The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1889-09-21
MAN THE IMPRovER.
His Relations to tho Lower Animals Dis
cussed by Prof. Freeman.

cussed by Prof. Freemnn.
There are many animals which, in
one way Of looking at the matter. sur
pass man in their power of doing vari-
GUS things; but it Is not among mans
that We find them.
Among mammals man stands alone as
a tailor, almost alone as builder. But
birds are for the most part builders,
though it should be noticed that they
are not strictly builders of houses. The
birds nests, so cunningly put together,
lie not the abiding dwelling-place of the
bird; it is a temporary nursery. designed
to keep the young brood in safety. But
If the ingenuity of birds is wonderful,
that of insects is more wonderful still.
Both birds and insects can do without
tools things that man can not do with
tools.
The advantage that man has seems
to lie wholly in his power Of improve
ment. Birds and insects are ingenious
builders; but, as far as We can see, they
strike out no new styles of architecture;
they do not invent the arch and de-
velop it into the vault aad the cupola.
Birds again, and insects still more,
seem to have higher political instincts
than mammals. The economy of the
rookery is wonderful and that of the
beehive is yet more wonderful; but it
docs not appear that rocks or bees ever
strictly invent or improve; certain
adoption to changed circumstances is
as far as any animal but man ever
seems to get. Bees and ants, especially
those ants which go forth to make war
and to capture slaves, have surely
something of a form OF government.
Something like rulers. assemblies, de-
bates. But all seems traditional; in an
assembly of bees or ants we can con-
ceive decree to meet some Immediate
need; we can hardly conceive q consti-
tutional amendment.
Here, again, if birds are more ar
tistic and more political than man.
mails, and insects again more artistic
and more political than birds, we have
once more the smaller, the weaker, the
physically inferior creature outdoing
the greater and stronger. This SUI
periority of the lower animals over the
higher is kind of secondary example
of one general law, alongside Of the
great example of all, the supremacy
of man. Man can do with tools, in
sects, can in many cases do without
tools, things which the sagacious dog
and the s.half-reasoning" elephant can
do with or without them.
Only man. who works with tools, can
improve his tools and thereby improve
his work, while birds and insects, who
work only with their own organs,
which they can not improve-which, at
least within historic memory. they
have not improved-can not improve
their work. The law of the weak con-
founding the strong comes out in .
two-fold shape. The inferior animals
can do with their own organs things
which the superior animals can not do.
But man, because his organs are physi-
cally so greatly inferior, is driven to
the use Of tools, and by the help of his
tools he is able to overcome all the
rest.
The details of the processes by which
man is ever subduing the earth and
exercising dominion over the beasts Of
the field are so familiar to all, they
&c., ~,,ob N m, oxo ~ nm - ~ ,.,~ ovorxv
day life that we look on them with the
wonder which they really deserve.
But we have only to think about the
matter. end we shall at once see how
truly wonderful, how impossible to ex-
plain by any true physical law, is the
dominion which man exercises every
hour both over nature and over other
animals. We are also, in our just ad-
miration of those who improve, apt to
be a little unjust to those who originally
invent. In any process OF invention
the first step of all is the greatest OF all.
The man who set the coracle afioat
was daring man, a greater inventor
than any mere improver of the art Of
navigation. And daring man he was,
too, who first mounted on the back Of
horse, though he was an improver
rather than an inventor. The horse
was clearly set to draw, most likely to
carry burdens. before any man risked
himself on his back. But the COM
pound being, as we may call it. the
centaur-like group formed by the man
and his horse, is truly wonderful. The
physical strength lies on one side and
the force Of will on the other. But
here, too, the weak has mastered the
strong; man holds down and guides
according to his will creature that
could at any moment shake him OF and
trample him under foot PROF. Free
man, in Contemporary Review.