He knew no future then, no kind of life except the life he led. He fled
the cave-bear over the rocks full of iron ore and the promise of sword
and spear; he froze to death upon a ledge of coal; he drank water muddy
with the clay that would one day make cups of porcelain; he chewed the
ear of wild wheat he had plucked and gazed with a dim speculation in his
eyes at the birds that soared beyond his reach. Or suddenly he became
aware of the scent of another male and rose up roaring, his roars
the formless precursors of moral admonitions. For he was a great
individualist, that original, he suffered none other than himself.
So through the long generations, this heavy precursor, this ancestor of
all of us, fought and bred and perished, changing almost imperceptibly.
Yet he changed. That keen chisel of necessity which sharpened the
tiger's claw age by age and fined down the clumsy Orchippus to the swift
grace of the horse, was at work upon him--is at work upon him still.
The clumsier and more stupidly fierce among him were killed soonest and
oftenest; the finer hand, the quicker eye, the bigger brain, the better
balanced body prevailed; age by age, the implements were a little better
made, the man a little more delicately adjusted to his possibilities.
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