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.

* * * * *

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.

* * * * *

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.

§ 5. THE WOLF-TYPE OF MAN ESTABLISHED BY NATURAL SELECTION

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 onomatopœic

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 onomatopœic 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] See _The Antiquity of Man_, by Arthur Keith.

[29] _Malay Archipelago_, pp. 46-7.

[30] According to R. L. Garner, however, both gorillas and chimpanzees

are polygamous. See _Gorillas and Chimpanzees_, pp. 54 and 214.

[31] This view is not opposed to the suggestion I have somewhere

seen that the collecting activities of women, whilst men hunted,

may, at some stage, have led to property and domestication of plants

and animals. Again, the pastoral and agricultural states are not

necessarily successive: it depends upon local conditions. For an

excellent survey of the gradual rise of primitive culture and the

difficulties it encountered, see H. Spencer’s _Industrial Institutions,

Principles of Sociology_, Vol. III.

[32] It is certainly believed by fox-hunters that a fox feeds his vixen

when she is occupied with their family, and that “if the vixen is

killed he will bring up the family by himself.”—Thomas F. Dale, _The

Fox_, pp. 12, 13.

Nothing incredible in this—nor of wolves. Can the vixen provide for

herself and litter alone? If not, the dog must do it: else there could

be no foxes or wolves.

However, de Canteleu denies that the he-wolf takes any part in rearing

the young (_La Chasse du Loup_, p. 30).

[33] W. P. Pycraft, in his entertaining _Courtship of Animals_, after

assuming that Man became a hunter for the sake of the excitement such

a life afforded, goes on (p. 23): “A little later the advantages of

neighbourliness were borne in on him, largely for the sake of the

greater ease wherewith the animals of the chase could be captured by

their combined efforts; but this begat comradeship and some of the

graces that follow therefrom.”

[34] _Descent of Man_, ch. xx.

[35] See above, footnote on p. 32.

[36] Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, 7th ed., p. 580.

[37] _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, p. 262.

[38] _Hunting Trips in North America_, p. 349.

[39] G. W. Stone, _Native Races of South Africa_, p. 91.

[40] _The Arctic Prairies_, p. 20.

[41] _La Chasse du Loup_, p. 21.

[42] _Life Histories of Northern Animals_, p. 755.

[43] _Wild Beasts of India_, pp. 275-6. Cf. Casserly, _Life on an

Indian Outpost_, pp. 94-5. Brehm says, in _Thierleben_, that in Russia

wolves attack and kill the bear.

[44] _Life Histories of Northern Animals_, p. 754.

[45] _Naturalist in La Plata_, p. 346.

[46] _Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter_, p. 70.

[47] _Op. cit._, pp. 336-7.

[48] Hiram S. Maxim, _My Life_, p. 57.

[49] Spencer and Gillen, _Across Australia_, p. 388.

[50] _Op. cit._, pp. 6-7.

[51] _Op. cit._, p. 78.

[52] _Malay Archipelago_, p. 43.

[53] See the _Report of the British Association_, 1900, pp. 711-30. The

author has since then revised his estimates, assigning much greater

depth to the Pliocene and Miocene deposits and proportionally more

time for their formation. See the _Quarterly Journal of the Geological

Society_, LXV. (1909).

[54] Dr. Smith Woodward’s reconstruction gives the skull of Eoanthropus

a capacity of about 1300 c.c.

[55] See Ray Lankester’s _Description of the Test-Specimen_. R.A.I.,

_Occasional Papers_, No. 4.

[56] Book VII. chs. 69, 71, 74.

[57] E. Thompson Seton, _The Arctic Prairies_, pp. 304 and 352.

[58] _Op. cit._, pp. 151, 239, 476.

[59] _Antiquity of Man_, p. 268.

[60] A. Keith, _op. cit._, p. 408.

[61] _Op. cit._, p. 452.

[62] _Op. cit._, p. 414.

[63] _Cultes, Mythes et Religion_, III. p. 430.

[64] _Primitive Marriage_, ch. iii.

[65] _Life Histories of Northern Animals_, p. 757.

[66] See above, § 3 (4), footnote, p. 37.

[67] Spencer and Gillen, _Across Australia_, p. 198.

[68] G. W. Stone, _Native Races of South Africa_, p. 33.

[69] _Descent of Man_, ch. iii.

[70] E. Thompson Seton, _Life Histories of Northern Animals_, p. 769.

[71] E. Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, II. p. 52.

[72] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Northern Territory of

Australia_, p. 27.

[73] _Royal Natural History_, I. pp. 72-3.

[74] _Descent of Man_, ch. iii.

[75] Spencer and Gillen, _Across Australia_, p. 200.

[76] _Principles of Sociology_, Vol. II.

[77] _Anthropoid Apes_, pp. 294-5.

[78] _Descent of Man_, ch. iv.

[79] _Sermons on Human Nature._

[80] _The Herd Instinct._

[81] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, II. p. 89.

[82] A. Keith, _op. cit._, p. 429.

[83] G. M. Theal, _History and Ethnology of South Africa_, p. 11.

[84] G. W. Stone, _Native Races of South Africa_, p. 76.