2 EVOLUTION AND GENETICS 



Man has first of all a heritage, in common with all other organ- 

 isms, a thing without which he cannot exist. He lives surrounded 

 by conditions of various kinds which, in the aggregate, we call his 

 environment. Environment is a second essential; to it the heritage 

 responds within the limits of its possibility. The combination 

 means life. We know from our own experience that hfe can exist 

 without consciousness. We know too that at some time in the 

 ascending complexity of individual development consciousness 

 dawns, and the individual responds to the world about him not 

 merely as a series of reactions to environmental stimuli, but with 

 an awakening realization of other entities about him, and at last a 

 consciousness of self. Where this point hes in the organic world 

 we cannot say with certainty; it may be that man alone is more 

 than an organic automaton. The light of personal experience 

 clarifies its significance. Have we always, as a species, possessed 

 this quality which must develop in each individual? In view of 

 the records just mentioned this seems unlikely. Back of that 

 crude beginning of our record of man's progress there must have 

 been something. Consciousness must have had a beginning. 



Through Beebe's striking powers of description we may share his 

 imaginative conception of this process as he watched the monkeys 

 in his jungle laboratory. "A little monkey climbed down a sway- 

 ing vine, hand over hand, until his face was close to a quiet pool of 

 sweet water. The day before at evening, he had done the same 

 thing. His mother and his ancestors for generations had done 

 hkewise. And always they chattered at the monkey they saw in 

 the water, and finally in anger snatched at him, and their little 

 fingers troubled the water and the monkey vanished. Then they 

 drank eagerly, turned quickly, and clambered swiftly up to rest. 



"Today the little monkey began to chatter, then stopped. He 

 moved, and the monkey in the water moved. He brushed away 

 some hairs from his face and the water monkey. Then something 

 happened. He stopped chattering and peered again and again at 

 the face in the water. He put his little paw over his eyes and 

 slowly took it away. Then he forgot his thirst, raised his head and 

 gazed fixedly before him, wrinkling his forehead and remaining 

 very quiet. And the more distant his gaze, the less he seemed to 

 observe, and the deeper became the wrinkles. 



"... Something introspective had come to pass — a glimpse 

 of the ego — a momentary flash of self-consciousness. The little 



