344 The American Naturalist. [April 
human intellect, replacing the dull of brain and slow of thought 
by the quick-witted, energetic, and intelligent, and we may safely 
look upon this as the most active agent in the unfoldment of civ- 
ilization. 
Was the development from ape to human intellect due to a 
similar conflict? Inthe tropics, the home of the savage, war be- 
tween man and nature scarcely exists, and war between man and 
man is in its primitive stage. Yet here, as elsewhere, it has much 
to do with such mental unfoldment as exists. Mastery in warfare 
is due to superior mental resources, which are gradually gained 
through the exigencies of conflict, and are shown in greater 
shrewdnesss or cunning, superior ability in leadership, and the in- 
vention of more destructive weapons. War acts vigorously on 
men’s minds, peace acts sluggishly ; and the whole story of man- 
kind tells us that intellectual evolution has been due in great part 
to the destruction in war of the mentally weaker, the preserva- 
tion of the more energetic and able, and the effect of conflict in 
producing intellectual activity. But no organized warfare or alert 
conflict with nature can be perceived in the lowest existing sav- 
ages. This powerful agent of intellectual development is cer- 
tainly not at present exerting much influence upon them; they 
accept the world as they find it, without question or revolt, and 
their thoughts and habits are as unchangeable as the laws of the 
Medes and Persians. 
But that this stagnancy has always prevailed may well be 
doubted. The position of the savage is to-day very different 
from what it was ten or twenty thousand years ago. Then he 
was dominant upon the earth, the undisputed lord of the king- 
dom of life. Now new lords of life have come, who are pressing 
in upon him on every side, preventing his expansion, hampering 
his activities, and gradually crowding him off the earth. What 
powers of development primitive man may have possessed AE 
hardly, therefore, be determined from a study of the existing 
Savage, and to gain any solution of the problem we must con- 
sider the position of primitive man. 
As we have said, the lower savages and the anthropoid apes 
are at present alike. mentally stagnant, while the mental interval 

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