45 Life and Immortality. 



the intellectual faculties would have been aided and modified 

 in an important manner, for if one man in a tribe, more saga- 

 cious than his fellows, had invented a new snare or a 

 weapon, or other means of attack or defence, the plainest 

 self-interest, with no great help of reasoning power, would 

 have prompted the other members to have imitated him, 

 and thus all would have been profited. Habitual practice of 

 each new art must likewise in some slight degree strengthen 

 the intellect. If the new invention were an important one, 

 the tribe would increase in numbers, spread and supplant 

 other tribes, and thus rendered stronger numerically there 

 would be a better chance of the birth of other superior and 

 inventive members. Should these last be so fortunate as to 

 leave children to inherit their mental superiority, the chance 

 of the birth of still more ingenious members would be some- 

 what better, and in a very small tribe would be decidedly 

 better. 



That primeval man, or his ape-like progenitors, should 

 have become social, they must have acquired the same 

 instinctive feelings which impel other animals to live in a 

 body, and they doubtless exhibited the same general disposi- 

 tion. When separated from their companions, for whom 

 they would have felt some degree of love, they would have 

 experienced a feeling of uneasiness. They would have 

 warned each other of danger, and have given mutual aid in 

 attack or defence. All this implies some degree of sym- 

 pathy, fidelity and courage. Such social qualities, whose 

 paramount importance to the lower animals is undisputed, 

 were doubtless acquired by the progenitors of men in a simi- 

 lar manner, namely, through Natural Selection, aided by 

 inherited habit. In the never-ceasing wars of savages, 

 fidelity and courage are all-important, and certainly when 

 two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came 

 into competition, the one that contained the greatest number 

 of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members, who were 

 ever ready to warn each other of danger, and to assist and 



