IMAGERY IN SOCIAL GROWTH 347 



cant conclusions from his observations; nor to his lack 

 of a practical knowledge of animal and plant life, for 

 his knowledge of them is extraordinarily full and ac- 

 curate, enabling him to live in safety and abundance, 

 where a very capable white man could not, unaided, 

 survive; nor to his lack of a spirit of mutual service 

 and self-sacrifice, for his education in numerous ex- 

 acting ceremonials, his attempts to augment natural 

 resources through his cooperative totem system, and 

 his elaborate sexual and property regulations, make 

 demands upon his mental powers and self-control 

 which few white men would be willing, or able, to 

 meet. On the other hand, in marked contrast to these 

 capacities, is his total lack of fixed dwelling places, of 

 cultivated crops, of other domestic animals than the 

 dog, and of all but a mere trace of constructive arts. 

 But above all, he has what, to us, is an appalling and 

 unfathomable stupidity and superstition in regard to 

 many of the most familiar and most elemental natural 

 phenomena, and a more than childish inability to fit his 

 life cooperatively to that of his fellow men. 



This very primitive social life, like the primitive 

 organization of the jellyfish, was evidently not due to 

 the lack of time or opportunity for development, be- 

 cause, so far as we know, the Australians as a race are" 

 as old as any other human race; or to their physical 

 and bionomic environment, for while it is extremely 

 severe and exacting in some regions, in others it is as 

 favorable to human life as any the world affords. 



The thing lacking was apparently some subtle men- 

 tal quality, mental Tightness is the only word to ex- 

 press it, which is essential to social growth and cul- 

 tural evolution. 



