I therefore suggest that I be given half a page to state exactly and specifically what I mean by tolerance. Language is one of the most deceptive inventions of the human race and all definitions are bound to be arbitrary. It therefore behooves an humble student to go to that authority which is accepted as final by the largest number of those who speak the language in which this book is written. I refer to the Encyclopedia Britannica. There on page 1052 of volume XXVI stands written: “Tolerance (from Latin _tolerare_—to endure):—The allowance of freedom of action or judgment to other people, the patient and unprejudiced endurance of dissent from one’s own or the generally received course or view.” There may be other definitions but for the purpose of this book I shall let myself be guided by the words of the Britannica. And having committed myself (for better or worse) to a definite policy, I shall return to my savages and tell you what I have been able to discover about tolerance in the earliest forms of society of which we have any record. * * * * * It is still generally believed that primitive society was very simple, that primitive language consisted of a few simple grunts and that primitive man possessed a degree of liberty which was lost only when the world became “complex.” The investigations of the last fifty years made by explorers and missionaries and doctors among the aborigines of central Africa and the Polar regions and Polynesia show the exact opposite. Primitive society was exceedingly complicated, primitive language had more forms and tenses and declensions than Russian or Arabic, and primitive man was a slave not only to the present, but also to the past and to the future; in short, an abject and miserable creature who lived in fear and died in terror. This may seem far removed from the popular picture of brave red-skins merrily roaming the prairies in search of buffaloes and scalps, but it is a little nearer to the truth. And how could it have been otherwise? I have read the stories of many miracles. But one of them was lacking; the miracle of the survival of man. How and in what manner and why the most defenseless of all mammals should have been able to maintain himself against microbes and mastodons and ice and heat and eventually become master of all creation, is something I shall not try to solve in the present chapter. One thing, however, is certain. He never could have accomplished all this alone. In order to succeed he was obliged to sink his individuality in the composite character of the tribe. * * * * * Primitive society therefore was dominated by a single idea, an all-overpowering desire to survive. This was very difficult. And as a result all other considerations were sacrificed to the one supreme demand—to live.