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The nomad, living on cattle as ants live on theirs, is less human than the farmer, raising food by intelligently applied labor; and the extension of trade and commerce, from mere village market-places to the world-exchanges of to-day, is extension of human-ness as well.
A transition from long skirts to dress that will permit complete freedom of movement and resembling in a feminine way the garments of men would be unqualifiedly good. It would remove undue emphasis of sex and accentuate the essential human-ness of woman.
We have others, many others, common to the higher mammals; which are not exclusively ours are not distinctively "human." What then are true human characteristics? In what way is the human species distinguished from all other species? Our human-ness is seen most clearly in three main lines: it is mechanical, psychical and social.
Humanity, thus considered, is not a thing made at once and unchangeable, but a stage of development; and is still, as Wells describes it, "in the making." Our human-ness is seen to lie not so much in what we are individually, as in our relations to one another; and even that individuality is but the result of our relations to one another.
The poor relation is objectionable not so much because he is poor as because he is a relation. So, perhaps, it is not the apeness, so to speak, of the ape that is objectionable, but rather the human-ness. In any event, the aversion has been matter of common notoriety ever since the Darwinian theory became fully accepted; it showed itself now with renewed force against poor pithecanthropus.
We are by no means the only group-animal; that ancient type of industry the ant, and even the well-worn bee, are social creatures. But insects of their kind are found living alone. Human beings never. Our human-ness begins with some low form of social relation and increases as that relation develops.
Taken separately and physically, we are animals, genus homo; taken socially and psychically, we are, in varying degree, human; and our real history lies in the development of this human-ness. Our historic period is not very long. Real written history only goes back a few thousand years, beginning with the stone records of ancient Egypt.
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