Evolution Social and OrganicLewis, Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow)
Philosophy
Evolution Social and Organic
Lewis, Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow)
Evolution; Socialism; Sociology
He believed in revenge but it was to be strictly measured by the
offense. It must be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; not a
head for an eye, or an eye for a tooth. He only killed his enemies,
and he always, at all costs, defended the members of his own tribe.
“Within the tribe everything is shared in common; every morsel of
food is divided among all present; and if the savage is alone in the
woods, he does not begin his meal until he has loudly shouted thrice
an invitation to any one who may hear his voice to share his meal.”...
“If he infringes one of the smaller tribal rules, he is prosecuted by
the mockeries of the women.” “When he enters his neighbors’ territory
he must loudly announce his coming, and if he enters a house he must
deposit his hatchet at the entrance. If one shows greediness when spoil
is divided all the others give him their share to shame him.” Scolding
and scorning are greatly condemned. Their children are not very
quarrelsome and very rarely fight. The most they may say, is, “Your
mother does not know sewing,” or “Your father is blind of one eye.”
The savage identified his interests with those of his tribe; he was no
individualist, and under no circumstances would he have consented to
child labor.
When we reach the barbarians, who are considered in the fourth chapter,
we enter the historical period. At first sight, mutual aid seems to be
non-existent at this period. Here there seems to be nothing but battle
and bloodshed. But the reason is not far to seek; it is because, until
recently historians regaled us exclusively with what has been aptly
called, “drum and trumpet history.” “They hand down to posterity the
most minute descriptions of every war, every battle and skirmish, every
contest and act of violence, every kind of individual suffering; but
they hardly give any trace of the countless acts of mutual support
and devotion which every one of us knows from his own experience *
* * The annalists of old never failed to chronicle the petty wars
and calamities which harrassed their contemporaries but they paid no
attention whatever to the life of the masses, although the masses
chiefly used to toil peacefully while the few indulged in fighting.”
But Sir Henry Maine in his work on the “Origin of International Law,”
has fully proved that “Man has never been so ferocious or so stupid
as to submit to such an evil as war without some kind of an effort to
prevent it.” And he has shown how exceedingly great is “the number of
ancient institutions which bear the marks of a design to stand in the
way of war, or to provide an alternative to it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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