Chapter XXXIV: The Origin and Development of the Altruistic Sentiment (1)

THERE is one form of the altruistic sentiment which man shares with all mammals and many other animals, namely, maternal affection. As regards its origin various theories have been set forth.

According to Aristotle, parents love their children as being portions of themselves.[1] A similar explanation of maternal affection has been given by some modern writers.[2] Thus Professor Espinas regards this sentiment as modified self-love and love of property. The female, he says, at the moment when she gives birth to little ones resembling herself, has no difficulty in recognising them as the flesh of her flesh; the feeling she experiences towards them is made up of sympathy and pity, but we cannot exclude from it an idea of property which is the most solid support of sympathy. She feels and understands up to a certain point that these young ones which are herself at the same time belong to her; the love of herself, extended to those who have gone out from her, changes egoism into sympathy and the proprietary instinct into an affectionate impulse.[3] This hypothesis, however, seems to me to be very inadequate. It does not explain why, for instance, a bird takes more care of her eggs than of other matter segregated from {187} her body, which may equally well be regarded as a part of herself. Nor does it account for a foster-mother's affection for her adopted offspring.[4] Of this many instances have been noticed in the lower animals; and among some savage peoples adopted children are said to be treated by their foster-parents with the same affection as if they were their own flesh and blood.[5]

[Footnote 1: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, viii. 12. 2 _sq._]

[Footnote 2: Hartley, _Observations on Man_, i. 496 _sq._ Fichte, _Das System der Sittenlehre_, p. 433.]

[Footnote 3: Espinas, _Des sociétés animales_ (2nd ed.), p. 444 _sq._, quoted by Ribot, _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 280.]

[Footnote 4: _Cf._ Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 624.]

[Footnote 5: Murdoch, 'Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 419 (Point Barrow Eskimo). Thomson, _Savage Island_, p. 135.]

A very different explanation of maternal love has been given by Professor Bain. He derives parental affection from the "intense pleasure in the embrace of the young." He observes that "such a pleasure once created would associate itself with the prevailing features and aspects of the young, and give to all of these their very great interest. For the sake of the pleasure, the parent discovers the necessity of nourishing the subject of it, and comes to regard the ministering function as a part or condition of the delight."[6] But if the satisfaction in animal contact were at the bottom of the maternal feeling, conjugal affection ought by far to surpass it in intensity; and yet, among the lower races at least, the case is exactly the reverse, conjugal affection being vastly inferior in degree to a mother's love of her child. It may indeed be fairly doubted whether there is any "intense pleasure" at all in embracing a new-born baby--unless it be one's own. It seems much more likely that parents like to touch their children because they love them, than that they love them because they like to touch them. Attraction, showing itself either by elementary movements of approach, or by contact, or by the embrace, is the outward _expression_ of tenderness.[7] Professor Bain himself observes that as anger reaches a satisfying term by knocking some one down, love is completed and satisfied with an embrace.[8] But this by no means implies that the embrace is the cause of love; it {188} only means that love has a tendency to express itself outwardly in an act of embrace.

[Footnote 6: Bain, _Emotions and the Will_, p. 140.]

[Footnote 7: Ribot, _op. cit._ p. 234.]

[Footnote 8: Bain, _op. cit._ p. 126.]

In the opinion of Mr. Spencer, again, parental love is essentially love of the weak or helpless. This instinct, he remarks, is not adequately defined as that which attaches a creature to its young. Though most frequently and most strongly displayed in this relation, the so-called parental feeling is really excitable apart from parenthood; and the common trait of the objects which arouse it is always relative weakness or helplessness.[9] This hypothesis undoubtedly contains part of the truth. That the maternal instinct is in some degree love of the helpless is obvious from the fact that, among those of the lower animals which are not gregarious, mother and young separate as soon as the latter are able to shift for themselves; nay, in many cases they are actually driven away by her. Moreover, in species which are so constituted that the young from the very outset can help themselves there is no maternal love. These facts indicate where we have to look for the source of this sentiment. When the young are born in a state of utter helplessness somebody must take care of them, or the species cannot survive, or, rather, such a species could never have come into existence. The maternal instinct may thus be assumed to owe its origin to the survival of the fittest, to the natural selection of useful spontaneous variations.

[Footnote 9: Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 623 _sq._ See also Hartley, _op. cit._ i. 497.]

This is also recognised by Mr. Spencer;[10] but his theory fails to explain the indisputable fact that there is a difference between maternal love and the mere love of the helpless. Even in a gregarious species mothers make a distinction between their own offspring and other young. During my stay among the mountaineers of Morocco I was often struck by the extreme eagerness with which in the evening, when the flock of ewes and the flock of lambs were reunited, each mother sought for her own lamb, and each lamb for its own mother. A similar {189} discrimination has been noticed even in cases of conscious adoption. Brehm tells us of a female baboon which had so capacious a heart that she not only adopted young monkeys of other species, but stole young dogs and cats which she continually carried about; yet her kindness did not go so far as to share food with her adopted offspring, although she divided everything quite fairly with her own young ones.[11] To account for the maternal sentiment we must therefore assume the existence of some other stimulus besides the signs of helplessness, which produces, or at least strengthens, the instinctive motor response in the mother. This stimulus, so far as I can see, is rooted in the external relationship in which the offspring from the beginning stand to the mother. She is in close proximity to her helpless young from their tenderest age; and she loves them because they are to her a cause of pleasure.

