CHAPTER II ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE HUMAN FROM THE ANTHROPOID MIND 1. Heredity, Adaptation, Accommodation

Following the general belief that Man is descended from a stock nearly allied to the greater anthropoids—Orang, Chimpanzee, Gorilla—we may assume that his mental endowments were once much the same as theirs; and that, so far as they are still the same, heredity sufficiently explains his having them. Thus the senses, perception, the simpler forms of comparison and inference, the appetites and many of the instincts and emotions are common to us with the apes, are seen in our children under three years old, and (in short) constitute that generic consciousness (as I have called it) from which the human mind in general and the peculiar traits of races and individuals are differentiated.

So much for heredity; but the differences of the human from the anthropoid mind, alike in intelligence and in character, are enormous, and must be accounted for in some other way. Allowing for some original specific difference which we can hardly hope to discover, the changes that have taken place may be considered as the result of adaptation to those habits of life under which our species (now ranking zoologically as a Family) has been developed. And this adaptation I shall assume to have been brought about under conditions of natural selection: human races, as we now see them, being the survivors of many variations, more or less successful, and the others having been destroyed. For good judges are of opinion that, amongst the discovered remains of ancient specimens of the human family, some that exhibit marked deviations from the modern type—Neanderthalensis, Eoanthropus, Pithecanthropus—should be regarded not as belonging to our ancestral line, but rather as representing distinct species that have failed in the struggle for existence.[28]

But besides the innate dispositions of human nature determined by heredity and natural selection, which are found in some measure universally, because they are adaptations to conditions that, at one time and not long ago, weighed upon the ancestors of all of us, there are numerous traits (some of them quite superficial) that vary from country to country and from age to age, according to the economic or political type of the society in which a man lives, his place therein, geographical circumstances, religious institutions and the countless causes that govern manners and customs. In the lives of most men these traits are not necessary; they may be adopted and cast aside more than once in an individual’s career: they are temporary accommodations due to education, imitation, tradition; and, in fact, are often the disguises of human nature. Still, as society grows more and more complex, orderly and stable, there is, no doubt, again some natural selection of those individuals who are capable of undergoing the requisite accommodations. Those that cannot endure the restraints of civilisation, wander away; the extremely lazy, improvident, dishonest, or aggressive, in considerable numbers, perish.

§ 2. The Original Stock and the Conditions of Differentiation

To the original mentality of man we can only seek a clue in the higher Primates, and especially in the extant anthropoids. No doubt, during the long millennia that have elapsed since the separation of our own stock from those of other genera and species, they also have undergone some evolution, but probably much less change than we have. Unfortunately, our knowledge of their habits and abilities is still deplorably limited. It seems certain, however, that their intelligence is much greater than that of any other kind of animal. They must have extensive knowledge of their habitat, of all the forest can yield for food or shelter, and of its other denizens dangerous or otherwise. They construct for themselves some sort of sleeping-place, not much inferior to the Australians’ “lean-to,” by piling branches together in the trees. Toward men, anthropoids seem to be unaggressive, and usually retreat from them; but, when attacked, defend themselves with fury. From other animals the male gorilla has nothing to fear, and he defends his family against leopards; the chimpanzee is said to fight leopards with varying success; and, as for the orang, Dyak chiefs told Wallace that no animals dare attack him, except crocodiles and pythons, and that he kills both of them.[29] The food of these apes is chiefly fruit and the tender shoots of trees and bamboos; but they sometimes eat eggs and young birds; and the gorilla is said to eat small mammals: in confinement they all take cooked flesh freely. Socially, they hardly get beyond family life. Orangs male and female are even seen alone, and young ones together without parents; gorillas are seen in family parties; chimpanzees in families, and occasionally three or four families in company. It is said that gorillas and chimpanzees have been seen together in a large band. I have met with no report of these animals fighting amongst themselves, except that male gorillas sometimes fight for a wife. Gorillas have also been said, upon very slight evidence, to be polygamous; chimpanzees and orangs seem to be monogamous.[30] Their family life is probably, as amongst all the other Primates, affectionate: the long youth of their children implies much parental care. Whilst the smaller anthropoids—siamang and gibbon—go in troops, as also do the baboons and most monkeys of both hemispheres, the less sociability of the great anthropoids may be understood to result (a) from the limited supply of the right sort of food for them, even in the tropical forest to which they are confined—since animals of their bulk must consume a great deal; and (b) from their having no need of combining for the purpose of defence.

From the type thus outlined the mentality of the human race has departed so widely that some even of those who believe that our bodies have been derived from some simian stock (e.g. Wallace) hesitate to admit that our minds can have had a similar history. But as everywhere else in the animal kingdom mind and body constitute one organism, it is reasonable to consider whether the differentiation of the mind of man may not be understood to have taken place under the same conditions as those which determined the transformation of his body. What were these conditions?

(a) In the foregoing chapter I have collected a number of facts and arguments pointing to the probability that the chief cause of the evolution of the human Family was the adoption by some anthropoid (or allied form) of the life of the hunter in order to obtain animal food. That the change from a frugivorous to a carnivorous diet may itself have had some effect upon our temperament and activity is possible; but I lay no stress upon that. Most monkeys are almost exclusively frugivorous; the only Primate, except man, that depends a good deal upon animal food is, I believe, the crab-eating macaque (Macacus cynomolgus), of the Burmese and Malay littoral; yet monkeys are the most alert and active of animals; some of them are amongst the most courageous; anthropoids are amongst the most powerful. A carnivorous diet alone would not explain any changes in the shape and proportions of our trunk and limbs, nor the upright gait, nor the gregarious habit, nor the development of the brain, nor the invention of weapons, nor the use of fire, nor any of the mental and emotional characteristics that distinguish man from the other Primates; but all these things readily follow from our remote ancestor’s adoption of the life of the hunter.

Sociologists, surveying extant peoples, have usually distinguished four stages of culture, the hunting, pastoral, agricultural and manufacturing; and some have indicated what they suppose to have been a still earlier stage, the “collecting,” such as may be seen, e.g., amongst the Fuegians. But the collecting state is plainly degenerate, the resource of tribes fallen into distress; it cannot have been the first stage, because it implies no conditions that tend in any way to develop body or mind or society. That hunting came first is a true intuition: and, to understand the development of human nature, we need only refer the hunting-life back to the very origin of the human stock.[31]

(b) The great anthropoids are all confined to the equatorial forests; and it is obvious that, with their diet, it is impossible to pass out of tropical or (at furthest) sub-tropical regions. But the adoption of a flesh diet enabled the human stock to extend the range of its hunting (allowing for gradual adaptation to climate or accommodation by clothing) to any country that supplied the requisite prey; and, accordingly, in course of time, it wandered to every part of the world. The settling of various off-shoots of the original stock in certain regions long enough for them to undergo adaptation to local conditions is (as we have seen) the simplest explanation of existing races.

(c) Whilst none of the great anthropoids has advanced socially beyond family life, man is everywhere (with few and doubtful exceptions) gregarious—living at the lowest grade in tribes or bands of about fifty; and the gregarious life is one of the most important conditions of his peculiar development. Possibly, he may originally have been more gregarious than any extant anthropoid, in spite of his not needing society for defence, and of its seeming to be for so large a frugivorous animal inconvenient in relation to nutrition. Moreover, if the great anthropoids and our own ancestors were descended from some stock of the lower monkeys, such as always go in troops, the gregarious instinct may have remained with them as a latent character. Still, it is my conjecture that man became gregarious, or recovered the social habit, because of the utility of co-operative hunting; so that he became at first a sort of wolf-ape. This will be discussed in the next section. I observe here, however, that the hypothesis helps us to understand why man is still imperfectly sociable; the purpose of the hunting-pack, each wolf-ape seeking prey, was unfavourable to social life in other relations. That in human life group-consciousness preceded self-consciousness is a groundless and fantastic notion: all known savages are fully self-conscious, as their sentiments and behaviour imply; and even the higher brutes are (in my judgment) self-conscious in their relations with others. Current speculations about fashion, imitation, tradition, crowd-psychology, are in danger of exaggeration, and overlook the patent facts of individualism, as shown by the hypocrite, the criminal, the vagrant, the contra-suggestible, the hermit, the sceptic, the saint. Some people—without being in any way morbid—find that a good deal of solitude is necessary to the complete life: by nature the student and the pioneer escape from the crowd.

