Spencer mentions as a particular case of this lack of control the improvidence of primitive man. I believe it would be more proper to say, instead of improvidence, optimism. “Why should I not be as successful to-morrow as I was to-day?” is the underlying feeling of primitive man. This feeling is, I think, no less powerful in civilized man. What builds up business activity but the belief in the stability of existing conditions? Why do the poor not hesitate to found families without being able to lay in store beforehand? We must not forget that starvation among most primitive people is an exceptional case, the same as financial crises among civilized people; and that for times of need, such as occur regularly, provision is always made. Our social status is more stable, so far as the acquiring of the barest necessities of life is concerned, so that exceptional conditions do not prevail often; but nobody would maintain that the majority of civilized men are always prepared to meet emergencies. We may recognize a difference in the degree of improvidence caused by the difference of social status, but not a specific difference between lower and higher types of man. Related to the lack of power of inhibition is another trait which has been ascribed to primitive man of all races,—his inability of concentration when any demand is made upon the more complex faculties of the intellect. I will mention an example which seems to make clear the error committed in this assumption. In his description of the natives of the west coast of Vancouver Island, Sproat says, “The native mind, to an educated man, seems generally to be asleep.... On his attention being fully aroused, he often shows much quickness in reply and ingenuity in argument. But a short conversation wearies him, particularly if questions are asked that require efforts of thought or memory on his part. The mind of the savage then appears to rock to and fro out of mere weakness.” Spencer, who quotes this passage, adds a number of others corroborating this point. I happen to know through personal contact the tribes mentioned by Sproat. The questions put by the traveller seem mostly trifling to the Indian, and he naturally soon tires of a conversation carried on in a foreign language, and one in which he finds nothing to interest him. As a matter of fact, the interest of those natives can easily be raised to a high pitch, and I have often been the one who was wearied out first. Neither does the management of their intricate system of exchange prove mental inertness in matters which concern the natives. Without mnemonic aids, they plan the systematic distribution of their property in such a manner as to increase their wealth and social position. These plans require great foresight and constant application.