SECTION 20. STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 221 



can be species-determined, in its conduct, the mental outfit of 

 any member of any known animal species must be necessarily 

 almost infinitely poorer than that of the average human being 

 who, by nature just superior intellectually to his immediate 

 animal precursors, has assimilated the substance of the material 

 and other inventions and discoveries of his species past and 

 present. (6) Since the individual is a specio-psychic being, it 

 follows in the first place that his connection with the rest of 

 his species in space and time cannot manifestly be through 

 biological heredity, and must therefore necessarily be through 

 post-natal communication ; that such communication must express 

 the thoughts of others, and that these thoughts can be only trans- 

 mitted through some external medium and represent material 

 and other inventions and discoveries embodied in material and 

 mental tools and tool-made products; that each of the hundreds of 

 millions of individuals, allowing for favourable and other circum- 

 stances, pours his modest contribution into the common reservoir 

 of thoughts, as a consequence of which there ensues historically 

 a colossal growth and improvement of material and other tool 

 and tool-made products until the first cultural attempts of men 

 are almost infinitely transcended in scope and effectiveness ; 

 that circumstances being of such crucial importance, and the 

 single individual having such indifferent power of advancing 

 beyond what has been accomplished, the extremes of culture 

 and non-culture, errors innumerable, and serious cultural leak- 

 ages, will be found in the species until a very high state of 

 cultural, and consequent closely co-operative, development is 

 reached ; that, generally stated, human life is potentially to-day 

 of necessity almost infinitely richer, more varied, more pro- 

 gressive, more interdependent, and more perfect in regard to 

 peoples and ages than the life of any animal species, and that 

 this difference will be proportionately accentuated with the 

 flight of time; that since man depends on culture, since cul- 

 ture is constituted of material and mental tool-made tools and 

 their products, and since all men can benefit by this culture 

 and augment it, it seems irresistibly to follow that the indivi- 

 dual will, historically and broadly speaking, gradually come to 

 be culturally connected with the species as a whole, i.e., the 

 individual, on the side of his mentality, irresistibly develops 

 into a species-reflecting being, from which conclusion, again, all 

 the preceding and succeeding characteristics follow, (c) Since 

 the civilised state is an environmental datum, a human being, 

 if left to himself, or left with others who are completely un- 

 cultured, would not be appreciably more cultured than are any 

 of the other highly intelligent animals (vide [a]), (d) Man, be- 

 cause he is a specio-psychic being, is, in propitious circum- 

 stances, capable of assimilating virtually the substance of any 

 civilisation however advanced (making hypothetical allowance 

 for a few insignificant tribes), (e) Since man's self-culturability 



