not
exclusively ours--are not distinctively "human." What then are true
human characteristics? In what way is the human species distinguished
from all other species?

Our human-ness is seen most clearly in three main lines: it is
mechanical, psychical and social. Our power to make and use things is
essentially human; we alone have extra-physical tools. We have added to
our teeth the knife, sword, scissors, mowing machine; to our claws the
spade, harrow, plough, drill, dredge. We are a protean creature, using
the larger brain power through a wide variety of changing weapons. This
is one of our main and vital distinctions. Ancient animal races are
traced and known by mere bones and shells, ancient human races by their
buildings, tools and utensils.

That degree of development which gives us the human mind is a clear
distinction of race. The savage who can count a hundred is more human
than the savage who can count ten.

More prominent than either of these is the social nature of humanity. We
are by no means the only group-animal; that ancient type of industry the
ant, and even the well-worn bee, are social creatures. But insects of
their kind are found living alone. Human beings never. Our human-ness
begins with some low form of social relation and increases as that
relation develops.

Human life of any sort is dependent upon what Kropotkin calls "mutual
aid," and human progress keeps step absolutely with that interchange of
specialized services which makes society organic. The nomad, living on
cattle as ants live on theirs, is less human than the farmer, raising
food by intelligently applied labor; and the extension of trade and
commerce, from mere village market-places to the world-exchanges of
to-day, is extension of human-ness as well.

Humanity, thus considered, is not a thing made at once and unchangeable,
but a stage of development; and is still, as Wells describes it, "in
the making." Our human-ness is seen to lie not so much in what we
are individually, as in our relations to one another; and even that
individuality is but the result of our relations to one another. It
is in what we do and how we do it, rather than in what we are. Some,
philosophically inclined, exalt "being" over "doing." To them this
question may be put: "Can you mention any form of life that merely 'is,'
without doing anything?"

Taken separately and physically, we are animals, _genus homo_; taken
socially and psychically, we are, in v