An Introduction to a Biology 



the fact that it can be labelled with the word " fanci- 

 ful " does not prove that it is not taken from a 

 point from which we get a very good view of human 

 evolution. I do not, of course, pretend that it is 

 a true view. Human evolution and, still more, 

 life itself, will probably always remain a mystery 

 to us. All that we can hope to do is to approach 

 a little closer to an understanding of these immense, 

 unfathomable things. 



To say, as I have said, that man really makes 

 with extended parts of his hands everything which 

 he makes by machinery may seem to be the taking 

 of a deliberately fanciful view of modern manu- 

 facture. But the very word we use for this vast 

 business shows that man instinctively regards all 

 this making as, in origin, if not in essence, a making 

 with the hand. Through the hand the body of 

 man has extended outwards, and has become pro- 

 digiously enlarged.^ Through the hand, the mind 

 also has flowed outwards and has become pro- 

 digiously enlarged. Or, to state what has hap- 

 pened in other words, the gradual increase of man's 

 control over matter has been accompanied by a 

 gradual extension of the field of operation of his 

 intelligence. Thus man differs from other animals 

 not in the direction of the flow of his attention, for 

 both flow outwards, but in the distance to which 

 that attention reaches. The attention of the hen 

 flows outwards to the handful of objects which 

 constitute her universe ; but there it stops. Man, 

 by inventing detachable organs, has made so many 

 new points of contact between himself and the out- 



^ p. 50, supra. 

 72 



