i68 The Special Sociological Errors 



fantastic imaginary conditions, but with the 

 realities of the Hfe about us. 



Another special error of the sociological order is 

 the pretended antiquity of war. All through the 

 philosophy of force, we find primitive humanity 

 represented in the form of small hordes constantly 

 pillaging and massacring each other. Since we 

 do not possess any documents concerning this 

 epoch, this representation belongs also in the 

 category of the anthropological romances. This 

 romance is invented on account of the necessity 

 for defending a thesis. In showing that war has 

 existed from primitive times, and that neverthe- 

 less humanity has become civilized, the purpose 

 is to demonstrate that war has made civilization. 



We have seen that primitive man did not wage 

 war, because, in common with all the other 

 animals, he had a hereditary instinct which pre- 

 vented him from attacking his own kind.^ As 

 Darwin says, "the instincts of the lower animals 

 are never so perverted" as to lead them regularly 

 to unnatural acts, such as destroying their own 

 species; and he shows that these instincts must 

 have been supreme in the antiqmty of the human 

 race: 



If we look back to an extremely remote epoch, 

 before man had arrived at the dignity of manhood, 

 he would have been guided more by instinct and less 



* See supra, p. 68. 



