EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



jump here. The whole history of civilization, 

 indeed, is largely the history of man's awkward 

 and stumbling efforts to avail himself of this 

 flexibility of mental constitution with which God 

 has endowed him. For many a weary age the 

 progress men achieved was feeble and halting. 

 Though it had ceased to be physically necessary 

 for each generation to tread exactly in the steps 

 of its predecessor, yet the circumstances of prim- 

 itive society long made it very difficult for any 

 deviation to be effected. For the tribes of prim- 

 itive men were perpetually at war with each 

 other, and their methods of tribal discipline were 

 military methods. To allow much freedom of 

 thought would be perilous, and the whole tribe 

 was supposed to be responsible for the word? 

 and deeds of each of its members. The tribes 

 most rigorous in this stern discipline were those 

 which killed out tribes more loosely organized, 

 and thus survived to hand down to coming gen- 

 erations their ideas and their methods. From 

 this state of things an intense social conservatism 

 was begotten, a strong disposition on the 

 part of society to destroy the flexible-minded 

 individual who dares to think and behave differ- 

 ently from his fellows. During the past three 

 thousand years much has been done to weaken 

 this conservatism by putting an end to the state 

 of things which produced it. As great and 

 strong societies have arisen, as the sphere of 

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