there has
been a third, that of the conflict of man with man, ending in the
survival of the fittest of the human race. In the discussion of this
problem, as hitherto made, these distinct stages of evolution, with
their intermediate resting stages, have not been recognized; argument
being based on man as a whole, and no thought directed to the
possibility that existing man may represent several separate processes
of development, with broad lapses between. The argument we propose to
offer is that man as he was at the completion of his first stage, that
of the subjugation of the animal world, and before the beginning of the
conflict with nature, still exists, the first derivation from the
man-ape, living in the location and possessing much of the appearance
and many of the habits of this ancestral form.

Late travellers in Africa have found more than trees and streams in the
forest depths. They have found there a distinct and peculiar race of
men, negro-like in many particulars, yet differing from the negroes in
others, and specially marked by their dwarfish stature, which is
indicated in the name of Pygmies, usually given them. These diminutive
beings were known as long ago as the days of Homer, and their legendary
combats with the cranes are spoken of by him in his poems. He was not
aware of what is known now, that these forest dwarfs would disdain the
cranes as antagonists, and are quite capable of overcoming the lordly
elephant. In truth, they know no equals in the forest, and, while
destitute of any knowledge of agriculture, are the most skilful,
considering the primitive character of their weapons, of the hunters of
the earth.

The forest is the home of the Pygmy, as in all probability it was of the
man-ape. He dwells in its deepest recesses, its moist and sultry depths,
and pines when removed from his native realm in the heart of the tropic
woods. In truth, he is almost as fully arboreal as was his tree-dwelling
ancestor and as are his forest relatives, the anthropoid apes of to-day;
not inhabiting the limbs of trees, indeed, but living under their shade,
and forming the true man of the woodland, the nomad hunters of the vast
equatorial forests. It must be said, however, that this is not wholly
the case. There are tribes seemingly belonging to this race in South
Africa who dwell in the open desert, but retain there, in great measure,
the habits of their forest kin.

The first of modern travellers to see the Pygmi