For a general estimate of the mental characteristics of a race or a tribe, the observation of a single individual or of several individuals is not adequate. Judgment can be based only on the totality of the various mental phases of culture--language, custom, myth, and art. But, if we would also obtain a conception of the mental capacities of a people or a tribe, we must take into further consideration the mental endowment of the _individual_. For, in the case of mental capacity, we must consider not merely that which has actually been achieved but also everything within the possibility of attainment. Here, again, the standpoint differs according as we are concerned (to limit ourselves to the two most important and typical aspects) with an _intellectual_ or a _moral_ estimate. These two aspects, the intellectual, taken in its widest sense, and the moral, are not only of supreme importance, but, as experience shows, they in no wise run parallel courses. For an understanding of mental development in general, therefore, and of the relation of these its aspects, the early conditions of human culture are particularly significant. If, now, we consider the general cultural conditions of primitive man, and recall the very meagre character of his external cultural possessions as well as his lack of any impulse to perfect these, we may readily be led to suppose that his intellectual capacities also have remained on a very low plane of development. How, some have asked, could the Bushman have dispensed for decades with firearms--just as accessible to him as to the surrounding tribes--unless he possessed a low degree of intelligence? Even more true is this of the Negritos of the Philippines or the Veddahs of Ceylon. How, unless their mental capacities were essentially more limited than those of their neighbours, could they have lived in the midst of highly cultivated tribes and have remained for decades on an unchanged mental level? But we need to bear in mind two considerations that are here decisive. The first of these is the _limited nature of the wants_ of primitive man, a condition fostered, no doubt, by his relatively small intercourse with neighbouring peoples. Added to this is the fact that up to very recent times--for here also many changes have arisen--the primitive man of the tropics has found plenty of game and plant food in his forests, as well as an abundance of material for the clothing and adornment to which he is accustomed. Hence he lacks the incentive to strive for anything beyond these simple means of satisfying his wants. It is agreed, particularly by the investigators who have studied those tribes of Malacca and Ceylon that have remained primitive, that the most outstanding characteristic of primitive man is contentment. He seeks for nothing further, since he either finds all that he desires in his environment, or, by methods handed down from the ancient past, knows how he may produce it out of the material available to him. For