Arrest 

 Ascent 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



46 



231. 



Man Will Develop 



No Further as an Animal. " On the earth 

 there will never be a higher creature than 

 man" (Fiske, "Destiny of Man," p. 26). 

 It is a daring prophecy, but every proba- 

 bility of science attests the likelihood of its 

 fulfilment. 



This is not a conceit of science, nor a 

 reminiscence of the pre-Copernican idea 

 that the center of the universe is the world, 

 and the center of the world man. It is the 

 sober scientific probability that with the 

 body of man the final fruit of the tree of 

 organic evolution has appeared; that the 

 highest possibilities open to flesh and bone 

 and nerve and muscle have now been real- 

 ized; that in whatever direction, and with 

 whatever materials, evolution still may 

 work, it will never produce any material 

 thing more perfect in design or workman- 

 ship; that in man, in short, about this 

 time in history, we are confronted with a 

 stupendous crisis in Nature the arrest of 

 the animal. DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, ch. 

 3. p. 99. (J. P., 1900.) 



232. ARREST OF THE HAND Tools 

 Are External Hands. As the hand was 

 given more and more to do, it became more 

 and more adapted to its work. Up to a 



to each 



point, it responded directly 

 duty that was laid upon it ; but only up to 

 a point. There came a time when the neces- 

 sities became too numerous and too varied 

 for adaptation to keep pace with them. 

 And the fatal day came, the fatal day for 

 the hand, when he who bore it made a new 

 discovery. It was the discovery of tools. 

 Henceforth what the hand used to do, and 

 was slowly becoming adapted to do better, 

 was to be done by external appliances; so 

 that if anything new arose to be done, or to 

 be better done, it was not a better hand 

 that was now made, but a better tool. 

 Tools are external hands. Levers are the 

 extensions of the bones of the arm. Ham- 

 mers are callous substitutes for the fist. 

 Knives do the work of nails. The vise and 

 the pincers replace the fingers. The day 

 that caveman first split the marrow-bone 

 of a bear by thrusting a stick into it, and 

 striking it home with a stone that day the 

 doom of the hand was sealed. DRUMMOND 

 Ascent of Man, ch. 3, p. 102. (J. P., 1900.) 



233. ART AMONG ANCIENT CAVE- 

 MEN Forgeries Detected by Lack of Antique 

 Skill Pictures Made ~by Australian and 

 South African Savages. The sketches and 

 carvings of animals done by the old cave- 

 men of Europe have so artistic a touch that 

 some have supposed them modern forgeries. 

 But they are admitted to be genuine and 

 found over a wide district, while forgeries 

 which have been really done to palm off on 

 collectors are just wanting in the peculiar 

 skill with which the savages who lived 

 among the reindeer and mammoths knew 

 how to catch their forms and attitudes. 

 . . . The art of coloring would naturally 



arise, for savages who paint their own 

 bodies with charcoal, pipe-clay, and red and 

 yellow ocher, would daub their carved fig- 

 ures and fill in their outline drawings witii 

 the same colors. Travelers in Australia, 

 sheltering from the storm in caves, wonder 

 at the cleverness of the rude frescos on the 

 cavern-walls of kangaroos and emus and na- 

 tives dancing, while in South Africa tiie 

 bushmen's caves show paintings of them- 

 selves with bows and arrows, and the bul- 

 lock-wagons of the white men, and the 

 dreaded figure of the Dutch Boer with his 

 broad-brimmed hat and pipe. TYLOR An- 

 thropology, ch. 12, p. 301. (A., 1899.) 



234. ARTIFICIALITY DESTROYS 



MENTAL FREEDOM True Love of Nature 

 Wanting in Persian Poetry. Both Iran 

 and Turan are wanting in woodland sce- 

 nery, and also, therefore, in the hermit life 

 of the forest, which exercised so powerful 

 an influence on the imagination of the In- 

 dian poets. Gardens refreshed by cool 

 springs, and filled with roses and fruit- 

 trees, can form no substitute for the wild 

 and grand natural scenery of Hindustan. 

 It is no wonder,, then, that the descriptive 

 poetry of Persia was less fresh and ani- 

 mated, and that it was often heavy and 

 overcharged with artificial adornment. 

 . . Sadi, in his Bostan and Gulistan 

 (Fruit and Rose Gardens), may be re- 

 garded as indicating an age of ethical 

 teaching, while Hafiz, whose joyous views 

 of life have caused him to be compared to 

 Horace, may be considered by his love-songs 

 as the type of a high development of lyrical 

 art; but in both bombastic affectation too 

 frequently mars the descriptions of nature. 

 The darling subject of Persian poetry, the 

 " loves of the nightingale and the rose," 

 recurs with wearying frequency, and a genu- 

 ine love of nature is lost in the East amid 

 the artificial conventionalities of the lan- 

 guage of flowers. HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. 

 ii, pt. i, p. 54. (H., 1897.) 



235. ARTISAN MAY BECOME A 

 SCHOLAR Opportunities of Stone-mason in 

 Geology. I advise the stone-mason, for in- 

 stance, to acquaint himself with geology. 

 Much of his time must be spent amid the 

 rocks and quarries of widely separated lo- 

 calities. ... In some respects his ad- 

 vantages are superior to those of the ama- 

 teur himself. The latter must often pro- 

 nounce a formation unfossiliferous when, 

 after the examination of at most a few 

 days, he discovers in it nothing organic; 

 and it will be found that half the mistakes 

 of geologists have arisen from conclusions 

 thus hastily formed. But the working man, 

 whose employments have to be carried on in 

 the same formation for months, perhaps 

 years, together, enjoys better opportunities 

 for arriving at just decisions. There are, 

 besides, a thousand varieties of accident 

 which lead to discovery floods, storms, 

 landslips, tides of unusual height, ebbs of 



