Life Progressive. 417 



accumulation, the human implements themselves bearing evi- 

 dence of an exceedingly barbarous condition of the human 

 species. Post-Pliocene, or Palaeolithic man, was clearly 

 unacquainted with the use of the metals. Not only was this 

 the case, but the workmanship of these ancient races was 

 much inferior to that of the later tribes, who were also igno- 

 rant of the metals, and who also used nothing but weapons 

 and tools of stone, bone, etc., in war, chase and domestic 

 affairs. When first man spread over the earth, he had no 

 domestic animals, perhaps not even the dog, and had no 

 knowledge of agriculture. His weapons were of the rudest 

 character, and his houses scarcely worthy of the name. No 

 doubt can exist that his food, habits and entire manner of 

 living have varied as he has passed from country to country, 

 for he must then have been far more subject to the influence 

 of external circumstances, and in all probability more sus- 

 ceptible of change. Moreover, his form, which is now ste- 

 reotyped by long ages of repetition, may reasonably be pre- 

 sumed to have been more plastic than is now the case. As 

 long as man led a mere animal existence, he would be sub- 

 ject to the same laws, and would vary in the same manner as 

 the rest of his fellow-creatures. But when at last he had 

 acquired the capacity of clothing himself, and of making 

 weapons or tools, he has taken away from nature, in a great 

 measure, that power of changing the external form and 

 structure which she exercises over all other animals. From 

 the time, then, when his social and sympathetic feelings came 

 into active operation, and his intellectual and moral faculties 

 became fairly developed, man's physical form and structure 

 would not be so much influenced by natural laws, and, there- 

 fore, as an animal, he would become almost stationary, his 

 environment ceasing to have upon him that powerful modi- 

 fying effect which it exercises over other parts of the organic 

 world. But from the moment that his body became less sub- 

 ject to the changes of the surrounding universe, his mind 

 would become acted upon by the influences which the body 