(d) The later stages of human development have been considerably modified by certain imaginary conditions peculiar to Man; for he—we know not at what date—invented them. These may be summed up under the names of Magic and Animism; and in subsequent chapters they will be discussed, with their astonishing vagaries and still more astonishing reactions upon human life.

The chief conditions, then, to which man has been adapted, and thereby differentiated in body and mind from the anthropoid stock, I take to be four: the hunting life; geographical circumstances; social life; and his own imaginations.

§ 3. Primal Society

In looking for the probable form of the earliest human or (rather) prehuman society, one naturally makes a survey of other mammalian societies; and the task is soon accomplished. It is surprising how few and simple the types of them are, in contrast with the elaborate polities of some hymenoptera and of the termites: these have much greater superficial resemblance to modern human societies; but, in fact, they are families rather than societies; their interesting activities will one day probably be traced to relatively simple mechanisms; and in every way they are too remote from us for any useful comparison. As for mammalian societies, even using the term to include families, they may be classified under four or five types:

(1) Families: (a) Monogamous: of which the best examples seem to be found in some monkeys. Many of the cats are believed to pair monogamously; but it is doubtful whether, or in what measure, the male takes part in the rearing of the whelps.

(b) Polygamous: characteristic of many species of deer;—after the breeding-season, the stags often wander away by themselves.

(2) Associations of families without apparent structure or organisation, such as those of the vizcacha and the beaver. They have no leaders, and make no attempt at mutual defence; but their inco-ordinated activities, in making their burrows, dams, etc., have results which, especially in the case of the beavers, look as if the animals had worked upon a common, premeditated plan. Gregariousness exists widely in the animal kingdom without any utility in attack or defence, but merely for convenience of breeding, or for the advantage of signalling the approach of danger, from any direction, to the whole flock.

(3) Troops or herds, comprising several families. This type is common amongst monkeys: generally the families are monogamous, and both parents care for the offspring; they have leaders, and combine in mutual defence. This is especially effective with the baboons—who, however, are polygamous. A very similar type is characteristic of cattle; who also have leaders as the result of battle between the bulls, each trying to control and keep together as many cows as he can; and they often combine their forces against beasts of prey.

(4) Hunting-packs—most noticeable with wolves and wild dogs: they have leaders, and probably an order of precedence determined by battle. In the breeding-season (February to August) a pack of wolves breaks up into pairs; but whether their pairing is for life or merely seasonal is disputed; and it is also doubtful whether the male takes any share in caring for the puppies; such habits may vary in different localities.[32] The numbers of the pack depend on circumstances, and are now much smaller in Canada than in Russia.

Was our own primitive society, then, like any of these? Since direct evidence cannot be obtained, we must be guided in forming our hypothesis by two considerations: (a) what type of society gives the best explanation of human nature as we now find it? and (b) for which type can we give the best reason why it should have been adopted? So I point out (a) that man, in character, is more like a wolf or dog than he is like any other animal; and (b) that for the forming of a pack there was a clear ground in the advantage to be obtained by co-operative hunting.[33]

It must be admitted that Darwin, discussing sexual selection in man, suggests a different hypothesis. He says: “Looking far enough back in the stream of time, and judging from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most probable view is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, each with a single wife, or if powerful with several, whom he jealously guarded against all other men. Or he may not have been a social animal, and yet have lived with several wives, like the gorilla; for all the natives ‘agree that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the young male grows up, a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head of the community.’ The younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close inter-breeding within the limits of the same family.”[34] The information concerning the polygamy of the gorilla, quoted here from Dr. Savage, who wrote in 1845, has not since (I believe) been confirmed, except by Prof. Garner.[35]

Naturally, the above passage has attracted the attention of anthropologists; and I am sorry to expose myself to the charge of immodesty in venturing to put forward a different view. Atkinson in his essay on Primal Law, edited with qualified approval by Andrew Lang, starts from Darwin’s hypothesis, and merely modifies it by urging that the young males, when driven off by their father, did not wander away, but kept near the family, always on the watch to murder their father. This amendment he makes, because he had observed the same habits in cattle and horses. Then, through a row of hypotheses with little evidence or rational connection, he arrives at an explanation of certain savage laws of avoidance, exogamy, etc. More recently, Prof. Freud has produced a most ingenious and entertaining essay on Totem und Tabu, in which he builds upon the same foundations. You easily see how the “Œdipus complex” emerges from such a primitive state of things, but will hardly, without reading the work, imagine the wealth of speculation it contains or its literary attractiveness. Atkinson probably relied upon the supposed parallel case of wild cattle and horses, because those animals resemble the apes in being vegetarian: though the diets are, in fact, very different. But even if such a comparison indicates a possible social state of our original ape-like stock, what is there in such a state that can be supposed to have introduced the changes that made our forebears no longer ape-like? Supposing those changes to have already taken place, what evidence is there that the same social state endured? None: for it was assumed to have been the social state of our forebears on the ground of their resemblance in diet and family economy to the gorilla.

Returning, then, to our hypothesis as to the chief cause of human differentiation, namely, that a certain Primate, more nearly allied to the anthropoids than to any other, became carnivorous and adopted the life of a hunter, there are (as I have said) two ways in which this may have happened: either by such a variation on the part of our ancestor that he felt a stronger appetite for animal food than the gorilla does—strong enough to make him hunt for prey; or by such a change of climate in the region he inhabited—say from sub-tropical to temperate—as to make his former diet scarce, especially in winter, so that he became a hunter to avoid starvation. Every one admits that he became a hunter at some time: why not at the earliest? Nothing less than some great change of life, concentrating all his powers and straining every faculty, can possibly account for the enormous differentiation of Man. The adoption of the hunting life is such a change; and the further back we put it, the better it explains the other changes that have occurred in our physical and mental nature.

From the outset, again, our ancestor may have attacked big game, probably Ungulates—to whom he owed much; for not only did they provide prey, but by clearing the forest over wide areas compelled him to run in pursuit remote from his native trees, thus giving great selective advantage to every variation of legs and feet adapted to running: though at the very first there may have been little need to run, as he was not yet an object of terror; “we must remember that if man was unskilful, animals were unsuspicious.”[36] I suppose him, at first, to have fallen to with hands and teeth: combining with others in a hungry, savage onslaught. By attacking big game advantage was given to those individuals and families who co-operated in hunting: thus forming the primal society of the human stock; a society entirely different from that of any of the Primates, or of cattle, and most like that of the dogs and wolves—a hunting-pack.

As in the course of generations the hunting-pack developed, no doubt, it had recognised leaders, the most powerful males, one perhaps pre-eminent. But it was not subject to one old male who claimed all the females; for the more adult males it comprised, the stronger it was; and, for the same reason, pairing, as among wolves, was the most efficient form of sexual relationship. But, in my judgment, it is altogether vain to try to deduce from this form of society, which may have existed three or four million years ago, any of the known customs of savages concerning marriage, such as avoidance, totemism, exogamy; which would be of comparatively recent date if we put back their origin 500,000 years. Many such rules can only have arisen when there was already a tradition and a language capable of expressing relationships.

§ 4. Psychology of the Hunting-pack

Possibly our ape-like ancestor was more sociable than any of the anthropoids; but sociability in ape-life would in no way account for our present character as men: nothing accounts for it, except the early formation of the hunting-pack. Since, however, we can know nothing of that institution directly, we must try to learn something about it from the parallel case of dogs and wolves. Galton remarks how readily the proceedings of man and dog “are intelligible to one another. Every whine or bark of the dog, each of his fawning, savage, or timorous movements is the exact counterpart of what would have been the man’s behaviour, had he felt similar emotions. As the man understands the thoughts of the dog, so the dog understands the thoughts of the man, by attending to his natural voice, his countenance, and his actions.”[37] No more, if as much, could be said of the terms upon which we stand with a tame chimpanzee, in spite of greater physical and facial resemblance and nearer kinship. What can connect us so closely in mind with an animal so remote from us in lineage and anatomy as the dog is? Adaptation to the same social conditions, the life of the hunting-pack.

