628 RELATION OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES TO ENVIRONMENT. 



conditions of the environment. Tims that environment affects his 

 ingenuity — his intellectual powers; it makes grades of men, but does 

 not make kinds of men. If he is in a region of volcanic rock, he takes 

 the caves which are found, walls them in and makes houses. If he is 

 in the region of overhanging cliffs, he puts outer walls in front of these 

 cliffs and thus builds houses. If he finds tufaceous rocks, he excavates 

 the tufa and cuts out cavate chambers within the tufa and he has a 

 home. If he is in a region where stones can be piled up into walls, he 

 builds pneblos with houses of stone walls. Now, he does not develop a 

 poison as does the reptile and as does the insect, but he invents a club, 

 a bow and an arrow, and finally, as he goes on through civilization, he 

 invents firearms and all the wonderful appliances of war and fortifica- 

 tion. In the progress of this development his mind is expanded, but 

 the poor man himself as a physical being is one of the most helpless 

 of creatures. 



Let me call your attention to one more region of country. In south- 

 ern Florida, along the shores of Yucatan and around the Gulf of Mexico 

 and on the islands of the Caribbean, another set of habitations is dis- 

 covered. Often the coral islands were used as the homes of the people 

 of these lands. The coral islands, as they are found in nature, are 

 swept by high tides, while in low tides they are uncovered. Such a 

 tide- swept island was selected as a home and protected from the tides 

 by low walls built around its margin. Through this wall the builders 

 left a number of openings to the sea, the strait, or the lagoon. Then 

 they dug canals from the wall into the central portion of the island, 

 throwing the material up into ridges and x>roviding many little canals 

 and water courts, something like those of Venice. Into the water of the 

 courts they drove palmetto logs as piles, and on these piles erected 

 their houses. Then they could come from the strait into the center of 

 the island with their boats and climb into their houses by ladders. 

 These homes are found in vast numbers where coral islands have been 

 utilized. 



The animal develops long legs to walk in the water or webbed feet by 

 which it can swim or gains a sac like the pelican in which it can 

 store its food; but the environment has a different effect on man. It 

 does not make different kinds, but different grades of men. The wolf 

 by fighting gains long tusks. The rattlesnake by fighting gains poison. 

 In all of the animal world contest effects a change iu the physical con- 

 stitution of the animal, but in human evolution contest, warfare, attack, 

 and defense is by means of stratagem, and implements and devices are 

 invented. Human evolution is always intellectual evolution, and it is 

 never to any important extent physical. It is the evolution of the organ 

 of mind — the brain. The advancement of man is serial instead of dif- 

 ferential. Instead of affecting his body, the environment furnishes a 

 subject about which he may think, and in this thinking and planning 

 and inventing the man develops intellectually. 



