ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 
SPECIAL PAPERS 
2 
The Earth The Home of Man 
BY 
W J McGEE 
Part of a Course of Lectures Prepared under the Auspices of the 
Anthropological Society of Washington and Delivered in the 
United States National Museum 
WASHINGTON 
1894 THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN. * 
liy VV .1 McGee. 
man’s place in nature. 
Life in the Cosmos.—The earth is the home of living tilings. The 
waters of the earth abound in lowly forms of life, beginning with simple 
beings of indefinite structure made up of undifferentiated protoplasm, 
running through a long series of successively higher forms, and ending 
with the vertebrates, of which some belong to the mammalia, and thus 
approach the highest known life-forms; the air is inhabited by winged 
insects and Hying birds with a few Hying beasts, and all of these bees 
and beetles, birds and bats, are highly organized, while many of the 
lands of the earth teem with plant and animal life, ranging from the 
simplest to the most complex in degree of development, in perfection 
of organization. In addition, the plant-bearing soils of the earth 
comprise a mixture of plant remains and mineral substances decom- 
posed and recomposed by plant action; and furthermore, most of the 
rock formations of which the land is made up were originally sediments 
of the sea bottom and are composed in part of the remains of organisms 
of past ages and in still greater part of complex chemic compounds 
due to vital action during the eons of world growth; and these fruits of 
earlier life stored up in soils and rocks are the germs and nursery of 
later life. So tin* air, water, and laud abound in living things and the 
whole earth teems with life and pulsates with vitality. 
Living things are distinguished from non-living matter commonly by 
organization or by an arrangement of parts in definite relation to the 
whole (e. g., the roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit of a plant, or the 
heart, lungs, stomach, and brain of an animal), always by a distinctive 
manifestation of force commonly spoken of as vitality or vital force. 
Now vital force is manifested by certain highly complex chemic com- 
pounds, and is not manifested by matter in other and simpler forms; in- 
deed the more complex, at least, among the higher compounds appear to 
*A Saturday lecture delivered in the lecture hall of the U. S. National Museum, 
under the auspices of the Anthropological Society of Washington. 
Spec l*up. A. S. W., vol. I.—No. 2. 
(21) 2 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
depend for their very existence on the distinctive force which they 
manifest, since they are decomposed into simpler compounds when 
vitality is destroyed. Again the potency of vital force as manifested 
among the higher compounds appears to vary, within certain limits, 
directly with their complexity; thus, in general, the tissues of living 
and moving animals are more complex chemically than the tissues of 
plants which live and do not move; the dowers and fruits in which the 
vitality of plant species resides are more complex in constitution than 
the woody stems and other structures of simpler function; the germ in 
a grain of wheat or corn is more complex chemically than the surround- 
ing envelope from which the budding plant derives nutriment; and the 
animal brain, which not only lives and moves, but displays a wider 
range of activities and susceptibilities than any other known substance, 
is made up of the most highly complex compounds known to chemistry. 
So chemic constitution and vitality appear to be inter-dependent and at 
least in some degree correlative, and the living things of the earth 
live, move, perceive, and act according to the constitution of the earth- 
stuff of which their substance is made. 
Like all other chemically complex substances, the compounds of 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., which manifest vital force 
are highly susceptible to chemic action and reaction, and even to 
molecular and molar movements; i. e., they are highly unstable. It 
is, indeed, this ready susceptibility to external forces and conditions 
that raises living matter above the plane of the inorganic. Moreover, 
the higher compounds are more unstable than the lower to the extent 
that they can exist only under delicately balanced chemic conditions, 
themselves depending on narrowly limited molecular conditions; thus, 
wood and ivory are decomposed by certain acids or by heat; the soft 
tissues of plants are broken down by more dilute acids or lower heat; 
the tissues of the higher animals break down under still weaker acid 
or still lower heat; and nerve matter is disorganized by a multitude of 
poisons, by changes of temperature running through only a few 
degrees, even by slight mechanical shock. Indeed, so delicate is the 
adjustment between living matter and the conditions by which it is 
environed that if the mean temperature of the earth were raised or 
lowered through only a few dozen degrees, the teeming life of air, 
water, and laud would cease to exist; and if the heating or cooling 
extended through a few score, or, at the most, a few hundred degrees, 
every compound known to manifest vitality would be destroyed. This 
delicacy of adjustment between life and its environment is constantly 
to be remembered in considering the origin and history of living 
things. ' Astronomy and geology teach that the earth is a cooling body, 
and that it is only during the last stage in world growth—the stage 
covered or nearly covered by geologic history—that the temperature 
has been so far reduced as to permit living things, or even the unsta- 
ble compounds of which they* are composed, to exist on the earth. So, 
(22) 3 
THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN. 
while tin* unwritten history of the earth, running from primeval chaos 
to the age of man, is long and writ in many chapters, it is only in the 
last chapter that the record of life appears. , 
The dependence of life on chemic conditions and on temperature and 
other molecular conditions must limit its distribution in the cosmos. 
Thus, it is evident that living things such as those of our planet can 
not exist on the sun or other stellar bodies, for they are so hot as to 
decompose the unstable carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen compounds which 
alone manifest vital energy; nor can organisms like unto those of our 
earth inhabit the moon, for its temperature is so low that the vital 
fluids would be congealed; nor can life as we know it exist on the planet 
Jupiter, since he is almost certainly too hot, on the planet Mercury, 
since the daily temperature changes are almost certainly too great, or 
with any degree of probability on any other planet save possibly Mars, 
which may, perchance, be neither too hot nor too cold nor subject to so 
gr eat temperature changes as to break up the unstable compounds of 
which living things are made. There may be other planets revolving 
about other suns so conditioned as to support life analogous to that of 
our earth, but if so, they are beyond the reach of the telescope, outside 
the ken of science; and it is of course possible, though not clearly con- 
ceivable to trained thought, that life may be manifested on other cos- 
mic bodies by chemic compounds differing from, and under molecular 
conditions unlike unto those of our planet, just as it is possible, though 
not easily conceivable, that molten lead may be an agreeable beverage 
in some other part of the cosmos; but with such possibilities exact 
knowledge has nothing to do. 
The exceeding susceptibility of living things to external forces and con- 
ditions gives meaning to the terms “vital force” and “vitality,” which 
would seem to be nothing more than convenient and non-committal ex- 
pressions for this susceptibility and its attendant reactions, and in- 
deed Spencer has defined life as “ The continuous adjustment of inter- 
nal relations to external relations;” but since all known manifestations 
of vitality are conditioned on chemic constitution, which is in turn 
limited by temperature and other molecular conditions themselves de- 
pending on cosmic relation, it is evident that this definition is hardly 
so exact and so comprehensive as present knowledge requires; and life 
has been defined elsewhere as “ ‘ The continuous adjustment of inter- 
nal relations to external relations’ among certain definite chemic com- 
pounds under certain molecular conditions determined by exceptional 
cosmic relations.” Now, while this definition is not an explanation of 
the nature and development of living things, it suggests an hypothesis 
of life which maybe enunciated as follows: (1) The known chemic 
compounds are more or less unstable, and in general their instability 
varies directly with their complexity. (2) The higher compounds are so 
unstable as to be incapable of existing save under an exceedingly nar- 
row range of chemic and physical conditions; they are, therefore, in a 
(23) 4 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
high degree susceptible to external forces and conditions. (3) The 
highly unstable compounds are sometimes unaffected, sometimes modi- 
fied, sometimes destroyed by external forces and conditions; when 
those that are unaffected retain their primitive character and are 
thereby excluded from the category of the susceptible, and those that 
are destroyed disappear from the scene of cosmic activity in their orig- 
inal form, while those that are modified are thereby more delicately 
adjusted to the sum of external forces and conditions. (4) Through 
the exclusion of the insusceptible, destruction of the over-sensitive, 
and preservation of the delicately adjusted among the higher chemic 
compounds, resilience—or the capacity for internal reaction, or respon- 
sion to external forces and conditions may be developed gradually 
through that continuous transition which characterizes natural proc- 
esses and which Powell has formulated as “The Law of Becoming.” (5) 
The responsive compounds are constantly coming into contact or col- 
lision with the external; when those that are not affected by the colli- 
sions retain their character and are thereby excluded from further 
progress, and those that are excessively affected are destroyed, while 
those that yield to or interact with the external are preserved and 
thereby brought into closer harmony with a wider range of cosmic 
forces and conditions; and this adjustment to the widest possible range 
of forces and conditions makes for the preservation of the compounds 
thus constituted. (G) Through the exclusion of the irresponsive, de- 
struction of the over-responsive, and preservation of the duly respon- 
sive among the delicately adjusted higher chemic compounds, internal 
activity may be developed to such a degree that each contact with the 
external may initiate a long-continued series of internal movements, 
i. e., a limited spontaneity may be developed. (7) While spontaneity 
might not directly tend to increase the probability of survival among— 
and thus might not prove directly beneficial to—highly unstable com- 
pounds, it would nevertheless accompany that delicacy of adjustment 
required for its survival (e. g., perhaps, as functionless tactile sense 
accompanies the distinct special senses of the delicately constituted 
tongue and eye); and thus the endless succession of collisions charac- 
teristic of the cosmos would tend to exclude the non-spontaneous, elimi- 
nate the over-spontaneous, and preserve the duly spontaneous, and so 
make for the increase in spontaneity. (8) Despite their wide variety 
there is a certain rhythm in cosmic movements (e. g., growing out of 
rotation and revolution in relation to other bodies) which imposes a 
certain degree of order on cosmic collisions; and those spontaneous 
compounds whose internal activities chance to accord with the external 
rhythm enjoy the greater probability of survival, and thus rhythmic 
inter action between the internal and the external may be developed. 
