MCGEE] LINES OF ESTHETIC PROGRESS 177* 



interpreted by their shamans; and, in general, enlightened men think 

 and speak freely, come and go as they like, and discard tlie badges of 

 couventionism, while savages are constrained by customs carrying the 

 l)ower of law, controlled by precedent, and clothed in hierarchic regalia. 

 So, too, when a particular series of tribes are compared, it is found that 

 those of higher culture (or wider knowledge) are the more independent? 

 the more given to essays in social and industrial and other lines of 

 activity, and hence the more varied in esthetic and economic motives: 

 thus, the several Iroquoian tribes integrated the knowledge proper to 

 each, and thus made themselves an intellectual and physical power 

 able to elinnnate or assimilate the isolated tribes on their borders; the 

 sages of the Siouan stock induced the warriors of their leading tribes 

 to combine in a circle of seven council flres, which grew into the great 

 Dakota confederacy and soon gained strength to dominate the entire 

 northern plains; but while these and other federations were pushing 

 forward on the way leading to feudalism and thence to national organi- 

 zation, the self-centered California tribes consecrated tiieir tongues to 

 their own kindred, thereby stitiiug culture at its source and virtually 

 leashing themselves unto the acorn-bearing oaks of their respective 

 glades. Still more striking are tlie differences in independence revealed 

 by a comparison of human and subhuman organisms; for the humans 

 are immeasurably freer and more spontaneous in thought and action 

 than even the highest beasts: thus, the Seri blood-bearer applies, 

 renews, and elaborates her face-mark at will, while the antelope and 

 the raccoon unconsciously develop their standard-marks through the 

 tedious operation of vital processes regulated under the cruel law of 

 survival; men make their beds according to the dictates of judgment, 

 while the half-artificialized dog lies down in accordance with a heredi- 

 tary custom which has been needless for a hundred generations; and 

 the very essence of human activity is volitional choice (or artificial 

 selection), while the keynote of merely organic agency is the nonvoli- 

 tional chance of natural selection. Xo less striking are the differences 

 found on comparing other realms of nature, in which the higher are 

 invariably characterized by the greater independence; the animal 

 realm is distinguished from the vegetal realm mainly by the posses- 

 sion of volitional motility; while the vegetal is distinguished from 

 the mineral realm chietly by those better selective powers exemplified 

 in vital growth. The several comparisons seem to define that course 

 of volitional development arising in the chemical and mechanical affini- 

 ties of the mineral realm, burgeoning in simple vitality, multiplying in 

 the motility of animal life, greatly expanding in the collective activity 

 of demotic organization, and culminating in the conquest of nature 

 through the mind-guided powers of enlightened mankind. Expressed 

 briefly, this course of development may be characterized as the pro- 

 gressive passage from aittomacy to autonomy. 

 The volitional development thus seriated may be divided, somewhat 

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