EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



or are supposed to help, the tribe in its per- 

 petual struggle for existence with surrounding 

 tribes; wrong actions are those which hurt, or 

 are supposed to hurt, the tribe's chances of 

 success. It is wrong to murder a fellow-tribes- 

 man, though human sacrifices or female infanti- 

 cide may be sanctioned from motives of general 

 policy ; it is praiseworthy to murder a stranger, 

 unless perhaps when he belongs to some power- 

 ful tribe which it is imprudent to offend. Above 

 all things, the prime social and political neces- 

 sity is social cohesion within the tribal limits, 

 for unless such social cohesion be maintained, 

 the very existence of the tribe is likely to be 

 extinguished in bloodshed. Such was doubtless 

 in general the state of things which lasted for 

 more than four thousand centuries, during which 

 men lived and died upon the earth before they 

 had acquired enough intelligence or enough 

 political stability to leave anywhere a written 

 record of their thoughts and deeds. Ten or 

 twelve thousand generations of ruthless military 

 discipline ! ten or twelve thousand generations 

 of rigorous conformity to tribal requirements, 

 enforced under the perpetual threat of tribal 

 extinction ! Such was the terrible schooling, that 

 was needed to fit men for aggregation into great 

 and complex societies. Included in this military 

 discipline, as part and parcel of it, was an incip- 

 ient ecclesiastical discipline. Long before the 

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