i84 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



and surrounding them with the alienating sea she 

 preserves them from the attacks of human enemies. 

 Outside the struggle for life, they are out of life 

 itself. Treated as children, they remain children. 

 To look at them now is to recall the long holiday 

 of the childhood of the world. It is to behold 

 one's natural face in a glass. 



Pass on through the other Cannibal Islands 

 and, apart from the improvement of weapons and 

 the construction of a hut, throughout vast regions 

 there is still no sign of mental progress. But 

 before one has completed the circuit of the Pacific 

 the change begins to come. Gradually there ap- 

 pear the beginnings of industry and even of art. 

 In the Solomon Group and in New Guinea, carving 

 and painting may be seen in an early infancy. The 

 canoes are large and good, fish-hooks are manu- 

 factured, and weaving of a rude kind has been 

 established. There can be no question at this stage 

 that the Mind of Man has begun its upward path. 

 And what now begins to impress one is not the 

 poverty of the early Mind, but the enormous poten- 

 tialities that lie within it, and the exceeding swiftness 

 of its Ascent towards higher things. When the 

 Sandwich Islands are reached, the contrast appears 

 in its full significance. Here, a century ago, Captain 

 Cook, through whom the first knowledge of their 



