The evening times., 1898-11-18
MAN AND THE BEASTS.

If, as seems probable, the animal fear
of men was acquired. and is not natural
TO their minds. ii is not very clear how
the very early tribes of men. when the
larger carnivorous animals were far more
numerous than now, escaped destruction.
and survived long enough TO impress on
the animal world the sense of fear by
which man now dominates, says the Lon
don Spectator. Regarded merely as a
conflict between one class OF animals and
another. the result should not have been
ed from the face of the earth, or. In any
case. to have retreated TO remote strong
holds in regions not frequented by the
beasts. That he did not do So but turn
ed the tables on the better-equipped Of
feus!ve creature, is fair presumptive that
original man never was on a level with
the animals in intelligence. but WAS equip
ped with the predominant brain power
which has put him ahead in the race ever
since. Primitive man, literally speaking,
/ lived by his wits" for he could have
owed his survival TO little else. He was
not. for example. nearly so well equipped
as the monkeys for physical defense or
flight. though their survival is not al
together easy to explain on purely physi-
cal grounds. Their power of using their
arms and hands as a means of swinging
rapidly from branch TO branch gives
them an advantage over all the tree
climbing cats. Their habit of throwing
missiles is also very disconcerting to 9TH
er animals. though the art is only prac-
| ticed by certain monkeys.
But their rapid and intelligent combina-
ton for defense, menace and lockout duty
l-aS ihlnfa cd oh heir
| survival as their speed and activity In
tropical America even the monkeys are
hard put to it to escape the attacks of
such active and formidable foes as the
harpy eagle and the ocelot. But il can
not be proved that even the most debased
or physically weakest of mankind has
ever been the natural prey of that
natural enemy which. according TO Sir
| Samuel Baker, is the nightmare of nearly
every species of non-carnivorous animal.
The causes which make exceptions TO this
rule are temporary and narrowly local.
Even the Greenlander and the Esqui-
maux are the masters of the polar bear
and probably always have been, though
little better armed than primitive man,
and the pigmies of the Central African
forests are mighty hunters. 1t may even
be that the neighborhood of fierce ami
mails aided the early development of man;
for the least developed races are largely
found in such places as Terra del FuegO,
where in the absence of savage beasts.
savage man had no inducement to arm
and equip himself
But man has had an even more potent
ally than his own ingenuity which from
remote antiquity has invested him in the
mind of the animal world with something
of the supernatural. He is ever accom-
panied by the one element which the ami
NAL mind cannot create, cannot under
stand, stands in constant awe of, and
breads by night. when its courage is
greatest and that of man least steady.
Fire that pillar of cloud and flame which
precedes not the aggregate human host.
but the smallest fragment of the invad-
ing army the constant and dreaded har-
binger of human presence, springing up,
as the beasts must think, automatically
from the earth wherever man rests his
body, guarding him in sleeping and wax
ing, always associated with his abode,
has for ages terrified the beasts.