development. Art culture, which represents the
highest expression of our civilization, has its softening influences on
human life.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The importance of language in the development of culture.

2. Does language always originate the same way in different localities?

3. Does language develop from a common centre or from many centres?

4. What bearing has the development of language upon the culture of
religion, music, poetry, and art?

5. Which were the more important impulses, clothing for protection or
for adornment?

6. Show that play is an important factor in society-building.

7. Compare pictograph, ideograph, and phonetic writing.

[1] Keane, _The World's Peoples_, p. 49.

{141}

_PART III_

THE SEATS OF EARLY CIVILIZATIONS

CHAPTER VIII

THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL NATURE ON HUMAN PROGRESS

_Man Is a Part of Universal Nature_.--He is an integral part of the
universe, and as such he must ever be subject to the physical laws
which control it. Yet, as an active, thinking being, conscious of his
existence, it is necessary to consider him in regard to the relations
which he sustains to the laws and forces of physical nature external to
himself. He is but a particle when compared to a planet or a sun, but
he is greater than a planet because he is conscious of his own
existence, and the planet is not. Yet his whole life and being, so far
as it can be reasoned about, is dependent upon his contact with
external nature. By adaptation to physical environment he may live;
without adaptation he cannot live.

As a part of evolved nature, man comes into the world ignorant of his
surroundings. He is ever subject to laws which tend to sweep him
onward with the remaining portions of the system of which he is a part,
but his slowly awakening senses cause him to examine his surroundings.
First, he has a curiosity to know what the world about him is like, and
he begins a simple inquiry which leads to investigation. The knowledge
he acquires is adapted to his use day by day as his vision extends.
Through these two processes he harmonizes his life with the world about
him. By degrees he endeavors to bring the materials and the forces of
nature into subjection to his will. Thus he progresses from the
student to the master. External nature is unconscious, submitting
passively to the laws that control it, but man, ever conscious of
himself and his effort, attempt