1890.] From Brute to Man. 345 
between them is very great. But primitive man differed from the 
lower animals in one important particular. He was lord and 
master of the animal kingdom, the dominant being in the world 
of life. He had no rival in this lordship. None of the herbivora, 
and none of the carnivora, in any full sense, have ever possessed 
a similar mastery. The large carnivora are dominant only over 
the weaker herbivora. So far as we know, the only animal which, 
except in self-defence, will assail the large carnivora, is the 
gorilla. This powerful ape is the only creature, except man, 
of which the lion seems afraid. It does not attack it, however, 
from any desire for mastery, but simply to drive away a danger- 
ous neighbor. 
Man stands alone in his relation to the lower animals He is 
lord of them all. Savages everywhere are aggressive against, 
and are feared and avoided by, the largest and strongest beasts of 
their region. This hostility does not come from the wish to 
drive away an enemy. It is the desire for food or the instinct of 
control that moves the savage hunter. He feels, and prides him- 
self on, his lordship. Man does not fight defensively, like the 
gorilla, but offensively, and whatever be his position in relation 
to his fellow-man, he admits no equal in the world below him. 
This lordship was not gained without a struggle, and that a 
severe and protracted one. The animal kingdom did not submit 
supinely to man’s mastery. The war must have been long and 
bitter, however fixed and settled the relations now seem. Rest 
has followed victory. The animal world is now submissive to 
man, or in dread of his strength and resources, and the strain 
upon his mental powers has ceased. But there is certainly reason 
to believe that men’s intellectual progress was due to warlike 
struggles alike in the primitive and in the historic epoch, the 
former being a conflict with animals, the latter with man. 
We cannot describe at length this primitive hostility. It will 
suffice to say that it must have been attended with a somewhat 
rapid mental progress, probably greatly in excess of that which 
we now perceive in apes and lower man. For the battle was 
fought with the mind, not with the body. That is to say, man 
did not depend on hereditary instincts and his natural weapons 
