An Introduction to a Biology 



nessed as motive powers. If man can be said, as 

 I think he undoubtedly can, to be the only animal 

 that has made a fortune, it was the wheel more 

 than anything else which enabled him to do so. 

 That man regards the wheel not as a mere dead device 

 but as an externalisation of himself, and endowed 

 with a vitality which becomes its own, is shown 

 by the way in which the wheel appears to the in- 

 tuition of the savage and of the poet. It is recorded 

 how some Kaffirs, when they first saw a European 

 wagon, ran along by the little front wheels cheering 

 them for being able to go the same pace as the 

 big back wheels.^ And the mother of Sisera did 

 not complain of her son's horses, but cried : " Why 

 is his chariot so long in coming ? Why tarry the 

 wheels of his chariots ? " 



§9 



*' What is a man 

 If his chief good and market of his time 

 Be but to sleep and feed ? A beast, no more. 

 Sure He that made us with such large discourse, 

 Looking before, and after, gave us not 

 That capability and godlike reason 

 To fust in us unused." — Hamlet. 



In this chapter I have suggested a view of human 

 evolution which will, I believe, help us to under- 

 stand evolution in general — that is to say, the growth 

 of that vast organism (or worker) which we call life ; 

 and may possibly bring us nearer to an understand- 

 ing of the meaning of that growth. I am aware 

 that it may be said that the view which I have taken 

 of human evolution is a merely fanciful one. But 



1 " The Essential Kaffir," by Dudley Kidd. 



71 



