The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
Cannibalism, of course, is a special expression of the predatory
motive in general, or it is mainly that. Cannibalism was certainly
established early in primitive life, at least early enough to antedate
all religion, and although its origin and history are shrouded in
mystery, the motive was quite certainly practical. Evidently it was
widespread if not universal. Whether it was introduced as a result of
a failure of animal food, as some think, or has a still more simple
explanation as a part of the original impulse which led men at a
certain stage of their development to become hunters, cannot be
determined. We know, however, that the alien human being was to some
extent included under the same concepts as the animal enemy and prey,
and presumably some of the strongest motives that led men to attack
animals also included man as an object, since the alien group was
regarded as in some degree different in kind from the in-group. It
may have been in the great migrations when all the aggressive motives
were increased that cannibalism became fixed as a habit.
Cannibalism may well have been the primitive motive of warfare as
serious deadly combat, but all predatory habits must have contributed
to establishing a more or less habitual state of warfare among all
groups of men. The predatory raid, with the reaction of defense, when
carried on as a group activity in any form, is in fact war, so far as
attack and defense were serious and deadly, and intelligence and
weapons were sufficiently developed to make man a dangerous opponent.
This predatory motive, of course, extended to all desired objects, and
these objects must have included all objects that could most simply be
acquired by stealing. They included food, women, and all other
possessions. The custom of driving out young males from the group, by
the jealousy of the old males, and of preventing males from obtaining
females within the group must have been one of the earliest and one of
the strongest incentives to predatory warfare. At first all property
of the group, for so long as groups were wandering, was to some extent
common, and attack and defense must have been common. The objects of
predatory raids which produced group combat must have changed with the
social life. When habitation became fixed and property therefore more
individual, probably the predatory impulse itself became relatively a
less important factor in combat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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