return voluntarily from the grassy river plains to the forests that had been the home of their ancestors. Even when Semites and Aryans were forced further to the North and West, it was impossible for them to occupy the forest regions of Western Asia and Europe, until they were enabled by agriculture to feed their animals on this less favorable soil and especially to maintain them during the winter. It is more than probable that the cultivation of grain was due primarily to the demand for stock feed, and became an important factor of human sustenance at a later period.
The superior development of Aryans and Semites is, perhaps, attributable to the copious meat and milk diet of both races, more especially to the favorable influence of such food on the growth of children. As a matter of fact, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico who live on an almost purely vegetarian diet, have a smaller brain than the Indians in the lower stage of barbarism who eat more meat and fish. At any rate, cannibalism gradually disappears at this stage and is maintained only as a religious observance or, what is here nearly identical, as a magic remedy.[1]
3. Higher Stage. Beginning with the melting of iron ore and merging into civilization by the inven-
- ↑ Translator’s noteAdvocates of vegetarianism may, of course, challenge this statement and show that all the testimony of anthropology is not in favor of the meat-eaters. It must also be admitted that diet is not the only essential factor in environment which influences the development of races. And there is no conclusive evidence to prove the absolute superiority of one diet over another. Neither have we any proofs that cannibalism ever was in general practice. It rather seems to have been confined to limited groups of people in especially ill-favored localities or to times of great scarcity of food. Hence we can neither refer to cannibalism as a typical stage in human history, nor are we obliged to accept the vegetarian hypothesis of a transition from a meat diet to a plant diet as a condition sine qua non of higher human development.
