512 



ELEMENTARY BIOLOGY 



528. Man's place in the world. We have studied the con- 

 ditions of life and have seen that in every essential respect 

 man is like other living things. We have glanced at man's 

 nature and have seen that in many important respects man is 

 decidedly different from other living things. We do not know 

 when or where or how man first came to use fire or weapons 

 or tools ; we do not know when he took to ornamenting his 

 body with paint and beads and feathers and nose-rings ; we do 

 not know how he acquired the art of weaving or the art of 

 pottery or how he came to sow seeds or to domesticate animals. 

 We do know that he has been doing these things for hundreds 

 of thousands of years, and that during the past four or five 

 thousand years he has been developing what we like to call 

 civilization. We know that the life of man — that is, civilized 

 man, the man who has the benefit of all the experience of the 

 race — does differ from the life of beasts and from the life of 

 the savage in many important ways. 



From the condition in which all activities were concerned 

 with obtaining the means of livelihood, we have passed to the 

 condition in which only a relatively small part of our waking 

 time is needed for this purpose. From a state of uncertainty 

 and fear about the workings of nature, — animate nature and 

 inanimate nature, — we have passed to a very satisfactory 

 knowledge of many of these workings, and to confidence in 

 our methods for finding out more just as rapidly as we apply 

 ourselves to the investigation. From a condition of fear and 

 suspicion toward everything strange, — strange people as well 

 as strange plants and animals, — we have passed to a condition 

 of interest and toleration. We have developed art that may be 

 of value to others, but that interests us in the first place for 

 itself ; that is, we have found things to do other than those 

 absolutely necessary to keep us going. In the same way we 

 have become interested in problems the solution of which may 

 be helpful, but which interest us without regard to their pos- 

 sible use ; in other words, we have found things to think 



