Proenvironment in the Evolution of Man 649 



groups of individuals still alive, and of various ascending 

 grades, which would have linked together for us every stage 

 in man's evolutionary history. That so few are left to us, 

 especially of primitive grade between the apes and man, is 

 proof of man's past destructive tendencies toward his own 

 fellow-men, of the onslaught by other animals of prey, of the 

 widespread action of disease or of famine periods, as well as 

 other hurtful environal conditions that have decimated the race. 



Studies already made, however, of the extinct Tasmanians, 

 of the bushmen of Australia, of the pygmies of the Congo, 

 of the Papuans and of Mongolian tribes, of remote village- 

 dwellers of the Zuyder Zee, of Spain, and of Italy, all dem- 

 onstrate that, when man permits himself only to be guided 

 by and to follow a life pathway that is exactly as was that 

 of his ancestors, he may remain practically unaltered in thought, 

 in word, and in action, for hundreds or even thousands of years. 



Thus when the Sicilian peasant, who perhaps only once 

 in a lifetime, if even as often, visits Palermo or other busy 

 human center, still desires and plans exactly the type of dress 

 that his ancestors wore 1500 years ago, and wears this only; 

 when he tills his olive yards and makes his oil, or tends his 

 grape vines and manufactures his wine, exactly as his fore- 

 fathers did, change or new impressions or higher aspirations 

 become so repugnant to him that he indignantly or scorn- 

 fully repels such, when offered by some pushing fellow-islander 

 who may have visited and seen the advanced ways of France 

 or of California. Only when the huge olive orchards and 

 vineyards of the latter state yield their thousands of tons 

 of olives or of grapes, when from these are neatly and expedi- 

 tiously obtained oils and wines that are of a higher class than 

 his own, when the western article sui)plants his own in Euro- 

 pean and western markets, when his su])ply thereafter is no 

 longer needed, then and only then does he realize that either 

 he must proenviron a new line of action or that starvation 

 is before him and his family line. 



Such a condition of affairs has been duplicated a thousand- 

 fold in every part of the world, and never probably was more 

 often reproduced than in the past half century, when it can 



21* 



