138 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



ship," and hospitality is unknown. A stranger is 

 always an enemy, and they feel that the only thing 

 to be done when they see a stranger is to kill him. 

 Under such conditions the individual could only 

 exist when protected by his family, and the severest 

 punishment that could be inflicted was to be ''cast 

 out" of the family, for this meant speedy death at 

 the hands of some enemy. We have abundant evi- 

 dence that this was the state of society in early 

 times. So intense has this hostility between families 

 been that even among tribes where there is a certain 

 amount of friendship we find the egoism is so great 

 that one family will actually refuse to assist in build- 

 ing a wall to prevent disaster from flood, simply on 

 the ground that it will help their neighbors as well 

 as themselves. 



Not only did families thus continue a mutual hos- 

 tility to each other, but even within the family condi- 

 tions were far from ideal. The savage families are 

 steeped in selfishness ; egoism rules almost as abso- 

 lutely as among animals. Three fourths of the chil- 

 dren die in infancy. While the savages are fond of 

 their children when young, there is abundance of 

 evidence that the children are to-day and always 

 have been frequently killed at the caprice of the par- 

 ents. The older members of the families in turn 

 are frequently made away with whenever the 

 younger members see fit to perform this act. The 

 relations of the members of the family have been 

 those in which selfishness has been the basis of all 

 action. Many children were born, but few were 

 reared. The early family was a loose, crude attach- 

 ment of individuals which, though showing a certain 

 amount of mutual affection, was most easily broken 



