struct, such devices until we have on hand a reserve of food, housing, clothing, 

 materials, and other necessities upon which people can live while they are 

 producing these extras. In the same way, the extra and often extravagant 

 developments in plants and animals become possible only where the race or 

 species is already able to maintain itself and still produce surpluses for "orna- 

 ment" or "display". 



In its exuberance, life sometimes runs off into extravagant, bizarre, and 

 even wasteful forms. But that is no more astonishing or mysterious than the 

 more precise and economical adjustments of structures and functions about 

 which mankind has always marveled. And the uses to which exuberant hu- 

 man beings put their surpluses of time and energy and materials are often 

 quite as extravagant or bizarre. 



The Human Side From a human point of view, life is, of course, pos- 

 sible without song or fairy-tales or play-acting or adventures or frills, just as it 

 is possible without schools or motion pictures or airplanes. Among the most 

 primitive of humans however, there is a disposition to ornament or decorate, 

 to sing and to dance, and to tell fish stories. The amount of such "play" 

 in the lives of people depends largely on how much free time and energy and 

 materials are available after food and other necessities have been assured. 



The distinctive things we remember about the past, or that we find in- 

 teresting in strange peoples, are their art, music, dance, oratory, fiction, 

 drama, poetry, architecture, decorations. The rise and fall of civilizations have 

 been inseparable from the cultures of peoples, from the skill with which they 

 have kept themselves well and supplied with the essentials, from the uses that 

 they have made of their surpluses. In human life it is the play of fancy and the 

 creation of beautiful accessories to life that matter — the dreams and religions 

 and sciences and philosophies. And in particular individuals it is these things 

 that really mean most to us. 



These distinctly human expressions of life trace back to savagery. Savages 

 were able to make slow accumulations of surpluses, as well as of past experience, 

 by continuing to live together in groups or as families. We cannot say that 

 primitive men and women decided to look after helpless infants, or to cling 

 together after the mating season, because they saw some advantage in doing so. 

 It is more reasonable to assume that the earliest associations of males and females 

 or of parents and young were unconscious or "instinctive". They appear to 

 be so with other species. Man is a social animal: human beings apparently 

 preferred companionship to solitude before anybody thought about it. 



The association of individuals of all ages in a co-operative group results in 

 developing affections and mutual regard and consideration. However family 

 or social life first started, we may reasonably suppose that it continued among 

 human beings and expanded because it yields practical advantages and in- 

 creasing satisfactions — because it adds to the life of persons. In his individual 



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