
accidents its uses were revealed. Its possessors cooked their
food, and so were improved in health and vigour both of body
and of mind. They altered the face of nature by burning down
forests. By burning the withered grass they favoured the growth
of the young crop, and thus attracted, in the prairie lands,
thousands of wild animals to their fresh green pastures. With
the assistance of fire they felled trees and hollowed logs into
canoes. They hardened the points of stakes in the embers; and
with their new weapons were able to attack the Mammoth,
thrusting their spears through his colossal throat. They made
pots. They employed their new servant in agriculture and in
metallurgy. They used it also as a weapon; they shot flaming
arrows, or hurled fiery javelins against the foe. Above all,
they prepared, by means of fire, the vegetable poison which
they discovered in the woods; and this invention must have
created a revolution in the art of ancient war. There is a
custom in East Africa for the king to send fire to his vassals,
who extinguish all the fires on their hearths, and re-light
them from the brand which the envoy brings. It is possible that
this may be a relic of tribe subjection to the original fire
tribe: it is certain that the discovery of fire would give the
tribes which possessed it an immense advantage over all the
others. War was continually being waged among the primeval men,
and tribes were continually driven, by battle or hunger, to
seek new lands. As hunters they required vast areas on which to
live, and so were speedily dispersed over the whole surface of
the globe, and adopted various habits and vocations according
to the localities in which they dwelt. But they took with them,
from their common home, the elements of those pursuits. The
first period of human history may be entitled forest-life. The
forest was the womb of our species, as the ocean was that of
all our kind. In the dusky twilight of the primeval woods the
nations were obscurely born. While men were yet in the hunting
stage, while they were yet mere animals of prey, they made
those discoveries by means of which they were afterwards formed
into three great families β the pastoral, the maritime, and
the agricultural.
When a female animal is killed, the young one, fearing to be
alone, often follows the hunter home; it is tamed for sport,
and when it is discovered that animals can be made useful,
domestication is methodically pursued. While men were yet in
the forest they tamed only the dog to assist them in hunting,
and perhaps the fowl as an article of food. But when certain
tribes, driven by enemies or by starvation from their old
haunts, entered the prairie land, clad in skins or bark-cloth,
taking with them their fire-sticks, and perhaps some
blacksmithβs tools, they adopted breeding as their chief
pursuit, and subdued to their service the buffalo, the sheep,
the goat, the camel, the horse, and the ass. At first these
animals were merely used as meat; next, their milk-giving
powers were developed, and so a daily food was obtained without
killing the animal itself; then they were broken in to carry
burdens, to assist their masters in the chase and in war; and
clothes and houses were manufactured from their skins.
The forest tribes who settled on the banks of rivers learnt to
swim and to make nets, fish-traps, rafts, and canoes. When they
migrated they followed the river, and so were carried to the
sea. Then the ocean became their fish-pond. They learnt to
build large canoes, with mast and matting sails; they followed
the fish far away; lost the land at night, or in a storm;
discovered new shores, returned home, and again set out as
colonists, with their wives and families, to the lands which
they had found. By such means the various tribes were dispersed
beyond the seas.
Thirdly, when the tribes were in the forest condition they
lived partly upon roots and berries, partly upon game. The men
hunted, and the women collected the vegetable food, upon which
they subsisted exclusively during the absence of their
husbands. When the habitations of a clan were fixed, it often
happened that
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