History of Human Society Part 5

2. Discuss the evidences of man's mental and spiritual progress.

3. The relation of wealth to progress.

4. The relation of the size of population to the prosperity of a nation.

5. Enumerate the arguments that the next destructive war will destroy civilization.

6. In what ways do you think man is better off than he was one hundred years ago? One thousand years ago?

7. In what ways did the suffering caused by the Great War indicate an increase in world ethics?

[1] See Chapter XXVII.

[2] See Cooley, _Social Organization_, chap. III.

[3] The transition from the ethnic state to the modern civic state was through conflict, conquest, and race amalgamation.

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_PART II_

FIRST STEPS OF PROGRESS

CHAPTER IV

PREHISTORIC MAN

_The Origin of Man Has not Yet Been Determined_.--Man's origin is still shrouded in mystery, notwithstanding the acc.u.mulated knowledge of the results of scientific investigation in the field and in the laboratory.

The earliest historical records and relics of the seats of ancient civilization all point backward to an earlier period of human life.

Looking back from the earliest civilizations along the Euphrates and the Nile that have recorded the deeds of man so that their evidences could be handed down from generation to generation, the earlier prehistoric records of man stretch away in the dim past for more than a hundred thousand years. The time that has elapsed from the earliest historical records to the present is only a few minutes compared to the centuries that preceded it.

Wherever we go in the field of knowledge, we shall find evidences of man's great antiquity. We know at least that he has been on earth a long, long period. As to the method of his appearance, there is no absolutely determining evidence. Yet science has run back into the field of conjecture with such strong lines that we may a.s.sume with practical certainty something of his early life. He stands at the head of the zoological division of the animal kingdom. The Anthropoid Ape is the animal that most nearly resembles man. It might be said to stand next to man in the procession of species. So far as our knowledge can ascertain, it appears that man was developed in the same manner as the higher types in the animal and vegetable world, namely, by the process of evolution, and by evolution we mean continuous progressive change according to law, from external and internal stimuli. The process of evolution is not a process of creation, nor does evolution move in {58} a straight line, but through the process of differentiation. In no other way can one account for the mult.i.tudes of the types and races of the human being, except by this process of differentiation which is one of the main factors of evolution.

Accompanying the process of differentiation is that of specialization and integration. When types become highly specialized they fail to adapt themselves to new environments, and other types not so highly specialized prevail. So far as the human race is concerned, it seems to be evolved according to the law of sympodial development--that is, a certain specialized part of the human race develops certain traits and is limited in its adaptability to a specific environment. Closely allied with this are some individuals or groups possessing human traits that are less highly specialized, and hence are adaptable to new conditions. Under new conditions the main stem of development perishes and the budded branch survives.

We have abundant pictures of this in prehistoric times, and records show that this also has been the common lot of man. Modern man thus could not have been developed from any of the living species of the Anthropoid Apes, but he might have had a common origin in the physical, chemical, and vital forces that produced the apes. One line of specialization made the ape, another line made man. Subsequently the separation of man into the various races and species came about by the survival of some races for a time, and then to be superseded by a branch of the same race which differentiated in a period of development before high specialization had taken place.

_Methods of Recounting Prehistoric Time_.[1]--Present time is measured in terms of centuries, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, but the second is the determining power of mechanical measurement, though it is derived mainly by the movement of the earth around the sun and the turning of the earth on its axis. Mechanically we have derived the second as the unit. It is easy for us to think in hours or days or weeks, though it may be the seconds tick off unnoticed {59} and the years glide by unnoticed; but it is difficult to think in centuries--more difficult in millions of years. The little time that man has been on earth compared with the creation of the earth makes it difficult for us to estimate the time of creation. The much less time in the historical period makes it seem but a flash in the movement of the creation.

TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR DIAL ILl.u.s.tRATING HUMAN CHRONOLOGY[2]

Twenty-five thousand years equals one hour

[Ill.u.s.tration: Twenty-four hour dial]

Age of modern man 10,000 years = less than half an hour.

Age of Cro-Magnon type 25,000 years = one hour.

Age of Neanderthal type 50,000 years = two hours.

Age of Piltdown type 150,000 years = six hours.

Age of Heidelberg type 375,000 years = fifteen hours.

Age of Pithecanthropus 500,000 years = twenty hours.

Beginning of Christian era 2,000 years = 4.8 minutes.

Discovery of America 431 years = about 1 minute.

Declaration of Independence 137 years = about 21 seconds.

