36 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 



attention, but from the earliest times until our own day it has been 

 impossible to adduce anything like philosophical reasons to account, 

 not only for individual, but for racial peculiarities. Very glibly we 

 could quote, " The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's 

 teeth are set on edge," but the question always remained, why did 

 the fathers eat the sour grapes in the first place ? 



This paper is written as an attempt to account in a measure 

 for some human predilections by referring them to early conditions 

 of society — to conditions that must have existed for many thousands 

 of years, and which, notwithstanding the fact that for some hundreds 

 of years such conditions have not existed, yet exhibit their per- 

 sistency as a part of our being. 



In a purely savage state it must needs be that the supply of 

 food is both precarious and inconstant, and of savage people more 

 than of any others it may be truly said, " They eat to live, and live 

 to eat." In time they acquire tastes for various kinds of amuse- 

 ments and pastimes, but eating is the main business of life — it is not 

 a means, it is an end— ^/ze end. It therefore behoves each member 

 of the family, or of the tribe, to lose no opportunity of securing that 

 which is necessary for the subsistence of himself and of his fellows. 

 He runs his prey down, or he attacks it with missiles, or he shoots 

 arrows at it, or he lays a trap for it, or he inveigles it into some 

 place from which escape is impossible, but in any event his wit is 

 always superior to brute faculties. 



As population increases the supply of animal food diminishes, 

 and man's mental resources are more largely drawn upon to circum- 

 vent the tactics of his prey, for the beasts themselves become more 

 ' knowing. 



Even when our suppositious savage is not actually engaged in 

 hunting, he will not fail to avail himself of any chance that fortune 

 may throw in his way to secure an animal. Even to him, habit has 

 become second nature. He goes in chase sometimes merely for 

 excitement ; he kills because he loves to kill ; hunting has become 

 one of his pleasures. In other words, untold repetitions of such 

 acts through many hundreds of generations have transmitted a 

 tendency to slay the lower animals — a tendency which remains long 

 after man has arrived at a stage of advancement when it is no longer 

 necessary that he should kill at all, and we find accordingly a 



