Universal Warfare of Primeval Men.
In speaking of the higher altruistic feelings as being antagonistic to
the continuance of warfare, I did not mean to imply that warfare can
ever be directly put down by our horror of cruelty or our moral
disapproval of strife. The actual process is much more indirect and
complex than this. In respect of belligerency the earliest men were
doubtless no better than brutes. They were simply the most crafty and
formidable among brutes. To get food was the prime necessity of life,
and as long as food was obtainable only by hunting and fishing, or
otherwise seizing upon edible objects already in existence, chronic and
universal quarrel was inevitable. The conditions of the struggle for
existence were not yet visibly changed from what they had been from the
outset in the animal world. That struggle meant everlasting slaughter,
and the fiercest races of fighters would be just the ones to survive and
perpetuate their kind. Those most successful primitive men, from whom
civilized peoples are descended, must have excelled in treachery and
cruelty, as in quickness of wit and strength of will. That moral sense
which makes it seem wicked to steal and murder was scarcely more
developed in them than in tigers or wolves. But to all this there was
one exception. The family supplied motives for peaceful coöperation.[12]
Within the family limits fidelity and forbearance had their uses, for
events could not have been long in showing that the most coherent
families would prevail over their less coherent rivals. Observation of
the most savage races agrees with the comparative study of the
institutions of civilized peoples, in proving that the only bond of
political union recognized among primitive men, or conceivable by them,
was the physical fact of blood-relationship. Illustrations of this are
found in plenty far within the historic period. The very township, which
under one name or another has formed the unit of political society among
all civilized peoples, was originally the stockaded dwelling-place of a
clan which traced its blood to a common ancestor. In such a condition of
things the nearest approach ever made to peace was a state of armed
truce; and while the simple rules of morality were recognized, they were
only regarded as binding within the limits of the clan. There was no
recognition of the wickedness of robbery and murder in general.
This state of things, as above hinted, could not come to an end as long
as men obtained food by seizing upon edible objects already in
existence. The supply of fish, game, or fruit being strictly limited,
men must ordinarily fight under penalty of starvation. If we could put a
moral interpretation upon events which antedated morality as we
understand it, we should say it was their duty to fight; and the
reverence accorded to the chieftain who murdered most successfully in
behalf of his clansmen was well deserved. It is worthy of note that, in
isolated parts of the earth where the natural supply of food is
abundant, as in sundry tropical islands of the Pacific Ocean, men have
ceased from warfare and become gentle and docile without rising above
the intellectual level of savagery. Compared with other savages, they
are like the chimpanzee as contrasted with the gorilla. Such exceptional
instances well illustrate the general truth that, so long as the method
of obtaining food was the same as that employed by brute animals, men
must continue to fight like dogs over a bone.