THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



animals. The laws of the psychic life of the savage have 

 been closely studied by modem ethnology. It teaches 

 us tha-t the higher reason is not found in savages, and 

 that their power of abstract thought and of forming 

 concepts is at a very low level. Thus, for instance, the 

 Veddahs, who live in the forests of Ceylon, have not the 

 general idea of trees, though they know and give names 

 to individual trees. Many savages cannot count up to 

 five; they never reflect on the ground of their existence 

 or think of the past or future. Hence it is a great error 

 for Schopenhauer and other philosophers to define man 

 as a "metaphysical animal," and to seek a profound 

 distinction between man and the animal in the need for 

 a metaphysic. This craving has only been awakened 

 and developed by the progress of civilization. But even 

 in civilized communities it (like consciousness) is not 

 found in early youth, and only gradually emerges. The 

 child has to learn to speak and think. In harmony with 

 our biogenetic law, the child reproduces in the various 

 stages of its mental development the whole of the 

 gradations which lead from the savage to the barbarian, 

 and from the barbarian to the half -civilized, and on to 

 the fully educated man. If this historical development 

 of the higher human faculties had always been properly 

 appreciated, and psychology had been faithful to the 

 comparative and genetic methods, many of the errors of 

 the current metaphysical systems would have been 

 avoided. Kant would not then have produced his theory 

 of a priori knowledge, but would have seen that all that 

 now seems to be a priori in civilized man was originally 

 acquired by a posteriori experiences in the long evolution 

 of civilization and science. Here we have the root of the 

 errors which are distinctive of dualism and the prevail- 

 ing metaphysical transcendentalism. 



Like all science, biology is realistic — that is to say, 

 it regards its object, the organisms, as really existing 



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