[Footnote 10: Spencer, _op. cit._ ii. 623.]

[Footnote 11: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 70.]

In various animal species the young are cared for not only by the mother, but by the father as well. This is the general rule among birds: whilst the hatching of the eggs and the chief part of the rearing-duties belong to the mother, the father acts as a protector, and provides food for the family. Among most of the mammals, on the other hand, the connections between the sexes are restricted to the time of the rut, hence the father may not even see his young. But there are also some mammalian species in which male and female remain together even after the birth of the offspring and the father defends his family against enemies.[12] Among the Quadrumana this seems to be the rule.[13] All the best authorities agree that the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee live in families. When the female is pregnant the male builds a rude nest in a tree, where she is delivered; and he spends the night crouching at the foot of the tree, protecting the female and their young one, which are in the nest above, from the nocturnal attacks of leopards. Passing from the {190} highest monkeys to the savage and barbarous races of men, we meet with the same phenomenon. In the human race the family consisting of father, mother, and offspring is probably a universal institution, whether founded on a monogamous, polygynous, or polyandrous marriage. And, as among the lower animals having the same habit, whilst the immediate care of the children chiefly belongs to the mother, the father is the guardian of the family.[14]

[Footnote 12: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 11 _sq._]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid._ p. 12 _sqq._]

[Footnote 14: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 14 _sqq._]

The stimuli to which the paternal instinct responds are apparently derived from the same circumstances as those which call into activity the maternal instinct, that is, the helplessness and the nearness of the offspring. Wherever this instinct exists, the father is near his young from the beginning, living together with the mother. And here again the sentimental response is in all probability the result of a process of natural selection, which has preserved a mental disposition necessary for the existence of the species. Among birds paternal care is indispensable. Equal and continual warmth is the first requirement for the development of the embryo and the preservation of the young ones; and for this the mother almost always wants the assistance of the father, who provides her with necessaries, and sometimes relieves her of the brooding. Among mammals, again, whilst the young at their tenderest age can never do without the mother, the father's aid is generally not required. That the Primates form an exception to this rule is probably due to the small number of young, the female bringing forth but one at a time, and besides, among the highest apes and in man, to the long period of infancy.[15] If this is true we may assume that the paternal instinct occurred in primitive man, as it occurs, more or less strongly developed, among the anthropoid apes and among existing savages.

[Footnote 15: See _ibid._ p. 20 _sqq._ Fiske, _Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy_, ii. 342 _sq._]

By origin closely allied to the paternal feeling is the attachment between individuals of different sex, which {191} induces male and female to remain with one another beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring. It is obvious that, where the generative power is restricted to a certain season--a peculiarity which primitive man seems to have shared with other mammals[16]--it cannot be the sexual instinct that causes the prolonged union of the sexes, nor can I conceive any other egoistic motive that could account for this habit. Considering that the union lasts till after the birth of the offspring and that it is accompanied with parental care, I conclude that it is for the benefit of the young that male and female continue to live together. The tie which joins them seems therefore, like parental affection, to be an instinct developed through natural selection. The tendency to feel some attachment to a being which has been the cause of pleasure--in this case sexual pleasure--is undoubtedly at the bottom of this instinct. Such a feeling may originally have induced the sexes to remain united and the male to protect the female even after the sexual desire was gratified; and if procuring great advantage to the species in the struggle for existence, conjugal attachment would naturally have developed into a specific characteristic.

[Footnote 16: Westermarck, _op. cit._ ch. ii.]

We have reason to believe that the germ of this sentiment occurred already in our earliest human ancestors, that marriage, in the natural history sense of the term, is a habit transmitted to man from some ape-like progenitor.[17] In the course of evolution conjugal affection has increased both in intensity and complexity; but advancement in civilisation has not at every step been favourable to its development. When restricted to men only, a higher culture on the contrary tends to alienate husband and wife, as is the case in Eastern countries and as was the case in ancient Greece. Another fact leading to conjugal apathy is the custom which compels the women before marriage to live strictly apart from the men. In China it often happens that the parties have not even seen each {192} other till the wedding day;[18] and in Greece Plato urged in vain that young men and women should be more frequently permitted to meet one another, so that there should be less enmity and indifference in the married life.[19] Conjugal love is both a cause and an effect of monogamy; but, as we shall see subsequently, the course of civilisation does not involve a steady progress towards stricter monogamy. The notions about women also influence the emotions felt towards them; and we have noticed that the great religions of the world have generally held them in little regard.[20] In its fully developed form the passion which unites the sexes is perhaps the most compound of all human feelings. Mr. Spencer thus sums up the masterly analysis he has given of it:--"Round the physical feeling forming the nucleus of the whole, are gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love, of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect their excitements on one another, unite to form the mental state we call love."[21]

[Footnote 17: _Ibid._ _op. cit._ chs. i., iii.]

[Footnote 18: Katscher, _Bilder aus dem chinesischen Leben_, pp. 71, 84.]

[Footnote 19: Plato, _Leges_, vi. 771 _sq._]

[Footnote 20: _Supra_, i. 662 _sqq._]

[Footnote 21: Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, i. 488.]