(1) The master-interest of every member of the pack lies in the chase, because success in it is necessary to life. To show how this passion actuates ourselves, I quote Mr. F.C. Selous; who, during an expedition in Canada, roused a caribou stag within twenty yards, saw “the dreadful terror” in his eyes, and shot him. “Did I feel sorry for what I had done? it may be asked. Well! no, I did not. Ten thousand years of superficial and unsatisfying civilisation have not altered the fundamental nature of man, and the successful hunter of to-day becomes a primeval savage, remorseless, triumphant, full of a wild, exultant joy, which none but those who have lived in the wilderness, and depended on their success as hunters for their daily food, can ever know or comprehend.”[38] To the hunter my paradox must seem a truism. And that the hunter temporarily released from civilised restraints, who suffers such intoxication, merely renews old savage raptures is shown by the following curious parallel: a Bushman, returning from a successful hunt to the wagons of the traveller Baines—“Behold me!” he shouted, “the hunter! Yea, look on me, the killer of elephants and mighty bulls! Behold me, the big elephant, the lion! Look on me, ye Damaras and Makalaka; admire and confess that I am a great Bull-calf.”[39]

Again, since the interest of the chase culminates in the kill—for this is the condition of making a meal—to kill becomes, in some predatory animals, a passion that is often gratified without regard to their needs. Wolves often slay many more sheep than they devour: a sheep-dog that undergoes reversion kills by night the sheep on neighbouring farms without any call of hunger; and, says Mr. Thompson Seton (writing of the natives of North Canada), “the mania for killing that is seen in so many white men, is evidently a relic of savagery; for all these Indians and half-breeds are full of it.”[40] They fired at everything they saw. The manners of my own pack—now long dispersed—were very similar to the Indians’; and the sport of pigeon- or of pheasant-shooting has been reduced to its last element—skilful slaying.

The disposition to slay is reinforced, when prey makes serious resistance, by anger; and generally by a distinct tendency, sometimes called “destructiveness,” perhaps a latent character derived from the monkeys, and which I take to be partly a play-impulse and partly an expression of curiosity.

(2) The gregariousness of the pack is variable; probably, amongst wolves, it was much greater anciently than it is to-day. There are conflicting statements about the gregariousness of wolves that have been studied in different countries. Couteulx de Canteleu (France) says: “The wolf is an enemy of all society; when they assemble it is not a pacific society, but a band of brigands.”[41] Thompson Seton (Canada) says: “Wolves are the most sociable of beasts of prey; they arrange to render one another assistance. A pack seems to be an association of personal acquaintances, and would resent the presence of a total stranger.”[42] Gregariousness of wolves must be reduced by failure of game (as by the destruction of bison in North America), and still more by the encroachments of civilisation (as in France). The primitive human pack, probably, was more constantly gregarious than wolves are: (a) because its individuals, having no instinctive or traditionary knowledge of hunting, were more dependent on co-operation; and (b) because the long youth of children made it necessary for parents to associate with the pack during their nurture—else no pack could have existed; for whilst wolves are nearly full-grown at eighteen months, apes are not mature until the eighth or ninth year. At a later period, after the invention of effective weapons, an individual became, for many kinds of game, less dependent on co-operation; but by that time, the hunting-grounds of a pack were circumscribed by those of other hostile packs; so that no one dared go far alone.

(3) With gregariousness went, of course, (a) perceptive sympathy—every animal read instantly in the behaviour of others their feelings and impulses; (b) contagious sympathy—the impulses of any animal, expressed in its behaviour, spread rapidly to all the rest; and (c) effective sympathy, so far (at least) as that all united to defend any associate against aggression from outside the pack. Perceptive and contagious sympathy, however, extend beyond the limits of the pack or the species. Most of the higher mammalia can read the state of mind of others, though of widely different kinds, in their expression and behaviour; and many are liable to have their actions immediately affected by signs of the emotional impulses of others, especially fear. These modes of sympathy, therefore, though liveliest amongst gregarious animals, are not dependent on specific gregariousness.

(4) The pack has a disposition to aggression upon every sort of animal outside the pack, either as prey or as a competitor for prey: limited no doubt by what we should call considerations of prudence or utility; which must vary with the size of the pack, the prowess of its individuals, the possession of weapons, etc. After the invention of weapons and snares, many savage tribes can kill every sort of animal in their habitat, as the palÆolithic Europeans did many thousands of years ago. From the outset the human pack must have come into competition with the true carnivores, must have defended itself against them, may have discovered that attack was the safest defence, and may have been victorious even without weapons. Mr. G.P. Sanderson writes: “It is universally believed by the natives (of South India) that the tiger is occasionally killed by packs of wild dogs.... From what I have seen of their style of hunting, and of their power of tearing and lacerating, I think there can be no doubt of their ability to kill a tiger.... Causes of hostility may occasionally arise between the tiger and wild dogs through attempted interference with each other’s prey.”[43]

(5) A hunting-pack, probably, always claims a certain territory. This is the first ground of the sense of property, so strongly shown by domestic dogs: the territorial claims of the half-wild dogs of Constantinople are well known. To nourish a pack the hunting-grounds must be extensive. Mr. Thompson Seton says that in Canada the wolf has a permanent home-district and a range of about fifty miles.[44] Very many generations must have elapsed before the deviation of our forebears from anthropoid habits resulted in the formation of so many packs as to necessitate the practical delimitation of hunting-grounds. Then the aggressiveness of the pack turned upon strangers of its own species; the first wars arose, and perhaps cannibalism on the part of the victors. It is certain that, in North America, wolves kill and eat foxes, dogs, coyotes; and it is generally believed that wolves will eat a disabled companion; though, according to Mr. W.H. Hudson, a wolf will only eat another when it has killed that other, and then only as the carrying out of the instinct to eat whatever it has killed.[45] It may be so.

(6) A pack must have a leader, and must devotedly follow him as long as he is manifestly the best of the pack; and here we have a rudimentary loyalty.

(7) Every individual must be subservient to the pack, as long as it works together; and this seems to be the ground of the “instinct of self-abasement” (McDougall), so far as the attitudes involved in such subserviency are due to a distinct emotional impulse, and are not rather expressive of fear or of devotion.

(8) The members of the pack must be full of emulation; in order that, when the present leader fails, others may be ready to take his place.

(9) For the internal cohesion of the pack, there must be the equivalent of a recognised table of precedence amongst its members; and this is reconciled with the spirit of emulation, by fighting until each knows his place, followed by complete submission on the part of the inferior. Mr. Th. Roosevelt says of a pack of dogs employed in bear-hunting, “at feeding-time each took whatever his strength permitted, and each paid abject deference to whichever animal was his known superior in prowess.”[46] Mr. W.H. Hudson writes of dogs on cattle-breeding establishments on the pampas, that he presumes “they are very much like feral dogs and wolves in their habits. Their quarrels are incessant; but when a fight begins the head of the pack, as a rule, rushes to the spot,” and tries to part the combatants—not always successfully. “But from the foremost in strength and power down to the weakest there is a gradation of authority; each one knows just how far he can go, which companion he can bully when in a bad temper or wishing to assert himself, and to which he must humbly yield in his turn.”[47] The situation reminds one of a houseful of schoolboys, and of how ontogeny repeats phylogeny. Where political control is very feeble, as in mining camps or backwoods settlements, civilised men revert to the same conditions. Fifty years ago, “all along the frontier between Canada and the United States, every one knew whom he could lick, and who could lick him.”[48] Amongst Australian aborigines, we are told that “precedence counts for very much.”[49]

(10) A pack of wolves relies not merely upon running down its prey, but resorts to various stratagems to secure it: as by surrounding it; heading it off from cover; driving it over a precipice; arranging relays of pursuers, who take up the chase when the first begin to flag; setting some to lie in ambush while the rest drive the prey in their direction. Such devices imply intelligent co-operation, some means of communicating ideas, patience and self-control in the interests of the pack and perseverance in carrying out a plan. Failure to co-operate effectually is said to be punished with death. Primitive man, beginning with more brains than a wolf, may be supposed soon to have discovered such arts and to have improved upon them.

