THE UNIQUE MAMMAL 17 



matter, man's talents as a time-binder not only make him unique 

 among all other animals, but in itself alone assures that his cul- 

 ture — his techniques of living — must in the nature of the case 

 always move forward if they move at all. Only a universal 

 cataclysm that destroyed all his written records could set him 

 back on the road he has travelled. 



We turn next to the consideration of man as an organ-adder. 

 It has been the accepted teaching of evolution that man gained 

 his ascendancy in the organic world because of the superior 

 development of his brain. Weaker than many other animals, 

 less swift of foot, a comparatively poor swimmer, and limited 

 by his meager physical endowments practically to life on the 

 surface of the earth alone, man is generally thought to have 

 become the dominant species among living things solely because 

 of his superior cunning and wisdom. However adequate this 

 picture may have been in the very earliest stages of his emer- 

 gence as a new and distinct form of life, the case is different 

 now. Man is not merely smarter than other forms of life. Today 

 he is physically the strongest of all known animals, by a vast 

 amount. He can move from place to place at speeds enormously 

 greater than those of any other known animal, and do this 

 either on the surface of the earth, in the air, or in or on the 

 water. He can see through opaque objects and for great dis- 

 tances, and can hear a fly's gentle footfall. He can talk to a 

 friend on the other side of the world without raising his voice. 

 He can project lethal agents vastly farther than any other 

 known animal, and kill distant prey, or a predator seeking to 

 annihilate him. 



In short, man has taken an evolutionary step during a rela- 

 tively short period wholly unparalleled in his prior history. 

 He has added to the power and strength of his muscles and 

 bones, and to the delicacy and range of his sense perceptions in 

 a degree beyond anything that even the wildest imaginations 

 were ever able to conceive before the event. It is customary to 

 regard the methods by which all these results are accomplished 

 as purely mechanical, having nothing to do with biology or life. 



