Though he is the youngest
of all created forms, and by no means the best equipped for life,
he has been able to go ahead in a way denied to all other animals;
his inventiveness has been largely developed by his terrors; and
the result has been that whereas all other animals still preserve,
as a condition of life, their ceaseless attitude of suspicion and
fear, man has been enabled by organisation to establish communities
in which fear of disaster plays but little part. If one watches a
bird feeding on a lawn, it is strange to observe its ceaseless
vigilance. It takes a hurried mouthful, and then looks round in an
agitated manner to see that it is in no danger of attack. Yet it is
clear that the terror in which all wild animals seem to live, and
without which self-preservation would be impossible, does not in
the least militate against their physical welfare. A man who had to
live his life under the same sort of risks that a bird in a garden
has to endure from cats and other foes, would lose his senses from
the awful pressure of terror; he would lie under the constant
shadow of assassination.
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