(9) Through the exclusion of the non-rhytlimic, elimination of the ill- 
rliythmic, and preservation of the duly rhythmic among the sponta- 
neous compounds, attunement to the external, or rhythmic spontaneity, 
(>4) THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN. 
5 
may gradually l»e dcvelopwl through the continuous transition compre- 
hended under the law of becoming. (10) That iuternal adjustment to 
subsequent external events, which attunement between the internal and 
the external involves, is directly beneficial to compounds possessing 
such constitution; and, as tin*, attunement becomes more perfect and 
extends to successively wider ranges of external forces and conditions, 
the internal activities may eventually become such as are determined 
by past experiences, so that the faculty of prevision .nay be engen- 
dered; and prevision, or the prediction of the future in terms of the 
past, is the beginning and essence of consciousness. 
It is to be noted that the unstable, susceptible, and responsive com- 
pounds and those manifesting both simple spontaneity and rhythmic 
spontaneity are modified—sometimes by few, sometimes by many, ex- 
ternal forces and conditions; when those that are affected by few 
causes change slowly and retain long their primitive character, and are 
thereby excluded from the leading rank in adjustment to the sum 
of the external, while those that are affected by many causes are 
thereby brought into correspondence, or harmony, or accord, or con- 
gruity with tin*, wider range of cosmic forces and conditions. Now, 
through the exclusion of the less congruous and the preservation of 
the more congruous, exceptionally responsive, and widely congruous, 
materials may be developed through a series of successive inter actions 
between the substance and the environing forces and conditions, when 
the condition recognized in Spencer’s definition of life will be fulfilled. 
Moreover, through the exclusion of those materials whose external 
activities represent immediate causes and the preservation of those 
whose internal activities represent remote causes, spontaneity, both 
simple and rhythmic, may be developed to such an extent as to be 
limited only by the persistence or durability of the material. 
Thus, under this hypothesis of life, vitality includes susceptibility to 
external forces and conditions analogous to, if not identical with, that 
of the higher abitotie cliemic compounds, together with responsion, 
through which the substances by which it is manifested are themselves 
modified, as well as a high degree of spontaneity, whereby long con- 
tinued internal activity is secured and, sometimes, rhythmic inter action 
between the internal and the external or prevision, which is the basis 
of consciousness, and also congruity with the forces and conditions of 
the cosmos. Accordingly, life may be defined as the limitedly spon- 
taneous inter-adjustment of internal and external relations between con- 
gruous substance and its environment; or, more briefly, as the spon- 
taneous inter adjustment of the congruous. 
In this hypothesis of vitality, it is assumed that the primary activities 
are simply those growing out of chemic action and physical inter-ac- 
tion; and it is assumed that the material or materials vitalized through 
long continued series of inter-adjustments are at the outset produced 
continuously by combination of contiguous lower compounds and ele- 
(25) 6 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
merits, and this may have been the beginning of absorption or material 
growth, after a manner analogous to that of the growth of crystals. 
Thereby a vitalized self-perpetuating magma may have been produced 
wherever the chemic and physical conditions were favorable. Now it 
would appear that au essential antecedent condition for the production 
of such vitalized substances as those found in the waters and over 
the lands of the earth would be the presence of carbon, oxygen, nitro- 
gen, hydrogen, and certain other elementary substances either free or 
in easily modified combinations. Several of these elements of the vital 
compounds are known to exist free or in readily combined or disso- 
ciated compounds at the present time; but it is singular that hydrogen 
is rarely found free in the modern earth, and indeed could hardly now 
exist on the terrestrial surface, since its specific gravity is so low that 
it would quickly be displaced by denser gases. This fact suggests that 
vitalized materials could not originate spontaneously under the exist- 
ing cosmic conditions by which the earth is environed; and, while it is 
ditficult to understand how this highly elastic gas was chained to the 
earth in its earlier stages, it seems on the whole probable that the life 
of the earth began, and could only have begun, about the period of 
transition from the planetary stage to the stage of geologic develop- 
ment. Accordingly it would appear probable that the course of life on 
the earth has run parallel with the differentiation of the terrestrial sur- 
face into oceans and continents, sea and land, mountain, valley, and 
plain. 
While the above hypothesis explains the development of spontaneous 
inter action, or of motility, in a vitalized magma, it does not directly 
explain the origin of reproduction nor the development of individuals 
and organization; but it readily suggests the supplementary explana- 
tion. The vitalized magma, whose persistence depended on adjustment 
to external forces and conditions, was constrained by gravity and 
thus limited in size; large masses, were liable to break beneath their 
own weight and even the smaller were liable to disruption by impact 
against other masses. Now, those that were reduced to simpler chemic 
form in consequence of disruption were thereby destroyed and removed 
from the race for survival, while those that resisted decomposition were 
thereby the more delicately adjusted to their environment, and through 
this process of the destruction of the indivisible, and the preservation 
of the divisible, the capacity for division was developed; and such may 
have been the beginning of multiplication by fission, the simplest form 
of reproduction, to which all others may be traced. At first the 
chances of survival of the two parts of a body divided by fission may 
have been equal, and, judging from the analogy of the vast numbers 
of lower organisms destroyed through the struggle for existence, 
myriads of primitive bodies must have been divided and eventually 
destroyed in the endless succession of mechanical shocks character- 
istic of cosmic existence before a higher mode of reproduction was 
(26) THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN 
7 
develops!; but whenever a body was of such size and such chemic 
constitution that when divided one of its parts chanced to be more 
delicately adjusted to environment than the other part, then (1) the 
more delicately adjusted part survived the longer, and (2) the parent 
body which divided unequally thereby secured an increased chance of 
perpetuating a part of its substance; and thus, by the destruction of 
bodies dividing equally and the preservation of the more highly 
developed jKu tions of those dividing unequally, unequal division may 
have been developed, and the plane of vitality raised by the elimina- 
tion of the lower and the conservation of the higher in individual 
bodies, and this may have been the beginning of reproduction by bud- 
ding or by the formation of spores and the germ of organization. 
Accordingly the inter-ad justments growing out of chemic and mechan- 
ical action maybe traced with unbroken continuity through the begin- 
ning of absorption or growth, the primitive stages of individuation, 
the simpler forms of reproduction, and the inception of organization, 
i. e., to those characteristic vital processes common to the living things 
of the earth. 
Thus the hypothesis explains the origin and development of those 
attributes of living things which are commonly regarded as primitive 
or fundamental, and moreover it explains the still more important 
though frequently neglected quality of heredity among the simplest 
forms of life. Under the hypothesis, heredity, or the persistence of 
primary characters, is in no way dependent on cell structure or any 
other feature of organization, but on chemic composition, and varies 
directly with the stability of the chemic compounds of which the bodies 
are composed and inversely with the susceptibility of the compounds 
to external forces ami conditions, i. e., to vitality. So it would appear 
that, in so far at least as bodily constitution is concerned, heredity is a 
primitive character, and that the degree of vitality, or the potency of 
life, culminates in the highest organisms; though the persistence of 
vitality, or the resistance of a body to dissolution, culminates among 
the simplest and lowest living things. This inference is in accord with 
the sum of knowledge concerning the organisms of the earth. The 
lowly slime molds, which in one stage of their existence are undifferen- 
tiated protoplasm, maintain their specific purity more rigidly than any 
of the higher life forms, for, although the protoplasm-streams from the 
spores of two species may intermingle, each reproduces its kind with 
the highest exactitude; the Paheozoic brachiopods and corals lived 
through geologic ages, each made up of uncounted millenniums, with- 
out appreciable change in specific character, and each individual was 
the exact image of his fellows; in the later geologic ages the persistence 
of the species progressively diminished, and the diversity among indi- 
viduals of the same species progressively increased; the prevailing 
species of to-day are constantly adjusting themselves to general envi- 
ronment, and the individuals of each species are constantly adjusting 
(27) 8 
ANTHKOPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.—BULLETIN. 
themselves to local environment, so that this may justly be called the 
age of specific and individual variation, or the age of hybrids*, indeed, 
in this last eon of the history of the earth heredity is so far subordi- 
nated to responsion and spontaneity that many animals and plants are 
no longer able unaided to perpetuate their kind, while the domesticated 
animals and cultivated plants have lost their original affinities and be- 
come the creatures of human craft. Accordingly life—which represents 
the highest susceptibility to external forces and conditions, the attune- 
ment of the creature to the harmony of the cosmos—buds in the zoo- 
phyte, blooms brightly in the busy ant, the bounding antelope, and the 
soaring eagle, and burgeons gloriously in the active brain of man; and 
the potency and perfection of life, the value of vitality, increases 
progressively from the lowest to the highest among the living things 
of the earth. 
