CURIOSITY. 4 37 



crimes. In the Homeric period, piracy was a profes- 

 sion, and vices were the customs of the land. The 

 character of a god is that of the people who have made 

 him. When, therefore, I expose the crimes of Jehovah, 

 I expose the defective morality of Israel ; and when I 

 criticise the God of modern Europe, I criticise the de- 

 fective intellects of Europeans. The reader must en- 

 deavour to bear this in mind, for, though he may think 

 that his idea of the creator is actually the Creator, that 

 belief is not shared by me. 



We shall now return to the forest and investigate 

 the Origin of Intellect ; we shall first explain how the 

 aptitude for science and for art arose ; and next how 

 man first became gifted with the moral sense. 



The desire to obtain food induces the animal to 

 examine everything of novel appearance which comes 

 within its range of observation. The habit is inherited 

 and becomes an instinct, irrespective of utility. This 

 instinct is Curiosity, which in many animals is so urgent 

 a desire that they will encounter danger rather than 

 forego the examination of any object which is new and 

 strange. This propensity is inherited by man, and 

 again passes through a period of utility. When fire is 

 first discovered, experiments are made on all kinds of 

 plants, with the view of ascertaining what their qualities 

 may be. The remarkable knowledge of herbs which 

 savages possess ; their skill in preparing decoctions 

 which can act as medicines or as poisons, which can 

 attract or repel wild animals, is not the result of 

 instinct but of experience ; and, as with the lower 

 animals, the habit of food-seeking is developed into 

 curiosity, so the habit of searching for edibles, medicine, 

 and poison becomes the experimental spirit, the passion 



