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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions occur. As regards the internal fac- 

 tors, it clearly would not be enough to pre- 

 sent the peculiarities of the civilized man, 

 who inherits acquired tendencies and is to 

 a large extent moulded by the society into 

 which he is born ; we must go back to the 

 time at which physical forces were not con- 

 trolled by intelligence, and when men lived 

 together only in loosely-formed groups. All 

 the world knows how Rousseau represented 

 to himself the primitive man, and there are 

 still, perhaps, people who affect to talk en- 

 thusiastically of the 'noble savage.' If we 

 compare this sentimental conception with 

 the picture drawn by Mr. Spencer, we are 

 furnished with a tolerably accurate measure 

 of the advance which has been made in the 

 methods of inve^'tigating such subjects. 

 The philosopher of to-day is not less fond 

 of theory than his predecessor of the eigh- 

 teenth century, but in his hands theory is 

 ne'ver divorced from fact ; it is incessantly 

 brought to the test of reality, and in reality 

 finds its only true starting-point. Hence, 

 while Rousseau's idea could give rise only 

 to a great many futile regrets and aspira- 

 tions, Mr. Spencer's is the basis of a thor- 

 oughly scientific description of the long 

 course through which mankind have passed 

 from tlie simplest to the most complex 

 forms of life. The primitive man is re- 

 garded in three different aspects : physical, 

 emotional, intellectual He is shown to 

 have been, on the average, smaller than 

 men now are, witli limbs inferior both in 

 size and structure, and a larger alimentary 

 system, ' adapted to a very irregular supply 

 of food, mostly inferior in quality, dirty, 

 and uncooked.' Arriving early at maturity, 

 he disliked change, and constitutional cal- 

 lousness made him insensible of evils which 

 at a later stage become intolerable. The 

 emotional characteristics of the savage are a 

 ' wavering and inconstant disposition,' lead- 

 ing to an ' explosive, chaotic, incalculable 

 behavior, which makes combined action very 

 difficult,' extreme improvidence, selfishness 

 modified only by a desire of admiration and 

 by ' such fellow-feeling as results from that 

 instinctive love of the helpless which he 

 possesses in common with the inferior ani- 

 mals.' Intellectually the uncivilized man 

 is on a level with the children of civilized 

 parents. The perceptive faculties are keen, 



the reflective scarcely at all developed ; like 

 children, he has a strong mimetic tendency ; 

 he cannot concentrate attention on anything 

 higher than simple facts ; he has few gen- 

 eral ideas, and being without any concep- 

 tion of natural order, he is incapable of 

 rational curiosity or surprise. The question 

 is sometimes asked, ' Why, if the human 

 species has been so long in existence as the 

 doctrine of evolution implies, did so many 

 ages elapse before civilization arose ? ' No 

 one who attentively considers these charac- 

 teristics of the savage, and takes into ac- 

 count the outward difficulties with which he 

 has to contend, will be surprised that man 

 so long remained a slave to circumstances. 

 The astonishing thing is, that any primitive 

 tribes ever lighted upon the happy combina- 

 tion of conditions which enabled them to 

 grow into progressive communities. 



" In order to understand the institutions 

 of civilized and semi-civilized societies, we 

 must not satisfy ourselves with a general 

 description of the faculties of the primitive 

 man we must investigate the ideas sug- 

 gested to him by his experience. The chap- 

 ters devoted to these are by far the most 

 original and valuable in the present vol- 

 ume. It is common to judge savage con- 

 ceptions by a reference to our more ad- 

 vanced knowledge, in the light of which 

 they, of course, excite only surprise or 

 amusement. Mr. Spencer, guided by the 

 statements and hints of travelers, puts him- 

 self as much as possible in the position of 

 primitive men, and looks at the world with 

 their eyes ; and the consequence is, that he 

 succeeds in proving almost that their ideas 

 were not only natural, but the sole ideas to 

 whicJi the evidence within their reach could 

 have conducted them. One of the earliest 

 of their theories is that of a second self. 

 This arises, in the first instance, from 

 dreams, the experiences of which the sav- 

 age regards as real. He has no notion cor- 

 responding to that of mind ; hence, when 

 he dreams that he has been hunting or en- 

 gaged in deadly conflict with an enemy, he 

 never doubts on awaking that the incidents 

 actually took place. Others testify that he 

 has not moved ; but this only shows that 

 there must be a double which is capable of 

 going away and having adventures of its 

 own. He is untroubled by incongruities 