The duration of conjugal and parental feelings varies extremely. Most birds, with the exception of those belonging to the Gallinaceous family, when pairing do so once for all till either one or the other dies;[22] whereas among the mammals man and possibly some apes[23] are the only species whose conjugal unions last any considerable time after the birth of the offspring. Among many of the lower races of men lifelong marriages seem to be the rule, and among a few separation is said to be entirely unknown; but there is abundant evidence that marriage has, upon the whole, become more durable with advancing civilisation.[24] One cause of this is that conjugal affection has become more lasting. And the greater duration of this sentiment may be explained partly from the refinement {193} of the uniting passion, involving appreciation of mental qualities which last long after youth and beauty have passed away, and partly also from the greater durability of parental feelings, which form a tie not only between parents and children, but between husband and wife.

[Footnote 22: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 11.]

[Footnote 23: _Ibid._ pp. 13, 14, 535.]

[Footnote 24: _Ibid._ ch. xxiii.]

The parental feelings originally only last as long as the young are unable to shift for themselves--the paternal feeling possibly less. As Mr. Fiske observes, "where the infancy is very short, the parental feeling, though intense while it lasts, presently disappears, and the offspring cease to be distinguished from strangers of the same species. And in general the duration of the feelings which insure the protection of the offspring is determined by the duration of the infancy."[25] Among certain savages parental love is still said to be restricted to the age of helplessness. We are told that the affection of a Fuegian mother for her child gradually decreases in proportion as the child grows older, and ceases entirely when it reaches the age of seven or eight; thenceforth the parents in no way meddle with the affairs of their son, who may leave them if he likes.[26] When the parental feelings became more complex, through the association of other feelings, as those of property and pride, they naturally tended to extend themselves beyond the limits of infancy and childhood. But the chief cause of this extension seems to lie in the same circumstances as made man a gregarious animal. Where the grown-up children continued to stay with their parents, parental affection naturally tended to be prolonged, not only by the infusion into it of new elements, but by the direct influence of close living together. It was, moreover, extended to more distant descendants. The same stimuli as call forth kindly emotions towards a person's own children evoke similar emotions towards his grand- and great-grandchildren.

[Footnote 25: Fiske, _op. cit._ ii. 343.]

[Footnote 26: Bove, _Patagonia, Terra del Fuoco_, p. 133. See also Wied-Neuwied, _Reise nach Brasilien_, ii. 40 (Botocudos), Im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, p. 219; Scaramucci and Giglioli, 'Notizie sui Danakil,' in _Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia_, xiv. 35.]

{194} It is an old truth that children's love of their parents is generally much weaker than the parents' love of their children. The latter is absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the species, the former is not;[27] though, when a richer food-supply favoured the formation of larger communities, filial attachment must have been of advantage to the race.[28] No individual is born with filial love. However, Aristotle goes too far when saying that, whilst parents love their children from their birth upward, "children do not begin to love their parents until they are of a considerable age, and have got full possession of their wits and faculties."[29] Under normal circumstances the infant from an early age displays some attachment to its parents. Professor Sully tells us of a girl, about seventeen months old, who received her father after a few days absence with special marks of affection, "rushing up to him, smoothing and stroking his face and giving him all the toys in the room."[30] Filial love is retributive; the agreeable feeling produced by benefits received makes the individual look with pleasure and kindliness upon the giver. And here again the affection is strengthened by close living together, as appears from the cooling effect of long separation of children from their parents. But the filial feeling is not affection pure and simple, it is affection mingled with regard for the physical and mental superiority of the parent.[31] As the parental feeling is partly love of the weak and young, so the filial feeling is partly regard for the strong and (comparatively) old.

[Footnote 27: This observation was made already by Hutcheson (_Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue_, p. 219) and Adam Smith (_Theory of Moral Sentiments_, p. 199). The latter wrote, a hundred years before the publication of 'The Origin of Species,' that parental tenderness is a much stronger affection than filial piety, because "the continuance and propagation of the species depend altogether upon the former, and not upon the latter."]

[Footnote 28: Darwin maintains (_Descent of Man_, p. 105) that the filial affections have been to a large extent gained through natural selection.]

[Footnote 29: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, viii. 12. 2.]

[Footnote 30: Sully, _Studies of Childhood_, p. 243.]

[Footnote 31: See _supra_, i. 618 _sq._]

Besides parental, conjugal, and filial attachment we find among all existing races of men altruism of the fraternal {195} type, binding together children of the same parents, relatives more remotely allied, and, generally, members of the same social unit. But I am inclined to suppose that man was not originally a gregarious animal, in the proper sense of the word, that he originally lived in families rather than in tribes, and that the tribe arose as the result of increasing food-supply, allowing the formation of larger communities, combined with the advantages which under such circumstances accrued from a gregarious life. The man-like apes are not gregarious; and considering that some of them are reported to be encountered in greater numbers in the season when most fruits come to maturity,[32] we may infer that the solitary life generally led by them is due chiefly to the difficulty they experience in getting food at other times of the year. That our earliest human or half-human ancestors lived on the same kind of food, and required about the same quantities of it as the man-like apes, seems to me a fairly legitimate supposition; and from this I conclude that they were probably not more gregarious than these apes. Subsequently man became carnivorous; but even when getting his living by fishing or hunting, he may still have continued as a rule this solitary kind of life, or gregariousness may have become his habit only in part. "An animal of a predatory kind," Mr. Spencer observes, "which has prey that can be caught and killed without help, profits by living alone: especially if its prey is much scattered, and is secured by stealthy approach or by lying in ambush. Gregariousness would here be a positive disadvantage. Hence the tendency of large carnivores, and also of small carnivores that have feeble and widely-distributed prey, to lead solitary lives."[33] It is certainly a noteworthy fact that even now there are rude savages who live rather in separate families than in tribes; and that their solitary life is due to want of {196} sufficient food is obvious from several facts which I have stated in full in another place.[34] These facts, as it seems to me, give much support to the supposition that the kind of food man subsisted upon, together with the large quantities of it which he wanted, formed in olden times a hindrance to a true gregarious manner of living, except perhaps in some unusually rich places.

