RESPONSIVE LIFE OF ORGANISMS 501 



again before setting out to find more food. He is quarrel- 

 some when hungry and lazy when fed, and, being perfectly 

 satisfied with himself, lacks the main spring of progress. 

 The narrow sympathy that in primitive man was bom of his 

 parental and conjugal instincts, and that was limited to his 

 family, may have been widened through his dealings with 

 animals when he had domesticated them. The man who 

 will bind up the broken leg of his dog, or pull his ox out of a 

 ditch is more likely to help his fellow man when found in dis- 

 tress. Tolerance of fellow men led to the formation of 

 tribes, which at first were composed of a few allied families. 

 Primitive tribes retain the characters of the individual bar- 

 barian; they kill outsiders, and often eat them, and not in- 

 frequently they similarly dispose of a part of their own 

 female infants, in order to keep the birth-rate down; the 

 tribe, also, must have room. Tribal societies are ever at 

 war; and wars, besides preventing increase, block progress, 

 destroy property, and curtail desire to do or to build. The 

 beasts were man's first enemies, but since he learned to 

 make efficient fighting weapons, his own kind have been his 

 worst enemies. 



The growth of nations may 

 be said to begin with the culti- 

 vation of plants in fields. This 

 made for settled homes, for the 

 establishment of property 

 rights, and of law and order 

 (within narrow limits), for the 



Fig. 281. Threshing scene. From a development of knowledge, and 

 painting on the wall of an ancient j- . i i • /■ , 



Egyptian tomb (after Brinton). lOr the aCCUmmulatlOU OI the 



meansof livelihood that should 

 set men's hands free to do something besides meeting the 

 needs of the hour, and their minds free to forecast future 

 needs. Unfortunately these needs were too largely needs 



