70 THE RISE OF MAN. 



''During this time and for a very long time previous, 

 survival of the fittest was the same thing as survival of 

 the brainiest. It is certain that when by climatic changes, 

 man's environment became unfriendly, he had to think, 

 scheme and contrive or die. There must have been a rapid 

 evolution of brain if we are to judge from embryologi- 

 cal evidence and of course a great mortality among the 

 less intelligent. It is possible that a single thought may 

 have been sufficient to save one man out of many, for if 

 he had happened to think that he ought to hide some food, 

 he may have had enough to tide him over a period of win- 

 ter starvation which carried off most of the tribe. We 

 know that just such period of stress, carrying off the less 

 provident, actually occurred among our Pacific Coast 

 Indians as late as the end of the first half of the present 

 century." 



Civilization alleviates the lot of man. The beginning 

 of this tendency becomes apparent even in the age of the 

 caveman and it is on the increase, the whole of society 

 being made more and more responsible for the comfort of 

 all its members. With a gradual spread of civilization, 

 the unfit are no longer eliminated. Says Dr. Woodruff : 



u A man possessed of a single useful faculty may suc- 

 ceed in civilized life, though his general intelligence may be 

 so limited that he would have perished in a savage life. 

 He is adjusted to a civilized environment and fit for sur- 

 vival, but in a savage environment he would be so out of 

 adjustment as to perish in the struggle for existence. 



' ' Psychologists have frequently called attention to 

 the fact that in civilized life among laborers there are 

 many imbeciles whose defects are hidden because they are 

 never called upon to do anything requiring intelligence. 

 All of these men are fitted for survival now, whereas in 

 prehistoric times they would have perished before matu- 

 rity if not killed by their parents. 



1 ' Every degree of intelligence can find a sphere of 



