Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



very converse of the Stoic self-sufficient sage — like children in 

 their ' admiration ' and worship of the Unknown. Hence their 

 absolute want of Conceit, though they possess self-command and 

 dignity. They are, to those they love and respect, faithful and 

 devoted — their faithfulness and truthfulness are dictated by no 

 ' categorical imperative,' but by personal affection. Towards an 

 enemy they can be, without any conscientious scruples, treacherous 

 and inhumanly cruel. I should say that there is scarcely any 

 possible idea that is so foreign to the savage African mind as that 

 of general philanthropy or enemy-love." 



" In endurance the African savage beats us hollow (except 

 trained athletes). On one occasion my men rowed my boat with 

 lo foot oars against the wind in a choppy sea for 25 hours at one 

 go, across Kuwirwe Bay, about 60 miles. They never once stopped 

 or left their seats — just handed round a handful of rice now and 

 then. I was at the helm all the time — and had enough of it ! . . . 

 They carry 80 lbs. on their heads for 10 hours through swamps 

 and jungles. Four of my men carried a sick man weighing 14 

 stones in a hammock for 200 miles, right across the dreaded Mali- 

 kata Swamp. But for sudden emergencies, squalls, etc., they are 

 nowhere." 



(See p. 27) " So lovely a scene made easily credible the sugges- 

 tion, otherwise highly probable, that the Golden Age was no mere 

 fancy of the poets, but a reminiscence of the facts of social life 

 in its primitive organisation of village and house-communities." 

 (J. S. Stuart-Glennie's Europe and Asia, ch. i. Servia.) 



(See p. 72) " It was only on the up-break of the primitive 

 socialisms that the passionate desire of, and therefore belief in, 

 individual Immortality arose. With an intense feeling, not of 

 an independent individual life, but of a dependent common life, 

 there is no passionate desire of, though there may be more or less 

 of belief in, a continuance after death of individual existence." 

 {Ibid, p. 161.) 



Following is an extract from a letter from my friend Havelock 

 Ellis, which he kindly allows me to reprint. The passage is 



11 



