MAN CONTROLS HIS ENVIRONMENT 643 



where food is scarce to one where it is abundant, or from 

 a perilous area to one of security; aside from such ac- 

 tivities as these, they accept the situation that exists 

 and get along as best they can. Definite efforts to change 

 conditions for the better can hardly be said to exist 

 among even the most intelligent of animals other than 

 man. 



Man Largely Controls His Environment. — The 

 fact that human beings do not submit dumbly to un- 

 favorable conditions but exert themselves to bring about 

 favorable conditions lies at the basis of progress. Civil- 

 ized races surpass the uncivilized in the first place 

 because they are hereditarily more intelligent, and in the 

 second place because they have unceasingly improved 

 their environment; savages are on the whole less in- 

 telligent and more submissive, and exercise themselves 

 only to the point of achieving bodily comfort, personal 

 security, and racial perpetuation. In other words 

 savages have utilized their characteristic human traits 

 little more than to secure for themselves the fundamental 

 biological needs in the easiest manner possible. As 

 soon as these needs are met they rest content. Civilized 

 man, on the other hand, has pushed his control 

 over the environment far beyond the satisfaction 

 of these immediate needs, and compels it to yield him 

 greater and greater wealth of experience on which to base 

 broader and ever broader mental development; and thus 

 attains a plane of living in which the simple satisfaction 

 of the fundamental biological requirements of food, 

 security, and racial perpetuation plays a relatively minor 

 role. 



The Details of Progress. — Since progress depends 

 upon the control of the environment it is evident that 

 one can learn how progress has been made by noting the 

 environmental handicaps which man has had to overcome 

 and by considering how he has gone about the task of 

 overcoming them. Also, since the human race is very 



