Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-08-09
DEVELOPMENT OF MANKIND
IN PREHISTORIC TIMES.
GEO. c. STIEBELlNG, MD,

discovered and the differences which
can be safely drawn from them we are
compelled to assume that our early pro.
genitors have developed in the torrid
zone, from animals by means Of natural
selection; in other words, that they
belonged to favored race which was
preserved in the struggle for life, and
that the better organization and func-
ton of their brains was the principal
cause of this favored position and
higher development. A close examina-
ton further shows that the struggle for
life is actually nothing but the struggle
of the individuals to acquire the neces-
sites of existence against the deleterious
powers of inorganic beings, or, to put
1t in another form, that this struggle
consists merely in bodily and mental
labor, and that it is not an active
strife among members Of the same kind.
But this unavoidable struggle for life
which, by necessity, men have to carry
on in order to sustain and preserve
themselves, was the original and mex
haustibe source Of all their progressive
evolutions. In the course of time scarci.
ty of food, in consequence of their rapid
increase, forced them to emigrate from
the torrid zone northward and south
ward to regions where their struggle
for life became more and more difficult.
This caused contentious among the emf
grated tribes about the occupancy of
those districts in which food was
abundant and could be obtained by the
least exertions. Thus arose the emotion
of common seltishness, from which re.
suited frequent wars and the habit of
cannibalism. On account of their great
er strength of body the men had to do
the main part of the fighting, while the
best ones, of course, acted as leaders
and commanders. With many of them,
however, this prominent position in
duced the emotion of individual selfish
ness or egotism and the idea of private
ownership.
The change of mind thus brought
about caused some effects which. in
the lapse of time, by creating inequality,
entirely altered the conditions and con-
nections of human life and which, be.
sides, somewhat diminished the in
crease and temporarily checked the pro-
gressive development of mankind. 1t is
evident that the real struggle for life,
1. e., bodily and mental labor, cannot be
performed properly and sufficiently
when man is fighting against man. and
for that reason the strugg lie within his
own species must be, in so far as its
results are concerned, quite the reverse
of his struggle to obtain the accessories
of existence against the attacks of beasts,
birds of prey, ETC., and against the
deleterlous influences of climate, wealth
err, soil, ETC. Hence it seems to me that
these two kinds of struggle ought to be
separated from each other-a distinction
which has not been made yet-and |
therefore propose to designate the lat,
ter as the normal or inevitable struggle
or eritdble one.
The establishment of fixed residences
and the invention of manufacture or
home industry originated the division
of labor, the exchange of products or
commerce, or the use of the rare metals
as general equivalents or money. Ger
tainly all these institutions were great
improvements, but, nevertheless, they
occasioned very bad and harmful re-
suits, since the individual seltishness of
man had grown to such a degree that
the acquisition of private property be-
came his main endeavor. With the be-
ginning of trade and the introduction
of money, the value in exchange COM
menced and gradually grew to be con-
sidered higher than the value in use.
The service of transporting and dis
trbuting goods was overestimated COM
paratively to the labor of producing
them. Individual selfshness appeared
now as greediness of gain and created
the economical categories of profit, in
terest and rent. And when the chiefs
of the white race had established slav-
cry, bodily labor fell in such contempt
that it was deemed dishonorabke for
freeborn people. This shows most
plainly the difference between the two
kinds of struggle.
Searching for the effects which each
of them produced in the development of
mankind, | find that all essential adj
vances-erect attitude, transformation
of the hind hands into feet, faculty of
speech, the arts of making fire, tools
and weapons, division of labor and ex-
change of products, establishment of
nomadism, agriculture and manufac-
ture, the invention of writing and the
foundation of history-have emanated
from the normal or inevitable struggle
for life; while all retarding impediments
of progressive evolution-common and
individual selishness, war, Cannibalism,
slavery, contempt of bodily labor, sujec-