COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



it IS brought before us that sociaUty has been 

 the great agent in the achievement of man's in- 

 tellectual preeminence, and that it has operated 

 by widening and diversifying human experience, 

 or in other words by increasing the number, re- 

 moteness, and heterogeneity of the environing 

 relations to which each individual's actions have 

 had to be adjusted. An inquiry into the gene- 

 sis of sociality will therefore best show us how 

 the chasm which divides man intellectually from 

 the brute is to be crossed. 



But before we proceed to this somewhat 

 lengthy and circuitous inquiry, we may profitably 

 contemplate under a new aspect the intellectual 

 difference which we have assigned as the funda- 

 mental one between civilized and primeval man. 

 We have observed that the intellectual supe- 

 riority of man over brute and of the civilized 

 man over the barbarian essentially consists in a 

 greater capacity for mentally representing objects 

 and relations remote from sense. And we have 

 insisted upon the point that in this capacity of 

 representation the difference between the highest 

 and lowest specimens of normal humanity known 

 to us far exceeds the difference between the low- 

 est men and the highest apes. Now in closest 

 connection with these conclusions stands the 

 physical fact that the chief structural difference 

 between man and ape, as also between civilized 

 and uncivilized man, is the difference in size and 



92 



