THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



animism, worship of the heavenly bodies). In an ap- 

 pendix to the second -book the author deals with the 

 difficult problems of evolutionary ethics, supporting 

 himself by the authority of the great work of Alexander 

 Sutherland, The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct 

 (1898). Sutherland divides humanity, in regard to the 

 various stages of civilization and mental development 

 (not according to racial affinity) , into four great classes : 

 I, Savages; 2, barbarians; 3, civilized races; 4, educated 

 races. As this classification of Sutherland's not only 

 enables us to take a good survey of the various forms of 

 mental development, but is also very useful in connection 

 with the question of the value of life at the different 

 stages, I will briefly reproduce the chief points of his 

 characterization of the four classes. 



I. Savages. — ^Their food consists of wild natural prod- 

 ucts (the fruits and roots of plants, and wild animals 

 of all kinds). Most of them are, therefore, fishers or 

 hunters. They are ignorant of agriculture and the 

 breeding of cattle. They live isolated lives in families 

 or scattered in small groups, and have no fixed home. 

 The lowest and oldest savages come very close to the 

 anthropoid apes from which they have descended, in 

 bodily structure and habits. We may distinguish three 

 orders in this class — the lower, middle, and higher 

 savages. 



A. Lower savages, approaching nearest to the ape, 

 pygmies of small stature, four to four and a half feet 

 high (rarely four and three-quarters) ; the women some- 

 times only three to three and a half feet. They are 

 woolly haired and flat-nosed, of a black or dark brown 

 color, with pointed belly, thin and short legs. They 

 have no homes, and live in forests and caverns, and 

 partly on trees; wander about in small families of ten 

 to forty persons; quite naked, or with just a trace of 

 some primitive garment. Of the lower races now living 



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