THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. I93 



itive Man has always to struggle most— other primi- 

 tive Men. All that Man is, all the arts of life, all the 

 gifts of civilization, all the happiness and joy and prog- 

 ress of the world, owe much of their existence to that 

 doable war. 



Follow it a little further. Go back to a time when 

 Man was just emerging from the purely animal state, 

 when he was in the condition described by Mr. Dar- 

 win, " a tailed quadruped probably arboreal in its 

 habits," and when in his glimmering consciousness 

 mind was feeling about for its first uses in snatching 

 some novel success in the Struggle for Life. This 

 hypothetical creature, so far as bodily structure was 

 concerned, was presumably not very vigorous. Had 

 he been more vigorous he might never have evolved at 

 all ; as it was, he fled for refuge not to his body but to 

 a stratagem of the Mind. When threatened by a com- 

 rade, or pressed by an alien-species, he called in a 

 simj)le foreign aid to help him in the Struggle — the 

 branch of a tree. Whether the discovery was an acci- 

 dent ; whether the idea was caught from the falling of 

 a bough, or a blow from a branch waving in the wind, 

 is of no consequence. This broken branch became the 

 first weapon. It was the father of all clubs. The day 

 this discovery was made, the Struggle for Life took a 

 new departure. Hitherto animals fought with some 

 specialized part of their own bodies — tooth, limb, claw. 

 Now they took possession of the armory of material 

 Nature. 



This invention of the club was soon followed by 



another change. To use a club effectively, or to keep 



a good look-out for enemies or for food, a man must 



stand erect. This alters the centre of gravity of the 



13 



