454 Ltf e an d Immortality. 



given up a roving habit of life, the advantage which would 

 accrue from the planting of some more trees of a similar 

 kind. They would undoubtedly be led to cultivation for 

 themselves by a simple observation of the plan by which 

 nature contrives in keeping up a continuation of her many 

 kinds of plants. Instead of dropping the seeds upon the 

 ground as nature is prone to do, and trusting to their burial 

 by accident or otherwise, seeing the advantage to be gained 

 by burying them out of the reach of noxious influences, 

 whether of climate or animal life, they would soon learn to 

 take the matter of planting under their own watchful care 

 rather than leave it to the seemingly thoughtless provision 

 of nature. But the problem of the first advance of palaeo- 

 lithic man toward civilization, is at present much too difficult 

 to be solved, for it involves the consideration of certain ele- 

 ments which we know too little about, and their disentangle- 

 ment from others whose value is of recognized significance 

 in the domain of biological science. 



While it has been shown how it has been possible for pri- 

 meval man to have acquired a moral sense or conscience, yet 

 it must not be forgotten that the lower animals, at least such 

 as have come under the civilizing influence of man, have 

 also come into possession of the same highly complex senti- 

 ment which has been of such inestimable service to man for 

 his progressive advancement. Other faculties, such as the 

 powers of imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined 

 sense of beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of 

 excitement or novelty, have also been of immense impor- 

 tance in this direction, for they could not fail to have led to 

 the most capricious changes of customs and fashions. 

 Caprice, it has been rather oddly claimed by a recent writer, 

 is " one of the most remarkable and typical differences 

 between savages and brutes." It is not only possible to 

 perceive how it is that man is capricious, but the lower ani- 

 mals, as has been previously shown, are capricious in their 

 affections, aversions and sense of beauty. And there is good 



