EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



of the disposition to kill one's enemies which 

 characterizes human society in its primeval 

 stages of development. It is a temper of mind 

 which was favoured by the general condition of 

 things when there were no political aggregates 

 larger than simple tribes which were chronically 

 at war with one another. What I have said 

 above, in considering the effects upon the atro- 

 city of persecution of the substitution of a nor- 

 mal state of peace for a normal state of warfare, 

 will also apply to the present case. The dispo- 

 sition to domineer over your fellow-man to 

 make him obey you or assent to your opinions, 

 whether he will or no is only an evanescent 

 phase of the disposition to kill him if he inter- 

 feres in any way with the accomplishment of 

 your purposes in life. The very same diminu- 

 tion in the sphere of military activity, attendant 

 upon the aggregation of men into great and 

 complex political societies, which we found to 

 explain the decreasing atrocity of persecution, 

 explains also the decreasing vitality of its moral 

 foundation in the disposition to domineer over 

 one's fellow-men. 



The weakening of the assumption of infalli- 

 bility in one's own opinions is manifestly a 

 consequence of the same set of cooperating 

 causes. When one's life is extremely simple 

 and monotonous, consisting of very few expe- 

 riences that are perpetually repeated ; when one 

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