2a6 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



as a higher culture secures, what is there to choose 

 between the four souls of the Hidatsa Indians, the 

 two souls of the Gold Coast natives, and the tripartite 

 division of man by Rabbis, Platonists, and Paulinists, 

 which are but the savage other-self * writ large ' ? 

 Their common source is in man's general animistic 

 interpretation of nature, which is a vera causa, super- 

 seding the need for the assumptions of which Mr. 

 Wallace's is a type. As an excellent illustration of 

 what is meant by animism, we may cite what Sir 

 Everard im Thurn has to say about the Indians of 

 Guiana, who are, presumably, a good many steps 

 removed from so-called 'primitive' man. * The 

 Indian does not see any sharp line of distinction 

 such as we see between man and other animals, 

 between one kind of animal and another, or between 

 animals man included and inanimate objects. 

 On the contrary, to the Indian all objects, animate 

 and inanimate, seem exactly of the same nature, 

 except that they differ in the accident of bodily 

 form. Every object in the whole world is a being, 

 consisting of a body and spirit, and differs from 

 every other object in no respect except that of 

 bodily form, and in the greater or lesser degree of 

 brute power and brute cunning consequent on the 

 difference of bodily form and bodily habits. Our 

 next step, therefore, is to note that animals, other 

 than men, and even inanimate objects, have spirits 

 which differ not at all in kind from those of men.' 



The importance of the evidence gathered by 

 anthropology in support of man's inclusion in the 

 general theory of evolution is ever becoming more 

 manifest. For it has brought witness to continuity 



