The pleasure of sound manifested itself at an earlier stage than the pleasure of form, although the degree of advancement in music varies in different tribes. Thus the inhabitants of Africa have a much larger capacity for recognizing and enjoying the effect of harmonious sounds than the aborigines of America. While all nations have the faculty of obtaining pleasure from harmonious sounds, it varies greatly, yet not more {137} widely than between separate individuals. It may be considered quite a universal faculty. The love of the beautiful in form, color, and in harmonious sound, is a permanent social force, and has much to do in the progress of civilization. Yet it is not an essential force, for the beginnings of civilization could have been made without it. However, it gives relief to the cold business world; the formal association of men is softened and embellished by painting, poetry, and music. Thus considered, it represents an important part of the modern social 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.