rHE COMING OF SAVAGE MAN 49 



plish far more than we suspect, and even infantile neglect 

 may be dangerous or fatal. 



The child has the advantages of the experience of his 

 parents and of past generations. The family must have been 

 the cradle, if not the birthplace, of articulate speech which 

 has so much broadened and clarified human thought and con- 

 ceptions. In the close bond of family life mutual competition 

 is replaced by mutual helpfulness. A large amount of en- 

 ergy, hitherto worse than wasted, is now utilized for the com- 

 mon good. The child by his dependence educates the parents 

 even more than they educate him. The family is the small- 

 est human unit; and it remains the unit of every larger stage 

 of society. The fundamental and essential moral and intel- 

 lectual training and progress are, and must always be, the 

 work of the family. There will always be a sort of natural 

 selection of families as well as of individuals. The most 

 firmly united and best regulated families will in the end " out- 

 populate " inferior ones. With all these advantages and pos- 

 sibilities we can hardly fail to believe that the family, if not 

 fully established in early palaeolithic time, must have made 

 rapid progress during the period. 



Weak and defenceless man has survived amid larger, more 

 powerful and better armed antagonists. He is now hunting 

 them as well as they him. He has spread over the accessible 

 world and made himself at home in all climates and condi- 

 tions. His racial vitality is exceedingly high. He flourished 

 and multiplied and spread even during the great ice-age 

 which wrought wide extermination among the larger and 

 higher mammals. His physical changes, except in length of 

 leg and arm, have been very slight; yet he is evidently very 

 adaptable as well as conservative. He has succeeded far bet- 

 ter than we feared or dared to expect. 



Let us glance at Neanderthal man in France during the 

 warm Chellean period perhaps 100,000 years ago.^ He has 

 all the human physical characteristics, though his forehead is 



^24. 117. 



