The very crudest weapons may be handled with variable dexterity; the best handling must be discovered and practised; and this had a high selective value for the hands as well as for the brain. Probably crude weapons were very early used; for some monkeys (and baboons generally) throw sticks or stones, or roll stones down upon an enemy. In Borneo, Wallace came upon a female orang who, “as soon as she saw us, began breaking off branches and the great spiny fruits [of the durian] with every appearance of rage, causing such a shower of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching too near the tree. This habit of throwing down branches has been doubted; but I have, as here narrated, observed it myself on three separate occasions.”[52] The importance of the observation consists in its proving the existence in an anthropoid of the impulse to use missiles under the occasional stress of anger; so that it might be expected rapidly to develop under the constant pressure of hunger. The use of clubs and stones induced the discrimination of the best materials for such weapons, and where they could be found; and, in process of time, brought in a rough shaping of them, the better to serve their purposes. Then came the invention of snares and pitfalls and the discovery of poisons.
Thus the primitive human, or prehuman mind, was active in many new directions; and depending for its skill, not upon instinct or imitation, but upon observation and memory and inference, it was necessary for it to arrange ideas in a definite order before acting upon them, as in making weapons or planning a hunt; indefiniteness or confusion in such matters was fatal. The contrast between growing memory of the past and present experience, between practical ideas and the actions realising them that had been suspended until the right moment came, furthered the differentiation of self-consciousness amidst the world; the contrasts of co-operation and greed, of emulation and loyalty and submission, of honour and shame, furthered the differentiation of self-consciousness amidst the tribe.
If it be asked—how much of all this development attributed to the hunting-pack might have been brought about just as well by the formation of a defensive herd, such as we see in cattle and horses?—a definite answer can be given. The herd is, of course, marked by (2) gregariousness, (3) perceptive and contagious sympathy and sometimes effective sympathy in common defence, (7) recognition of leaders (all herds that travel have leaders), (8) emulation, (9) precedence; but not by (1) interest in the chase and in killing, nor (4) aggressiveness, nor (10) strategy and perseverance in attack, nor (11) greed; and herd-life affords no conditions for the development of intelligence and dexterity, nor for any of the physical characters that distinguish man. Herd-life does not involve the great and decisive change which is implied in the evolution of human nature. We must conceive, then, of the primitive human mind as a sort of chimpanzee mind adapted to the wolfish conditions of the hunting-pack. Wolves themselves have undergone no great development, compared (say) with cats, for want of hands and other physical advantages which we had to begin with. If some species of baboon had taken to the hunting-life, there might have been very interesting results.