FROM PRIMITIVE TO MODERN MAN —5 



gave man greater psyeliie zest and more |3h\sieal \igor than liis less ener- 

 getic brothers of tlie tropics. It may ha\e been an increased fecundit}', a 

 greater viability ofollspring, which assured rapidly multiplying populations, 

 keener rualrv and quickened intelligence. Nor should the possibilities of 

 mutations in cutaneous melanism be overlooked. The lack of black j)igment 

 m the skm makes troj)ical existence dillicult lor white races and thus 

 enforces a northern habitat. These problems ol ecology and mutation may 

 well deserve most extended investigation, not alone to disclose the causes 

 actiNc in producing the remarkable ])rogress of European races, but, if 

 possible, to determine what factors have consistently contributed to their 

 decline. It is not improbable that the tendency toward degeneration, so 

 notable in European history, has a jjurely sociogenetie explanation. 

 Oligarchical concentration of political control ine\"itably spreads the con- 

 taminating efiects of luxurioLis li\ing and relaxation from effort to the mul- 

 titude so governed. Professor Osborn nisists that mankind in his uncivilized 

 state is subject to the same orderly laws as those which prevail throughout 

 the animal kingdom, but the introduction ot civilization interferes with the 

 natural regulation of things and man himself appears to be upsetting the 

 order of human progress. 



The Great Factor in Human Evolution 



From first to last, it has been the achievements of his hands which have 

 carried man onward from the time when he began to work with the simplest 

 of stone implements. Some authorities maintain that it was the development 

 of the brain w hieh led to the attainments distinguishing man from other 

 animals. Some attribute the distinction to his assumption of the erect pos- 

 ture. Still others ascribe all of human progress to the de\ elopment of speech. 

 Unquestionably, each of these factors is inseparably associated with human 

 evolution. But if one among them were to be selected as the most potent 



