MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 881 



THE CULTURE EMERGENCE OF MAN. 



By De. Alton Howard Thompson, Topeka. 

 ReadTjefore the Academy, at Topeka, December 29, 1901. 



'^^HE word '"culture" is here used in the purely anthropological sense, 

 -*- as relating to the artificial products of man merely, and not to 

 the higher intellectual accomi)lisliments with which we usually asso- 

 ciate the word. In the anthropological meaning it refers to the man- 

 ual arts, iudustrial and esthetic, which distinguish man from the 

 lower animals. 



The science of anthropology is divided into two great divisions. 

 The first is jjhysical anthropology or somatology, which considers 

 man as a biological unit — a species of animal; his racial varieties ; 

 his external chracteristics ; his anatomy, physiology, and pathology. 

 The second division is cultural anthropology, which includes the 

 vast range of essentially human activities. As Prof. W. H. Holmes 

 says {Science, September 26, 1902, page 487): "If the physical 

 powers of man include all that connect man with the brute, his cul- 

 tural powers include all that distinguish him from the brute. If we 

 wish to realize more fully the latter division of the subject, which in- 

 cludes the objective evidences of culture, we have only to sweep away 

 in imagination the myriads of things that it has brought into the 

 world — destroy every city, town, and dwelling; every article made by 

 man; every trace of human handiwork; set aside the use of fire and 

 cooked food; banish all language, social organization, government, 

 religion — and when this has been done we may behold the real man 

 standing in his original nakedness among his fellows of the brute 

 world." 



To begin before the beginning, so to speak, the writer made some 

 investigations as to the uses that lower animals make of tools and 

 weapons, which, by the way, opened up a most interesting and prom- 

 ising field o( research. Many animals seize objects that can be grasped 

 and employed by the various powers of prehension, but we must notice 

 that such actions are mainly automatic, instinctive, and imitative, and 

 do not display any original invention or precision. The psychic 

 flash, that suggests a new purpose as a constructive action, never oc- 

 curs to them. 



We have been told by many travelers that the apes and monkeys 

 employ sticks for clubs and stones and nuts for missiles, etc. Even 

 the Standard Natural History says that baboons employ stones as of- 

 fensive weapons, and make attacks in concert ; that the orang breaks 



