The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1897-09-02

gences which make up life.
We assume that the universe was
made for man; that man is the alpha
and omega of nature, the aim and end
of creation, and, so believing, shut our
eyes to the very alphabet which that
nature has opened before us on every
side. Man, and every living form is
but the product of evolution and en-
virOnment; when the envi1 onment
changes, the living forms will also
change. But man has been as he is for
thousands of years, you say! yes, and 1
tell you that thousands of years are as
a day in the greater processes of ma
ture.
Man is, however, preeminently a
social being. The early social group
ing OF the human race can only be sur.
missed. In the main all the evidence
points to man as an individual savage,
living and fighting for existence with
the cave bear and his human brother.
TO all intents his condition did not rise
above the level of the brutes about
him. Caring nothing for life or death
save when brought face to face with
that condition IN his own person; satis-
tying his hunger by the roots and ber.
ries growing in the uncultivated fields
and woods; living in the forests by day,
lurking in their shelter by night; cum
ningly avoiding the stranger, ready to
take the aggressive against the weaker
brute of his own or other species; with
out habitation other than of natures
fashioning; employing no art to aid his
existence, no intelligence to render that
existence useful to himself; stern ne
cessity the compelling force driving
him to sustain life by the most primi-
tive methods methods which charac-
terize his individual life as one of cum
ming and british savagery.
Nor do we find the transitional stage
from lower to higher conditions marked
by any sudden bursts of progress.
Like the infant, so this progress. At
first the child has life and sensation:
months elapse ere the infant begins to
observe; yet other months and the
child's intelligence awakens; still an
other period and the awakened intelli-
gence attempts to initiate; it crawls,
then walks. There we must see the
simile of the human race in it's first
early collective growth towards society,
towards civilization and that higher
life, which civilization reveals to the
mind.
Of such is human progress in the
abstract, the demonstration of mind
over matter. Slowly this growth ger
inmates; little by little the human in
telligence expands, ages perhaps inter-
vening from his true brute condition
until we find him ready to comprehend
and utilize the value of union; to adapt
himself to newer conditions; to facili-
tate the change of environment. What
ever the causes leading to the forma-
tiOn of the first human social group,
whether the natural increase of the
natural selection of the sexes, or formed
for the purposes of aggression or pro-
lection, or the natural union of weak
individuals to some Hercules whose
club was the first application of human
reason towards an end beneficial to the
user; whatever the cause, it was but the
unconscious placing of themselves
within the scope of natural law. The
first union formed would act as an
armature to its magnet; the magnetism
of the natural law of social groupings
having been felt by few atoms of the
human armature, at once communi.
Gates the force to every individual atom
within its range. individuals would
look enviously upon the freedom or
safety of movement that the first in
cipient union had given to those within
its embrace, and, tempted by this,
would gravitate to the union formed;
or the idea would be quickly seized
upon; other groups formed, and soon
these little communities would expand
from a few individuals, by the union of
groups, into larger and stronger COM
munities, Some point would be fire.