EVOLUTION 



mediocrity every now and then blossoming into 

 genius. 



The progress of man must have been very slow 

 even after he got up off from all fours. When he hit 

 upon a language that went beyond the emotional 

 language or cries and calls of the lower orders, and 

 stood for ideas, mental processes, his progress must 

 have been greatly accelerated. Then when he in- 

 vented tools and weapons and began to acquire 

 some mastery over outward nature, he took an- 

 other tremendous stride forward. Then his social 

 and family instincts were a great gain. It is true the 

 lower animals have these and yet do not progress. 

 In man there is from the first a new capacity 

 educability, as Lankester calls it and this makes 

 every step forward an incentive to another step. 

 Something in him invented a language beyond that 

 of the brutes; this reacted upon him and stimulated 

 his mental growth. The family and social life reacted 

 upon him and stimulated his powers of organization 

 and awakened his spirit of altruism. He differs from 

 all other animals in the nature of his reactions. 

 There is something in him that profits by all his 

 experiences. He learned to think. What a stride was 

 that! It gave him the use of fire, of the wind, of the 

 currents. His reaction is a bound upward. He began 

 to see things external to himself and to consider 

 his relation to them. In his language he stored up 

 mental power which the lower animals do not. He 

 275 



