8 



them it was a very real struggle for existence. They had, at 

 one time, to defend themselves against beasts of prey not to be 

 eaten, and at another time to kill that they might eat. With 

 such stimuli all the observant and reasoning faculties that the 

 savage hunter possessed would certainly be brought to bear upon 

 the chase. " First of all," says Dr. Louis Robinson, " he must 

 have a general knowledge of natural phenomena, accurate and 

 inconceivably extensive, so that when he is afield every item 

 among his innumerable surroundings is so familiar that the 

 least unusual circumstance at once arrests his attention. Next, 

 he must have acquired, in addition to his general knowledge, a 

 complete mastery of the complex art of tracking and stalking, so 

 that he may approach near enough to his wary game for his 

 rude weapons to take effect. If we go no further than this, we find 

 that the untutored savage in his native wilds almost comes up to 

 that formula which defines culture as " knowing something of 

 everything and everything of something." But other gifts are 

 required beyond mere knowledge and skill. There must be an 

 infinite capacity for taking pains (which has been given as a 

 definition of genius), and also, and above all, there must be a 

 power to reason accurately from the facts observed. . . We 

 may be tolerably positive that our early hunting ancestor had 

 the ' invariable and essential mental habit. . . not only to 

 gather facts, but to read their meaning, both immediate and 

 remote." . . Many people who have spoken with con- 

 tempt of the mental capacity of the Bosjesman and the Black 

 Fellow can never have estimated the mental resources required 

 for ordinary ' spooring ! ' You may perhaps remember, said 

 the Lecturer, that when Voltaire wanted to illustrate the 

 logical methods of such a task, he imagined, not a savage, but, 

 an Oriental sage, Hadig, that precursor of Mr. Sherlock Holmes 

 whom Professor Huxley took as the type of the man of science. 



Two instances were mentioned by Professor Boulger of the 

 advanced technical skill of the hunter that have made some 

 writers imagine that before the dawn of intellect man was gifted 

 with varied instincts now replaced by ratiocination. Professor 

 Daniel Wilson in his ' Pre-historic Man ' figures a Fuegian har- 

 poon which is slighty curved to allow, it is suggested, for the 

 refraction of the water ; and he quotes from a French traveller 

 a circumstantial account of turtle-hunters on the river Amazon, 

 who, knowing that if they shoot directly at the turtles their 

 arrows will glance off the polished carapace, discharge them into 

 the air so as to fall vertically upon the animal, surely a very 

 remarkable achievement by mere empirical training of the eye as 

 a substitute for any mathematical theory of projectiles. 



Man's main considerations in his attitude towards Nature 

 in this primitive stage being his personal safety and his imme- 



