would of course go much further.

We ourselves, who are so good at it now, were slow enough in beginning.
Think of the long epochs that passed before it entered our heads.

And all that while the contest for leadership blindly went on, without
any species making use of this obvious aid. The lesson to be learned
was simple: the reward was the rule of a planet. Yet only one species,
our own, has ever had that much brains.

It makes you wonder what other obvious lessons may still be unlearned.

* * * * *

It is not necessarily stupid however, to fail to use tools. To use
tools involves using reason, instead of sticking to instinct. Now,
sticking to instinct has its disadvantages, but so has using reason.
Whichever faculty you use, the other atrophies, and partly deserts you.
We are trying to use both. But we still don't know which has the more
value.

* * * * *

A sudden vision comes to me of one of the first far-away ape-men who
tried to use reason instead of instinct as a guide for his conduct. I
imagine him, perched in his tree, torn between those two voices,
wailing loudly at night by a river, in his puzzled distress.

My poor far-off brother!

[Illustration: The First Thinker.]

_EIGHT_

We have been considering which species was on the whole most finely
equipped to be rulers, and thereafter achieve a high civilization; but
that wasn't the problem. The real problem was which would _do_
it:--a different matter.

To do it there was need of a species that had at least these two
qualities: some quenchless desire, to urge them on and on; and also
adaptability of a thousand kinds to their environment.

The rhinoceros cares little for adaptability. He slogs through the
world. But we! we are experts. Adaptability is what we depend on. We
talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is
we respectfully adapt ourselves first, to her ways. "We attain no power
over nature till we learn natural laws, and our lordship depends on the
adroitness with which we learn and conform."

Adroitness however is merely an ability to win; back of it there must
be some spur to make us use our adroitness. Why don't we all die or
give up when we're sick of the world? Because the love of life is
reenforced, in most energized beings, by some longing that pushes them
forward, in defeat and in darkness. All creatures wish to l