History of Human SocietyBlackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)
History
History of Human Society
Blackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)
Civilization; Progress; Sociology
_The Efforts of Man to Satisfy Physical Needs_.--All knowledge of
primitive man, whether derived from the records of cultures he has left
or assumed from analogy of living tribes of a low order of
civilization, discovers him wandering along the streams in the valleys
or by the shores of lakes and oceans, searching for food and
incidentally seeking protection in caves and trees. The whole earth
was his so far as he could appropriate it. He cared nothing for
ownership; he only wanted room to search for the food nature had
provided. When he failed to find sufficient food as nature left it, he
starved. So in his wandering life he adapted himself to nature as he
found it. In the different environments he acquired different customs
and habits of life. If he came in contact with other tribes, an
exchange of knowledge and customs took place, and both tribes were
richer thereby. However, the universality of the human mind made it
possible for two detached tribes, under similar environment and similar
stimuli, to develop the same customs and habits of life, provided they
had the same degree of development. Hence, we have independent group
development and group borrowing.
When nature failed to provide him with sufficient food, he learned to
force her to yield a larger supply. When natural objects were
insufficient for his purposes, he made artificial tools to supplement
them. Slowly he became an inventor. Slowly he mastered the art of
living. Thus physical needs were gradually satisfied, and the
foundation for the superstructure of civilization was laid.
_The Attempt to Satisfy Hunger and to Protect from Cold_.--To this
statement must be added the fact that struggle with {83} his fellows
arose from the attempt to obtain food, and we have practically the
whole occupation of man in a state of savagery. At least, the simple
activities represent the essential forces at the foundation of human
social life. The attempt to preserve life either through instinct,
impulse, emotion, or rational selection is fundamental in all animal
existence. The other great factor at the foundation of human effort is
the desire to perpetuate the species. This, in fact, is the mere
projection of the individual life into the next generation, and is
fundamentally important to the individual and to the race alike. All
modern efforts can be traced to these three fundamental activities.
But in seeking to satisfy the cravings of hunger and to avoid the pain
of cold, man has developed a varied and active life. About these two
centres cluster all the simple forces of human progress. Indeed,
invention and discovery and the advancement of the industrial arts
receive their initial impulses from these economic relations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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