In brief, life is a manifestation of force pertaining to certain highly 
complex and unstable compounds which have abounded on the earth 
during the ages recorded in geologic history, but which can not have 
existed during the earlier stages of planetary growth and can not exist 
to-day—except in a relatively minute part of the known cosmos; out of 
all the innumerable self-luminous suns that jewel the firmament, out of 
the seven great planets and the hundreds of asteroids that wheel about 
our sun, out of the score of satellites circling the planets of our solar 
system, out of dll the myriad cosmic bodies within range of human 
vision, there is but one which is certainly so conditioned, and one or 
two more possibly so conditioned, as to permit the existence of vital 
compounds on their surfaces. Accordingly, the earth is not only the 
home of living things, but, so far as human knowledge extends, their 
only home. 
The development of life.—The development of living things from the 
simple and lowly forms of the prime to the highly organized animals 
of the present is recorded in fossils and other organic remains in the 
rocks of the earth; and indeed, the rocks are classified by the records 
of past life entombed within them. In the present age of the earth, 
intelligent man prevails and events are recorded in written history; 
but the written record covers no more than a few thousand years, even 
in the oldest nations. Next beyond the historic age lies a shadowy 
and ill-defined pre historic age, during which primitive man probably 
existed, and then follows the Cenozoic age of the geologist, the age of 
modern life, in which living creatures approached more or less closely 
to the modern forms, the animals being known from their bones, teeth, 
shells, and tracks, and the plants from their wood, leaves, and fruits 
preserved as fossils in the newer rock formations. Beyond the Cenozoic 
age falls the Mesozoic age, or age of middle life, whose rocks underlying 
the Cenozoic yield fossil remains of plants and animals simpler, cruder, 
more primitive than those of modern times; still further away from the 
present are the records of the Palieozoic age, or age of early life, in 
(28) THK EARTH THE HOME OF MAN 
9 
which the living things were like unto tin* simplest and lowliest of the 
present, or even simpler or lowlier than any now existing, as shown by 
the fossils from the older rocks; while the earliest age with which the 
science of past life has to deal—tin* Agnotozoic age, or age of unknown 
life forms—yields but a meager and indefinite record of the beginning 
of organic existence. 
Now, while the history of the development of life on the planet is too 
long and too elaborate for repetition here and while it is obscure in 
many portions, certain tendencies or laws are indicated within it which 
are worthy of special attention: At first the living things were appar- 
ently devoid of woody, stony, and bony structures, like the lowest plants 
and animals of later ages, and were probably akin to the monera and 
related creatures of the present, simple, ill-organized masses of pro- 
toplasm gradually assuming cell structure and an indefinite organiza- 
tion; their bodies probably consisted of relatively simple compounds of 
carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc., as do the bodies of the aimebte to-day; 
their vital characteristics were probably limited to simple motility, 
irritability, metabolism, and heredity, as is the case with the simplest 
forms of life known to modern students; and it is probable that by far 
the most important of these characteristics was thatwhich is frequently 
neglected in the consideration of early life, namely, heredity; and the 
beings themselves, like the relatively simple compounds of which they 
consisted, were probably far more stable, both individually and specif- 
ically, than their more highly organized progeny—so stable, indeed, 
that some of their kind have come down to the present with little modi- 
fication. Such, doubtless, was the beginning of life on the earth, and 
the condition of life during at least a part of the Agnotozoic, though it 
is probable that higher life forms came into being before the end of the 
Agnotozoic and that their remains will some day be found in the form 
of fossils. 
During the Palaeozoic age—the age of early life—the living things 
differentiated into plants and animals, chiefly marine; for in that stage 
of world-growth tin* oceans were greater and the lands were smaller 
than to-day: The plants at first were simple seaweeds, but later they 
crept out of the waters on the growing land surfaces as forests of huge 
ferns, giant mosses, tree like rushes, and other plant types similar to 
certain pigmy forms of to-day, though hundreds or thousands of times 
larger; the animals were at first mollusks, corals, crab-like trilobites, 
plant like crinoids—the stone lilies of tin* primitive period—and sea- 
worms with stony or chitinous structures for shells and skeletons; but, 
later, vertebrates were developed and they and some other organisms 
pushed out on the land amidst the forests of ferns and mosses. During 
this age the organization of animals and plants increased greatly in 
complexity; at the same time the chemic compounds of which they 
were composed increased in complexity and the organisms diminished 
in stability, so that few of tin* plants and animals of that early day 
have conn* down to us in unchanged condition. 
Spec. Pap. A. S. W., vol. I.—No. 2. 
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ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
During the Mesozoic age, or age of middle life, the marine animals 
and plants differentiated and became more complex and unstable; but 
life came to prevail over the land and the dominant types breathed air 
rather than water. The four-footed beasts increased in number and in 
strength; flying insects began to buzz among the trees, and birds har- 
bored in the forests; and the beetles fertilized those plants that began 
to bear flowers, and the birds distributed the seeds of those that began 
to bear fruits; and thus the plant life of the land was changed. Dur- 
ing this age the organization of living things was still further perfected, 
and progressively more and more complex cliemic compounds were 
probably produced by vital action; at the same time the stability of 
animals and vegetal forms diminished so that few of the Mesozoic types 
have come down to us, and the Mesozoic fossils are less useful for clas- 
sification than those of the earlier ages by reason of their variability. 
During the Cenozoic, life continued to prevail on the land, and in- 
sects, birds, and beasts became more and more differentiated; talons 
and beaks grew among the birds of prey, and teeth, tusks, and claws 
among the beasts; while the plant-eaters grew fleet and cunning and 
there was a marvellous increase in the volume of the animal brain. 
Throughout this age bodily organization became more elaborate, while 
the cliemic complexity, at least of brain matter, increased, and the sta- 
bility of the higher forms continued to diminish. 
During the historic period and the immediately antecedent pre-liis- 
toricage made known to us through arelneology, intelligence prevailed 
and man came to rule over the earth and to destroy or mold to his will 
the animals and plants; his brain is the most complex chemic com- 
pound known; and, while bodily variation in his kind seems to have 
ceased, his works and his institutions are constantly changing, ever for 
the better, so that this last short age is characterized by change more 
rapid than ever before in the history of the earth. 
1 Thus the record of life on the earth runs from the ill-organized, chem- 
ically simple, and stable to the highly organized, chemically complex, 
and unstable among living things. The first age in the geologic his- 
tory of the earth—the Agnotozoic—appears to have been one of simple, 
ill directed, unorganized, and feeble vital force, or of vital magma; the 
second, or Pahezoic, was the age of numbers when living things in- 
creased to multitudes of species and myriads of individuals; the 
Mesozoic, or middle life, was the age of might when brute strength 
prevailed and the theatre of vital action was changed from the sea to 
the land; the Cenozoic was the age of activity displayed first in fleet- 
ness and then in cunning, gradually growing into intelligence; while 
the present is the age of mind, in which organic development culmi- 
nates in brain structure, while brain work controls the world. 
So the history of past life on the earth pictures with marvellous 
clearness the relations among the living things of to-day, of which most 
are belated surviyors from earlier ages and only a few with man at 
(30) THK EARTH THE HOME OF MAX. 
11 
their head, arc really representative of the age of mind; the undirected 
or ill directed vital force of the beginning gave way to numbers of 
individuals,the numbers fell before individual might, brute force bowed 
before activity, and bodily activity has yielded to intelligence. The 
story of life on the earth is the grandest epic inscribed in the book of 
nature; and the record of man’s place at the head of all other earthly 
things is its grandest canto. 
