The Mind Grew Because The Body Grew; More Things Were Perceived, More
Things Were Handled, And Being Handled Became Familiar.
But this
came about chiefly because there was a hand to handle with; without
the hand there would be no handling, and no method of holding and
examining is comparable to the human hand.
The tail of an opossum is
a prehensile thing, but it is too far from his eyes; the elephant's
trunk is better, and it is probably to their trunks that the
elephants owe their sagacity. It is here that the bee, in spite of
her wings, has failed. She has a high civilisation, but it is one
whose equilibrium appears to have been already attained; the
appearance is a false one, for the bee changes, though more slowly
than man can watch her; but the reason of the very gradual nature of
the change is chiefly because the physical organisation of the insect
changes, but slowly also. She is poorly off for hands, and has never
fairly grasped the notion of tacking on other limbs to the limbs of
her own body, and so being short lived to boot she remains from
century to century to human eyes in statu quo. Her body never
becomes machinate, whereas this new phase of organism which has been
introduced with man into the mundane economy, has made him a very
quicksand for the foundation of an unchanging civilisation; certain
fundamental principles will always remain, but every century the
change in man's physical status, as compared with the elements around
him, is greater and greater.
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