454 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 2 



imposes a command upon another." " (There may, of course, be the 

 complications of decentralized control, but they do not affect the 

 main proposition.) A civilized community has therefore definitely 

 got beyond the stage of mere cell aggregations. Perhaps the city 

 state of Sumeria corresponds to a trilobite. It is in Sumer that we 

 find the earliest clear manifestation of group consciousness, repre- 

 sented, precisely as it should be, by the deification of the city itself. 



At Fara, the most primitive Sumerian site that has yet (In 1916) been 

 examined, we find the god Shuruppak giving his own name to the city around 

 his shrine, and Ninqirsu of Lagash dominates and directs his people from the 

 first. Other city gods . . . are already in existence. . . . The authority of 

 each god did not extend beyond the limits of his own people's territory. Each 

 city was content to do battle on his behalf, and the defeat of one was 

 synonymous with the downfall of the other." 



Here we have, at the very dawn of history, precisely what accord- 

 ing to our theory we should expect to find — the self -consciousness of 

 the new individual, the group, expressed in terms of religion, and its 

 patriotism in terms of conflict. 



The character of the community is best seen in action; and in 

 primitive civilizations external action is generally synonj^mous with 

 warfare. Primitive tribal warfare, like the still earlier encounters of 

 individual hunters, is the blind instinctive clash of conflicting in- 

 terests, acting usually under the stimulus of hunger or sex. The 

 reaction, too, is direct and immediate. The warfare of city states 

 probably proceeded from similar causes; but it was less instinctive 

 and more intelligently controlled. The warfare of European nations, 

 or of groups of nations, probably represents the highest achievement 

 of concerted group action yet reached by the hiunan race. It is there- 

 fore necessary to devote a few lines to it, in order to see more clearl}' 

 what biological stage we have to-day reached in our recapitulation. 



The organization of a modern army in the field is a very beautiful 

 thing. Such an army is a most delicately adjusted living organism, 

 whose morale — rightly prized very highly — is its soul. It consists 

 also of brain and body; the commander in chief is the brain; the 

 soldiers in the fighting line are the body, or rather part of it. Im- 

 pressions from the outer world (where the enemy resides) reach the 

 brain through the organs of sense. In an army the flash spotters 

 and airplane observers are the eyes, the sound rangers, the ears, the 

 observers in the front line are like antennae or fingers, the army 

 service corps is the stomach and legs, the corps of signalers the nerves. 

 Signals reach the intelligence department Avhich, like the neopallium, 

 coordinates the impressions received, and, itself a part of the brain, 



" Seeley, Sir J. R., Introduction to Political Science, p. 89, London, 1896. 

 " King, L. W., A History of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 84, 85, London, 1916. 



