The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

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The animal at first absorbs its food and unites with its mate

as blindly and as helplessly as the crystal shapes itself into

its proper form, as oxygen combines with hydrogen, or as ships

roll towards each other in a calm. How then can a line be drawn

between the inorganic and the organic, the lifeless and the

alive? The cell that vibrates in the water, and the crystal

that forms in the frost, are each the result of certain forces

over which they have no control. But as the body of the animal

is developed in complexity, by the action of complex forces,

certain grey lumps of matter make their appearance within its

structure, and out of these rises a spirit which introduces the

animal to himself, which makes him conscious of his own

existence. He becomes aware that he is alive; that he has an

appetite; and that other animals have an appetite for him. His

mind, though feeble and contracted, is improved by experience.

He devises stratagems to avoid his enemies, or to seize his

prey. At certain seasons he becomes conscious of his desire for

a mate and that which, with his ancestors, was a blind

tendency, an inherited part of growth, becomes with him a

passion brightened by intelligence.

 

It is usually supposed that the transition of an ape-like

animal into man is the most remarkable event in the history of

animated forms. But this idea arises from human vanity and

ignorance. The most remarkable event, after the origin of

life, is certainly that to which we now allude; the first

glimmering of consciousness and reason. Yet even here we can

draw no dividing line. The animal becomes conscious that he

desires food, and at certain periods, a mate; but the desires

themselves are not new; they existed and they ruled him long

before. When developed to a certain point, he begins to “take

notice,” as the nurses say; but his nature remains the same,

However, this intelligence becomes in time itself a force, and

gradually obtains to some extent the faculty of directing the

forces by which the animal was once despotically ruled. By an

effort of the human brain, for example, the reproductive force,

or tendency, or instinct, can be obliterated and suppressed.

 

What we have to say, then, respecting the origin of our early

ancestors is this: That when matter was subjected to a

complicated play of forces, chief among which was solar

influence, plants and animals came into life; and that when

animals were subjected to an ever-increasing variety of forces,

they became varied in their structure; and that when their

structure had attained a certain measure of variety they became

conscious of their own existence; and that then Nature endowed

them with the faculty of preserving their lives and that of

their species by means of their own conscious efforts. Next, it

will be shown that the successful competitors in the struggle

for existence not only obtained the food and females for which

they strove, but also, by means of the efforts which they made

in order to obtain them, raised themselves unconsciously in the

animated scale. And lastly, we shall find that men who, in the

savage state, are little better than the brutes, their lives

being absorbed in the business of self-preservation and

reproduction, are now in the civilised condition becoming

conscious of the scheme of Nature, and are beginning to assist

her by the methodical improvement of their mental powers.

 

The lower animals have a hard matter to earn their daily bread,

and to preserve their children from starvation; and with them

the course of true love does not by any means run smooth. Since

only a few can succeed in the scramble for food, and not all

can obtain mates, for polygamy frequently prevails, it follows

as a matter of necessity that those animals which are the

strongest, the swiftest, and the most intelligent will survive

and leave offspring, and by the continued survival of the

fittest the animated world improves from generation to

generation, and rises in the scale. So far as strength and

swiftness are concerned, limits are placed upon improvement.

But there are no limits to the improvement of intelligence. We

find in the lower kingdom muscular power in its perfection; but

the brain is always imperfect, always young, always growing,

always capable of being developed. In writing the history of

animal progress we must therefore concentrate our attention

upon the brain, and we shall find that the development of that

organ is in great measure due to the influence of the

affections.

 

Whether Nature has placed pain at the portals of love

throughout the animal kingdom as she has at the portals of

maternity, or whatever may be the cause, it is certain that the

female flees from the male at the courting season, and that he

captures her by means of his strength, swiftness, dexterity, or

cunning, in the same manner as he obtains his prey. He is also

obliged to fight duels in order to possess or to retain her,

and thus his courage is developed. But at a later period in

animal life a more peaceable kind of courtship comes into

vogue. The females become queens. They select their husbands

from a crowd of admirers, who strive to please them with their

colours, their perfumes, or their music. The cavaliers, adorned

in their bright wedding suits, which they wear only at the

lovemaking season, display themselves before the dames. Others

serenade them with vocal song, or by means of an apparatus

fitted to the limbs, which corresponds to instrumental music.

Rival troubadours will sing before their lady, as she sits in

her leafy bower till one of them is compelled to yield from

sheer exhaustion, and a feathered hero has been known to sing

till be dropped down dead. At this period sexual timidity

becomes a delicious coyness which arouses the ardour of the

male. Thus love is born: it is brought forth by the association

of ideas. The desire of an animal to satisfy a want grows into

an affection beyond and independent of the want.