The kindred of man.—In the beginning of biology, human knowledge 
wan a chiton of isolated facts concerning living things whose relations 
were not perceived; in a later stage the living things were grouped in 
a hierarchy or orderly system of species, genera, families, and orders, 
which were recognized as running from the lowly and simple to the 
higher and more complex, and this arrangement was interpreted as the 
expression of a preternatural and admirable plan, and a long line of 
high priests of the gospel of special creation, ending with Agassiz and 
Dawson, extolled the wonderful works of the Creator. Then came 
Spencer, Darwin, and Wallace with the doctrine of evolution, and it 
was perceived that living things represent not simply a hierarchy run- 
ning from the low to the high, but a genetic series, in which the higher 
sprang from the lower through the operation of natural forces and con- 
ditions implanted in the cosmos at the beginning, and thus residing m 
the earth; and thereby a new and nobler plan of creation was recog- 
nized, and the modern high priests extol a more exalted theme than the 
old. • 
Under the doctrine of evolution, the relations of the living things on 
the earth may be shown like the relations of individuals in a family group 
by a kind of genealogic tree whose numerous and widely diverging 
branches may be traced down to the primary stock. The stock of the 
tree of life on the earth stands for the simple life forms of the Agnot- 
ozoic when terrestrial vitality was represented by ill organized forces, 
and the stock divides upward with the development, multiplication, 
and differentiation of organisms; yet, like the trunk of the elm or oak. 
the original stem rises through the ages to the present and is repre- 
sented by the existing amoeboid forms and protoplasmic stages. One 
of the great branches springing from this trunk is represented by the 
animals of radiate structure, such as the crinoids and sea urchins, and 
this, like other great branches, is subdivided into many branchlets 
and twigs; another great branch is represented by the articulated ani- 
mals with external chLinous or stony skeletons; and the most impor- 
tant branch, which is closely allied to that of articulates, is represented 
by animals with internal bony skeletons. The most important branchlet 
of this great branch is that of the mammalia; and most conspicuous 
among its twigs is that representing the animals with hands. Some 
there are indeed who question whether the mammalian branchlet of the 
vertebrate branch of the tree, or indeed any part thereof, supports the 
crowning glory of terrestrial vitality, the human organism ;but the no- 
(31) 12 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
tion that man is not a member of the earth’s great family of living 
things has long been subsiding and must be finally set aside. 
It is now a generation since Darwin showed that not only are the bones, 
museles, nerves, and other organs of the lower animals essentially 
similar to those of man, but that there are found in the human body 
certain rudimentary organs—or vestigial organs, to use the more ac- 
ceptable term proposed by Riley—which are without function and 
whose presence can be explained only on the hypothesis of descent 
from simian or pithecoid, (i. e., ape like or monkey-like) ancestors to 
whom these organs were of use; and about the same time Huxley 
showed that, when anatomical characters, particularly those of the 
brain and its receptacle, are compared, it is found that certain savages 
and idiots and other men of low development more closely resemble the 
higher apes than the higher representatives of the human species-, in 
other words, that there is no anatomical break between man and the 
apes. Not long afterward Haeckel and others pointed out that the 
human embryo is uudistinguishable from the embryos of the lower ver- 
tebrates and that in its gradual development into the human form it 
passes through successive stages of homology with reptilian, avian, and 
mammalian embryos, thus repeating in epitome the history of develop- 
ment previously inferred from anatomical characters; i. e., the einbry- 
otic development of the human individual is inexplicable except on the 
hypothesis that man has come up from a lower estate and is thus the 
crowning glory of a long line of less noble ancestry. These demonstra- 
tions have sufficed to convince nearly all biologists that the human 
species (Homo sapiens) is genetically related to the anthropoid apes 
and through them to every part of the genetic series of terrestrial life* 
But each new discovery yields a higher point of view for further re- 
search into the undiscovered, and thus the progress of knowledge is 
cumulative; and recent researches in pyschology, based on the evolu- 
tion of human characteristics, appear to yield new and absolutely con- 
clusive proofs of man’s ascent from a line of lower ancestry to his 
present condition. 
As explained by Powell in his system of i)sycliology and as specific- 
ally indicated in the foregoing hypothesis of vitality, mental action or 
mentation is the manifestation or product of inter action between highly 
organized nerve substance and external forces. Now, the responsivity 
of nerve matter, which is the most highly complex and unstable among 
terrestrial compounds, would seem to be the outcome of a long course 
of development in wThich the irresponsive was destroyed and the highly 
responsive preserved; and, the final effect on the highly sensitive nerve 
matter of each collision between that matter and the external world 
being determined in large part by previous collisions, the character of 
each nerve reaction may be considered the resultant of all the inter-ac- 
tions in the long course of physical development of which nerve mat- 
ter is the fruit. Thus mentation would appear to be a link in the 
(32) TilK EARTH THE HOME OF MAN. 
13 
chain of inter'-adjustments constituting vitality, and that in which in- 
ternal reaction or spontaneity is most perfectly developed. 
Now, under this system of psychology, intellectual development 
must have been exceedingly slow; and while, like other natural proc- 
esses, it must progress cumulatively with each new inter action, as the 
structure of the nerve matter comes nearly and still more nearly into 
accord with its surroundings, still a vast period must have been re- 
quired for the development of the higher grade of brain structure and 
the mentation characteristic of the age of intellect in the history of 
the earth. Moreover, the process of development must have been 
marked by certain stages coinciding with those actually displayed 
among the lower living things of the earth and displayed still more 
clearly among the lower living things of past geologic ages brought 
to our knowledge through palaeontology. Thus, under Powell’s system 
of psychology, which is by far the most satisfactory thus far formulated, 
the human brain is but the keystone of an arch rising through the 
lower organisms of earlier eons, the product of myriads of interactions 
and reactions covering the greater part of the period of life on the 
earth. 
Under the Powellian psychology there is an embryology of the mind 
as well as of the body, and the mental development of the human infant 
is thus an epitome of the mental development not simply of the race, 
but of mankind, and even of the long series of lower and ever lower an- 
cestors revealed as the scroll of world history is rolled backward. 
Furthermore, under this system of psychology the intelligence of the 
world is essentially alike, differing perhaps in degree of development, 
but never in kind; always representing inter action and revived action 
between highly organized nerve matter—chemically complex and un- 
stable matter, which alone manifests, and which never exists without 
manifesting, this kind of activity—and external bodies or forms, what- 
ever the degree of development of the organisms possessing it; and that 
which the hypothesis requires is found to be true among the living things 
of the earth. The intellect of man is similar in kind to that of domestic 
animals though higher in degree, and intelligence is conveyed to and 
received from the horse, the dog, the cow, and all other domestic ani- 
mals; and when civilized man comes into contact with savage man or 
wild animals, the two grades of intellect are either mutually adjusted 
or the weaker is overcome. Moreover, the trend of intellectual action, 
the aim of intellectual organisms, is always alike: the intellect is the 
servant of the organism and seeks to protect and benefit its master 
through the conquest of natural forces and conditions. Hy reason of 
intellect, men build houses to protect themselves from enemies and the 
elements—so do birds, musk rats, and beavers; by reason of intellect, 
men hoard food—so do bees and squirrels; by reason of intellect, 
albeit hardly the highest, men enslave their kind—so do ants; by reason 
of intellect, men lay snares for game—so do spiders; by reason of in- 
(38) 14 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
tellect, men plant and cultivate and afterward harvest—so, it is believed, 
do the ants of the southern plains; by reason of intellect, men band 
themselves together for mutual protection—so do birds and beasts on 
land and fishes in the sea; by reason of intellect, men arrogate unto 
themselves proprietary rights to certain land, and protect their do- 
mains against trespass—so, in somewhat less degree, do those carniv- 
orous animals who establish and protect and mutually respect tlicir 
ranges; and in many other ways the unity of mental action by men, 
lower mammals, cold-blooded vertebrates, and even the lowly articu- 
lates is displayed. It is indeed significant that the highest intellectual 
development among the living things of the globe seems to be reached 
in the widely diverging branches of the genealogic tree represented 
respectively by man among the vertebrates and the ant and the bee 
among the articulates, for thereby kinship among all living things is 
shown more clearly than by anatomic relations. 
Thus the living things of the modern earth and all of their multifari- 
ous ancestry must be conceived to represent a single family bound 
together not simply by external resemblances and superficial affinities, 
but by blood relation. The way was long, very long, and very diffi- 
cult from the beginning of responsivity in the highly complex com- 
pounds of the prime to the differentiation of even the lowest among the 
living things like the amcebas, and untold myriads on myriads of unor- 
ganized masses of differentiating matter fell by the wayside; the way 
was very long and hard from the simple mass of responsive matter capa- 
ble only of perpetuating itself by absorption and reproducing its kind 
by fission to the development of simple organization, and myriads of 
the ill organized bodies fell out of the race; the way was long and devious 
from the beginning of definite organization to the development of indi- 
vidual might, when brute strength came to prevail, and the rocks of 
the earth are charged with the remains of the imperfectly organized 
beings that failed of this goal; the way was rugged from brute strength 
to activity and cunning whereby living things escaped tlieir foes 
and fled the elements, and the wayside was strewn with the bodies of 
the ungainly and the stupid; the way was steep and dark from the 
activity of fleetness and cunning of the beasts to the comprehensive 
human intelligence that enslaves animal foes, imprisons fire, and chains 
the lightning, and in other ways molds the earth to his liking, and the 
weaker-minded were dazed or lost and left behind; but all these ways 
of progress join or overlap and through them all has man come to his 
resplendent castle on the crest of the delectable mountains. 