[Footnote 32: Savage, 'Observations on the External Characters and Habits of the _Troglodytes Niger_, in _Boston Journal of Natural History_, iv. 384. _Cf._ von Koppenfels, 'Meine Jagden auf Gorillas,' in _Die Gartenlaube_, 1877, p. 419.]

[Footnote 33: Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 558.]

[Footnote 34: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 43 _sqq._]

But man finally overcame this obstacle. "He has," to quote Darwin, "invented and is able to use various weapons, tools, traps, &c., with which he defends himself, kills or catches prey, and otherwise obtains food. He has made rafts or canoes for fishing or crossing over to neighbouring fertile islands. He has discovered the art of making fire, by which hard and stringy roots can be rendered digestible, and poisonous roots or herbs innocuous."[35] In short, man gradually found out new ways of earning his living and more and more emancipated himself from direct dependence on surrounding nature. The chief obstacle to a gregarious life was by this means surmounted, and the advantages of such a life were considerable. Living together in larger groups, men could resist the dangers of life and defend themselves much better than when solitary--all the more so as the physical strength of man, and especially savage man, is comparatively slight. The extension of the small family group may have taken place in two different ways: either by adhesion, or by natural growth and cohesion. In other words, new elements whether other family groups or single individuals may have united with it from without, or the children, instead of separating from their parents, may have remained with them and increased the group by forming new families themselves. There can be little doubt that the latter was the normal mode of extension. When gregariousness became an advantage to man, he would feel inclined to remain with those with whom he was living even after the family had fulfilled its object--the preservation of {197} the helpless offspring. And he would be induced to do so not only from egoistic considerations, but by an instinct which, owing to its usefulness, would gradually develop, practically within the limits of kinship--the gregarious instinct.

[Footnote 35: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 48 _sq._]

By the gregarious instinct I understand an animal's proneness to live together with other members of its own species, apart from parental, conjugal, and filial attachment. It involves, or leads to, pleasure in the consciousness of their presence. The members of a herd are at ease in each other's company, suffer when they are separated, and rejoice when they are reunited. By actual living together the instinct is individualised,[36] and it is strengthened by habit. The pleasure with which one individual looks upon another is further increased by the solidarity of interests. Not only have they enjoyments in common, but they have the same enemies to resist, the same dangers to encounter, the same difficulties to overcome. Hence acts which are beneficial to the agent are at the same time beneficial to his companions, and the distinction between _ego_ and _alter_ loses much of its importance.

[Footnote 36: In mankind we very early recognise the child's tendency to sympathise with persons who are familiar to it (Compayré, _L'évolution intellectuelle et morale de l'enfant_, p. 288).]

But the members of the group do not merely take pleasure in each other's company. Associated animals very frequently display a feeling of affection for each other--defend each other, help each other in distress and danger, perform various other services for each other.[37] Considering that the very object of the gregarious instinct is the preservation of the species, I think we are obliged to regard the mutual affection of associated animals as a development of this instinct. With the pleasure they take in each other's company is intimately connected kindliness towards its cause, the companion himself. In this explanation of social affection I believe no further step can be made. Professor Bain asks why a more lively feeling should grow up towards a fellow-being than towards an {198} inanimate source of pleasure; and to account for this he suggests, curiously enough, "the primary and independent pleasure of the animal embrace"[38]--although embrace even as an outward expression of affection plays a very insignificant part in the social relations of gregarious animals. It might as well be asked why there should be a more lively feeling towards a sentient creature which inflicts pain than towards an inanimate cause of pain. Both cases call for a similar explanation. The animal distinguishes between a living being and a lifeless thing, and affection proper, like anger proper, is according to its very nature felt towards the former only. The object of anger is normally an enemy, the object of social affection is normally a friend. Social affection is not only greatly increased by reciprocity of feeling, but could never have come into existence without such reciprocity. The being to which an animal attaches itself is conceived of as kindly disposed towards it; hence among wild animals social affection is found only in connection with the gregarious instinct, which is reciprocal in nature.

[Footnote 37: Darwin, _op. cit._ p. 100 _sqq._ Kropotkin, _Mutual Aid_, ch. i. _sq._]

[Footnote 38: Bain, _op. cit._ p. 132.]

Among men the members of the same social unit are tied to each other with various bonds of a distinctly human character--the same customs, laws, institutions, magic or religious ceremonies and beliefs, or notions of a common descent. As men generally are fond of that to which they are used or which is their own, they are also naturally apt to have likings for other individuals whose habits or ideas are similar to theirs. The intensity and extensiveness of social affection thus in the first place depend upon the coherence and size of the social aggregate, and its development must consequently be studied in connection with the evolution of such aggregates.

