GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY 



whom, physical and psychical changes having 

 hitherto proceeded pari passu, intelligence had 

 at length arrived at a point where variations in 

 it would sooner be seized on by natural selec- 

 tion than variations in physical structure. When 

 among primates possessed of such an intelli- 

 gence, the family groups temporarily formed 

 among all mammals began to become perma- 

 nent, then we must say that there began the ca- 

 reer of humanity as distinguished from animal- 

 ity. For countless ages our ancestors probably 

 were still but slightly distinguished from other 

 primates, save that their increasing intelligence, 

 their use of weapons, and their habits of com- 

 bination, rendered them more than a match for 

 much larger and stronger animals. In the later 

 Pliocene times these primitive men may have 

 come to bear some resemblance to the lowest 

 contemporary savages. Human remains and 

 relics of the still later glacial period supply clear 

 proof of such a resemblance ; yet the absence 

 of any improvement in weapons and imple- 

 ments for many ages longer shows that as yet 

 there was but little capability of progress. Of 

 the career of mankind during the eight hun- 

 dred thousand years which would seem to have 

 elapsed since the era of the cave bear and woolly 

 rhinoceros,^ we possess many vestiges. But 



^ In assigning this conjectural date, I follow the theory 

 which connects the great glacial epoch with that notable in- 



6i 



