EARLY MAN 461 



attacks of formidable beasts of prey, also goes without saying. 

 These are all necessary conditions of the successful introduc- 

 tion of such a creature as man, and theories which suppose 

 him to have originated in a cold climate, to struggle at once 

 with the difficulties and dangers of such a position, are, from a 

 scientific point of view, incredible. 



But man was introduced into a wide and varied world, more 

 wide and varied than that possessed by his modern descend- 

 ants. The earliest men that we certainly know inhabited out 

 continents in the second Continental age of the Kainozoic 

 Period, when, as we know from ample geological evidence, the 

 land of the northern hemisphere was much more extensive 

 than at present, with a mild climate, and a rich flora and fauna. 

 If he was ambitious to leave the oasis of his origin the way 

 was open to him, but at the expense of becoming a toiler, an 

 inventor, and a feeder on animal food, more especially when he 

 should penetrate into the colder climates. The details of all 

 this, as they actually occurred, are not within the range of scien- 

 tific investigation, for these early men must have left few, if any, 

 monuments ; but we can imagine some of them. Man's hands 

 were capable of other uses than the mere gathering of fruit. 

 His mind was not an instinctive machine, like that of lower 

 animals, but an imaginative and inventive intellect, capable of 

 adapting objects to new uses peculiar to himself. A fallen 

 branch would enable him to obtain the fruits that hung higher 

 than his hands could reach, a pebble would enable him to 

 break a nut too hard for his teeth. He could easily weave a 

 few twigs into a rough basket to carry the fruit he had gathered 

 to the cave or shelter, or spreading tree, or rough hut that 

 served him for a home ; and when he had found courage to 

 snatch a brand from some tree, ignited by lightning, or by the 

 friction of dry branches, and to kindle a fire for himself, he had 

 fairly entered on that path of invention and discovery which 

 has enabled him to achieve so many conquests over nature. 



