270 SOCIAL INVOLUTION 



orate rites and ceremonies connected with this system 

 which aim at propitiating the souls of powerful ancestors 

 in order that these spirits may 1- favorably inclined and 

 advance the material prosperity of the living. 58 



The economic life of primitive peoples presents many 

 striking contrasts to the systematized economic activities 

 of civilized men. Savages live from day to day, from 

 hand to mouth, satisfying their immediate pleasures and 

 making little provision for future needs. Compared 

 witli the careful methods of the modern business man we 

 would say that the untrained native lacked foresight. 

 The savage does not seem able to sustain protracted 

 labor. He does not appear to possess the power of con- 

 tinuous application which has made the prosperity of 

 modern peoples. The routine and drudgery of agricul- 

 ture is too great a burden for the Indian. Under it ho 

 often sickens and dies. The Indian is nervously more 

 unstable than the average civilized man. He is more 

 frequently subject to hysteria and becomes easily intoxi 

 cated. As the activities of primitive peoples are largely 

 those of war, hunting, magical and religious ceremonies, 

 there is little control of conduct by economic motives. 



The scale of values of modern peoples is foreign to 

 the savage. His sense of values is undeveloped by com- 

 parison with the finely sensitized value concept which we 

 are accustomed to recognize. This difference is not pri- 

 marily due to any mental defect inherent in the savage, 

 Imt is almost entirely due to different traditional associ- 

 ations. Because we are familiar with a highly developed 

 system under which we can procure what we want at 

 store or market in exchange for money, we think that 



* Giddingg, Descriptive and Hint. Roc., pp. 464-465; and Hozumi, Ances- 

 tor-Worship and Japanese Law, pp. 9-11, 12-14. 



