The Human Drift

The history of civilisation is a history of wandering sword in hand in search of food. In the misty younger world we catch glimpses of phantom races rising slaying finding food building rude civilisations decaying falling under the swords of stronger hands and passing utterly away. Man like any other animal has roved over the earth seeking what he might devour; and not romance and adventure but the hunger-need has urged him on his vast adventures. Whether a bankrupt gentleman sailing to colonise Virginia or a lean Cantonese contracting to labour on the sugar plantations of Hawaii in each case gentleman and coolie it is a desperate attempt to get something to eat to get more to eat than he can get at home. It has always been so from the time of the first pre-human anthropoid crossing a mountain-divide in quest of better berry-bushes beyond down to the latest Slovak arriving on our shores to-day to go to work in the coal-mines of Pennsylvania.