October 9, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



499 



tity of origin) between the thoughts of the 

 earliest human folk and the corresponding 

 instincts (as these are called) noticeable in 

 the case of some of the higher animals? I 

 am particularly anxious not to be misunder- 

 stood; the suggestion is not that even the 

 most primitive human folk were mentally 

 merely on a par even with the higher ani- 

 mals, but that many, perhaps most, of the 

 ways of thought that guided the primitive 

 man in his bearing towards the world out- 

 side himself may be more easily understood 

 if it is once realized, and afterwards re- 

 membered, that the two mental habits, how- 

 ever different in origin and in degree of 

 development, were remarkably analogous 

 in kind. 



A similar analogy, in respect not of 

 thoughts but of arts, may well illustrate 

 this correspondence between the elementary 

 ideas of men and animals. The higher apes 

 occasionally arm themselves by tearing a 

 young tree up by the roots and using the 

 "club" thus provided as a weapon of 

 offense and defense against their enemies. 

 Some of the primitive South Sea islanders 

 did — nay, do — exactly the same, or at any 

 rate did so till very lately. The club — ^the 

 so-called malumu — 'Which the Fijian, then 

 and up to the much later time when he 

 ceased to use a club at all greatly pre- 

 ferred to use for all serious fighting pur- 

 poses was provided in exactly the same way. 

 i. e., by dragging a young tree from the 

 ground, and smoothing off the more rugged 

 roots to form what the American might call 

 the business end of the club. But though 

 the Fijian, throughout the period during 

 which he retained his own ways, used and 

 even preferred this earliest form of club, 

 he meanwhile employed his leisure (which 

 was abundant), his fancy, and his ingenu- 

 ity, in ornamenting this weapon, and also 

 in gradually adapting it to more and more 

 special purposes, some of the later of which 



were not even warlike but were ceremonial 

 purposes, till in course of time each iso- 

 lated island or group of islands evolved 

 clubs special to it in form, purpose and 

 ornament, and the very numerous and 

 puzzlingly varied series of elaborate and 

 beautiful clubs and club-shaped imple- 

 ments resulted. It seems to be in power of 

 improvement and elaboration that lies the 

 difference between men-folk and animal- 

 folk. 



Something similar may be assumed to 

 have brought about the evolution of the 

 ideas of these islanders. Starting with a 

 stock of thoughts similar in kind to the 

 instincts of the more advanced animals, 

 the human-folk — by virtue of some mysteri- 

 ous potentiality — gradually adapted these 

 to meet the special circumstances of their 

 own surroundings, and in so doing orna- 

 menting these primitive thoughts further 

 in accordance with fancy. 



In the Fiji Islands this process of cul- 

 tural development was probably slow dur- 

 ing the long period while the Melanesians, 

 with perhaps the occasional stimulus af- 

 forded by the drifting in of a little human 

 flotsam and jetsam from other still more 

 primitive folk, were in sole occupation; 

 yet it must have been during this period 

 and by these folk that the distinctively 

 Fijian form of culture was evolved. But 

 the process must have been greatly accele- 

 rated, and at the same time more or less 

 changed in direction, by the incoming of 

 the distinct and higher Polynesian culture, 

 at a time certainly before, but perhaps not 

 very long before, the encroachment of 

 Europeans. 



In order to realize as vividly as possible 

 what were the earlier, most elementary, 

 thoughts on which the whole detail of his 

 subsequent "savage" mentality was gradu- 

 ally imposed, it is essential for the time 

 being to discard practically all the ideas 



