Chapter Chapter 1 · The Setting Of The Stage

We live under the shadow of a gigantic question mark.

Who are we?

Where do we come from?

Whither are we bound?

Slowly, but with persistent courage, we have been pushing this question

mark further and further towards that distant line, beyond the horizon,

where we hope to find our answer.

We have not gone very far.

We still know very little but we have reached the point where (with a

fair degree of accuracy) we can guess at many things.

In this chapter I shall tell you how (according to our best belief) the

stage was set for the first appearance of man.

If we represent the time during which it has been possible for animal

life to exist upon our planet by a line of this length, then the tiny

line just below indicates the age during which man (or a creature more

or less resembling man) has lived upon this earth.

[Illustration]

Man was the last to come but the first to use his brain for the purpose

of conquering the forces of nature. That is the reason why we are going

to study him, rather than cats or dogs or horses or any of the other

animals, who, all in their own way, have a very interesting historical

development behind them.

[Illustration: IT RAINED INCESSANTLY]

In the beginning, the planet upon which we live was (as far as we

now know) a large ball of flaming matter, a tiny cloud of smoke in

the endless ocean of space. Gradually, in the course of millions of

years, the surface burned itself out, and was covered with a thin layer

of rocks. Upon these lifeless rocks the rain descended in endless

torrents, wearing out the hard granite and carrying the dust to the

valleys that lay hidden between the high cliffs of the steaming earth.

Finally the hour came when the sun broke through the clouds and saw how

this little planet was covered with a few small puddles which were to

develop into the mighty oceans of the eastern and western hemispheres.

Then one day the great wonder happened. What had been dead, gave birth

to life.

The first living cell floated upon the waters of the sea.

For millions of years it drifted aimlessly with the currents. But

during all that time it was developing certain habits that it might

survive more easily upon the inhospitable earth. Some of these cells

were happiest in the dark depths of the lakes and the pools. They took

root in the slimy sediments which had been carried down from the tops

of the hills and they became plants. Others preferred to move about and

they grew strange jointed legs, like scorpions and began to crawl along

the bottom of the sea amidst the plants and the pale green things that

looked like jelly-fishes. Still others (covered with scales) depended

upon a swimming motion to go from place to place in their search for

food, and gradually they populated the ocean with myriads of fishes.

[Illustration: THE ASCENT OF MAN]

Meanwhile the plants had increased in number and they had to search for

new dwelling places. There was no more room for them at the bottom of

the sea. Reluctantly they left the water and made a new home in the

marshes and on the mud-banks that lay at the foot of the mountains.

Twice a day the tides of the ocean covered them with their brine. For

the rest of the time, the plants made the best of their uncomfortable

situation and tried to survive in the thin air which surrounded the

surface of the planet. After centuries of training, they learned how

to live as comfortably in the air as they had done in the water. They

increased in size and became shrubs and trees and at last they learned

how to grow lovely flowers which attracted the attention of the busy

big bumble-bees and the birds who carried the seeds far and wide until

the whole earth had become covered with green pastures, or lay dark

under the shadow of the big trees.

[Illustration: THE PLANTS LEAVE THE SEA]

But some of the fishes too had begun to leave the sea, and they had

learned how to breathe with lungs as well as with gills. We call such

creatures amphibious, which means that they are able to live with equal

ease on the land and in the water. The first frog who crosses your path

can tell you all about the pleasures of the double existence of the

amphibian.

Once outside of the water, these animals gradually adapted themselves

more and more to life on land. Some became reptiles (creatures who

crawl like lizards) and they shared the silence of the forests with

the insects. That they might move faster through the soft soil, they

improved upon their legs and their size increased until the world was

populated with gigantic forms (which the hand-books of biology list

under the names of Ichthyosaurus and Megalosaurus and Brontosaurus) who

grew to be thirty to forty feet long and who could have played with

elephants as a full grown cat plays with her kittens.

Some of the members of this reptilian family began to live in the tops

of the trees, which were then often more than a hundred feet high.

They no longer needed their legs for the purpose of walking, but it

was necessary for them to move quickly from branch to branch. And so

they changed a part of their skin into a sort of parachute, which

stretched between the sides of their bodies and the small toes of

their fore-feet, and gradually they covered this skinny parachute with

feathers and made their tails into a steering gear and flew from tree

to tree and developed into true birds.

Then a strange thing happened. All the gigantic reptiles died within a

short time. We do not know the reason. Perhaps it was due to a sudden

change in climate. Perhaps they had grown so large that they could

neither swim nor walk nor crawl, and they starved to death within sight

but not within reach of the big ferns and trees. Whatever the cause,

the million year old world-empire of the big reptiles was over.

The world now began to be occupied by very different creatures. They

were the descendants of the reptiles but they were quite unlike these

because they fed their young from the “mammæ” or the breasts of the

mother. Wherefore modern science calls these animals “mammals.” They

had shed the scales of the fish. They did not adopt the feathers of

the bird, but they covered their bodies with hair. The mammals however

developed other habits which gave their race a great advantage over

the other animals. The female of the species carried the eggs of the

young inside her body until they were hatched and while all other

living beings, up to that time, had left their children exposed to

the dangers of cold and heat, and the attacks of wild beasts, the

mammals kept their young with them for a long time and sheltered them

while they were still too weak to fight their enemies. In this way the

young mammals were given a much better chance to survive, because they

learned many things from their mothers, as you will know if you have

ever watched a cat teaching her kittens to take care of themselves and

how to wash their faces and how to catch mice.

But of these mammals I need not tell you much for you know them well.

They surround you on all sides. They are your daily companions in the

streets and in your home, and you can see your less familiar cousins

behind the bars of the zoological garden.

And now we come to the parting of the ways when man suddenly leaves the

endless procession of dumbly living and dying creatures and begins to

use his reason to shape the destiny of his race.

One mammal in particular seemed to surpass all others in its ability

to find food and shelter. It had learned to use its fore-feet for the

purpose of holding its prey, and by dint of practice it had developed

a hand-like claw. After innumerable attempts it had learned how to

balance the whole of the body upon the hind legs. (This is a difficult

act, which every child has to learn anew although the human race has

been doing it for over a million years.)

This creature, half ape and half monkey but superior to both, became

the most successful hunter and could make a living in every clime. For

greater safety, it usually moved about in groups. It learned how to

make strange grunts to warn its young of approaching danger and after

many hundreds of thousands of years it began to use these throaty

noises for the purpose of talking.

This creature, though you may hardly believe it, was your first

“man-like” ancestor.