WAS PRIMITIVE MAN A MODERN SAVAGE? 547 



The savage theory of primitive culture is forced also in such records 

 as exist of early times to lay great stress ou incidents and accidents, 

 the petrifactions of the narrative, and to attribute the main majestic 

 current of historical record to the myth-making faculty. This is con- 

 venient. It is not conclusive. If, however, a different view is adopted, 

 if we think of the empty earth as early bearing separate centers of 

 civilization too far apart to vex each his neighbor, and living at peace 

 with the nameless region between, the conception altogether harmonizes 

 with the broad outlines of such early records as we have, and explains 

 on a simpler hypothesis the u savage" exceptions they contain. The 

 early and later Genesis documents may represent the compilation of 

 records, colored by these successive stages of peace and of war. The 

 entire ethnic theory of the book is of an earth empty and slowly filling 

 until the elastic zone is taken up and inevitable war begins. Move- 

 ment and immigration are easy ou this hypothesis. They become 

 impossible if savagery was spread over the earth and slowly curdled here 

 and there in some happy and defensible coign of vantage into barbarism 

 and civilization. What is true of Genesis is true of all national records 

 and all archaeological research. Everywhere is a surprising primitive 

 development. Everywhere this descends into war. Everywhere the 

 war god is the younger god, never the elder, as perpetual war would 

 have made him. If the origins of society stood rooted in perpetual 

 strife, if the endless war of the savage were its early normal condition, 

 and the war chief its first head, mythology would make the god of 

 war the earliest of the pantheon; but, while he is often the favorite 

 national deity, his temple the greatest, his priesthood the most impor- 

 tant, and his caste the rulers of the tribe, in the national cult and 

 culture the war god is, as with Ares and with Mars and a dozen more 

 which will suggest themselves, of the second or third generation of 

 deities. I can not, myself, recollect a single iustain e in which the 

 tutelary divinity of war is figured as a primitive deity, although the 

 rites of hospitality are often committed to an early god, and the pro- 

 tection of the stranger is generally in the hands of such a deity as 

 is natural if general war succeeded general intercommunication over 

 vacant and often peaceful spaces. In general, the succession of dei- 

 ties is from local primitive and comparatively peaceful early gods to 

 gods whose warlike demands require a bloodier sacrifice. Not infre- 

 quently, also, though by no means as uniformly as with the war god, the 

 goddess whose worship prescribes, permits, or palliates sexual license, 

 is figured as a goddess later and younger than the goddess who pre- 

 sides over lawful marriage. How frequently, also, in this development 

 of a national and popular pantheon, based on local and tribal cults and 

 shrines, is there elusive esoteric reminiscence of a period when polythe- 

 ism was preceded by a juster conception of the divine as it is in time 

 generally succeeded by one. Everywhere men look back upon peace 

 and hope for its return. Everywhere nations have their wanderjahre 



