PRIMITIVE MAN. 381 



spiritual nature under that which is merely animal ; in 

 other words, by his ceasing to be spiritual and in com- 

 munion with God, and becoming practically a sensual 

 materialist. That this actually happened is asserted by 

 the Scriptural story, but its details would take us too 

 far from our present subject. Let us now turn to the 

 other picture — that presented by the theory of strug- 

 gle for existence and derivation from lower animals. 



It introduces us first to an ape, akin perhaps to the 

 modern orang or gorilla, but unknown to us as yet by 

 any actual remains. This creature, after living for an 

 indefinite time in the rich forests of the Miocene and 

 earlier Pliocene periods, was at length subjected to the 

 gradually increasing rigours of the Glacial age. Its 

 vegetable food and its leafy shelter failed it, and it 

 learned to nestle among such litter as it could collect 

 in dens and caves, and to seize and devour such weaker 

 animals as it could overtake and master. At the same 

 time, its lower extremities, no longer used for climbing 

 trees, but for walking on the ground, gained in 

 strength and size; its arms diminished; and its 

 development to maturity being delayed by the in- 

 tensity of the struggle for existence, its brain en- 

 larged, it became more cunning and sagacious, and 

 even learned to use weapons of wood or stone to 

 destroy its victims. So it gradually grew into a fierce 

 and terrible creature, "neither beast nor human,^' 

 combining the habits of a bear and the agility of a 

 monkey with some glimmerings of the cunning and 

 resources of a savage. 