This evolution is largely influenced by economic conditions. Savages who know neither cattle-rearing nor agriculture, but subsist on what nature gives them--game, fish, fruit, roots, and so forth--mostly live in single families consisting of parents and children, or in larger {199} family groups including in addition a few other individuals closely allied.[39] But even among these savages the isolation of the families is not complete. Persons of the same stock inhabiting neighbouring districts hold friendly relations with one another, and unite for the purpose of common defence. When the younger branches of a family are obliged to disperse in search of food, at least some of them remain in the neighbourhood of the parent family, preserve their language, and never quite lose the idea of belonging to one and the same social group. And in some cases we find that people in the hunting or fishing stage actually live in larger communities, and have a well-developed social organisation. This is the case with many or most of the Australian aborigines. Though in Australia, also, isolated families are often met with,[40] the rule seems to be that the blacks live in hordes. Thus the Arunta of Central Australia are distributed in a large number of small local groups, each of which occupies a given area of country and has its own headman.[41] Every family, consisting of a man and one or more wives and children, has a separate lean-to of shrubs;[42] but clusters of these shelters are always found in spots where food is more or less easily obtainable,[43] and the members of each group are bound together by a strong "local feeling."[44] The local influence makes itself felt even outside the horde. "Without belonging to the same group," say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "men who inhabit localities close to one another are more closely associated than men living at a distance from one another, and, as a matter of fact, this local bond is strongly marked. . . . Groups which are contiguous locally are constantly meeting to perform ceremonies."[45] At the time when the series of initiation ceremonies called the _Engwura_ are performed, men and women gather together from all parts of the tribe, councils of the elder {200} men are held day by day, the old traditions of the tribe are repeated and discussed, and "it is by means of meetings such as this, that a knowledge of the unwritten history of the tribe and of its leading members is passed on from generation to generation."[46] Nay, even members of different tribes often have friendly intercourse with each other; in Central Australia, when two tribes come into contact with one another on the border-land of their respective territories, the same amicable feelings as prevail within the tribe are maintained between the members of the two.[47] Now it seems extremely probable that Australian blacks are so much more sociable than most other hunting people because the food-supply of their country is naturally more plentiful, or, partly thanks to their boomerangs, more easily attainable. A Central Australian native is, as a general rule, well nourished; "kangaroo, rock-wallabies, emus, and other forms of game are not scarce, and often fall a prey to his spear and boomerang, while smaller animals, such as rats and lizards, are constantly caught without any difficulty by the women."[48] Circumstances of an economic character also account for the gregariousness of the various peoples on the north-west coast of North America who are neither pastoral nor agricultural--the Thlinkets, Haidas, Nootkas, and others. On the shore of the sea or some river they have permanent houses, each of which is inhabited by a number of families;[49] the houses are grouped in villages, some of which are very populous;[50] and though the tribal bond is not conspicuous for its strength, there are councils which discuss and decide all important questions concerning the tribe.[51] The territory inhabited by these peoples, with its bays, sounds, and rivers, supplies them with food in abundance; "its enormous wealth of fish allows its inhabitants to enjoy a pampered existence."[52]

[Footnote 39: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 43 _sqq._ Hildebrand, _Recht und Sitte_, p. 1 _sqq._]

[Footnote 40: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 45.]

[Footnote 41: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 8 _sqq._]

[Footnote 42: _Ibid._ p. 18.]

[Footnote 43: _Ibid._ p. 31.]

[Footnote 44: _Ibid._ p. 544.]

[Footnote 45: _Ibid._ p. 14.]

[Footnote 46: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 272.]

[Footnote 47: _Ibid._ p. 32.]

[Footnote 48: _Ibid._ pp. 7, 44.]

[Footnote 49: Boas, in _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_, p. 22.]

[Footnote 50: Krause (_Die Tlinkit-Indianer_, p. 100) speaks of a Thlinket village which consisted of sixty-five houses and five or six hundred inhabitants.]

[Footnote 51: Boas, _loc. cit._ p. 36 _sq._]

[Footnote 52: Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, ii. 92.]

{201} To pastoral people sociality, up to a certain degree, is of great importance. They have not only to defend their own persons against their enemies, but they have also to protect valuable property, their cattle. Moreover, they are often anxious to increase their wealth by robbing their neighbours of cattle, and this is best done in company. But at the same time a pastoral community is never large, and, though cohesive so long as it exists, it is liable to break up into sections. The reason for this is that a certain spot can pasture only a limited stock of cattle. The thirteenth chapter of Genesis well illustrates the social difficulties experienced by pastoral peoples. Abraham went up out of Egypt together with his wife and all that he had, and Lot went with him. Abraham was very rich in cattle, and Lot also had flocks, and herds, and tents. But "the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together"; they were obliged to separate.[53]

[Footnote 53: _Genesis_, xiii. 1 _sqq._ See Hildebrand, _op. cit._ p. 29 _sq._; Grosse, _Die Formen der Familie_, pp. 99, 100, 124 _sq._]

