He swam in the sea, and, still better, becoming aware of the buoyant
virtues of wood, learned to navigate its surface. Likewise, from
among the land animals he chose the more likely to bear him and his
burdens. The next step was the domestication of these useful aids.
Here, in its organic significance, natural selection ceased to
concern itself with locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at
her tedious methods and his own superiority in the hastening of
affairs. Thenceforth he must depend upon himself, and faster-
swimming or faster-running men ceased to be bred. The one, half-
amphibian, breasting the water with muscular arms, could not hope to
overtake or escape an enemy who propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk
by means of a wooden paddle; nor could the other, trusting to his own
nimbleness, compete with a foe who careered wildly across the plain
on the back of a half-broken stallion.
So, in that dim day, man took upon himself the task of increasing his
dominion over space and time, and right nobly has he acquitted
himself.
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