(11) When prey has been killed by a pack of wolves, there follows a greedy struggle over the carcass, each trying to get as big a meal as possible. Mr. Th. Roosevelt writes of dogs used in hunting the cougar (puma): “The relations of the pack amongst themselves (when feeding) were those of wild beast selfishness.... They would all unite in the chase and the fierce struggle which usually closed it. But the instant the quarry was killed, each dog resumed his normal attitude of greedy anger or greedy fear toward the others.”[50] As this was a scratch pack of hounds, however, we cannot perhaps infer that a naturally formed pack of wolves is equally discordant, or that the human pack was ever normally like that. Galton, indeed, says: “Many savages are so unamiable and morose as to have hardly any object in associating together, besides that of mutual support;”[51] but this is by no means true of all savages. At any rate, the steadier supply of food obtained by our race since the adoption of pastoral or agricultural economy, with other circumstances, has greatly modified the greedy and morose attitude in many men and disguised it in others; though it reappears under conditions of extreme social dislocation, and it is a proverb that “thieves quarrel over their plunder.” In the original pack such a struggle over the prey may have subserved the important utility of eliminating the weak, and of raising the average strength and ferocity. But some custom must have been established for feeding the women and children. No doubt when fruits were obtainable, the women and children largely subsisted upon them. But the strong instinct of parental care in Primates, the long youth of children, and the greater relative inferiority of females to males (common to anthropoids and savages) than is found amongst dogs and wolves, must have made the human pack from the first differ in many ways from a pack of wolves.

So much, then, as to the traits of character established in primitive man by his having resorted to co-operative hunting: they all plainly persist in ourselves.

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On our intelligence life in the hunting-pack had just as revolutionary an influence, as already explained in the first chapter. The whole art of hunting had to be learned from its rudiments by this enterprising family. With them there was no inherited instinct or disposition, and no tradition or instruction, as there is with the true carnivores: they depended solely on observation, memory, inference. With poor olfactory sense (as usual in apes) prey must be followed and inconvenient enemies outwitted, by acquiring a knowledge of their footprints and other visible signs of neighbourhood, and by discrimination of all the noises they make. The habits and manners of prey and of enemies, their favourite lairs, feeding-grounds and watering-places, their paths through forest, marsh, thicket and high grass, must all be learnt: so must their speed, endurance, means and methods of attack and defence. The whole country within the range of the pack must be known, its resources and its difficulties; and whenever new territory was entered, new lessons in all these matters had to be learned. This must have entailed a rapid natural selection of brains. Only a rapidly developing, plastic brain could have been capable of the requisite accommodation of behaviour in such conditions: a mechanism was required by which more and more new lines of specialised reaction were related to numerous newly observed and discriminated facts.

The very crudest weapons may be handled with variable dexterity; the best handling must be discovered and practised; and this had a high selective value for the hands as well as for the brain. Probably crude weapons were very early used; for some monkeys (and baboons generally) throw sticks or stones, or roll stones down upon an enemy. In Borneo, Wallace came upon a female orang who, “as soon as she saw us, began breaking off branches and the great spiny fruits [of the durian] with every appearance of rage, causing such a shower of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching too near the tree. This habit of throwing down branches has been doubted; but I have, as here narrated, observed it myself on three separate occasions.”[52] The importance of the observation consists in its proving the existence in an anthropoid of the impulse to use missiles under the occasional stress of anger; so that it might be expected rapidly to develop under the constant pressure of hunger. The use of clubs and stones induced the discrimination of the best materials for such weapons, and where they could be found; and, in process of time, brought in a rough shaping of them, the better to serve their purposes. Then came the invention of snares and pitfalls and the discovery of poisons.

Thus the primitive human, or prehuman mind, was active in many new directions; and depending for its skill, not upon instinct or imitation, but upon observation and memory and inference, it was necessary for it to arrange ideas in a definite order before acting upon them, as in making weapons or planning a hunt; indefiniteness or confusion in such matters was fatal. The contrast between growing memory of the past and present experience, between practical ideas and the actions realising them that had been suspended until the right moment came, furthered the differentiation of self-consciousness amidst the world; the contrasts of co-operation and greed, of emulation and loyalty and submission, of honour and shame, furthered the differentiation of self-consciousness amidst the tribe.

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If it be asked—how much of all this development attributed to the hunting-pack might have been brought about just as well by the formation of a defensive herd, such as we see in cattle and horses?—a definite answer can be given. The herd is, of course, marked by (2) gregariousness, (3) perceptive and contagious sympathy and sometimes effective sympathy in common defence, (7) recognition of leaders (all herds that travel have leaders), (8) emulation, (9) precedence; but not by (1) interest in the chase and in killing, nor (4) aggressiveness, nor (10) strategy and perseverance in attack, nor (11) greed; and herd-life affords no conditions for the development of intelligence and dexterity, nor for any of the physical characters that distinguish man. Herd-life does not involve the great and decisive change which is implied in the evolution of human nature. We must conceive, then, of the primitive human mind as a sort of chimpanzee mind adapted to the wolfish conditions of the hunting-pack. Wolves themselves have undergone no great development, compared (say) with cats, for want of hands and other physical advantages which we had to begin with. If some species of baboon had taken to the hunting-life, there might have been very interesting results.

The differentiation of the human from the anthropoid stock must have begun a long time ago; as to when it began there is no direct evidence; and even if fossil remains of the earlier stages of our evolution had been discovered, we could only judge from the strata in which they occurred what must have been their relative antiquity. When it comes to reducing the chronology of past ages to figures, geologists either decline to make any estimate, or the results of their calculations may differ as 1 to 10. Since my own studies give me no claim to an opinion on such matters, whilst it is helpful to have clear ideas, however tentative, I shall adopt the views of Dr. Arthur Keith in his work on The Antiquity of Man, based on estimates published by Prof. Sollas.[53] On turning to p. 509 of that work, a genealogical tree will be found, showing the probable lines of descent of the higher Primates. The separation of the human from the great anthropoid stock is represented as having happened at about the last third of the Oligocene period—say 2,000,000 years ago (or, according to the later estimate, 3,500,000). Pithecanthropus (of Java) branched off as a distinct genus about the middle of the Miocene. Neanderthal man (Homo Neanderthalensis) and Piltdown man (Eoanthropus Dawsoni) separated as distinct species (or genera) from the stock of modern man (absurdly named Homo sapiens) early in the Pliocene, and became extinct respectively (say) 20,000 and 300,000 years ago. The races of modern man began to differentiate near the end of the Pliocene (say) 500,000 years from the present time. Such is the “working hypothesis.”

The skull capacity of the great anthropoids averages 500 c.c.; that of Pithecanthropus is estimated at 900 c.c.; the Australian native average is 1200 c.c.; Eoanthropus, according to Dr. Keith, rises to 1400;[54] a Neanderthal skull has been measured at 1600 c.c.; the modern English average is under 1500 c.c. Of course, mental power depends not on size of the brain only, but also on its differentiation, which may have recently advanced.

