86 ZOOLOGY 



of another tribe, and so inter- tribal warfare would begin. Just 

 such a history has been experienced on a small scale in the 

 island of Tasmania. This island when discovered by Euro- 

 peans was inhabited by a primitive race of men, who used 

 the same tools as did the inhabitants of Great Britain in 

 mid-glacial times. They seem to have lived on fairly good 

 terms with one another, and inter-tribal wars were rare. But 

 when the coast was occupied by Europeans for sheep-farming, 

 the natives who had lived there were displaced ; they invaded 

 the grounds of the tribes who lived in the interior, and a 

 period of internecine warfare ensued, with the result that in 

 fifty years the population was exterminated. There is evidence 

 to show that in mid-glacial times England and Europe were 

 inhabited by a race akin to the Bushmen ; these were dis- 

 placed by tribes with higher culture, and only a small perish- 

 ing remnant of this race survives to-day in South Africa. 

 Still later, when the ice age was passing away, our caves were 

 the retreat of a race akin to the Esquimaux. A few thousands 

 of this race survive in the farthest North ; they are fast dis- 

 appearing as they come in contact with higher races. They 

 are mercilessly slaughtered by Red Indians, and Europeans 

 unwittingly contribute to their destruction by the diseases 

 which they spread. 



As the essence of morality consists in co-operation and 

 loyalty, so the essence of reason and intelligence is the adapta- 

 tion of new means to ends ; it is this which as frequently as 

 superior tribal virtue has given the victory to one tribe over 

 another. It is the opinion of some most competent authorities 

 that the victory of what are called the Neolithic peoples of 

 those who had the art of making axes of polished stone over 

 the peoples living in Europe at the close of the glacial age, 

 was due to the Neolithic discovery of the art of tying a stone 

 knife to a wooden handle and thus making an axe of it. It 

 was the mastery of the horse that enabled the Semitic popu- 

 lations of the East to overrun all Northern Africa and Southern 

 Europe, and to replace the Cross by the Crescent. On the 

 other hand, the Roman Empire was founded not on superiority 

 of knowledge or of inventive capacity on the part of the con- 

 querors, but on superior discipline that is, on tribal loyalty. 



If, then, the essential feature in human history has been the 



