Man 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



416 



ing the Philosophical Society of Berlin 

 through the Ethnographical Museum. 

 (Translated for Scientific Side-Lights.) 



2037. MAN, CIVILIZED, CONSU- 

 MING THE EARTH'S CAPITAL It seems 

 to me impossible to consider what is 

 actually taking place on the earth at 

 present without perceiving that within peri- 

 ods, short, indeed, by comparison with geo- 

 logical eras, and still shorter compared with 

 the intervals to which the astronomical his- 

 tory of our earth has introduced us, the 

 condition of the earth as an abode of life 

 will be seriously modified by the ways and 

 works of man. . . . Civilized man is not 

 content to take his share of the earth's, in- 

 come he uses the garnered wealth which is 

 the earth's capital, and this at a rate which 

 is not only ever increasing, but is increasing 

 at an increasing rate. The rapid consump- 

 tion of coal is but a single instance of his 

 wasteful expenditure of the stores which 

 during countless ages have been gathered 

 together seemingly for the use of man. 

 PROCTOR Our Place among Infinities, p. 25. 

 (L. G. & Co., 1897.) 



2038. MAN COMPARED WITH 

 LOWER ANIMALS Resemblance and Con- 

 trast. It is now more than thirty years 

 since Dr. Pritchard, who, perhaps, of all 

 others merits the title of founder of modern 

 anthropology, stated in the following forci- 

 ble passage, which opens his " Natural His- 

 tory of Man," the closeness of man's phys- 

 ical relation to the lower animals : " The 

 organized world presents no contrasts and 

 resemblances more remarkable than those 

 which we discover on comparing mankind 

 with the inferior tribes. That creatures 

 should exist so nearly approaching to each 

 other in all the particulars of their physic- 

 al structure, and yet differing so immeasur- 

 ably in their endowments and capabilities, 

 would be a fact hard to believe if it were 

 not manifest to our observation. The dif- 

 ferences are everywhere striking; the resem- 

 blances are less obvious in the fulness of 

 their extent, and they are never contem- 

 plated without wonder by those who, in the 

 study of anatomy and physiology, are first 

 made aware how near is man in his physical 

 constitution to the brutes. In all the prin- 

 ciples of his internal structure, in the com- 

 position and functions of his parts, man is 

 but an animal. The lord of the earth, who 

 contemplates the eternal order of the uni- 

 verse, and aspires to communion with its 

 invisible Maker, is a being composed of the 

 same materials, and framed on the same 

 principles, as the creatures which he has 

 tamed to be the servile instruments of his 

 will, or slays for his daily food. The points 

 of resemblance are innumerable; they ex- 

 tend to the most recondite arrangements of 

 that mechanism which maintains instrumen- 

 tally the physical life of the body, which 

 brings forward its early development, and 

 admits, after a given period, its decay, and 



by means of which is prepared a succession 

 of similar beings destined to perpetuate 

 the race." DANIEL WILSON Anthropology, 

 ch. 2, p. 2. (Hum., 1885.) 



2039. MAN CONSTRUCTS IMAGI- 

 NARY CHARACTER Imagines Himself 

 What He Would Have Men Believe Him. 

 It is plain that the external conditions of 

 life impose on the individual certain habits 

 of feeling which often conflict with his per- 

 sonal propensities. As a member of society 

 he has a powerful motive to attribute cer- 

 tain feelings to himself, and this motive 

 acts as a bias in disturbing his vision of 

 what is actually in his mind. While this 

 holds good of lighter matters, as that of 

 enjoyment, it applies still more to graver 

 matters. Thus, for example, a man may 

 'easily persuade himself that he feels a 

 proper sentiment of indignation against a 

 perpetrator of some mean or cruel act, when 

 as a matter of fact his feeling is much 

 more one of compassion for the previously 

 liked offender. In this way we impose on 

 ourselves, disguising our real sentiments by 

 a thin veil of make-believe. SULLY Illu- 

 sions, ch. 8, p. 202. (A., 1897.) 



2040. MAN CONTEMPORARY WITH 

 EXTINCT ANIMALS The Irish Elk in Eng- 

 land and France. It must be regarded as a 

 well-ascertained fact that even during the 

 human period the pleasant and sunny val- 

 leys of England and of France have been in- 

 habited by the gigantic Irish elk, two spe- 

 cies of elephant, and three of rhinoceros, 

 together with the reindeer, a large bear 

 closely resembling the grizzly bear of the 

 Rocky Mountains, a bison scarcely distin- 

 guishable from that of the American prai- 

 ries, the musk-ox of Arctic America, the 

 lemming of the Siberian steppes, the lion of 

 the tropics, the hyena of the Cape, and a 

 hippopotamus closely resembling that of the 

 great African rivers. AVEBURY Prehistoric 

 Times, ch. 9, p. 289. (A., 1900.) 



2041. MAN DEVELOPS IN MIND, 

 AS ANIMALS IN BODY Increasing Har- 

 mony with Environment. [That] principle 

 of natural selection which in animals affects 

 the body and seems to have little influence 

 on the mind, in man affects the mind and 

 has little influence on the body. In the first, 

 it tends mainly to the preservation of life; 

 in the second, to the improvement of the 

 mind, and consequently to the increase of 

 happiness. It insures, in the words of Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer, " a constant progress to- 

 wards a higher degree of skill, intelligence, 

 and self-regulation, a better coordination 

 of actions, a more complete life." 



The tendency of recent improvements and 

 discoveries is less to effect any rapid change 

 in man himself than to bring him into har- 

 mony with Nature; less to confer upon him 

 new powers than to teach him how to apply 

 the old. AVEBURY Prehistoric Times, ch. 16, 

 p. 576. (A., 1900.) 



