THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



summer was sufficient to cause the old reptiles 

 to sink down in stupid inaction. Then came the 

 continuously warmed internally heated animal, 

 but during the long hard winter even this, as 

 the marmot fell asleep or wandered away to 

 the south like the migrating bird. This being 

 in the cave remained and watched and in the 

 time when he could no longer hunt mammoths 

 he created art. Do you see the lines that are 

 scratched here in the bone? They are lines of 

 number. Perhaps it is the number of wild ani- 

 mals killed during the last summer, which this 

 being by the hearth fire with the power of his 

 memory has once more reckoned up. Perhaps 

 it is the number of winters which this individual 

 can recall. The first valuation of a year of life 

 was there. First he counted on his fingers that 

 gave him five and ten as the first great notches 

 in the stick. Then that being in his cave went 

 on to works of art, he took up that same stone 

 knife with which he had scratched out the 

 sketch of the mammoth and cut these number 

 signs in the soft bone. It mediated whether 

 summer when one could go upon the hunt al- 

 ways alternated with winter which drove him in- 

 to the cave, and why beings of his kind like the 

 mammoth always died after a while and others 

 were born again. Summer and winter. Life 

 and death. Pain and Joy. Over these simple 

 contrasts which marked a difference, a distinc- 

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