As to culture, the Neolithic period extends in Western Europe from about 2000 to 10,000 B.C.: and to that age is usually attributed the introduction of agriculture, the domestication of animals, pottery, weaving, permanent constructed dwellings, and monuments requiring collective labour; but some of these improvements may be of earlier date. In other parts of the world, e.g. in the Eastern Mediterranean region, such culture is probably older, but still comparatively recent. What is known as the PalÆolithic stage of culture is often supposed to have begun early in the second quarter of the Pleistocene period, giving us a retrospect of (say) 300,000 years. But if we include under “PalÆolithic” all unpolished stone-work that shows clear signs of having been executed according to an idea or mental pattern (and this seems a reasonable definition), the “rostro-carinate” implements must be so called, and then the beginning of this culture must be pushed back into the Pliocene.[55] In Pliocene (and perhaps Miocene) deposits have further been discovered numerous “eoliths”: stones so roughly chipped that they do not imply an idea-pattern; so that, whilst many archÆologists accept them as of human workmanship, some experts dispute their claim to be considered artefacts. Of course, there must be eoliths; the only question is whether we have yet unearthed any of them. Our forefathers cannot have begun by shaping stones to a definite figure and special purpose. Beginning with stones taken up as they lay, they discovered that a broken stone with a sharp edge inflicted a worse wound than a whole one; then broke stones to obtain this advantage; used sharp fragments to weight clubs; and very slowly advanced to the manufacture of recognisable axes and spear-heads, meanwhile discovering other uses for flaked stones; and it seems to have needed at least 1,400,000 (or 2,800,000) years to arrive at the poorest of known palÆoliths. This strikingly agrees with the law, often stated, that the progress of culture is, by virtue of tradition, cumulative, and flows, as a stone falls, with accelerating velocity: in spite of the ebb, to which from age to age we see it to be liable. At any one time, moreover, the art of stone-working was, probably, even in adjacent tribes, at different stages of advancement; it depends partly upon the kind of stone obtainable; but it has been only recently that such contrasts could occur as Herodotus[56] describes among the hosts of Xerxes: when, beside the well-accoutred Persians and Medes, marched Libyans and Mysians armed with wooden javelins hardened in the fire, and Ethiopians with stone-tipped arrows and spears headed with the sharpened horns of antelopes.

The moral of all this is that there was abundant time before the rise of Neolithic culture (which may be called the beginning of civilisation) for the complete adaptation of mankind everywhere, by natural selection, to the life of hunters; and that, since then, there has not been time for the biological adaptation of any race to the civilised state. We shall see that natural selection has probably had some civilising influence; but any approach to complete adaptation has been impossible, not only for want of time, but also because of rapid changes in the structure of civilisation, the social protection of some eccentrics, the persistence of the hunting-life as a second resource or as a pastime, and by the frequent recurrence of warfare—that is to say, man-hunting. To civilisation we are, for the most part, merely accommodated by experience, education, tradition and social pressure. A few people seem to be adapted to civilised life from their birth, and others to the slavish life; but all inherit, more or less manifestly, the nature of the hunter and warrior. This is a necessary basis of general and social psychology; and perhaps tribal or national characters (so far as distinguishable) may be understood by assigning the conditions under which they have, in various directions, been modified from this type.

To avoid the appearance of overlooking an obvious objection, I may add that the life of the hunter does not imply an exclusively carnivorous diet, but merely that hunting is the activity upon which his faculties are bent and upon which his livelihood chiefly depends. It is most unlikely that a cousin of the frugivorous anthropoids should entirely give up his ancestral food, immediately, or perhaps at any time. Even the diet of the wolf, in North-East Canada, includes “much fruit, especially the uva-ursi”; and the coyote there also eats berries;[57] so does the jackal in India. Savage women everywhere subsist largely on roots and fruits. Dr. Keith says the teeth and jaws of the Neanderthal species were adapted to a coarse vegetable diet.[58] Yet the Neanderthal burials at La Ferrasie, La Chapelle aux Saints, Jersey and Krapina, with their implements and animal remains, leave no doubt that the species hunted the biggest game. At Krapina, besides mammoth and rhinoceros, “the cave-bear occurred abundantly, it was evidently a favourite article of diet”: the inhabitants were not fanatical vegetarians.

§ 6. Some further Consequences of the Hunting-life

Between the remote age when our hypothetical ancestor became a hunter and the time to which probably belong the remains of the oldest known men, there lies a gap of (say) one (or two) and a half million years, concerning which we have not only no direct evidence but not even any parallel in the world by means of which to apply the comparative method. Just at the beginning, the parallel of the wolf-pack sheds some light upon our path; but the light soon grows faint; for the primitive human, from the first more intelligent than wolves, and inheriting from the ape-stock qualities of character which the new life greatly modified but could not extirpate, must under pressure of selection have become, after not many ages, an animal unlike any other. Just at the end, again, something concerning those who lived many thousand years before the beginning of history may be inferred from the parallel of existing savage customs; from their rock-dwellings, drawings, tools, weapons, hearths, something about their way of life; from evidence of their burial-customs, something of their beliefs. But what can be said of our ancestors during all those years that intervene between the beginning and the end?

Having been a hunter at the first and at the last, we may reasonably suppose that he had been so all the time. But, with our present knowledge, our chief guide as to other matters seems to be the fact that the most backward of existing savages possess powers of body and mind, and forms and products of culture, which must have been acquired gradually through a long course of development from no better origins than are traceable in apes and wolves. As the use of good stone weapons by living savages and the occurrence of stone weapons in deposits of various age in the Pleistocene—less and less perfectly made the further we go back—justify us in assuming that there must have been eoliths of even cruder workmanship at remoter dates, so the possession by savages of extensive languages, intricate customs, luxuriant myths, considerable reasoning powers and even humane sentiments, compel us to imagine such possessions as belonging to our prehistoric ancestors, in simpler and simpler forms, as we go back age by age toward the beginning. A tentative reconstruction of the lost series of events may sometimes be supported by what has been observed of the individual development of our children.

(a) For example, the constructive impulse, slightly shown by anthropoids that make beds and shelters in the trees, was called into activity in man especially in the making of weapons, tools and snares, and became an absorbing passion; so that a savage (often accused of being incapable of prolonged attention!) will sit for days working at a spear or an axe: they are inattentive only to what does not interest them. Many children from about the sixth year come under the same sort of fascination—digging, building, making bows and arrows, boats and so forth. This is a necessary preparation for all the achievements of civilised life; and it is reasonable to suppose that the stages of growth of such interest in construction are indicated by the improvement of ancient implements.

(b) As to language—in the most general sense, as the communication of emotions and ideas by vocal sounds—the rudiments of it are widespread in animal life. A sort of dog-language is recognised, and monkeys seem to have a still greater “vocabulary.” Hence, a number of emotional vocal expressions was probably in use among the primitive human stock. And the new hunting-life was favourable to the development of communicative signs; for it depended on co-operation, which is wanting in ape-life, and in the lower extant savages hardly exists, except in hunting, war, and magical or religious rites. Hunting, moreover, is (as I have said) especially encouraging to onomatopoeic expression in imitating the noises of animals, etc. It was still more favourable, perhaps, to the growth of gesture-language in imitating the behaviour of animals and the actions involved in circumventing and attacking them. Increasing powers of communication were extremely useful, and the pack must have tried to develop them. Without the endeavour to communicate, there could never have been a language better than the ape’s; nor could there have been the endeavour without the need. That gesture alone was very helpful may be assumed; and it must have assisted in fixing the earliest vocal signs for things and actions and qualities, and probably determined the earliest syntax; but when, in hunting, members of the pack were hidden from one another, or when their hands were occupied, gesture was not available, and communication depended on the voice. The speech of children similarly emerges from emotional noises and impulsive babbling, assisted by gesture.

Passing to later ages, we cannot expect to learn much about the speech of prehistoric men, whom we know only by a few bones. As to the Java skull, Dr. Keith observes that “the region of the brain which subserves the essentially human gift of speech, was not ape-like in Pithecanthropus. The parts for speech are there; they are small, but clearly foreshadow the arrangement of convolutions seen in modern man.” On the other hand, “the higher association areas ... had not reached a human level.”[59] The jaw of this skull not having been found, nothing can be said of its fitness for carrying out the process of articulation. As to Eoanthropus, “if our present conception of the orbital part of the third frontal convolution is well founded, namely, that it takes part in the mechanism of speech, then we have grounds for believing that the Piltdown man had reached that point of brain-development when speech had become a possibility. When one looks at the lower jaw, however, and the projecting canine teeth, one hesitates to allow him more than a potential ability.”[60] The jaw had not undergone the characteristic changes which in modern man give freedom to the tongue in the articulation of words.[61] But Dr. Keith “cannot detect any feature in the frontal, parietal or occipital areas which clearly separate this brain-cast from modern ones.”[62] Eoanthropus, therefore, must have had a good deal to say and, being a social animal, must have felt the need of expression; and, though he was not a direct ancestor of ours, it can hardly be doubted that at some period the jaws of our own ancestors were no better adapted than his to articulate speech. May we not infer that articulate speech, meeting a need of the stock, arose very gradually, and was slowly differentiated from some less definite and structural connection of expressive and onomatopoeic vocables, such as we have seen may naturally have arisen amongst the earliest hunters? Pari passu the jaw was modified.

