270 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



animals may do all these things as well as he; some of 

 them may manage better than he can. The difference 

 which severs man from the animals lies beyond the 

 craving, and the cunning, and the consuming of what 

 has been captured. We trace it in his plans for the 

 day, in his preparation of his weapons, in his survey 

 of the heavens, in his taking of reckonings for direc 

 tion. He deals with the relations of means to ends ; 

 he utilises past experience in his reflections over what 

 has happened; he reaches general conclusions. All 

 these may for him be preliminary work, before 

 physical effort quite like to that of the animal ; but 

 these are the characteristic exercises of the man, 

 showing within the narrow limits of such a life as that 

 of the red Indian, what are the possibilities of a life 

 within which accumulated knowledge reckons for 

 much more than all animal impulses together, even 

 when at their most exalted pitch. This marks the 

 difference in range of meaning when we speak of 

 variation in animal life, and the growing experi 

 ence of the rational being. The one is physical, the 

 other is mental. The one is organic modification, the 

 other is accumulation of knowledge. Let us say, 

 with Kussel Wallace, most animals have such a sur 

 plus of vitality and strength for all the ordinary occa 

 sions of life, that any slight superiority in one part 

 can be at once utilised. 1 The statement does not 

 seem too strong. But, in its strength, it shows 

 vividly the two separate lines of advance. In the 

 life of the animal it is by the way of organic varia 

 tion ; in the life of man it is by the way of reflection, 

 accumulating knowledge, extending experience. Gain 



1 Darwinism, p. 418. 



