EMOTIONS IN THE PRIMITIVE MAN. m 



ous, it is to be observed that little muscular effort is required, and the 

 activity is thrown on perceptive faculties which are constitutionally 

 active. 1 



A trait which naturally goes along with inability so to conceive 

 the future as to be influenced by the conception is a childish niirthful- 

 ness merriment not sobered by thought of what is coming. Though 

 sundry races of the New World, along with their general impassive- 

 ness, are little inclined to gayety, and though among the Malay races 

 and the Dyaks gravity is a characteristic, yet generally it is other- 

 wise. Of the New-Caledonians, Feejeeans, Tahitians, New-Zealanders, 

 we read that they are always laughing and joking. Throughout Af- 

 rica, too, the negro shows us everywhere tbis same trait ; and of other 

 races, in other lands, the various descriptions of various travelers are : 

 " full of fun and merriment," "full of life and spirits," " merry and 

 talkative," " skylarking in all ways," " boisterous gayety," " laughing 

 immoderately at trifles." Even the Esquimaux, notwithstanding all 

 their privations, are described as " a happy people." We have but to 

 remember how greatly habitual anxiety about coming events moder- 

 ates the flow of spirits we have but to contrast the lively but im- 

 provident Irishman with the grave but provident Scot to see that 

 there is a relation between these traits in the uncivilized man. The 

 relatively-impulsive nature, implying total absorption in a present 

 pleasure, causes at the same time these excesses of gayety and this 

 inattention to threatened evils. 



Along with the trait of improvidence there goes, both as cause and 

 consequence, an undeveloped proprietary sentiment. When thinking 

 about the nature of the savage, we overlook the fact that he lacks the 

 extended consciousness of individual possession, and that under his 

 conditions it is impossible for him to have it. Established, as the sen- 

 timent can be, only by multitudinous experiences of the gratifications 

 which possession brings, continued through successive generations, it 

 cannot arise where the circumstances do not permit these experiences. 

 Beyond the few rude appliances ministering to his bodily wants, the 

 primitive man has nothing that he can accumulate there is no sphere 

 for an acquisitive tendency. Where he has grown into a pastoral life, 

 there arises a possibility of benefits from increased possessions he 

 profits by multiplying his flocks. Still, while he remains nomadic, it 

 is difficult to supply his flocks with unfailing food when they are large, 



1 It should be remarked as a qualifying fact, which has its physiological as well as its 

 sociological interest, that the characters of men and women are in sundry cases described 

 as unlike in power of application. Among the Bhils, while the men hate labor, many of 

 the women are said to be industrious. Among the Kookies, too, the women are " quite 

 as industrious and indefatigable as the Naga women : " the men of both tribes being lazy. 

 Similarly in Africa. In Loango, though the men are inert, the women " give themselves 

 up to " husbandry " with indefatigable ardor;" and our recent experiences on the Gold- 

 Coast show that a like contrast holds there. The establishment of this difference seems 

 to imply the limitation of heredity by sex. 

 vol. vi. 22 