(c) All savages live by custom; gregarious animals have their customs; and in the primitive hunting-pack customs must have been early established as “conditions of gregariousness.” M. Salomon Reinach, indeed, thinks that the anthropoid probably became human as the result of inventing taboos, especially in sexual relations; there was economy of nervous energy in the direction of the senses, and consequent enrichment of the intellect.[63] His hypothesis does not carry us far, perhaps, into the particulars of human form and faculty; but it contains this truth, that without the growth of customs there could have been no progress for human nature; and it certainly points to the probability that some custom was early established with regard to marriage. In Prof. Westermarck’s opinion our species was originally monogamous.[64] Supposing this to have been the custom, as it is amongst many Primates, could it have persisted after the formation of the hunting-pack? According to Mr. Thompson Seton, wolves pair “probably for life”;[65] but this is disputed; and so it is whether or no the male of a seasonal pair takes part in caring for the puppies.[66] Of the primitive human stock one may say that whilst, on the one hand, the association of many males and females in the same pack may have tended to break up the family, on the other hand, the long youth of the children and the parental care generally characteristic of Primates would have tended to preserve it; that the practice of pairing requires the largest number of males (setting aside polyandry), and lessens quarrelling, and is therefore favourable to the strength of the pack; and that any custom may have been established that was most favourable to the species in its new life. The least probable of all conditions is promiscuity; for the rearing of children with their ever-lengthening youth must have been difficult, taxing the care of both parents.

(d) The claim to property is instinctive in most animals—claim to a certain territory, or to a nest, or lair, or mate. Each early human pack probably claimed a certain hunting-range; and each family its lair, which it guarded, as our domestic dog guards the house. In Australia “every tribe has its own country, and its boundaries are well known; and they are respected by others”;[67] and the Bushmen, who retained the ancient hunting-life more perfectly than any other known people, are said to have been formerly divided into large tribes with well-defined hunting-grounds.[68] As weapons or other implements, charms, or ornaments came into use, the attitude toward the territory or lair will have been extended to include them; indeed, it seems to be instinctive even in lower Primates. “In the Zoological Gardens,” says Darwin, “a monkey, which had weak teeth, used to break open nuts with a stone; and I was assured by the keepers that, after using the stone, he hid it in the straw, and would not let any other monkey touch it. Here, then, we have the idea of property.”[69] Among the half-wolf train-dogs of Canada, the claims of one to property seem to be recognised by others; for a dog will defend its cache of food against another that ordinarily it fears; and “the bigger dog rarely presses the point.”[70] The utility of keeping the peace within the tribe, no doubt, led to the growth of customs concerning property, and to their protection by the social sanction, and later by the taboo.[71] For taboo cannot be the origin of respect for property or for any custom: it implies a custom already existing, which it protects by the growth of a belief in some magical penalty that is effective even when there are no witnesses. The same utility of order must have established customs of dividing the kill of the pack: later also protected by taboo, as we still see in many savage tribes.

The attitude towards property is very variable amongst the tribes now known to us. Still, considering how early and strongly it is manifested by children, we may infer with some plausibility its antiquity in the race. The urgent desire of property, and tenacity in holding it, displayed by many individuals, though not an amiable, has been a highly useful trait, to which is due that accumulation of capital that has made possible the whole of our material and much of our spiritual civilisation. Amongst barbarians it may be a necessary condition of social order. Had not wealth been highly prized amongst our own ancestors, it is hard to see how revenge could ever have been appeased by the wergeld. The payment, indeed, was not the whole transaction; it implied an acknowledgment of guilt and of the obligation to make amends; but these things would not have mollified an enemy nurtured in the tradition of the blood-feud, if silver had not been dear to him. It is still accepted as compensation for injuries that seem difficult to measure by the ounce. Wealth gives rank, and gratifies not only the greed but also the emulative spirit of the pack. Acquisitiveness is an essential trait of aristocracy, and adhesiveness of its perpetuity. Homespun prudence belongs, in our ancestry, to a more recent stratum of motives; we see it as a blind instinct in squirrels and beavers, a quasi-instinctive propensity in dogs and wolves (who hide food that they cannot immediately devour); but it is not known in any anthropoid, and is acquired at some stage by some human races—not by all; for it is not found in many extant savages. The only occasion on which Australian tribes show prudential foresight as to food is on the approach of the season of magical rites, when they lay in a stock of food before giving themselves up for weeks or months body and soul to thaumaturgy.[72] Prudence is not, however, merely a function of foresight or intelligence, or else the Irish would be as prudent as the Scotch.

(e) The first wars, probably, were waged for hunting-grounds; and this may have been a revival, for the carnivorous anthropoid pack, of a state of affairs that existed amongst their ancestors at a much earlier date; for battles for a feeding-ground have been witnessed between troops of the lower Primates. Such a battle between two bands of langur (Semnopithecus entellus) has been described;[73] and Darwin relates after Brehm how “in Abyssinia, when baboons of one species (C. gelada) descend in troops from the mountains to plunder the fields, they sometimes encounter troops of another species (C. hamadryas), and then a fight ensues. The Geladas roll down great stones, which the Hamadryas try to avoid, and then both species, making a great uproar, rush furiously against each other.”[74] As packs of the wolf-ape increased in numbers and spread over the world, they no doubt generally came to regard one another as rivals upon the same footing as the great cats and packs of dogs, and every attempt at expansion or migration provoked a battle. Wars strengthened the internal sympathies and loyalties of the pack or tribe and its external antipathies, and extended the range and influence of the more virile and capable tribes.

It is true that neighbouring tribes of savages are not now always mutually hostile. In Australia, we are told, local groups and adjacent tribes are usually friendly;[75] but with them the age of expansion seems to have closed some time ago, and a sort of equilibrium has been established. On the other hand, it is a shallow sort of profundity that insists upon interpreting every war as a struggle for nutrition, an effort to solve the social problem. Aggressiveness and insatiable greed are characteristic of many tribes—passions always easily exploited by their leaders, as in the civilised world by dynasts and demagogues. Plethora is more insolent than poverty. Lust of power, of glory, of mere fighting is a stronger incentive than solicitude for the poor.

However, in the development of society nothing has been so influential as war: an immense subject, for the outlines of which I refer to Herbert Spencer’s Political Institutions.[76]

(f) Most of the amusements as well as the occupations of mankind depend for their zest upon the spirit of hunting and fighting, which they gratify and relieve, either directly or in a conventionalised and symbolical way, and at the same time keep alive. Sports and games involve the pursuit of some end by skill and strategy, often the seizing upon some sort of prey, or slaying outright, and they give scope to emulation. Emulation is a motive in the race for wealth, in every honourable career, even in addiction to science and learning: though here the main stress is upon an instinct older than the pack—curiosity, a general character of the Primates. That children at first play alone, later play together, and then “make up sides,” repeats the change from the comparatively solitary life of anthropoids to the social life and combined activities of the hunting-pack. From the interest of the chase and the aggressiveness that is involved in it must be derived all that we call “enterprise,” whether beneficent or injurious: a trait, certainly, which there is little reason to regard as inherited from the anthropoid stock.

