PERVERSION OF RACE CHARACTER 151 



ural selection, in so far as it arises from struggles 

 with brute enemies and competitors — and that is 

 the whole of it in the ordinary acceptation of the 

 phrase — no longer eliminated those of the true 

 race character, viz., the patient, the gentle, the 

 thoughtful among men. Some of this latter class 

 about this time probably began to engage in indus- 

 try, by the shaping of crude tools, arrows, stone 

 axes, etc. 



The domestication of animals, 1 the beginnings of 

 efforts at the cultivation of the soil and of the accu- 

 mulation of small stores of fruits, nuts, and other 

 necessaries of existence beyond immediate wants, 

 are usually placed by anthropologists in this period. 

 The decisive battles with brute enemies had been 

 fought and won. That chapter in the history of 

 the race was closed. Man was supreme master on 

 earth. Henceforth, if anything, except some great 

 convulsion of nature, was to threaten the existence 

 of the race or hinder it from reaching the happy, 

 peaceful conditions for which the true race character 

 prepared it, then it could not come from without, 

 but had to arise within the race. 



The fearful devastations produced by the life- 

 destroying ability and ingenuity of artificially armed 

 men were briefly illustrated in an earlier chapter. 



1 Kindliness and sympathy easily explain the domestication 

 of animals. After man had killed some powerful parent brutes, 

 the piteously helpless condition of the young orphan brood 

 must have appealed to him. What more natural than to carry 

 them to the hiding-place of his family. There the women would 

 care for them and thus domesticate them. 



