THE VALUE OF LIFE 



see much farther, and hear and smell much more 

 acutely, than civilized man. And in the senses of near 

 objects (taste, touch, temperature) the senses of the 

 savages are more coarse, and incapable of the fine 

 gradations of civilized man. 



This more refined sense-life and the accompanying 

 aesthetic enjoyment have no less social than personal 

 value. We have, in the first place, the incalculable 

 treasure of modern art and science, their promotion by 

 the state, and their embodiment in the training of the 

 young. In the future the higher races are likely to give 

 more attention to this, training the senses of children as 

 well as their intelligence from the earliest years, leading 

 them to a closer observation of nature and reproduction 

 of its forms by drawing and painting. The art-sense 

 must also be fostered by the exhibition of models and by 

 aesthetic exercises, a larger place must be given to artistic 

 education along with the acquisition of real knowledge, 

 and an appreciation of the beauties of nature must be 

 created by means of walks and travels. Then the 

 children of civilized races will have the inexhaustible 

 sources of the finest and noblest pleasures in life opened 

 to them in good time. 



The higher psychic activity that civilized man calls 

 his "mental life," and that is so often regarded as a 

 kind of miracle, is merely a higher development of the 

 psychic function we find at a lower level in the savage, 

 and is shared by him with the higher vertebrates. Com- 

 parative psychology shows us, as I have explained in the 

 seventh chapter of the Riddle, the long scale of develop- 

 ment, which leads from the simple cell-soul of the protist 

 up to the intelligence of man. I have already dealt in 

 various chapters with this point, and need not enlarge 

 on it any further to estimate the high personal value of 

 mental life in every civilized human being. It is enough 

 to remind the reader of the vast treasures of knowledge 



407 



