The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions

by Carveth Read

Moreover, if the story is not true, Man is an exception to the rule of animal life, that the structure of every organism is made up of apparatus subserving its peculiar conditions of nutrition and reproduction. Indeed, conditions of nutrition are the ground of the differentiation of animals and plants. Conditions of reproduction need not here be considered, as the apparatus is the same in the anthropoids and in ourselves. With many species to avoid being eaten and to mate are the reasons for some secondary characters, such as protective armour or coloration, fleetness with its correlative structures, nuptial plumage, and so forth. But to avoid being eaten and to mate, it is first of all necessary to eat and live; and accordingly, for each sort of animal, starting from the organisation of some earlier stock, its structure and activities are determined by the kind of food it gets, and the conditions of getting it: in our case, the hunting of game afoot.

CHAPTER II
ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE HUMAN FROM THE ANTHROPOID MIND

§ 1. Heredity, Adaptation, Accommodation

Following the general belief that Man is descended from a stock nearly allied to the greater anthropoids—Orang, Chimpanzee, Gorilla—we may assume that his mental endowments were once much the same as theirs; and that, so far as they are still the same, heredity sufficiently explains his having them. Thus the senses, perception, the simpler forms of comparison and inference, the appetites and many of the instincts and emotions are common to us with the apes, are seen in our children under three years old, and (in short) constitute that generic consciousness (as I have called it) from which the human mind in general and the peculiar traits of races and individuals are differentiated.

So much for heredity; but the differences of the human from the anthropoid mind, alike in intelligence and in character, are enormous, and must be accounted for in some other way. Allowing for some original specific difference which we can hardly hope to discover, the changes that have taken place may be considered as the result of adaptation to those habits of life under which our species (now ranking zoologically as a Family) has been developed. And this adaptation I shall assume to have been brought about under conditions of natural selection: human races, as we now see them, being the survivors of many variations, more or less successful, and the others having been destroyed. For good judges are of opinion that, amongst the discovered remains of ancient specimens of the human family, some that exhibit marked deviations from the modern type—Neanderthalensis, Eoanthropus, Pithecanthropus—should be regarded not as belonging to our ancestral line, but rather as representing distinct species that have failed in the struggle for existence.[28]

But besides the innate dispositions of human nature determined by heredity and natural selection, which are found in some measure universally, because they are adaptations to conditions that, at one time and not long ago, weighed upon the ancestors of all of us, there are numerous traits (some of them quite superficial) that vary from country to country and from age to age, according to the economic or political type of the society in which a man lives, his place therein, geographical circumstances, religious institutions and the countless causes that govern manners and customs. In the lives of most men these traits are not necessary; they may be adopted and cast aside more than once in an individual’s career: they are temporary accommodations due to education, imitation, tradition; and, in fact, are often the disguises of human nature. Still, as society grows more and more complex, orderly and stable, there is, no doubt, again some natural selection of those individuals who are capable of undergoing the requisite accommodations. Those that cannot endure the restraints of civilisation, wander away; the extremely lazy, improvident, dishonest, or aggressive, in considerable numbers, perish.

§ 2. The Original Stock and the Conditions of Differentiation

To the original mentality of man we can only seek a clue in the higher Primates, and especially in the extant anthropoids. No doubt, during the long millennia that have elapsed since the separation of our own stock from those of other genera and species, they also have undergone some evolution, but probably much less change than we have. Unfortunately, our knowledge of their habits and abilities is still deplorably limited. It seems certain, however, that their intelligence is much greater than that of any other kind of animal. They must have extensive knowledge of their habitat, of all the forest can yield for food or shelter, and of its other denizens dangerous or otherwise. They construct for themselves some sort of sleeping-place, not much inferior to the Australians’ “lean-to,” by piling branches together in the trees. Toward men, anthropoids seem to be unaggressive, and usually retreat from them; but, when attacked, defend themselves with fury. From other animals the male gorilla has nothing to fear, and he defends his family against leopards; the chimpanzee is said to fight leopards with varying success; and, as for the orang, Dyak chiefs told Wallace that no animals dare attack him, except crocodiles and pythons, and that he kills both of them.[29] The food of these apes is chiefly fruit and the tender shoots of trees and bamboos; but they sometimes eat eggs and young birds; and the gorilla is said to eat small mammals: in confinement they all take cooked flesh freely. Socially, they hardly get beyond family life. Orangs male and female are even seen alone, and young ones together without parents; gorillas are seen in family parties; chimpanzees in families, and occasionally three or four families in company. It is said that gorillas and chimpanzees have been seen together in a large band. I have met with no report of these animals fighting amongst themselves, except that male gorillas sometimes fight for a wife. Gorillas have also been said, upon very slight evidence, to be polygamous; chimpanzees and orangs seem to be monogamous.[30] Their family life is probably, as amongst all the other Primates, affectionate: the long youth of their children implies much parental care. Whilst the smaller anthropoids—siamang and gibbon—go in troops, as also do the baboons and most monkeys of both hemispheres, the less sociability of the great anthropoids may be understood to result (a) from the limited supply of the right sort of food for them, even in the tropical forest to which they are confined—since animals of their bulk must consume a great deal; and (b) from their having no need of combining for the purpose of defence.

From the type thus outlined the mentality of the human race has departed so widely that some even of those who believe that our bodies have been derived from some simian stock (e. g. Wallace) hesitate to admit that our minds can have had a similar history. But as everywhere else in the animal kingdom mind and body constitute one organism, it is reasonable to consider whether the differentiation of the mind of man may not be understood to have taken place under the same conditions as those which determined the transformation of his body. What were these conditions?