156 The Special Sociological Errors 



been called the anthropological romances. Follow- 

 ing the example of Hobbes, a most tragic picture 

 of the primitive condition of the human species 

 has been drawn by the philosophy of force. Ac- 

 cording to this picture, murder was a permanent 

 institution among our ancestors and was com- 

 mitted under the slightest pretext. Cannibalism 

 was practised upon a large scale. At the begin- 

 ning, man was a pugnacious and bloodthirsty 

 animal, in comparison with whom the anthropo- 

 morphic apes were almost virtue personified. 

 The following quotation will serve as an illustra- 

 tion of the picture of the primitive life of man as 

 portrayed by the philosophy of force : 



Without foresight or prudence, primitive man was 

 far from being of that nature which has heretofore 

 been attributed to him — following the principle of 

 the greatest happiness, or of the least effort. He 

 had no acquaintance with labour or with provision for 

 the future, nor with exchange, nor society, nor morality. 

 To these defects he added a ferocity and aggressive- 

 ness, a lust for violence, which led him to commit the 

 most useless cruelties, and to appeal to arms to settle 

 the slightest quarrel. These traits necessarily brought 

 wars in their train, and what wars they were!^ 



These romances have been called anthropological 

 because they have been developed mainly by the 

 anthropologists of Hobbesean tendencies. But 

 they have since been adopted by the sociologists, 



* J. Lagorgette, Le rdle de la guerre, p. 53. 



