The Universal KinshipMoore, J. Howard (John Howard)
Philosophy
The Universal Kinship
Moore, J. Howard (John Howard)
Evolution; Human beings; Sociology
The persistence with which savage ideas and instincts continue to
influence men long after those ideas and instincts have really
become anachronistic and vestigial is well illustrated by civilised
men and women everywhere. The sun continues to ‘rise’ and
‘set’ in all civilised lands just as it used to do to the
savage, although men have long since learned that it does not do
either. Hell, as originally conceived, was an actual subterranean
region, and heaven was an abode located a few hours’ journey above
the supposedly flat earth. To-day we continue to say ‘_up_ to
heaven,’ and ‘_down_ to hell’ (never ‘down to heaven’ and
‘up to hell’), and always think of these places as being thus
relatively located, although it is extremely doubtful whether any
really sane mind continues to believe that hell is on the inside of
the earth (or any place else, for that matter), and although _up_
means simply away from the centre of the earth, and away from the
centre of a ball means literally every possible direction. The
theological theories of the origin, nature, and destiny of man and
of the universe in general, all of which originated in savage or
semi-savage minds, and all of which bear the unmistakable traces of
their origin, continue to cling to the minds of the masses of
civilised men, notwithstanding the inherent absurdity of these
theories, and notwithstanding the fact that their unsoundness is
vouched for by the most positive and unanimous assurances from the
scientific world. Why should civilised men and women, any of them,
be indifferent to the sufferings of others, or find delight in such
loathsome avocations as the fishing and hunting of their
fellow-creatures? Because their ancestors were savages, and they are
not yet sufficiently evolved to be independent of the instincts of
their savage sires. There is no other explanation. No human being
could enjoy seeing a pack of hounds hunt down and rend to pieces a
poor harmless hare—unless he were a savage. No human being could
go out to the abodes of the squirrel and quail, and shoot murderous
balls into their beautiful bodies for food or fun—unless he were a
savage. No human being would lounge all day about the margins of a
brook, blind to the beauties of the stream and the glories of forest
and sky, in order to thrust brutal hooks into the lips of those whom
he deceives, and drag them from their waters to suffocate in the
sun—unless he were a savage. No human being would have palaces and
parks and yachts and equipages, townships of lands, packs of hounds,
and studs of horses, troops of lackeys and nothing to do, when all
around him are the men and women who made this wealth, half clad and
half starved, suffocating in shanties and working like wretches from
morning till night—unless he were a savage. All of these deeds are
savage deeds, deeds of exceeding thoughtlessness and brutality, and,
instead of being enjoyable, are to every emancipated mind positively
painful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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