CHAPTER IV 

 THE BEGINNINGS OF CERTITUDE 



PRIMITIVE man, we have learned to know, differed but slightly 

 from the primitive man of now that is to say, he was in little 

 distinguished from an animal. Perhaps in a way the difference, 

 even now, is not large. If in the course of fifty or a hundred 

 thousand years he has become the " good gorilla " of Buffon, 

 we may imagine in the beginning he was the gorilla without 

 being good. He answered to the crazy ideal of Nietzsche ; he 

 was simply the " blonde beast," save that primitively, per- 

 chance, he was not blonde. 



We have his portrait in the famous painting of Gabriel Max. 

 The likeness is idealised, no doubt ; the reality would have 

 shown less of the age-old pathos that shines in the eyes of these 

 our brute forbears ; there would have been more of ferocity. 

 He was a savage, with a savage's joy in killing things ; he was 

 a thief, a glutton, and a cannibal. To him nothing was for- 

 bidden, nothing was criminal. The idea of murder, rapine, 

 pillage, torture, or incest brought no feeling of revolt, of disgust, 

 or of injustice. They were the simple, natural instincts of 

 the blonde beast. He was brutal, he was treacherous, sensual, 

 lawless. 



As he multiplied he split in roving bands ; these grew into 

 tribes, the tribes into nations. Association brought organisa- 

 tion. As food grew scarce, harder to get, he learned to herd, 

 then to plant. With his flocks of animals, with his rude fields, 

 came ideas of property. To preserve his own he united to 

 stop thievery and plunder. This property right, at first tribal, 

 became individual. Along with this had grown the idea of 

 family. The woman was associated as part of his property ; 

 she was his chattel. He was primitively polygamous, no doubt 

 gregarious. Eventually, individualising instincts, the sense of 

 personal possession, brought a rude morality. He began to 



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