(g) The great amusement and pastime of feeding has, no doubt, descended to us in unbroken tradition, through harvest and vintage festivals, from the unbridled indulgence that followed a successful hunt. And I offer the conjecture that the origin of laughter and the enjoyment of broad humour (so often discussed) may be traced to these occasions of riotous exhilaration and licence. We may suppose, indeed, that these conditions began to prevail not in the earliest days of the ravenous pack, but after some advance had been made in the customs of eating. Savages usually cram to repletion when possible, and with huge gusto, for there may not soon be another opportunity. If uproarious feasting was advantageous physically and socially (as till recently we all thought it was), addiction to the practice was a ground of survival; and laughter (a discharge of undirected energy, as Spencer says), being its natural expression and enhancement, shared in its perpetuation. This social origin agrees with the infectiousness of laughter, with its connection with triumph and cruelty, and with the quality of the jokes that still throughout the world excite most merriment—practical jokes and allusions to drunkenness, the indecorous, the obscene. Sir Robert Walpole preferred such humour as the most sociable; because in that everybody could take part. Many refinements have been introduced in polite circles; but it is in vain that one begins a theory of laughter with an analysis of the genius of MoliÈre.

Similarly, I suppose that weeping, lamentation and the facial and bodily expressions of grief were developed by the social utility of common mourning in tribal defeat and bereavement.

§ 7. Moralisation of the Hunters

We are left to speculate about the earliest growth of magnanimity, friendliness, compassion, general benevolence and other virtues. They cannot be explained merely by the hunting-life, which so easily accounts for greed, cruelty, pride and every sort of aggressiveness. Robert Hartmann writes: “It is well known that both rude and civilised peoples are capable of showing unspeakable and, as it is erroneously termed, inhuman cruelty towards each other. These acts of cruelty, murder and rapine are often the result of the inexorable logic of national characteristics and, unhappily, are truly human, since nothing like them can be traced in the animal world. It would, for instance, be a grave mistake to compare a tiger with a bloodthirsty executioner of the Reign of Terror, since the former only satisfies his natural appetite in preying on other animals. The atrocities of the trials for witchcraft, the indiscriminate slaughter committed by the Negroes on the coast of Guinea, the sacrifice of human victims by the Khonds, the dismemberment of living men by the Battus, find no parallel in the habits of animals in their savage state. And such a comparison is, above all, impossible in the case of anthropoids, which display no hostility toward men or other animals unless they are first attacked. In this respect the anthropoid ape stands upon a higher plane than many men.”[77] Are we, then, to explain the more amiable side of human nature, partly at least, by derivation from the frugivorous Primates, extensively modified by our wolfish adaptation, but surviving as latent character?

(a) Several further considerations may be offered to account for the growth of what we call humanity, (i) The long non-age of human children is favourable to the attachments of family life, and such attachments may under certain conditions be capable of extension beyond the family; but I cannot trace the whole flood of altruistic regard to the sole source of maternal or parental love. (ii) Friendliness and the disposition to mutual aid are so useful to a hunting-pack that is not merely seasonal but permanent (as I take ours to have been), both to individuals and to the pack as a whole, within certain limits (as that the wounded, sick, or aged must not amount to an encumbrance), that we may suppose natural selection to have favoured the growth of effective sympathy, not merely in mutual defence, but so far as it is actually found at present in backward tribes. It nowhere seems to be excessive; and its manifestation in some civilised races seems to depend not upon a positive increase of benevolence in the generality, but (iii) upon the breaking down here and there of conditions that elsewhere oppose and inhibit it. Thus the generosity, mercy and magnanimity that constitute the chivalrous ideal, depend (I believe) upon the attainment by a class of such undisputed superiority that there is no occasion for jealousy or rivalry in relation to other classes; for should the superiority be disputed, these virtues quickly disappear. Similarly, what have been called the “slavish virtues” of charity, humility, long-suffering may arise amongst those who are free from rivalry, because they have no hope of aggrandisement in wealth or honour, and who have indeed suffered long. With the interfusion of classes, their virtues interfuse; for they have a common root, and are active, provided that circumstances do not inhibit them.

(iv) But since in individuals our complex nature varies in all directions, and amongst the rest in the direction of benevolence; and since any organ or quality that varies is apt to continue to do so, and may go on varying even beyond the limits of biological utility; why in human life may not this happen with benevolence (or with any other passion or virtue); so that in some men it expands with wonderful richness and beauty even to the sacrifice of themselves—nay, by excessive clemency or generosity, even to the injury of the tribe or of the race?

(b) The moral sense or conscience has been discussed by Darwin[78] “exclusively from the side of natural history”; so as this is the way of considering human nature in the present book, I shall epitomise his account of it; which seems to be true, and to which I see little to add. He finds four chief conditions of the growth of a moral sense: (a) the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to sympathise with them and to help them. (b) When the mind is highly developed, images of past actions and motives continually recur; “and that feeling of dissatisfaction or even misery which invariably results ... from any dissatisfied instinct would arise as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression”—as with anger or greed. (c) After language has been acquired, public opinion can be expressed, and becomes the paramount guide of action; though still “our regard for the approbation and disapprobation of our fellows depends on sympathy.” (d) Social instinct, sympathy and obedience to the judgment of the community are strengthened by the formation of habit. Darwin then proves successively these four positions.

Seeing the stress here laid upon sympathy, it may make the matter clearer if we observe that the word occurs in different senses—for the participation in another’s satisfaction or distress (emotional sympathy) and readiness to help (effective sympathy); and these are the meanings under (a), the first of the above heads: and, again, for the knowledge that there are ideas or judgments in another’s mind together with approval or disapproval of our actions; and this is the meaning under (c), the third head. But knowledge of another’s thoughts is not sympathy, except so far as, being accompanied with assent to his judgment, there is participation in his feelings of approval or disapproval; and, if we dissent from his judgment, there may, indeed, be perceptive sympathy as to his feelings, but there is no emotional sympathy or participation in them—there is rather fear or resentment. It is necessary to bear in mind that perception of another’s feelings, participation in them and impulse to help or relieve are separable processes, and that perceptive sympathy is as active in cruelty as in generosity or mercy.

It may be added that (b), the second of the four conditions assigned by Darwin as determining the growth of the moral sense or conscience, accounts more especially for “remorse of conscience”; and that (c), the third condition, explains that tone of authority attaching to conscience on which Bishop Butler laid so much stress.[79]

How early the moral sense began to form itself in our stock cannot be estimated because it must have been a very gradual process. Probably the rudiments of it appeared in the family life of the ape even before our differentiation; and the authoritative character of conscience established itself under the discipline of the hunting-pack before there was much development of mind (for dogs know what theft is), and under pressure of a public opinion that managed to express itself without language. In an original and suggestive book[80] Mr. Trotter has shown that a herd (pack, tribe or nation) necessarily approves of whatever actions are done in its interests as good or right, and disapproves of the contrary actions as bad or wrong. Confident that its beliefs and customs are good and right, the pack persecutes dissenters and nonconformists. “Good” is a relative idea. “‘The good are good warriors and hunters,’ said a Pawnee chief; whereupon the author who mentions the saying remarks that this would also be the opinion of a wolf if he could express it.”[81] Hence we may guess the principal contents of the primitive categorical imperative. The study of Ethnology and History enables us to trace the modification and enrichment of those contents under varying conditions of culture, and for the results of such study I refer to Edward Westermarck’s Origin and Development of Moral Ideas.

(c) After the introduction of agriculture, the stress of natural selection was in certain directions altered. At first, indeed, most agricultural work, probably, was done by women; but in its progress it fell extensively into the hands of men; and then advantage accrued to those tribes that were capable of steady industry and prudence. The new employment decreased aggression on the principle that “had Alexander been holding the plough, he could not have run his friend Clitus through with a spear.” The sick and aged were now less an encumbrance than they had been to hunters. Those who could not endure a settled life wandered away in their old pursuits. The more aggressive clans slaughtered one another in the vendetta. Social pressure and hanging eliminated many of the more idle, improvident, dishonest and unruly, whose instincts resisted “accommodation.” The more neighbourly and co-operative tended to predominate. As civilisation intensifies, the numerous ways of getting a livelihood, which (as we have seen) derive their motive-force from the spirit of the pack, gratify that spirit under so many disguises and with so little direct personal collision, as to be compatible with a great deal of friendliness and benevolence; and co-operation, direct or indirect, steadily increases.

