502 ELEMENTARY BIOLOGY 



new idea, you are quite capable of giving expression to it 

 so that another person can understand you, by means of the 

 language you have acquired. It is not necessary to devise new 

 kinds of noises, and it is not often necessary to make up 

 new words. 



But the use of all these things— tools, fire, speech, etc. — is 

 but the external indication of the fact that man has a superior 

 brain. This we can see when we compare, in a general way, 

 man's adjustment to his surroundings with that of other animals. 



519. Man's handicaps. It does not take a very close exami- 

 nation to show us that as a living machine man is in many 

 ways decidedly inferior to other animals. For example, his 

 skin is much more tender than that of any other animal of his 

 own size, and the hairy covering is not of much help. When 

 it comes to fighting, his nails and claws are very poor rivals for 

 those of cats, let us say, and his teeth, which he does indeed 

 sometimes use, are not nearly as formidable as are those of 

 many other animals of his own size. His muscular develop- 

 ment, too, is rather inferior, when it comes to wrestling with 

 a non-human enemy ; and when it comes to running away, he 

 would be easily overtaken by very many of the inhabitants of 

 the forest. 



Man has a very good eye, compared to other animals, and a 

 pretty good ear, — though not one of the best, so far as dis- 

 covering faint sounds is concerned ; but his smelling ability is 

 of very low rank. These three senses, which are so valuable 

 to animals in helping them discover their enemies or their prey 

 at a distance, are of great value to man also ; but on the whole 

 he has no advantage in competition with the other inhabitants 

 of the forest. 



In spite of these various shortcomings man has contrived to 

 hold his own, and some branches of the species have become 

 virtually masters of their environment through the use of the 

 brain. Man has made up for his thin skin by borrowing the 

 skins of other animals and by devising substitutes for skins 



