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; he is a shifting basis on which no
equilibrium of habit and civilisation can be established; were it not
for this constant change in our physical powers, which our mechanical
limbs have brought about, man would have long since apparently
attained his limit of possibility; he would be a creature of as much
fixity as the ants and bees--he would still have advanced but no
faster than other animals advance. If there were a race of men
without any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly. There
are none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions
and millions of years. The lowest Australian savage carries weapons
for the fight or the chase, and has his cooking and drinking utensils
at home; a race without these things would be completely ferae
naturae and not men at all.
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