Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- I Man's Place in Nature as affected by the Copernican Theory
- II As affected by Darwinism
- III On the Earth there will never be a Higher Creature than Man
- IV The Origin of Infancy
- V The Dawning of Consciousness
- VI Lengthening of Infancy and Concomitant Increase of Brain-Surface
- VII Change in the Direction of the Working of Natural Selection
- VIII Growing Predominance of the Psychical Life
- IX The Origins of Society and of Morality
- X Improvableness of Man
- XI Universal Warfare of Primeval Men
- XII First checked by the Beginnings of Industrial Civilisation
- XIII Methods of Political Development, and Elimination of Warfare
- XIV End of tie Working of Natural Selection upon Man. Throwing off the Brute-Inheritance
- XV The Message of Christianity
- XVI The Question as to a Future Life
- References
XI - Universal Warfare of Primeval Men
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- I Man's Place in Nature as affected by the Copernican Theory
- II As affected by Darwinism
- III On the Earth there will never be a Higher Creature than Man
- IV The Origin of Infancy
- V The Dawning of Consciousness
- VI Lengthening of Infancy and Concomitant Increase of Brain-Surface
- VII Change in the Direction of the Working of Natural Selection
- VIII Growing Predominance of the Psychical Life
- IX The Origins of Society and of Morality
- X Improvableness of Man
- XI Universal Warfare of Primeval Men
- XII First checked by the Beginnings of Industrial Civilisation
- XIII Methods of Political Development, and Elimination of Warfare
- XIV End of tie Working of Natural Selection upon Man. Throwing off the Brute-Inheritance
- XV The Message of Christianity
- XVI The Question as to a Future Life
- References
Summary
In speaking of the higher altruistic feelings as being antagonistic to the continuance of warfare, I did not mean to imply that warfare can ever be directly put down by our horror of cruelty or our moral disapproval of strife. The actual process is much more indirect and complex than this. In respect of belligerency the earliest men were doubtless no better than brutes. They were simply the most crafty and formidable among brutes. To get food was the prime necessity of life, and as long as food was obtainable only by hunting and fishing, or otherwise seizing upon edible objects already in existence, chronic and universal quarrel was inevitable. The conditions of the struggle for existence were not yet visibly changed from what they had been from the outset in the animal world. That struggle meant everlasting slaughter, and the fiercest races of fighters would be just the ones to survive and perpetuate their kind. Those most successful primitive men, from whom civilized peoples are descended, must have excelled in treachery and cruelty, as in quickness of wit and strength of will. That moral sense which makes it seem wicked to steal and murder was scarcely more developed in them than in tigers or wolves. But to all this there was one exception. The family supplied motives for peaceful coöperation.
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- The Destiny of ManViewed in the Light of his Origin, pp. 77 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1884