The antiquity of man.—No definite record has yet been found of the 
beginning of human existence on the earth. Written history runs 
back into the haze of legend and ends in the shadow of myth at 5,000 
or 0,000 years ago; but man was then a thinking, speaking, and writing 
man like the higher barbarians of to-day. Certain chronologic periods 
(34) THE EARTH THE HUME OF MAN. 
15 
based on astronomic observation indicate that the positions of the moon, 
sun, and stars, have been observed and recorded or remembered through- 
out a period extending over in,(MM) or 20,000 years; but these chrono- 
logical eras tell of men like modern barbarians, and not of the infancy 
of the race. The differentiation of language records a vast period,which 
has been estimated by philologists at not less than 20,000 years; but at 
its beginning man was a speaking animal like modern savages, and 
not the humbler prototype of the human species. So the indications 
of human antiquity found in the direct products of intelligence would 
seem to carry the beginning of the race at least 10,000 or 20,000 years 
or perhaps twice as long into tin; past. 
The geologic evidence of human antiquity is more definite than that 
yielded by history, written, legendary, and inferred, save that it is not 
easily reducible to years: A potsherd has been found in the Nile delta 
overlain by the silt layers (partly counted, partly estimated) of 15,000 
annual floods; but, while this relic unquestionably antedates the 
oldest pyramids, it represents the work of a pottery-maker, as well 
advanced in tin* arts as modern savages. Caves and valley gravels of 
Europe have yielded human bones and works of art indicating the 
existence of man during and probably before tin* close of the glacial 
period, at least in its closing episodes, and the last ice invasion is esti- 
mated to have occurred from 7,000 to 50,000 years or more ago; but 
even then man was in all probability so far developed as to be cer- 
tainly assignable to the existing species of Homo sapiens and had mas- 
tered rude arts akin to those of modern savages. The river gravels of 
this country have been supposed to yield evidence of glacial man, 
though recent researches, chiefly by our gifted contemporary, Holmes, 
have shown that the evidence is not conclusive; yet even here there 
are geologic indications of considerable human antiquity, through the 
earliest records are of a stone-shaping and fire-using man, and not of a 
pre-human ancestral form. In many cases the earlier human relics are 
associated with the remains of animals now extinct or displaced to 
other areas, of which a considerable number belong to a fauna com- 
monly assigned to the early Pleistocene or the late Tertiary; yet it is 
to be remembered that the earliest records of human existence tell not 
of the very beginning of mankind, but of a human form intermediate 
between modern savages and the higher simians, and more nearly re- 
lated to man than to any lower form. 
THE APOTHEOSIS OF NATURE. 
The work of living things.—The living things which abound, in the 
waters and in the air depend directly or indirectly on the earth for 
support; but at the same time they re act on the waters, the land, and 
the air and thereby modify these elements, and thus the character of 
the earth itself. So the earth is no longer a dying planet made up of 
simple minerals, but a highly complex body whose superficial portion 
(35) 16 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
represents the joint product of vital, chemical, and physical agencies. 
The simple and lowly life-forms of the prime spent their force in as- 
similating the higher cliemic compounds corresponding more or less 
closely in composition to their own substance; and by virtue of their 
capacity for assimilation they grew and increased and consumed great 
quantities of fitly constituted matter and produced great quantities of 
compounds somewhat higher in the scale of cliemic differentiation than 
those previously existing; and this was the beginning of the transforma- 
tion of the earth through the agency of living things. So the rocks of 
the Agnotozoic age, which form some lands of the earth and gave rise 
to the sediments which formed lands of later birth, are made up iu part 
of biotic compounds, of substances bearing the impress of the action 
of living things in their composition. 
As the chaotic vital force of the beginning assumed a definite direc- 
tion the living things of the earth increased marvellously in numbers, 
and at least during some ages and in some parts of the world the seas 
swarmed with radiates, articulates, and mollusks, as well as lower and 
simpler organisms; and as time passed some radiates built forthemslves 
stony structures, some articulates developed chitinous frames, and some 
mollusks secreted semi-stony shells, while certain lower organisms con- 
sumed mechanical sediments and transformed them into cliemic precipi- 
tates; and in this way it is probable that the waters of the ocean were 
modified and certainly the sediments of the ocean bottom came to be 
made up in considerable part of the remains of organisms and of com- 
plex compounds produced by organic action; and thus the transforma- 
tion of the earth by living things was carried forward. 
As life waxed the endless contest for survival and supremacy among 
the living things of the earth grew fierce and progressively higher 
forms were developed. The simple plants of the sea pushed out on the 
growing land, and in the growth and decay of successive generations 
transformed the barren rocks into fertile soils made up in part of their 
own remains and in part of the compounds which they generated. 
While some of the simple animals of the sea retained their primitive 
forms, others developed bony armors supported by bony skeletons, and 
were thereby more perfectly adjusted to their environment, and some 
dominated the sea, while others pushed out over the land and foraged 
on the land plants or devoured each other. This was the age of in- 
dividual might, during which the lower organisms continued to consume 
and transform simpler cliemic compounds, while the higher consumed 
the lower and raised their composition to still higher grades of com- 
plexity, and in this way the lands and the air above the lands, as well 
as the sea, came to be affected by vital action. Thus the transforma- 
tion of the earth through the ageucy of living things was carried for- 
ward with ever-increasing rapidity. 
As the earth grew old, and the seas shrank, and the continents 
widened, and as snow and ice gathered about the poles and on the 
(30) THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN 
17 
mountains, the ceaseless struggle for existence among living things 
raised vitality to a higher plane, and canning came to prevail over the 
land and to some extent in the sea; the transformation of lower com- 
pounds and lower organisms through consumption by the higher con- 
tinued, and sea animals and plants pushed up into the rivers and lakes, 
and after accustoming themselves to sweet waters continued to trans- 
form crude earth matter and in turn to supply sustenance to their more 
exalted foes on the land; meanwhile insects began to fertilize plants 
and the flora was thereby made to sup]>ort a more abundant fauna; 
and insects, birds, and beasts learned to seek or construct shelters 
from the inclemency of the weather on the ageing earth and thereby 
to prolong their lives; and thus the transformation of the inorganic 
earth continued cumulatively, the change of each age being more 
varied and more rapid than that of the period before. 
So the history of the earth from the earliest geologic ages to the advent 
of man and the beginning of intellect is one of progressing and ever 
increasing transformation of the materials of the earth; and this proc- 
ess has now gone so far that there are probably no terrestrial materials 
known to man which have not been modified by vital action, save, 
possibly, a few ancient crystalline rocks and a few lavas from the 
deeper sources. Moreover, the history is one of progressively increas- 
ing utilization of cosmic forces. Plants and animals are stimulated 
by light and heat and through these stimuli their activity is multiplied 
if not generated. Vitality is the flower of the plant which buds in 
chemie affinity, so that the force of ehemism is utilized by all living 
things. Intellect and cunning, like simple sense-perception, depend 
on inter-action between bodily substance and environment, and thus 
every act of organisms in every stage of sense development is a utiliza- 
tion and transformation of cosmic force. Thus, the external earth, the 
home of man, is the product of long continued vital action, the creature 
of living things. 
The solidarity of life.—.lust as the living things of the earth represent 
a continuous series in which the higher is developed from the lower 
and in which all are bound together by blood connection, so they rep 
resenta mutually inter dependent series in which few—if any—members 
could maintain separate existence. The seeds sown on bare rocks can 
not bring forth plants—they require a soil representing the product of 
previous plant generations and sometimes the aid of micro organisms. 
Even the highest animal—man—perishes when lost in the forest; he 
can not live without the tire which he has enslaved, the tools which he 
has made, the lower animals which he has domesticated, the higher 
plants which he has created by cultivation, hardly without the aid of 
his kind. In like manner many of the lower organisms depend on the 
higher; and in the end all living things appear to owe their origin to a 
primary vitalized magma developed through a peculiar combination of 
Sir-c. Pap. A. S. W., vol. I.—No. 2. 
(87) 18 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
cliemic substances wlien tlie condition of the planet was unlike the 
condition of to-day. So the various living things of the globe, from the 
lowest to the highest, are inter dependent. 
