634 RELATION OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES TO ENVIRONMENT. 



arid in his manner develop a vast multiplicity of organs and devices; 

 so they have horns and tasks and hoofs and claws for attack, and 

 scales and hair and thick skin and fleet legs and swift wings for defense. 

 Man also develops implements and agencies for attack and defense; 

 clubs, bows and arrows, guns, ammunition, fortifications, and all of the 

 devices of warfare. More than that, and chiefly, he develops institu- 

 tions, laws as rules of conduct, and sanctions to enforce these laws, and 

 appoints officers of the law to see them executed. Thus, in modern 

 society we find a vast system of institutions ramified in many direc- 

 tions and affecting all the conduct of all mankind. Human evolution 

 is evolution in institutions; and warfare still exists as a relic developed 

 from the animal condition. 



Animals have opinions, but their opinions are mainly about physical 

 tilings, and probably about very simple questions; human opinions 

 immeasurably transcend animal opinions. Man's opinions about these 

 things are evolved by a self-recognized endeavor to learn by observing 

 the phenomena of objects in nature, comparing and discriminating and 

 classifying them by the aid of language. He invents a multitude of 

 methods of experimentation and verification by which he may gain 

 certitudes. Further than that, he Las opinions about pleasures which 

 the animal can not enjoy; he has opinions about industries which the 

 animal can not practice; he has opinions about institutions which 

 the animals can not organize; he has opinions about opinions which the 

 animal does not entertain, and, finally, he has opinions about language 

 which the animals do not understand. 



The lower animals express themselves to one another in all their 

 characteristics; there is thus a natural language, and they utilize this 

 natural language in a general sign language of designed expression. 

 From this sign language, conscious of self and self-activities, the ani- 

 mal learns much of the environment; he knows his home and where 

 his food is found and where safety may be sought, and a vast multitude 

 of things, all learned by this crude sign language. But man proceeds 

 further, and develops oral speech by a process of increments of inven- 

 tion; then he symbolizes oral speech with written speech, and far 

 excels the animal in the expression of his opinions, and this is a char- 

 acteristic which most clearly differentiates him from the lower animal. 

 We may imperfectly distinguish man from animal by considering his 

 physical constitution ? but when we desire perfectly to distinguish him, 

 we are compelled to consider his arts, his industries, his institutions, 

 his opinions, and his language. 



One potent environment has been purposely neglected in the pre- 

 vious statements. This is the social environment. We have seen that 

 the physical environment has some slight effect upon the physical man 

 and an indirect though profound effect upon his mind. Now, the social 

 effect is direct, and this phase of the subject must be clearly expounded. 

 The pleasures of the child are almost wholly social pleasures — pleasures 



