Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/396

382 prey; so that with, the monkey there is a definite association between loose bark and food. With the child the reason for picking at loose things has been lost, but the instinct to pick remains as a vestigial survival, traceable to a definite food-acquiring instinct of the monkey. There may also have been an association with the monkey habit of picking out one another's parasites, a habit which is very noticeable among them.

To those people, and they are many, who scornfully repudiate their monkey ancestry, it may seem farfetched to notice such a childish habit, and to assert that it had any such origin; but many instances may be cited of habits acquired for some beneficial purpose, or in connection with some particular circumstances of life, persisting both in the life of the individual and also being perpetuated in the race long after the reason for the habit has been forgotten—not unlike superstitious ceremonies and religious observances which survive in a similar way. Thus there is the fear of women for snakes, and the consequent loathing and hatred—feelings which seem so unreasonable to many of the strong-minded people of the present day. We have written evidence that these feelings were subject of comment at a very early age of man's intelligence; and it may readily be surmised that the story of Genesis is only the written account of what had been verbally told for many generations. Mythical as it is, it seems a most ingenious method of accounting for certain observed facts; and that the facts were observed reflects considerable credit on the observers. As mythology it takes high rank; its very naïveté adds to its charm. "Whence arise these feelings in respect of snakes?" was the inquiry; and in answer thereto the legend gradually grew up, that "the snake was the tempter; of the presumed mother of all. Eve; he is just such as would be a tempter; his very habits, stealthy, gliding, silent, self-concealing, show at once that he 'is more subtil than any beast of the field.' Because he tempted Eve these feelings have arisen on the part of woman. The Lord God, when he found that Eve fell because of the serpent's temptation, said in his anger, 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.' That accounts for what we observe; it is all very plain." So said the sages of old. It is truly ingenious; but science gives a more simple interpretation, and yet an interpretation which, because it does not pander to the religious self-pride of human beings, in that it does not yield them that distinct rank above all other living things, is less palatable to the majority. Science says that the fear of women for snakes is an inheritance of monkeylike ancestors; that the most terrible foe of the female monkey, the foe most prone to snatch the young one from her, and even to take the mother herself on occasion, was the