THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



JANUARY, 1894. 

 THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 



BY PROF. E. P. EVANS. 



M YHE world of the primitive man was bounded by the circle of 

 -L his vision. He regarded the horizon as a fixed line which 

 separated the earth from the sky, and which it would be possible 

 for him to reach by going far enough. He did not deem it less 

 real because it unfortunately always eluded his search, like the 

 fabulous pot of gold which, according to popular superstition, lies 

 buried at the point where the rainbow rests on the ground. In 

 like manner the barbarian of to-day has no conception of the fact 

 that the line of junction of earth and sky has no real existence, 

 but is " all in his eye." 



Indeed, it is but recently that man has learned to appreciate 

 aright the wholly subjective character and significance of the 

 terms north, south, east, and west as applied to places on the 

 globe, and to recognize the relativity of all his geographical ideas, 

 inasmuch as these are dependent for their accuracy and exactness 

 upon the position of the speaker. It is one of the rare achieve- 

 ments of high culture, and has always been the prerogative of 

 exceptionally thoughtful minds, to be able to distinguish between 

 the apparent and the actual, to keep mental conceptions free from 

 the influences of optical illusions, and not to be deceived by the 

 surprises and sophistries of the senses. 



An old English legend entitled The Lyfe of Adam, which has 

 been preserved in a manuscript of the fourteenth century, relates 

 how " Adam was made of oure lord god in the place that Jhesus 

 was borne in, that is to seye in the cite of Bethleem, which is the 

 myddel of the erthe." It then goes on to state that the first man 

 was made out of dust taken from the four corners of the earth, 



TOL. XLIV. 23 



