3 o8 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



These instances clearly prove that the sense of shame, in 

 its various manifestations, is not an aboriginal inborn character- 

 istic of man, but in the course of the history of man has been 

 produced by customs and manners, or, as one may say, 

 represents the effect of fashion. Only a few savage tribes 

 now preserve their old untrammelled na'ivete which they 

 share with the animals ; the majority of tribes and races 

 have lost this freedom from restraint. 



This almost universal development of the sense of shame 

 among men must be considered another specific characteristic 

 of the human species. 



Religion. 



Moral sense must be attributed to the higher animals as 

 well as to man. But there is one undisputed possession which 

 man alone enjoys, namely, religion, a feeling of reverence com- 

 bined with fear and gratitude towards some transcendental, 

 higher being that rules the world and human destinies. 



Only man looks up to heaven, where he believes the trans- 

 cendent power to dwell : for Professor Braubach's assertion 

 that a dog looks up to his master as a god is no more than an 

 ingenious figure of speech, not intended to endow dogs with 

 the capacity of transcendental thought. Since we have to 

 look upon this faculty as exclusively human, we must conse- 

 quently endeavour to find the primitive manifestations of this 

 characteristic in the known beginnings of mankind, and if we 

 get no evidence from this source it must be sought for among 

 the primitive savages of our own times. 



Homes is partly right in calling totemism the first and 

 oldest indication of religious feeling. Darwin l suspected " that 

 there is a still earlier and ruder stage, when anything which 

 manifests power or movement is thought to be endowed with 

 some form of life and with mental faculties analogous to our 

 own ". The plants and animals were, as primitive man fully 

 divined, before him on the earth ; upon them, especially the 

 animals, he looked with a feeling of reverent awe which grew 

 upon him until he saw in one or other of them the progenitors 

 of his tribe. The result was that such animals were held sacred 



1 Darwin, loc. cii., i., p. 144 footnote. 



