GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY 



and to adjust the actions to them. Multitudes 

 of sequences in the environment which, in the 

 absence of answering functional periods, cannot 

 be directly responded to by the organism, may 

 be discerned and indirectly responded to when 

 there arises this ability of numbering days and 

 lunations."^ 



In the advance to high stages of civilization, 

 the extension of the correspondence in time is 

 most conspicuously exemplified in the habitual 

 adjustment of our theories and actions to se- 

 quences more or less remote in the future. In 

 no other respect is civilized man more strikingly 

 distinguished from the barbarian than in his 

 power to adapt his conduct to future events, 

 whether contingent or certain to occur. The 

 ability to forego present enjoyment in order to 

 avoid the risk of future disaster is what we call 

 prudence or providence ; and the barbarian is 

 above all things imprudent and improvident. 

 Doubtless the superior prudence of the civilized 

 man is due in great part to his superior power 

 of self-restraint ; so that this class of phenomena 

 may be regarded as illustrating one of the phases 

 of moral progress. Nevertheless there are sev- 

 eral purely intellectual elements which enter as 

 important factors into the case. The power of 

 economizing in harvest-time or in youth, in 

 order to retain something upon which to live 

 * Spencer, op. cit. i. 326. [§149.] 



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