There are four main methods of determining prehistoric {60} time.[3]

One is called the (1) _geologic method_, which is based upon the fact that, in a slowly cooling earth and the action of water and frost, cold and heat, storm and glacier and volcanic eruption, the rocks on the earth are of different ages. If they had never been disturbed from where they were first laid down, it would be very easy to reckon time by geological processes. If you had a stone column twenty feet high built by a machine in ten hours' time, and granting that it worked uniformly, it would be easy to see just at what hour of the period a layer of stone four feet from the bottom, or ten feet from the top, was laid. If, however, in the building of the wall, it should have toppled over several times and had to be rebuilt, it would require considerable study to see just at what hour a certain stone was put in the wall.

Studying the geology of the earth in a large way, it is easy to determine what strata of the earth are oldest, and this may be verified by a consideration of the process in which these rocks were being made.

Chemistry and physics are thus brought to the aid of geology. It is easy to determine whether a rock has been fused by a fire or whether it has been constructed by the slow action of water and pressure of other rocks. If to-day we should find in an old river bed which had been left high and dry on a little mesa or plateau above the present river bottom, layers of earth that had been put down by water, and we could find how much of each layer was made in a single year, it would be easy to estimate the number of years it took to make the whole deposit.

Also if we could find in the lowest layer certain relics of the human race, we could know that the race lived at that time. If we should find relics later on of a different nature, we should be able to estimate the progress of civilization.

The second method is of (2) _paleontology_, which is developed along with geology. In this we have both the vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, which are divisions of the science which treats of ancient forms of animal and vegetable life. There are many other divisions of paleontology, some {61} devoting themselves entirely to animal life and others to vegetable, as, for instance, paleobotany. As plants and animals have gradually developed from lower to higher forms and the earth has been built gradually by formations at different periods of existence, by a comparison of the former development with the latter, that is, comparison with the earth, or inorganic, development to the life, or organic, development, we are enabled to get a comparative view of duration. Thus, if in a layer of earth, geological time is established and there should be found bones of an animal, the bones of a man, and fossilized forms of ancient plants, it would be easy to determine their relative ages.

The third method is that of (3) _anatomy_, which is a study of the comparative size and shape of the bones of man and other animals as a method of showing relative periods of existence. Also, just as the structure of the bones of a child, as compared with that of a man, would determine their relative ages, so the bones of the species that have been preserved through fossilization may show the relative ages of different types of animals. The study of the skeletons of animals, including those of man, has led to the science of anthropometry.

The fourth method is to study the procession of man by (4) _cultures_, or the industrial and ornamental implements that have been preserved in the river drift, rocks, and caves of the earth from the time that man used them until they were discovered. Just as we have to-day models of the improvement of the sewing-machine, the reaper, or the flying-machine, each one a little more perfect, so we shall find in the relics of prehistoric times this same gradual development--first a stone in its natural state used for cutting, then chipped to make it more perfect, and finally beautified in form and perfected by polishing.

Thus we shall find progress from the natural stone boulder used for throwing and hammering, the developed product made by chipping and polishing the natural boulder, making it more useful and more beautiful, and so for all the {62} mult.i.tude of implements used in the hunt and in domestic affairs. Not only do we have here an ill.u.s.tration of continuous progress in invention and use, but also an adaptation of new material, for we pa.s.s from the use of stone to that of metals, probably in the prehistoric period, although the beginnings of the use of bronze and iron come mainly within the periods of historical records.

It is not possible here to follow the interesting history of the glacial movement, but a few words of explanation seem necessary. The Ice Age, or the glacial period, refers to a span of time ranging from 500,000 years ago, at the beginning of the first glaciation, to the close of the post-glacial period, about 25,000 years ago. During this period great ice caps, ranging in the valleys and spreading out on the plains over a broad area, proceeded from the north of Europe to the south, covering at the extreme stages nearly the entire surface of the continent. This great movement consists of four distinct forward movements and their return movements. There is evidence to show that before the south movement of the first great ice cap, a temperate climate extended very far toward the pole and gave opportunity for vegetation now extinct in that region.

But as the river of ice proceeded south, plants and animals retreated before it, some of them changing their nature to endure the excessive cold. Then came a climatic change which melted the ice and gradually drove the margin of the glacier farther north. Immediately under the influence of the warm winds the vegetation and animals followed slowly at a distance the movement of the glacier. Then followed a long inter-glacial period before the southerly movement of the returning ice cap. This in turn retreated to the north, and thus four separate times this great movement, one of the greatest geological phenomena of the earth, occurred, leaving an opportunity to study four different glacial periods with three warmer interglacial and one warm post-glacial.

This movement gave great opportunity for the study of {63} geology, paleontology, and the archeology of man. That is, the story of the relationship of the earth to plant, animal, and man was revealed. The regularity of these movements and the amount of material evidence found furnish a great opportunity for measuring geological time movements and hence the life of plants and animals, including man.

The table on page 64 will contribute to the clearness of this brief statement about the glacial periods.

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THE ICE AGE IN EUROPE[5]

Geological time-unit 25,000 years