The case is different with people subsisting on agriculture. A certain piece of land can support a much larger number of persons when it is cultivated than when it consists merely of pasture ground. Its resources largely depend on the labour bestowed on it, and the more people the more labour. The soil also constitutes a tie which cannot be loosened. It is a kind of property which, unlike cattle, is immovable; hence even where individual ownership in land prevails, the heirs to an estate have to remain together. As a matter of fact, the social union of agricultural communities is very close, and the households are often enormous.[54]

[Footnote 54: See Grosse, _op. cit._ p. 136 _sqq._]

But living together is not the only factor which, among savages, establishes a social unit. Such a unit may be based not only on local proximity, but on marriage or a common descent; it may consist not only of persons who live together in the same district, but of persons who are of the same family, or who are, or consider themselves to be, {202} of the same kin. These different modes of organisation often, in a large measure, coincide. The family is a social unit made up of persons who are either married or related by blood, and at the same time, in normal cases, live together. The tribe is a social unit, though often a very incoherent one,[55] consisting of persons who inhabit the same district and also, at least in many cases, regard themselves as descendants of some common ancestor. The clan, which is essentially a body of kindred having a common name, may likewise on the whole coincide with the population of a certain territory, with the members of one or more hordes or villages. This is the case where the husband takes his wife to his own community and descent is reckoned through the father, or where he goes to live in his wife's community and descent is reckoned through the mother. But frequently the system of maternal descent is combined with the custom of the husband taking his wife to his own home, and this, in connection with the rule of clan-exogamy, occasions a great discrepancy between the horde and the clan. The local group is then by no means a group of clansmen; the children, live in their father's community, but belong to their mother's clan, whilst the next generation of children within the community must belong to another clan.[56]

[Footnote 55: See Cunow, _Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger_, p. 121, n. 1.]

[Footnote 56: _Cf._ Giddings, _Principles of Sociology_, p. 259.]

Kinship certainly gives rise to special rights and duties, but when unsupported by local proximity it loses much of its social force. Among the Australian natives, for instance, the clan rules seem generally to be concerned with little or nothing else than marriage, sexual intercourse, and, perhaps, blood-revenge.[57] "The object of caste" (clan), says Mr. Curr, "is not to create or define a bond of union, but to secure the absence of any blood relationship between {203} persons proposed to marry. So far from being a bond of friendship, no Black ever hesitates to kill one of another tribe because he happens to bear the same caste- (clan-) name as himself."[58] It appears that the system of descent itself is largely influenced by local connections.[59] Sir E. B. Tylor has found by means of his statistical method that the number of coincidences between peoples among whom the husband lives with the wife's family and peoples who reckon kinship through the mother only, is proportionally large, and that the full maternal system never appears among peoples whose exclusive custom is for the husband to take his wife to his own home;[60] and I have myself drawn attention to the fact that where the two customs, the woman receiving her husband in her own hut and the man taking his wife to his, occur side by side among the same people, descent in the former case is traced through the mother, in the latter through the father.[61] Nay, even where kinship constitutes a tie between persons belonging to different local groups, its social force is ultimately derived not merely from the idea of a common origin, but from near relatives' habit of living together. Men became gregarious by remaining in the circle where they were born; if, instead of keeping together with their kindred, they had preferred to isolate themselves or to unite with strangers, there would certainly be no blood-bond at all. The mutual attachment and the social rights and duties which resulted from this gregarious condition were associated with the relation in which members of the group stood to one another--the relation of kinship as expressed by a common name,--and these associations might last even after the local tie was broken. By means of the name former connections were kept up. Even we ourselves are generally more disposed to count kin with distant relatives who have our own surname than with relatives who have a different name; and still greater is the influence which language in this respect exercises on the mind of a savage, {204} to whom a person's name is part of his personality. The derivative origin of the social force in kinship accounts for its formal character, when personal intercourse is wanting; it may enjoin duties, but hardly inspires much affection. If in modern society much less importance is attached to kinship than at earlier stages of civilisation, this is largely due to the fact that relatives, except the nearest, have little communication with each other. And if, as Aristotle observes, friendship between kinsfolk varies according to the degree of relationship,[62] it does so in the first instance on account of the varying intimacy of their mutual intercourse.

[Footnote 57: Cunow, _op. cit._ pp. 97, 136. Dr. Stirling says (_Report of the Horn Expedition to Central Australia_, 'Anthropology,' p. 43) that the laws arising out of the "class" (clan) divisions "have extraordinary force and are, in general, implicitly obeyed whether in respect of actual marriage, illicit connections, or social relations"; but I find no further reference to these "social relations."]

[Footnote 58: Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 69.]

[Footnote 59: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 107 _sqq._]

[Footnote 60: Tylor, 'Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xviii. 258.]

[Footnote 61: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 110.]

[Footnote 62: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, viii. 12. 7.]

A very different explanation of the social influence of kinship has been given by Mr. Hartland. He connects it with primitive superstition. A clan, he says, "is regarded as an unity, literally and not metaphorically one body, the individual members of which are as truly portions as the fingers or the legs are portions of the external, visible body of each of them." Now, a severed limb or lock of hair is believed by the savage to remain in some invisible but real union with the body whereof it once, in outward appearance also, formed a part, and any injury done to it is supposed to affect the organism to which it belonged. "The individual member of a clan was in exactly the same position as a lock of hair cut from the head, or an amputated limb. He had no separate significance, no value apart from his kin. . . . Injury inflicted on him was inflicted on, and was felt by, the whole kin, just as an injury inflicted on the severed lock or limb was felt by the bulk."[63] Mr. Hartland insists upon a literal interpretation of his words;[64] and this implies that the members of a clan are in their behaviour influenced by the idea that what happens to one of them reacts upon all.

