378 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



the solution of a problem which has long puzzled me — why 

 man lost his hairy covering, especially from his back, where 

 it would be so useful in carrying off rain. He may have 

 lost it, gradually, from the time when he first became Man 

 — the spiritual being, the " living soul " in a corporeal body, 

 in order to render him more sensitive. From that moment 

 he was destined to the intellectual advance which we term 

 civilisation. He was to be exposed to a thousand self- 

 created dangers totally unknown to the rest of the animal 

 world. His very earliest advance towards civilisation — the 

 use of fire — became thenceforth a daily and hourly danger 

 to him, to be guarded against only by sudden and acute 

 pain ; and as he advanced onwards and his life became 

 more complex ; as he surrounded himself with dwellings, and 

 made clothing and adopted cookery as a daily practice, he 

 became more and more exposed to loss, to injury, and to 

 death from fire, and thus would be subject to the law of 

 selection by which those less sensitive to fire, and therefore 

 more careless in the use of it, became eliminated. 



His tools continually becoming more and more dangerous, 

 and his weapons becoming more and more destructive, were 

 alike a danger to him. The scythe and the sickle caused 

 accidental wounds, as did the needle and the knife. The 

 club and the axe, the spear and the arrow, the sword and 

 the dagger, caused wounds which, if not avoided, led quickly 

 to death. Hence beneficent pain increased with him as a 

 warning of danger, impelling him to the avoidance of wounds 

 by skill and dexterity, by the use of padded clothing or of 

 flexible armour ; while nature's remedies were sought out 

 to heal the less deadly injuries, and thus avoid long suffering 

 or permanent disablement. And ever as civilisation went 

 on, such dangers increased. Explosives caused a new kind 

 of wound from musket or pistol, and later from bombs and 

 mines. Boats and ships were built and the ocean traversed. 

 Endless forms of machinery were invented, at first hand- 

 worked, and not dangerous to the worker, but soon driven 

 by steam with such force that if carelessly entangled in it 

 the worker's limbs might be torn from his body. And all 

 this went on increasing till at last a large proportion of the 

 human race laboured daily in peril of life or limb, or of 