In so far as living organisms are inter dependent they re-act on each 
other and each is modified by its neighbors. Through natural selection 
and the survival of the fittest in the constant inter-action of vitality, 
the bee carries pollen from blossom to blossom, whereby the clover is 
fertilized and made more vigorous, and yields more honey to tempt the 
bee, and thus the clover is gradually made a honey-yielding plant and 
the bee a honey-collecting insect, and each gradually modifies the other; 
the squirrel gathers nuts and hides them in the earth, where some sprout 
and grow, and thus promotes nut-bearing, and in his search for nuts 
develops characteristic organs and instincts which increase his chances 
of survival, and thus the squirrel and the tree co-operate and each 
modifies the other through a long series of successive inter actions; and 
in an endless variety of other ways the living things of the earth inter- 
act and each modifies the other. So no living thing lives unto himself 
alone, but each aids or injures his neighbors in an endless succession 
of inter actions, and the entire series of living things of the earth is 
bound together in a single solidarity, and this solidarity of life is the 
glory of the earth. 
The supremacy of man.—The beginning of conquest.—With the advent 
of man, bestial cunning gave way before intellect, but at the same time 
bodily organization rose to its highest perfection. It is probable that 
the supremacy of the human prototype sprang in part from the strength, 
activity, and adaptability in which the human body rises above the 
bodies of all other animals. The average man can outrun the average 
horse in a month, and the trained pedestrian outruns the Arabian 
courser in a day. The Chinese coolie and Canadian packer bear thrice 
the loads, in proportion to their weight, that can be borne by oxen. 
The savage can outclimb the baboon of equal weight, and the civilized 
sailor can outclimb the savage. The human animal is omnivorous, feed- 
ing alike on flesh, fish, and fruit, while the diet of most other animals 
is limited, and, in addition, tlie upright posture, the well-developed 
hands, and powerful arms of the human animal give him immeasurable 
advantages over the beasts. So mankind may well have risen above 
other living things in part because of bodily superiority, because the 
earliest representatives of his type could run, leap, climb, swim, bear 
burdens, grasp and throw better than their competitors in the struggle 
for existence. The great superiority of animal man to all other ani- 
mals is one of the most impressive facts of biology. A few other ani- 
mals, indeed, exceed him in certain directions, but he competes with 
all and exceeds most in every direction of bodily exercise, in every 
physical function, and the perfection of animal development is thus 
attained in the human body. 
(38) THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN 
19 
It is possible, if not probable, that the second step toward human 
domination of the lower world was the discovery and control of tire. 
Hnasts, birds, and insects, build houses, hoard food supplies, lay snares 
for game, plant and cultivate certainly through instinct and probably 
through design, and in other ways seek to overcome nature and lift 
themselves above their environment; but man alone uses tire to protect 
life and secure comfort, prepare food, take game, and aid generally in 
the subjection of nature; so that man may be distinguished, perhaps 
more justly than any other way, as the tire using animal. 
An early step in human development was the use of rude implements 
and weajKuis, at tirst, perhaps, after the manner of the apes in crack- 
ing nuts, and of monkeys in casting missiles; and thereby through the 
law of development by action, which is an example of the more general 
law of inter-adjustment between the organism and the environment, the 
muscles were taught, the eye was trained, and the various bodily and 
mental faculties were co-ordinated. While the beginning of stone- 
working is not definitely known by reason of the imperfection of the 
arclueologic record, it would seem to have come up gradually by succes- 
sive minute increments under tin* Law of Becoming from the use of 
natural pebbles and naturally broken rock fragments; and as shown 
by our American arclueologists, Holmes and McGuire, one of the earli- 
est forms of stone work must have been simple bruising or pecking 
related to that produced accidentally in cracking nuts or crushing grain. 
Certain it is that less initial knowledge and skill are required for stone- 
pecking than for stone-tlnking. Moreover, stone-pecking is produced 
by downward and inward blows, i. e.y by centripetal muscular move- 
ments analogous to those characteristic of all lower animals, of 
the lower races of man, and of the lower individuals among the 
higher races; while chipping and flaking represent outward blows, 
or strokes away from the individual, or centrifugal muscular move- 
ments such as are not known among the handless animals, rarely found 
among the four-handed apes and monkeys, uncommon among the lower 
races of men, and characteristic only of those above the lowest intel- 
lectual ranks among the higher races. Thus the earliest industrial arts 
appear to be those acquired in common by man and his higher four- 
handed kindred; they appear to have grown up through stone-pecking, 
which is within the reach of apes and monkeys, to the highest grade of 
stone flaking and chipping, which involves manual skill little lower 
than that required in diamond-cutting, gold beating, throwing a thread 
in a lathe, or file cutting, the most highly developed operations of en- 
lightened mechanics. 
So by bodily strength and skill, by the control of fire, by the devel- 
opment of rude arts borrowed from the higher beasts, and by the 
training of hand and eye, and the coordination of faculties through 
primitive industries, mankind began the conquest of nature and entered 
upon a career which has already half transformed the face of the earth. 
(30) 20 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
The conquest of plants.—The savage men of modern times subsist 
in part on the products of the chase, in part on fruits, nuts, and seeds, 
and it is probable that primitive men subsisted in a similar way. The 
higher savages gather and store vegetal products, and barbarous peo- 
ples plant hoarded seeds and thereby obtain larger and more certain 
supplies, and some cultivate the growing plants. In this way certain 
plants of the earth have been transformed: Wheat, oats, barley, rice, 
and corn, among the grains; the potato, parsnip, carrot, and several other 
vegetables of held and garden, and many fruits and berries, together 
with a number of grasses, have been so far changed by cultivation that 
they can hardly be traced to their original specific forms; and more- 
over their original habits of life have been so far transformed that 
they can not live without human aid: if man were to disappear from 
the earth, those grains, fruits, and vegetables which he has made to 
meet his needs could not hold their own in the struggle for existence, 
but would be swept from the face of the land within a few years. Thus 
these useful plants are not the creation of natural forces under a nat- 
ural environment, but are the creatures of mankind, and reflect human 
needs, human industries, human purposes, human craft. 
Certain plants, including different kinds of trees, are useful to man 
in their natural condition, and these have been preserved; certain 
other plants are useless or injurious, and these .are gradually extirpated 
or displaced. Now, the process of extermination of useless and injuri- 
ous plants has been curiously complicated. The primitive tiller of the 
soil sought to bring his crop to perfection with a minimum expenditure 
of labor, and at first abandoned and afterwards laid fallow fields over- 
run by useless plants, or weeds; then he adopted imperfect methods of 
cultivation, which resulted in the extermination of the weaker individ- 
uals among the weeds, and the preservation of the stronger; and thus 
unconsciously he cultivated useless plants more efficaciously than the 
useful plants until his fields came to be ridden with weeds; and even 
yet few farmers realize that there is but one way of coping with weeds, 
i. e., total extermination, and that any less rigid process only increases 
their vitality, persistence, and pertinacity. But despite this complexity 
by which the ridding of the world of useless and injurious plants was 
hindered, the conquest of the plant world has proceeded with ever 
increasing rapidity; and in many regions only those plants are per- 
mitted to grow and yield fruit or substance which make for human 
welfare or pleasure. 
Accordingly the conquest of the plant world by human ingenuity is 
well underway; the prevailing plants of the earth to-day are those 
which man has molded to his own liking; of which indeed the seeds 
were natural, but which he has none the less made, through a long series 
of operations under the Law of Becoming: certain other plants are 
preserved by reason of their utility or beauty in natural condition, but 
the useless and injurious are disappearing from the face of the earth, 
and the future flora will be the handiwork of man. 
(40) THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN. 
21 
The conquest of the lower animals.—At first the hand of man was 
against all other animals, but as his budding intellect expanded and he 
recognized his superiority he began to capture his ancient enemies for 
pets and servants, thus reaching the intellectual plane of the ant, 
which enslaves its kind and keeps kine (in the form of aphides) for their 
milk; and this was the beginning of the domestication of animals. 
Before the beginning of written history the cat was kept as a pet, the 
dog as a companion and slave, the horse and camel as beasts of bur- 
den, the cow and sheep as sources of food, and the latter to supply 
clothing. In early times among barbarous peoples, fowls were kept for 
their eggs, feathers, and flesh, and the cormorant was trained to take 
fish and the falcon to capture wild fowls; the elephant was trained as a 
draft animal or to bear heavy burdens; and in like manner the bee was 
kept for honey and the silkworm for fiber. Thus a variety of animals 
were enslaved by man and made to contribute to human welfare and 
pleasure. 
The enslaved animals were modified in various ways: The cat was 
kept for beauty and docility, and these qualities were cultivated, and 
thereby the animal was made one of the most beautiful yet cruel, and 
one of the most docile yet stupid, among t he higher animals. The dog 
was bred for a variety of uses of which many required intelligence, and 
was thereby made one of the most variable and one of the most intel- 
ligent among animals. The cow was bred for flesh, skin, milk, and 
strength, and has come to yield rich returns in all these products of 
vitality, but remains one of the most stupid of beasts. The horse was 
bred for strength, speed, and intelligent responsivity to human will, 
and has become a noble animal whose neck is clothed with thunder 
and whose nostrils scent the battle from afar. He has developed a 
curious intelligence more readily inter-communicable with that of his 
master than is found in any other animal, mixed with a curious stupid- 
ity which renders him a helpless starveling unless he is shod with iron 
and has carefully prepared food laid before him. The sheep was bred 
for its tiosli or milk, and sometimes for its skin but chiefly for its wool, 
and has become extraordinarily modified, so that its force is expended 
in the support of a pilage which has grown into one of the principal 
sources of dress stuffs of the world; but its intelligence has not been 
cultivated and it remains timorous, helpless, and hopelessly stupid. 