[Footnote 63: Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, ii. 277.]

[Footnote 64: _Ibid._ ii. 236, 398, 444.]

In support of his theory Mr. Hartland makes reference to the belief of some savages, that charms may be made from dead bodies against the surviving relatives of the deceased,[65] and to certain rites of healing in which, besides the patient himself, "other members of his tribe, presumably kinsmen," take part.[66] But the former belief is a superstition connected with the wonder of death, from which no conclusion must be drawn as {205} to relations between the living; and in the ceremonies of healing the medicine-man plays a much more prominent part than the other bystanders--whose relationship to the patient, besides, is so little marked that Mr. Hartland only presumes them to be kindred. He further observes that in the wide-spread custom of the Couvade we meet with the idea that the child, being a part of the father, is liable to be affected by various acts committed by him.[67] And from Sir J. G. Frazer's 'Golden Bough' might be quoted many instances of a belief in some mysterious bond of sympathy knitting together absent friends and relations--especially at critical times of life--which has, in particular, led to rules regulating the conduct of persons left at home while a party of their friends is out fishing or hunting or on the war path.[68] But all these rules are taboo restrictions of a definite and altogether special kind, generally, it seems, referring to members of the same family, and frequently to wives in their husbands' absence. In order to make his hypothesis acceptable, Mr. Hartland ought to have produced a fair number of facts proving that the members of the same clan really are believed to be connected with each other in such a manner, that whatever affects one of them at the same time in a mysterious way affects the rest. But we look in vain for a single well-established instance of such a belief.

[Footnote 65: _Ibid._ ii. 437 _sq._]

[Footnote 66: _Ibid._ ii. 432 _sqq._]

[Footnote 67: Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, ii. 406.]

[Footnote 68: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 27 _sqq._ See also Haddon, _Magic and Fetishism_, p. 11 _sq._]

It seems that the importance which savages attach to a common blood has been much exaggerated. Clanship is based on a method of counting descent by means of names, either through the father or through the mother, but not through both at once. This, however, by no means implies that the other line is not recognised as a line of blood-relationship. The paternal system of descent is not necessarily associated with the idea that the mother has no share in parentage, nor is the maternal system necessarily associated with unconsciousness of the child's relation to its father;[69] even the Couvade, which assumes the recognition of a most intimate relationship between the child and its father, has been found to prevail among some peoples who regard the child as a member of the mother's clan.[70] Nay, there are instances in which the clan-bond is obviously {206} not regarded as a blood-bond at all, in the strict sense of the word. Of some tribes in New South Wales Mr. Cameron tells us that, although a daughter belongs not to her father's clan but to that of her mother's brother, they believe that she emanates from her father solely, being only nurtured by her mother;[71] and the Arunta of Central Australia, who have the paternal system of descent, maintain that a child really descends neither from its father nor from its mother, but is the reincarnation of a mythical totem-ancestor.[72] Their theory is "that the child is not the direct result of intercourse, that it may come without this, which merely, as it were, prepares the mother for the reception and birth also of an already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the local totem centres";[73] and its totem-name, which is derived from the spot where it is supposed to have been conceived,[74] is different from its clan-name. It is useful to scrutinise Mr. Hartland's theory in the light of this class of facts. They evidently prove that clanship and what we are used to call the system of counting "descent," is not necessarily based on the notion of actual blood-relationship, but on kinship as a fact combined with a name; whereas Mr. Hartland's hypothesis presupposes, not that the members of a clan really are, but that they consider themselves to be all of one blood.

[Footnote 69: Mr. Swan informs me that the Waguha of West Tanganyika, among whom children are generally named after their father, recognise the part taken by both parents in generation; and Archdeacon Hodgson writes the same concerning certain other tribes of Eastern Central Africa, who trace descent through the mother.]

[Footnote 70: Ling Roth, 'Signification of Couvade,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxii. 227, 238.]

[Footnote 71: Cameron, 'Notes on some Tribes of New South Wales,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xiv. 352.]

[Footnote 72: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, ch. iv. especially pp. 121, 124.]

[Footnote 73: _Ibid._ p. 265.]

[Footnote 74: _Ibid._ p. 124 _sqq._]

Yet another practice has been adduced as evidence of the supreme importance which the primitive clan is supposed to attach to unity in blood--the so-called blood-covenant. The members of a clan, Mr. Hartland observes, may not be all descended from a common ancestry. Though descent is the normal, the typical cause of kinship and a common blood, kinship may also be acquired. "To acquire kinship, the blood of the candidate for admission into the kin must be mingled with that of the kin. In this way he enters into the brotherhood, is reckoned as of the same stock, obtains the full privileges of a kinsman."[75] As Professor Robertson Smith puts it, "he who has drunk a clansman's blood is no longer a stranger but a brother, and included in the mystic circle of those who have a share in the life-blood that is common to all the clan."[76] Mr. Hartland gives us a short account of the rite:--"It is sufficient that an incision be made in the neophyte's arm and the flowing blood sucked from it by one of the clansmen, upon whom the {207} operation is repeated in turn by the neophyte. Originally, perhaps, the clansmen all assembled and partook of the rite; but if so, the necessity has ceased to be recognised almost everywhere. The form, indeed, has undergone numberless variations. . . . But, whatever may be the exact form adopted, the essence of the rite is the same, and its range is world-wide." Then there follows a list of peoples from various quarters of the world among whom it is said to prevail.[77]

[Footnote 75: Hartland, _op. cit._ ii. 237.]

