If we trace our lineage in the context of life s evolution on the Earth, we find that our species is a comparatively recent phenomenon. The Earth is about four and a half billion years old. The origin of the ancestral stock of the African apes and humans, although uncertain, seems to be no earlier than thirteen million years ago. The Neanderthals, an early relative of modern human beings, are believed to have lived about 100,000 to 30,000 years ago. Although scientific investigation has not yet pinned down the moment of divergence between humans and apes, it is clear that we have a far longer history as animals than as humans.
Animals live predominantly according to instinct.
As a result, their influence cannot exceed what is prescribed by their natures. Through our intelligence, however, humans can exercise good or bad influence far beyond what seem to be our natural limits. A shark may bite a surfer s leg dangling beneath the surface, but it cannot make a bomb capable of annihilating all life on the planet. From various perspectives, Buddhism throws light on the workings of human nature. In Nichiren Daishonin s Buddhism, however, the Ten Worlds are viewed as various states of being we experience from moment to moment, rather than distinct physical realms or categories.