 

In the same manner the love of the young for its parents grows

out of its liking for the food which the parents supply; and the love

of parents for the young, though more obscure, may perhaps also

be explained by association. The mother no doubt believes the

offspring to be part of herself, as it was in fact but a short

time before, and thus feels for it a kind of self-love. The

affection of the offspring for the parents, and of parents for

the offspring, and of spouses for each other, at first endures

only for a season. But when the intelligence of the animals has

risen to a certain point, their powers of memory are improved,

they recognise their parents, their spouses, their young, long

after the business of the nest is over, and consort together to

renew their caresses and endearments. In this manner the flock

is formed; it is based upon domestic love. And soon experience

teaches them the advantages of union. They are the better able

when in flocks to obtain food, and to defend themselves against

their foes. They accordingly dwell together, and by means of

their social habits their intelligence is quickened, their

affections are enlarged. The members of animal societies

possess in a marvellous degree the power of co-operation, the

sentiment of fidelity to the herd. By briefly describing what

the lower animals do, and what they feel, we shall show that

they possess in a dispersed and elementary condition all the

materials of which human nature is composed.

 

In their communities there is sometimes a regular form of

government and a division into castes. They have their monarch,

their labourers, and soldiers, who are sterile females like the

Amazons of Dahomey. They have slaves which they capture by

means of military expeditions, attacking the villages of their

victims and carrying off the prisoners in their mouths. They

afterwards make the slaves carry them. They have domestic

animals which they milk. They form alliances with animals of a

foreign species or nationality and admit them into the

community when it can be profited thereby. They build houses or

towns which are ingeniously constructed, and which, in

proportion to the size of the architects, are greater than the

Pyramids. They have club-houses or salons which they decorate

with flowers and bright shells. They march in regular order;

when they feed they post sentries which utter alert cries from

time to time, just as our sentries cry “All’s well”. They combine

to execute punishment, expelling or killing an ill-conducted

member of the tribe. As among savages, the sick and the weakly

are usually killed: though some times they are kept alive by

alms; even the blind being fed by charitable persons. They

labour incessantly for the welfare of the community; they bear

one another’s burdens; they fight with indomitable courage for

the fatherland, and endeavour to rescue a comrade even against

overwhelming odds. The domestic virtues are strong among them.

Their conjugal love is often intense and pure; spouses have

been known to pine to death when parted from each other. But if

they have human virtues, they have also human vices; conjugal

infidelity is known among them; and some animals appear to be

profligate by nature. They are exceedingly jealous. They sport,

and gamble, and frisk, and caress, and kiss each other, putting

mouth to mouth. They shed tears. They utter musical sounds in

tune. They are cleanly in their persons. They are ostentatious

and vain, proud of their personal appearance, bestowing much

time upon their toilet. They meditate and execute revenge,

keeping in memory those who have offended them. They dream.

They are capable of reflection and selection; they deliberate

between two opposite desires. They are inquisitive and often

fall victims to their passion for investigating every object

which they have not seen before. They profit by experience;

they die wiser than they were born, and though their stock of

knowledge in great measure dies with them, their young ones

acquire some of it by means of inheritance and imitation.

 

These remarkable mental powers were acquired by the lower

animals partly through the struggle to obtain food, which

sharpened their intelligence; and partly through the struggle

to obtain the favours of the females, which developed their

affections. In all cases, progress resulted from necessity.

Races change only that they may not die; they are developed, so

to speak, in self-defence. They have no inherent tendency to

rise in the organic scale as plants grow to their flower, as

animals grow to their prime. They have, however, a capacity for

progress, and that is called forth by circumstances acting upon

them from without. The law of growth in the lower kingdom is

this, that all progress is preceded by calamity, that all

improvement is based upon defect. This law affords us the clue

to a phenomenon which at first is difficult to understand. That

animal which has triumphed over all the rest was exceedingly

defective in its physique. The race has not been to the swift,

nor the battle to the strong. But the very defects of that

animal’s body made it exclusively rely upon its mind; and when

the struggle for life became severe, the mind was improved by

natural selection, and the animal was slowly developed into

man.

 

Our ape-like ancestors were not unlike the existing gorilla,

chimpanzee, and orang-utang. They lived in large herds and

were prolific; polygamy was in vogue, and at the courting

season love-duels were fought among the males. They chiefly

inhabited the ground, but ascended the trees in search of

fruit, and also built platforms of sticks and leaves, on which

the females were confined, and which were occasionally used as

sleeping-places, just as birds sometimes roost in