312 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



— Nature accomplishes this task of throwing irre- 

 sistible bonds around widely separate things, and 

 establishing such sympathies between them that 

 they must act together or forfeit the very life of 

 their kind. Sex is a paradox ; it is that which 

 separates in order to unite. The same mysterious 

 mesh which Nature threw over the two separate 

 palms, she threw over the few and scattered units 

 which were to form the nucleus of Mankind. 



Picture the state of primitive Man ; his fear of 

 other primitive Men ; his hatred of them ; his 

 unsociability ; his isolation ; and think how great 

 a thing was done by Sex in merely starting the 

 crystallization of humanity. At no period, indeed, 

 was Man ever utterly alone. There is no such 

 thing in nature as a man^ or for the matter of 

 that as an animal, except among the very humblest 

 forms. Wherever there is a higher animal there is 

 another animal ; wherever there is a savage there 

 is another savage — the other half of him, a female 

 savage. This much, at least, Sex has done for the 

 world — it has abolished the numeral one. Observe, 

 it has not simply discouraged the existence of 

 one ; it has abolished the existence of one. The 

 solitary animal must die, and can leave no successor. 

 Unsociableness, therefore, is banished out of the 

 world : it has become the very condition of con- 



