134 



SAVAGE SURVIVALS 



ness in their presence which has no justification in 

 the circumstances. It must be a survival from the 

 time when strangers were never friends, but al- 

 ways enemies. We are especially afraid of im- 

 portant personages of those who have figura- 

 tively the greatest power of good or evil over us. 

 This suspicion is not useful today. It is in our 

 way. It is a survival from the ages of justified 

 fear. 



The great fear which we have of snakes, spi- 



"THE FEAR OF SNAKES COMKS 

 FROM THE FAR PAST" 



ders, etc., is probably vestigial. It certainly ex- 

 ists today in unnecessary strength. The fear of 

 snakes is probably an inheritance from the mon- 

 key. The monkey is mortally afraid of snakes. 

 Put a snake into a monkey cage and the monkeys 

 are terror stricken. Monkeys have been known 

 to drop unconscious in the presence of snakes thru 

 great fear. And no wonder. The snake is one of 

 the monkey's worst enemies. The monkey can't 

 kill a snake. The great tree-snakes of the tropics 

 are deadly enemies of tlje monkeys. And before 

 the invention of the club the snake was about as 

 formidable an enemy to man as it was to the mon- 