The fowl was bred for flesh and eggs and sometimes for feathers, and 
its flesh has been made palatable and its fertility in eggs has been 
made one of the most marvellous monstrosities of biology; its feathers 
have been made to imitate the colors of the rainbow, but its intelli- 
gence has been neglected and it remains the incarnation of stupidity. 
In all these cases and some others the animals have been so completely 
modified through human instrumentality that their original specific 
relations can not be traced: in character, in mode of life, in function, 
they are unlike unto species developed under natural conditions. 
(41) 22 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
In the development of domesticated species man has given heed to 
his own needs and not to the need1} of his four-footed and winged 
slaves, and thus the characters of his servitors are abnormal if not 
injurious to the organisms, considered as representatives of animal life. 
The horse, sheep, and fowl have been made helpless to the extent that 
they would quickly become extinct without human aid; the cow of 
civilization, although more self-reliant, could hardly exist without the 
plants which man has cultivated. Even the dog and cat, the least 
changed and the most independent of man’s four-footed servitors, would 
find themselves handicapped in the struggle for existence by most of 
the characters which man has impressed upon them, if mankind were 
to become extinct. Thus the development of animal characters under 
domestication is useful not to the species themselves, but only to man. 
While a few animals have been enslaved and domesticated for his 
use, man has looked upon most lower animals as enemies to be destroyed 
either in the blood-thirsty wantonness born of generations of self-de- 
fense or as sources of food, and thus the primitive pre-human or infra- 
human fauna of the earth is melting away. The stealthy tiger and the 
kingly lion have been robbed of their domain; the noble buffalo faded 
at civilization’s dawn like frost before the sun; the days of the ele- 
phant are numbered unless, indeed, he be preserved by domestication. 
Men of middle age now living have seen millions of passenger pigeons 
in single fiocks, and hundreds of Hocks in a week, but to-day there are 
hardly enough left to supply the demands of museums; and scores of 
other species have been exterminated within the period of written his- 
tory. Thus, in the subjugation of the animals of the earth, men pre- 
serve only those that can be enslaved, and all others are slain. 
The end of the conquest of the lower animals is not yet, but may 
easily be foreseen. Man has taken and is yet taking certain animals 
and molding them to his needs, completely transforming them, creating 
them according to his will, and all others he is destroying at an ever- 
increasing rate. The beasts of the pre-human period are disappearing 
through transformation and through slaughter, and at no distant day 
the only lower animals of considerable size remaining on the land will be 
those of human making, literally the creatures of human craft. 
The conquest of the under-world.—At first savage men gathered 
mde pebbles from the brooksides for missiles and for use in cracking 
nuts and bruising food stuff's; later the pebbles were shaped into rude 
weapons and implements; and still later fitter rocks were sought in 
gravel beds, and eventually in the parent ledges of the hill-sides; and 
this was the beginning of quarrying and mining. 
In a later stage of development copper was extracted and beaten into 
knives, spear heads, arrow-points, and ornaments for the person; still 
later iron was collected and wrought. Perhaps the first iron to be used 
was meteoric, but subsequently ores were gathered from the earth and 
reduced in crude forges and furnaces, and iron, copper, brass, and 
(42) THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN 
23 
bronze were fabricated and used for an ever increasing variety of uten- 
sils, weapons, and implements; and this was the beginning of metal- 
lurgy. 
At first the fuels were wood, and charcoal made therefrom; but later 
coal was found, and the work of extracting it from the earth was organ- 
ized; and with the extraction of coal more varied implements were 
required, and the use of coal facilitated the fabrication of the metals; 
and thus coal mining and the extraction and reduction of metals inter- 
acted and industries were transformed cumulatively; and so manufac- 
ture began. 
Primitive men delighted in personal ornaments, and adorned their 
ears, lips, arms, ankles, and garments with gewgaws. As time passed, 
and the conquest of the under world through human ingenuity pro- 
ceeded, ornaments came to be made of precious metals and gems, and 
tin* gewgaws grew into jewelry. So the collection of precious metals 
and precious stones became an industry, and with the development of 
proprietary conceptions which grew up with industries, these materials 
and the articles made therefrom came to possess a special value in the 
eyes of men and eventually became media of exchange. Thus the 
search for precious metals and gems was stimulated and commerce was 
facilitated and industries were developed to the extent that the move- 
ments of population and the spread of industries came to be affected 
by the thirst for gold. 
Accordingly, the milestones in the way from savagery to enlighten- 
ment are represented by quarries, by the ore beds of iron and other 
useful metals, by coal mines, and by gold-diggings; but the conquest of 
each new substance.of the under-world gave a new vantage point for 
further conquest, and thus quarrying and mining, industrial develop- 
ment, and intellectual grasp have inter acted, each aiding the other, so 
that progress has been cumulative, and is now under way more rapidly 
than ever before, and with ever increasing rapidity. To-day nearly all 
structural materials used in the building of our domiciles and factories, 
the fuels that transform summer into winter and winter into summer, 
the illuminants that turn night into day and thus lengthen life, the en- 
gines of locomotion on sea and land which unite races and peoples, 
the media of exchange which bind mankind into a homogeneous mass, 
are all derived from the under world, and thereby the condition of man 
and the face of tin* earth have been transformed. And within recent 
years perfumes and tiavors like* unto those of plants and fruits are de- 
rived from the rocks, and one of the most brilliant promises of science 
is the indication that at no distant day the ingenuity born of earlier 
conquest will enable men to extract tin* flower as well as the perfume, 
t lu* fruit as well as the flavor, from the under world, so that food may be 
taken directly from the earth without the intervention of plants and 
animals. 
(43) 24 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
The conquest of the microcosm.—The most abundant numerically, 
if not in aggregate volume, among the living things of the earth are 
the minute organisms of simple structure whose existence can be deter- 
mined only by means of the high powers of the microscope, or some- 
times by their effects on larger organisms. These bacteria are of many 
varieties, of which most are innocent or useful to the higher organisms, 
though a few are injurious. Like the higher organisms they are deli- 
cately adjusted to their environment, organic as well as inorganic, and 
thus belong to the great solidarity of living things. During recent 
years it has been ascertained that the noxious bacteria are causes of 
disease and death, and tlie science of bacteria—bacteriology—has been 
developed for the purpose of controlling or eradicating the maleficent 
microbes; for thus far the beneficent micro-organisms are commonly 
neglected in the study of bacteriology. The science of medicine has 
already been half transformed, half lifted from the plane of empiricism 
to the plane of exact science; already the plague of old has lost half its 
terrors and smallpox is under control; cholera is now engaged in its 
last struggle against human ingenuity and intellect, and many other 
diseases have been mastered, so that human life is prolonged. So the 
subjugation of the microcosm, the latest in the series of conquests 
which anthropology has to record and extol, is well advanced; and the 
promise for the future is brilliant. 
The conquest of the land.—At first the land—like the air and the 
waters—was common to all living things except in so far as might made 
right and the stronger displaced the weaker; then men came to domi- 
nate over his animal foes and to claim small parts of the earth as his 
own; and this was the beginning of landed property. 
With the multiplication of men and the birth of new industries the 
property conception was strengthened and the earth came to be parted 
into kingdoms and tiefs, countries and fields, and still later mining and 
milling rights grew into existence by a succession of minute incre- 
ments acting under the Law of Becoming; for this is the mode of cosmic 
evolution which constrains mankind as well as lower organisms and 
the inorganic world. 
With each discovery of new resources, with each invention oi a new 
mode of conquest, the property conception was strengthened and vari- 
ous institutions came into being; and with each new discovery, each 
invention, each higher institution, progress was facilitated so that 
the conquest of the land, of the plants it yields and the animals it 
supports, and of the under-earth beneath, is well under way. About 
one-tenth of all the lands of the earth are now appropriated to human 
use for fields and domiciles, factories, and highways, and no plants or 
animals are permitted to remain therein that do not subserve human 
needs; some tliree-tenths more of the lands of the earth, with all things 
pertaining thereto, are more or less perfectly appropriated to human 
use; and almost all of the remainder, save the mountain tops and the 
(44) 25 
THE KAKTH THE HOME OF MAN. 
ice-burdened i>oles, have become tributary to human needs and pleas 
nres. Moreover, the rivers are bridged, the wilderness is invaded by 
highways, the deserts are traversed by lines of steel, all inhabited 
lands are bound into unity by message bearing wires, while the loco- 
motive annihila es space and the telegraph annihilates time. So hu- 
man life is prolonged, and progresses promoted more and more success- 
fully every year. Already the conquest of the land has progressed so 
far that he who will may laugh at the cold, scoff at the storms, and 
enjoy the products of every part of the earth in whatsoever part thereof 
he may elect to stay. So completely, indeed, has man modified the 
land, and so far has the modified land re acted upon him, that mankind 
has become his own creature, fitted to civilized life—the highest form 
of existence ever attained—and no longer adapted to lower conditions. 
