Know Thyself 43 



individually, of at least the rudiments of all those 

 attributes which characterize the highest of the spe- 

 cies. Although increase of information in one quarter 

 has continually strengthened belief in the origin of man 

 from some lower animal, accumulation of knowledge in 

 another quarter has completely annihilated belief that 

 there is on earth now or for millenniums has been a 

 being even approximately transitional between man 

 and beast. All the races whose culture we know any- 

 thing positive about are indubitably men. The exist- 

 ence of highly elaborated language, and of at least the 

 beginnings of social institutions and laws, poetry, 

 delineative art, religion, and reasoning about nature, 

 among all people to which science has had access, has 

 put a quietus forever on the old notion that certain 

 primitive races are "hardly human," are "little, if at 

 all, above the beasts of the field," are "without souls." 

 A fact the significance of which seems not to have 

 been dwelt upon by writers on morals is that anthro- 

 pologists who study primitive races long and closely 

 in their homes, always, so far as I have observed, come 

 to have a much higher regard for these races than 

 chance and superficial acquaintance suggest. And 

 frequently this regard ripens into genuine esteem, even 

 affection. Inquiry into this matter ought to yield 

 interesting results. Is the affection which grows up 

 between the investigator and the savage investigated 

 merely that which subsists between the owner of a pet 

 dog or cat or horse and his chattel, or is it more akin 



