IMPULSES AND CULTURE 237 



of livelihood. If reason advised the undertaking 

 of a war, cruelty prompted the extermination of 

 the enemy : kindness endorsed the emancipation 

 of slaves which might reasonably be expected to 

 encourage their honesty. Marvellous beyond all 

 have been the effects of the aesthetic and ethical 

 instincts of the impulses to self-abandonment 

 and self-restraint which are perhaps the most extra- 

 ordinary manifestations of Life, and may almost 

 plausibly be regarded as supernatural tendencies, 

 unconnected, as they are, with practical needs* 

 The former impelled man to prostration, dancing 

 and music as methods of testifying his veneration : 

 the latter to self-mutilation, asceticism and moral- 

 ity as means of conciliating the spirits of his 

 dreams. Painting and sculpture may have grown 

 out of the rock pictures which brought home to 

 the cave dwellers the spirits of animals that they 

 fought, hunted or domesticated. We may find 

 in the mimic hunt the prototype of the drama, 

 the first-fruits of the dramatic passion through 

 which the theatre appeals to us all. Side by side 

 with this life of visions grew up a life of practical 

 endeavour. It was discovered that bronze made 

 more effective weapons than flint, that stone was 

 more durable than timber for building purposes. 

 We are disposed to regard the harnessing of steam, 

 of electricity, of petrol, the elaboration of machin- 

 ery, as the greatest of man's practical inventions. 

 But can we see a less originality of intelligence in 

 the domestication of plants and animals, the 

 control and usage of fire, the discovery of the 

 loom, of the plough, of oars and sails, and of 

 the wheel ? 







There is a tendency to believe that a community 

 progresses in concert, as a crop of wheat grows, 

 under the influence of an imagined " spirit of 



