164 The Special Sociological Errors 



second is an increasing mass of archaeological 

 materials, which reveal many things about the life 

 of the first men who left traces of their existence ; 

 and the third is a general parallelism between 

 some features of primitive society and some 

 features of the lowest societies of existing savages, 

 which may be considered as in a condition of 

 arrested development. 



If we examine the biological facts first, it would 

 seem that the further we go into the past, the more 

 man should resemble the animals. Therefore, 

 he ought to conduct himself as the animals do. 

 How does it come, then, that when two bands 

 of wolves meet each other, they do not "cast 

 themselves upon each other in a struggle of 

 extermination"? And this in spite of the fact 

 that the wolves are carnivorous animals, so that 

 if one band conquered the other, the conquerors 

 might eat the conquered, which would be an advan- 

 tage. But for frugivorous animals, of what use 

 would be a struggle of extermination? We 

 observe that bands of monkeys, for example, 

 do not engage in any struggle of extermination 

 when they come into contact. Even Ratzenhofer 

 contradicts himself by admitting this : 



The animal species nearest to man, or the anthro- 

 poid monkeys, are not combative; they avoid relations 

 with hostile animals, and only become dangerous 

 when they are attacked or over-excited. ^ 



' Sociologische Erkentniss, p. 133. 



