The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1899-01-13
PRIMITIVE MAN AND FIRE.
why tlIH Savage Beasts Did Not An-
nir,iIrt;s Human Life.

initiate Human Life.
If, as seems probable, the animal fear of
men was acquired ard is not natural to
their minds, it is not very clear how the
very early tribes of men, when the lar.
ger carnivoGouS animals were far more
ruMorops than now, escaped destruction
anu survived long enough to impress on
the animal world the sense of fear by
which man now dominates it. Regarded
merely as Il conflict between ono class of
animals and another the result should
not have been doubtful. Man ought to
have disappeared from the face of the
earth, or, in any case, to have reiterated to
remote stronghOlds in regions not fire.
quented by the beasts. That he did not
do so, but turned the tables on the better
equipped offensive creature, is fair pre-
sumptive evidence that original man
never was on a level with the animals in
intelligence, but was cquiprcd with tho
predominant brain power which has put
him ahead in the race ever since.
Primitive man, literally speaking, "liyed
by his wits" for he could have owed his
survival to little else He was not, for cx
ample, nearly so well equipped as the
monkeys for physical defense or flight,
though their survival is not altogether
easy to explain on purely physical grounds.
Their power o. Using their arms and
hands as means of swinging rapidly
from branch to branch gives them I'M adj
vantage over all the tree clii9@ing CATS.
Their habit of throwing missiles is also
very disconccrt;ng to other animals, though
this art is only practiced by certain mon-
keys.
But their rapid and intelligent combina-
ton for defense. menace and lookout duty
mas contributed quite as much to their
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 harry
eagle and tho ocelot But it cannot be
proved that even tho most debascd 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 noncarnivorous animal.
The causes which make exceptions to
this rule are temporary and narrowly LEGAL.
Even tho Greenlander and the Eskimo are
the masters of the polar bear, and prob
ably always have been, though little bet
ter armed than primitive man, and the
pygmics of the Central African forests arc
ncighbOrhood Of fierce animals aided the
early development CT man, for tho least
developed races arc largely found in such
places as TERRA dol Fucgo, where in tho
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
ind of the animal worid with something
of the supernatural. He is ever accom-
panied by the one clement which the ami
NAL mind cannot create, cannot under
stand, stands in constant awe Of and
breads by night, when its courage is great
est and that of man least steady. Fire,
that pillar of cloud and flame which pre-
codes not tho aggregate human host, but
the smallest fragment of the invading
army, the constant ana dreaded harbinger
Of human presence, springing up, as the
beasts must think. automatically from the
earth wherever man rests his body, guard
ing him in sleeping and waking, always
associated with his abode, has for ages ter
ri1ied tho bcasts.-LOndon Spectator.