(d) Increasing capacity of forming ideas of remote ends and of co-ordinating many activities in their pursuit, implies the inhibition of many aggressive or distracting impulses, and constitutes an automatic control. And although it is now fashionable to depreciate the power of intelligence in human life, surely, its development has had great influence. As men come to foresee the many consequences of action they learn to modify and regulate it, as each foreseen consequence excites some impulse, either reinforcing or inhibiting action. Reflection upon our lot has done much to ameliorate it. The “conditions of gregariousness” (to use W.K. Clifford’s definition of morality) have been expounded by the more penetrating and comprehensive minds—prophets, poets, philosophers; and some disciples have understood them and have persuaded many to believe. Nor have such luminaries arisen only in the later phases of culture when their writings have been delivered or their sayings recorded. Probably it was some one man who first pointed out to a tribe that had ignored the fact, that whether a wrong had been done by accident or on purpose affected the agent’s guilt and ought to affect the penalty exacted. Some one man, probably, first saw what injustice is often disguised by the specious equality of the lex talionis; another first tried to assuage the bitterness of a vendetta by appointing compensation; another, perhaps first proposed to substitute animal for human sacrifice, or a puppet for a slave. And when we read the lists of sagacious proverbs that have been collected from many savage tribes, we must consider that it was by eminent individuals that those sayings were first uttered one by one: individuals with the gifts of insight and expression to summarise the experience of a whole tribe in memorable words, rude forerunners of our prophets and philosophers.

§ 8. Influence of the Imaginary Environment

The necessity of learning the whole art of hunting from its rudiments, without the help of instinct or tradition, by sheer observation, memory and inference, put extraordinary stress upon the brain. At first by knowledge, strategy, co-operation and persistence of will, later by devising weapons and snares, evolving language and discovering the ways of making and utilising fire, man found means of entirely changing the conditions of his life; but this would have been impossible without a great development of his brain; and, accordingly, it appears that Eoanthropus, at the beginning of the Pleistocene, had a skull with three times the cubic capacity of the anthropoids. With the growth of the brain came a continually increasing fecundity of ideas. “Piltdown man saw, heard, felt, thought, and dreamt much as we do.”[82] The use of ideas is to foresee events and prepare for them beforehand: the great advantage of distance-senses over contact-senses, is to give an animal time to adapt its actions to deferred events; and ideas give this power in a vastly higher degree. So far the utility of brains and ideas seems obvious. But in order that ideas may be useful in this way, they must (one would suppose) represent and anticipate the actual course of events. If they falsely indicate the order of nature, or even beings and actions that do not exist at all, ideas may seem to be worse than useless.

Now, when we turn to the lowest existing savages, they are found to possess, in comparison with apes, a considerable fecundity of ideas; constituting, on the one hand, a good stock of common sense, or knowledge of the properties and activities of the things and animals around them, and of how to deal with them, which enables them to carry on the affairs of a life much more complex and continuous than any animal’s: but including, on the other hand, a strange collection of beliefs about magic and spirits, which entirely misrepresent the course of nature and the effective population of the world. These latter beliefs, or imaginative delusions, hamper them in so many ways, waste so much time, lead them sometimes into such dark and cruel practices, that one may be excused for wondering whether their bigger brains can have been, on the whole, of any biological advantage to them in comparison with the anthropoids. The anthropoids live by common sense. So do savages, and they have much more of it; but the anthropoids seem not to be troubled by magic and animism. We must suppose that the common sense of primitive man increased age by age, as he became more and more perfectly adapted to the hunting-life, and that at some stage his imagination began to falsify the relations of things and the powers of nature. It seems that imagination-beliefs depend chiefly upon the influence of desire and fear, suggestibility, hasty generalisation, and the seduction of reasoning by analogy. At what stage imaginations, thus divorced from reality, began to influence human life, it is impossible to say; but it cannot be less than half a million years ago, if (as Dr. Keith says) Eoanthropus, 400,000 years ago, “thought and dreamt much as we do.” Why did not such delusions hinder our development? Or did they promote it?

The first consideration is, that biological adaptation is nearly always a compromise: if any organ or faculty be useful on the whole, in spite of some disutility, its increase favours the survival of those in whom it increases; and this is true of the brain and its thinking. The second is, that nearly all the magical and animistic beliefs and practices that are socially destructive, probably belong to a stage of human life that is attained long after our differentiation has been established, and when some progress has been made in arts and customs. Savages of the lowest culture have few beliefs that can be called positively injurious. Talismans and spells, not by themselves relied upon, but only adscititious to common-sense actions, give confidence without weakening endeavour. To curse, or to “point the bone,” does not create but merely expresses a malevolent purpose; and, although sometimes fatal by suggestion, is on the whole better than to assassinate. Taboos do more good by protecting person and property and custom than they do harm by restricting the use of foods. Belief in imaginary evils waiting upon secret sins exerts, whilst supported by social unanimity, a control upon all kinds of behaviour: it is the beginning of the “religious sanction,” and one sort of conscience. The dread of spirits that prowl at night keeps people in the family-cave or by the camp-fire; and that is the best place for them. Many rites and observances are sanitary. Totemism rarely does any harm, and may once have usefully symbolised the unity of social groups. Totemic and magical dances give excellent physical training, promote the spirit of co-operation, are a sort of drill; and (like all art), whilst indulging, they also restrain imagination by imposing upon it definite forms. For a long time there was no special profession of wizard or priest, with whose appearance most of the evil of magic and animism originates; though probably even they generally do more good than harm by their courage and sagacity, by discovering drugs and poisons, by laying ghosts, and by their primitive studies in medicine and psychology.

The wizard, however, and the priest, who could never have existed but for the prevalent beliefs in Magic and Animism, have a further and far more important function in human life, namely, the organisation, or rather reorganisation of society. The organisation of the hunting-pack described above was liable through several causes to fall asunder. Some of these causes are obvious: (a) The improvement of weapons and snares and discovery of poisons made very small parties, or even single families, self-sufficing—as among the Bushmen (though they sometimes assembled for a grand hunt).[83] (b) Failure of game from desiccation, as in Australia, or because the tribe has been driven into a poor country like Tierra del Fuego; so that a small population is scattered over a wide area, and reduced to a greater or less dependence on “collecting.” (c) The adoption of even a primitive agricultural or pastoral life may make hunting a secondary interest. In such cases the natural leaders of a clan are no longer (as in the old pack) plainly indicated; and if society is to be saved from anarchy, some new control must establish itself for the preservation of tradition and custom. Conceivably this happened in several ways; but in fact (I believe) we know of only one, namely: First, the rule of wizards, who are chiefly old men credited with mysterious power that makes the boldest tribesman quail, such as the headmen and elders of an Australian tribe. In New Guinea, too, and much of Melanesia, the power of rulers, even though recognised as of noble birth, depends chiefly upon their reputation for Magic. And among the Bushmen secrets about poisons and antidotes and colours for painting (probably considered magical) were heirlooms in certain families of chiefs, and gave them caste.[84] Secondly, at a later stage, as the belief in ghosts more and more prevails, and ancestral ghosts are worshipped, and ghosts of heroes or chiefs become veritable gods, the priests who celebrate their worship strengthen the position of chiefs or kings descended from these gods, and help to maintain more comprehensive and coherent governments than those established upon Magic only; though to these later forms, also, and to Religion itself magical beliefs contribute their support. The inevitable development of illusory imaginations along with common sense, then, assisted early and also later culture, because they preserved order and cohesion by re-arousing the ancient submission and loyalty of the pack. For common sense is always limited to present conditions, it could never have foreseen the dependence of human life upon order and the necessity of maintaining cohesion even at great immediate sacrifices. These interests were, therefore, served indirectly through delusions; natural selection must, within certain limits, have favoured the superstitious. Excessively imaginative and superstitious tribes may sometimes have been eliminated; for common sense also has biological utility. But, perverse as it may seem, imaginations utterly false have had their share in promoting “progress”: co-operating with agriculture and trade, magic, religions and the fine arts have, by supporting government and civil order, helped in accommodating us, and even in some measure adapting us, to our present condition, such as it is.