[Footnote 76: Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 315.]

[Footnote 77: Hartland, _op. cit._ 237 _sqq._]

From this the reader undoubtedly gets the impression that the mingling of blood is a frequently practised ceremony of adoption, by which a person is admitted into a strange clan. But the facts stated by the chief authorities on the subject, to whom Mr. Hartland refers, prove nothing of the kind. In most cases with which we are acquainted the mingling of blood is a form of covenant between individuals, although an engagement with a chief or king naturally embraces his subjects also; and sometimes the covenanters are tribes or kingdoms. But of the "world-wide" adoption rite there is hardly a single instance which corresponds to Mr. Hartland's description. He admits himself that "in the same measure as the clan relaxed its hold upon the individual members, blood-brotherhood assumed a personal aspect, until, having no longer any social force, it came to be regarded as merely the most solemn and binding form of covenant between man and man."[78] His account of the blood-covenant is, in fact, only an inference based on the assumption that the existing rite is a survival from times when the clan was literally one body and the individual nothing but an amputated limb. But to regard the present blood-covenant as a survival of a previous rite of adoption into the clan is not justified by facts. So far as I know, there is no record of a blood-covenant among savages of the lowest type, unless the aborigines of Australia be included among them; and in Australia it is certainly not a ceremony of adoption. Among the Arunta it is intended to prevent treachery: "if, for example, an Alice Springs party wanted to go on an avenging expedition to the Burt country, and they had with them in camp a man of that locality, he would be forced to drink blood with them, and, having partaken of it, would be bound not to aid his friends by giving them warning of their danger."[79] This instance is instructive. The Australian native is obliged to help those with whom he has drunk blood against his own relatives, nay, against members of his own totem group. So also "the tie {208} of blood-covenanting is reckoned in the East even a closer tie than that of natural descent,"[80] and the same was the case among the ancient Scandinavians.[81] I do not see how Mr. Hartland's theory can account for this.

[Footnote 78: _Ibid._ ii. 240.]

[Footnote 79: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 461.]

[Footnote 80: Trumbull, _Blood Covenant_, p. 10.]

[Footnote 81: Maurer, _Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes_, ii. 171.]

Mingling of blood is sometimes supposed to be a direct cause of mutual sympathy and agreement, in accordance with the principle of transmission of properties by contact;[82] even in Europe there are traces of the belief that a few drops of blood transferred from one person to another inspire the recipient with friendly feelings towards him with whose blood he is inoculated.[83] But the genuine blood-covenant imposes duties on both parties, and also contains the potential punishment for their transgression. It involves a promise, and the transference of blood is vaguely or distinctly supposed to convey to the person who drinks it, or who is inoculated with it, a conditional curse which will injure or destroy him should he break his promise. That this is the main idea underlying the blood-covenant appears from the fact that it is regularly accompanied by curses or self-imprecations.[84] In Madagascar, for instance, when two or more persons have agreed on forming the bond of fraternity, a fowl is procured, its head is nearly cut off, and it is left in this state to continue bleeding during the ceremony. The parties then pronounce a long imprecation and mutual vow over the blood, saying, _inter alia_ "O this miserable fowl weltering in its blood! thy liver do we eat, thy liver do we eat; and should either of us retract from the terms of this oath, let him instantly become a fool, let him instantly become blind, let this covenant prove a curse to him." A small portion of blood is then drawn from each individual and drunk by the covenanting parties with execrations of vengeance on each other in case of either violating the sacred oath.[85] According to another description the parties, after they have drunk each other's blood, drink a mixture from the same bowl, praying that it may turn into {209} poison for him who fails to keep the oath.[86] As we have seen before, blood is commonly regarded as a particularly efficient conductor of curses, and what could in this respect be more excellent than the blood of the very person who utters the curse? But the blood of a victim sacrificed on the occasion may serve the same purpose, or some other suitable vehicle may be chosen to transfer the imprecation. The Masai in the old days "spat at a man with whom they swore eternal friendship";[87] and the meaning of this seems clear when we hear that they spit copiously when cursing, and that "if a man while cursing spits in his enemy's eyes, blindness is supposed to follow."[88] The ancient Arabs, besides swearing alliance and protection by dipping their hands in a pan of blood and tasting the contents, had a covenant known as the _[h.]ilf al-fo[d.]ûl_, which was made by taking Zemzem water and washing the corners of the Ka[(]ba with it, whereafter it was drunk by the parties concerned.[89] The blood-covenant is essentially based on the same idea as underlies the Moorish custom of sealing a compact of friendship by a common meal at the tomb of some saint, the meaning of which is obvious from the phrase that "the food will repay" him who breaks the compact.[90]

[Footnote 82: _Cf._ Crawley, _Mystic Rose_, p. 236 _sq._]