In the animal world there is also a continuous development and
perfection of organs. This development, however, is connected with the
changes of the animal’s body, which makes the development of the organs
infinitely slow, as dictated by biological laws. In the development of
the organic world, thousands of years amount to nothing. Man, however,
by transferring his organic development upon external objects has been
able to free himself from the chain of biologic law. Tools can be
transformed quickly, and technique makes such rapid strides that, in
comparison with the development of animal organs, it must be called
marvelous. Owing to this new road, man has been able, within the short
period of a few thousand years, to rise above the highest animal. With
the invention of these implements, man got to be a divine power, and he
takes possession of the earth as his exclusive dominion. The peaceful
and hitherto unhindered development of the organic world ceases to
develop according to the Darwinian theory. It is man that acts as
breeder, tamer, cultivator; and it is man that does the weeding. It is
man that changes the entire environment, making the further forms of
plants and animals suit his aim and will.
With the origin of tools, further changes in the human body cease.
The human organs remain what they were, with the exception of the
brain. The human brain had to develop together with tools; and, in
fact, we see that the difference between the higher and lower races
of mankind consists mainly in the contents of their brains. But even
the development of this organ had to stop at a certain stage. Since
the beginning of civilization, the functions of the brain are ever
more taken away by some artificial means; science is treasured up in
books. Our reasoning faculty of today is not much better than the one
possessed by the Greeks, Romans or even the Teutons, but our knowledge
has grown immensely, and this is greatly due to the fact that the
mental organ was unburdened by its substitutes, the books.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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