Feb., 1890. 
THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. 
81 
they occur, rational. In early life we have been taught that 
human nature is everywhere the same. Led thus to contem¬ 
plate the beliefs of savages as beliefs entertained by minds 
like our own, we marvel at their strangeness, and ascribe per¬ 
versity to those who hold them. This error we must replace 
by the truth that the laws of thought are everywhere the 
same, and that, given the data as known to him, the primitive 
man’s inference is the reasonable inference.”* If the savage 
had not been a reasoning being, he would have rested content 
with the apparent chaos around him. He would not have 
felt the necessity of inventing an invisible entity, a mysterious 
second self, a soul or spirit, to account for dream images, for 
waking visions, for shadows and reflections, for the phenomena 
of syncope, catalepsy, and death; nor would he have proceeded 
to explain by similar spiritual agencies the alternations of 
rain and sunshine, the fierce winds, the drought, the flood, 
the famine. Unconsciously he was seeking for a principle of 
order in the midst of confusion. The light that led him 
astray was yet the light of reason. 
It is, of course, difficult to conceive the world as it must 
appear to one who is wholly ignorant of those physical truths 
which have become incorporated with our very perceptions. 
But the feat can in part be achieved by the analysis of our 
ideas to their simplest elements, and the laying aside of all 
that has been contributed by science and by philosophy. 
Then we may try to reconstruct the world from the simple 
data of sense-perception, rigorously putting aside all sugges¬ 
tions which are incompatible with the most childish ignor¬ 
ance. 
In this way we may select from among the mental and 
social characteristics presented to us by the barbarous tribes 
of to-day, those which are likely to have belonged to the 
primitive man, and those which represent secondary and 
tertiary stages ; and may be able to sketch out provisionally 
the mode of development from the former to the latter. This 
is not, it will be said, a very sure mode of interpretation— 
for, hard as it is to acquire knowledge, it is'still more hard to 
divest one’s self of it at will, and the second nature of civilisa¬ 
tion and education, even if expelled with a pitchfork, will 
steal back again surreptitiously and vitiate all our conclusions. 
The house may be swept and garnished, but the old demon of 
Philosophy will find his way back again, bringing with him 
seven companions worse than himself, in the shape of 
Sociology, Comparative Mythology, and other nameless 
phantoms. 
* Principles of Sociology, Yol. I., p. 98. 