So man has partly made the land, the land has partly made man, and 
the two great factors in tin*, later development of the earth have inter- 
acted cumulatively until each may justly be considered creatures ot 
intelligence, the highest known force of the cosmos. 
The conquest of the waters.—Primitive men, like modern savages, 
sometimes rode on floating logs, and thus caught the spirit of navi- 
gation. Then logs were bound by withes and rafting was developed, 
and thereby the spirit of navigation waxed. As the spirit grew the 
skill increased; logs were hollowed out by fire and cutting tools, pad- 
dles were first improvised and then made, and canoeing was developed. 
At length the ambition of the primitive navigators outgrew their sim- 
ple craft of single logs, and the Norsemen and other maritime peoples 
built larger vessels of many timbers and invented oars, and thus boat- 
ing began. As ambition and knowledge increased by minute increments 
under the Law of Becoming the boats pushed out farther and farther 
from shore and into deeper and deeper waters, and fiercer and fiercer 
storms were outlived. Long afterward the mariner’s compass was in- 
vented, and then the stars were studied to the end that the mariner 
might find his place in the limitless ocean, and so gradually the waters 
of the earth came to be navigated in all directions. Thus the vitality 
of the earth, which began in the waters and afterward spread to the 
land and there attained its highest development, returned to make 
conquest of the seas, and shipping is now so perfected that the mari- 
ner scorns the storm, and seldom falls before its fury. 
Kven before tin* advent of man, land animals hunted along the banks 
of the rivers and shores of the seas that they might find fishes and 
other aquatic things; and man followed the example of his forerunners 
and became a fisherman. At first lie was fain to confine his operations 
to brooks and the smaller rivers and peaceful shores; but with tin*, 
growth of navigation he pushed farther and farther into the deeps, 
taking all sorts of fishes for food, pearls to ornament his person and 
serve as media of exchange, oils to keep his lamps alight, and a 
great variety of other commodities- and to-day a considerable propor- 
Spec. Pap. A. S. \V., \ol. T—No. 2. 
(45) 26 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
tion of the food of mankind is drawn from the waters of the rivers, 
lakes, and seas. At first man, like the lower animals, was content to 
take the fish wheresoever they were led by their own devices under the 
feeble intellect which burned in their ill-developed brains; but gradu- 
ally fishermen came to realize the need of protecting fishes that the 
fisheries might be maintained; and still later enlightened men, stimu- 
lated by the analogy of the domestication of the land animals, perceived 
that aquatic organism may be selected and developed so that the rivers, 
lakes and seas, like the land, may be transformed into sources of food 
and other useful products. Thus the fisheries of the world are under- 
going a change; already the supply of food obtained from the waters 
has been greatly increased and improved, and the increase and improve- 
ment are progressing cumulatively at a rapidly growing rate as the 
years go by. 
Primitive man, like the beasts, went to the water-sides to find drink 
and to obtain the products of fertile and humid soils; but as his intel- 
lect budded, bloomed and bore fruit in new conquests over nature, he 
dug wells, opened canals, constructed race-ways and diverted rivers; 
and in this way a part of the waters of the earth have been brought to 
those places in which they best subserve the human interest and most 
fully promote human happiness. Even before the dawn of history irri- 
gation was practiced, as is known from the ruins of ancient irrigation 
works; the development of this industry was temporarily checked when 
improved navigation and new modes of land locomotion permitted men 
to seek more genial climes; but now that the lands of the earth are fill- 
ing up with enlightened men the irrigation industry has been renewed 
and is now being carried to higher perfection than ever before in the 
history of the earth; and although man has hardly learned to avoid or 
master floods, the running waters are already so far controlled that 
mills are driven, whole country-sides are irrigated, and waters are 
stored against the dry season in many lands, and the progress of intel- 
lectual development is thereby stimulated in a new way; and he is 
blind indeed who can not forsee that at no distant day the running 
waters of the earth will be wholly subjugated and sent hither and 
thither at man’s behest. 
Accordingly, through the development of navigation, the transfor- 
mation of fisheries and the living things of the sea, and the control of 
streams and rivers, the waters of the earth are half subjugated; and 
the property conception has extended to the waters, and many rivers 
and lakes are parted among states and individuals as are the lands 
among countries and persons, and only the larger water bodies are 
common. Thus a large part of the waters of the earth have become 
subservient to man’s needs; and the rivers, and to some extent the 
lakes and seas, are becoming creatures of human craft. 
The evolution of Invention.—In the beginning, vitalized matter re- 
sponded to various external forces and conditions, but the way from 
(46) THE EARTH THE HOME OF MAN. 
27 
simple responsivity to sustained inter-action or spontaneity was long; 
* in tin* days of the lower organisms, when at tirst numbers, then indi- 
vidual might, and later bodily activity prevailed, the activities of the 
organisms were adjusted in harmony with an ever-widening range of 
external forces and conditions, and internal activity or spontaneity be- 
came characteristic; but the way from bodily spontaneity to the more 
perfect spontaneity of the highly organized brain, which, like the river, 
runs on and on and on throughout the life of the individual, was still 
longer; yet the whole course of development, tirst of living, then of 
moving, and finally of thinking beings, was one of increasing perfection 
of adjustment between the organism and its environment—tin* develop- 
ment of the most perfect congruity. Such was the beginning of knowl- 
edge—a series of inter-adjustments between the knowing organism and 
the great external. Now this stage in the development of knowledge 
coincided with tin* stage of discovery; men, like lower organisms, en- 
joyed and suffered contact with other living things, with matter in a 
variety of forms, with the forces of nature; and they selected and 
attuned themselves more perfectly unto the agreeable, and avoided 
the disagreeable; but the agreeable and useful came to them through 
the chance of endless cosmic activity, and were not selected or intelli- 
gently sought—and this was discovery. 
As the number of inter actions between brain substance and the outer 
world increased, spontaneity rose to a higher plane, and the mind 
gradually, by successive minute increments under the Law of Becoming, 
acquired the power of conscious prevision, of predicting future events 
from the course of events experienced in the past. Thus the spirit of 
prophecy was born, and the brain of the world expended a part of its 
force, tirst in the forecasting of the future, and then in devising means 
of avoiding the evil and securing the good, and this was the begin- 
ning of invention. 
The transformation from discovery to invention was long and grad- 
ual; it began with the birth of cunning, long before the advent of man 
on the earth; and it has progressed cumulatively ever since, and is 
even now going on more rapidly than ever before. So this may justly 
be called the age of invention; for it is through this process that the 
ripest fruit of intellectual development has been gathered. It is largely 
through invention that the animals and plants of the earth have been 
subjugated and made subservient to human welfare; it is through in- 
vention that the conquest has been extended over the lands and waters 
of the earth that life maybe made easier and safer, into the under- 
world that life may be made happier and more agreeable, into the 
microcosm that life may be lengthened, and into the macrocosm that 
the powers of the air may lie enchained—it is through invention that 
the world has been transformed and the living things thereof made the 
creatures of intelligent man. 
(47) 28 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. BULLETIN. 
So it is in invention, child of the ages and sire of science, that the 
good and grand and glorious of the earth culminates; and it is inven- • 
tion that is ever transforming the earth, ever making for better things. 
EPILOGUE. 
The child of human parents is at first a helpless weakling, and must 
be fed, clothed, petted, nourished, and protected by those stronger 
than himself, and parents give freely of their life force that the child 
may be brought to maturity. When the human infant gains man’s es- 
tate he repays with interest the debt unconsciously assumed in his in- 
fancy, supports his parents in their declining years, succors his fellow- 
men, and feeds, clothes, and protects the succeeding generation; and 
in this interchange of kindly acts lies the beauty and perfection of hu- 
man life. 
In like manner, mankind, offspring of mother earth, cradled and 
nursed through helpless infancy by things earthly, has been brought 
well toward maturity; and like the individual man he is repaying the 
debt unconsciously assumed at the birth of his kind by transforming 
the face of nature, by making all things better than they were before, 
by aiding the good and destroying the bad among animals and plants, 
and by protecting the aging earth from the ravages of time and failing 
strength, even as the child protects his fleshly mother. Such are the 
relations of earth and man. 
(48) PRESS OF W F ROBERTS