המתת השור

in part, the constrast in the rate of change is the one with which we began, that between Nature and Man as makers of change. Mankind increasingly chooses for itself, and even in prehistory the sotry of change is therefore increasingly one of conscious adapatation . So the story will continue into historical times, more intensively still. This is why the most important part of the human story is the story of consciousness.


this is why i believe that Art is the strory of unconsciousness

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when long ago, it broke the genetic slow march, it made every thing possible. Nature and nurture are there from the moment that human beings are first identifiable; perhaps they can never be quite disentangled, but man-made culture and tradition are increasingly the determinants of change
two reflections ought, none the less, to be made to balance this indisputable fact. the first is that our species has almost certainly not shown any improvement in innate capacity since the Upper Palaeolithic. Human physique has not changed fundamentally in 40000 years or so and it would be surprising if raw mental capacity had done so. So short a time could hardly suffice for generic changes comparable to those of earlier eras. The rapidity with which humanity has achieved so much since prehistoric times can be accounted for quite simply; there are many more of us upon whose talents humanity can draw and, more important still, human achievement are essentially cumulative. They rest upon a heritage itself accumulative at, as it were, compound interest. Primitive societies had far less inherited advantage in the bank. This makes the magnitude of their greatest steps forwards all the more amazing.