s probably raw and crude in his lusts of hunger and of sex;
he was certainly ignorant and superstitious; he loved fighting with
and persecuting 'enemies' (which things of course all religions
to-day--except perhaps the Buddhist--love to do); he was dominated often
by unreasoning Fear, and was consequently cruel. Yet he was full of that
Faith which the animals have to such an admirable degree--unhesitating
faith in the inner promptings of his OWN nature; he had the joy which
comes of abounding vitality, springing up like a fountain whose outlet
is free and unhindered; he rejoiced in an untroubled and unbroken
sense of unity with his Tribe, and in elaborate social and friendly
institutions within its borders; he had a marvelous sense-acuteness
towards Nature and a gift in that direction verging towards
"second-sight"; strengthened by a conviction--which had never become
CONSCIOUS because it had never been QUESTIONED--of his own personal
relation to the things outside him, the Earth, the Sky, the Vegetation,
the Animals. Of such a Man we get glimpses in the far past--though
indeed only glimpses, for the simple reason that all our knowledge of
him comes through civilized channels; and wherever civilization has
touched these early peoples it has already withered and corrupted
them, even before it has had the sense to properly observe them. It
is sufficient, however, just to mention peoples like some of the early
Pacific Islanders, the Zulus and Kafirs of South Africa, the Fans of the
Congo Region (of whom Winwood Reade (2) speaks so highly), some of the
Malaysian and Himalayan tribes, the primitive Chinese, and even the
evidence with regard to the neolithic peoples of Europe, (3) in order to
show what I mean.

(1) See S. Reinach, Cults, Myths, etc., introduction: "The
primitive life of humanity, in so far as it is not purely animal, is
religious. Religion is the parent stem which has thrown off, one by one,
art, agriculture, law, morality, politics, etc."

(2) Savage Africa, ch. xxxvii.

(3) See Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, ch. iii.

Perhaps one of the best ideas of the gulf of difference between the
semi-civilized and the quite primal man is given by A. R. Wallace in
his Life (Vol. i, p. 288): "A most unexpected sensation of surprise and
delight was my first meeting and living with man in a state of nature
with absolute uncontaminated savages! This was on the Uaupes river....
They were all going about their own work or