CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE 



History an 

 aspect of 

 biology 



The com- 

 plexity of 

 mankind 



HISTORY FROM A BIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 



1. HUMAN history is only a special aspect of "natural 

 history," dealing with the succession of events having 

 to do with the species Homo sapiens. It continually 

 asks, What has man been through the long ages of his 

 existence ? - - and the answer, whatever it may be, is 

 also in some measure an answer to that still more 

 interesting question, What may he become ? Modern 

 biological research teaches us that particles of living 

 material, having a quite definite composition, pass from 

 generation to generation unchanged. This does not 

 mean that the actual atoms of which they consist are 

 the same, but only that the molecular structure is un- 

 altered, and consequently that these little machines 

 may be expected to act in a like manner under like 

 conditions. 



2. We also learn that the human individual is ex- 

 tremely complex, is made up of materials which, how- 

 ever much they may derive their character from 

 ancestral germ plasm, are arranged in new ways, so 

 that it is rarely possible for two individuals to come 

 into the world with the same inheritance of living stuff. 

 Just as a newly written poem may consist only of quite 

 common words, derived unchanged from the language, 

 so the man may be thought of as containing no kind of 

 material which has not existed in many other persons. 

 In spite of this, both the poem and the man are unique, 

 and their value to us depends far more upon the par- 

 ticular sort of combination they represent than upon 

 the elements entering into it. This, at least, if we value 

 them highly ; but either may be ruined by unfortunate 

 inclusions, lame words or characters. 



492 



