subordination are necessary corelatives of difference of physical and mental endowment; and rivalry between leaders would soon result in the formation of primitive political parties. With the ultimate success and ascendancy of one leader, who secures either absolute power or power modified in accordance with the advice of subordinate leaders, we have the germs of an elaborate political system—an embryo science of government.
Meanwhile the very existence of such a community implies the recognition on the part of its members of certain individual rights, the recognition of which is essential to communal harmony. The right of individual ownership of the various articles and implements of every-day life must be recognized, or all harmony would be at an end. Certain rules of justice—primitive laws—must, by common consent, give protection to the weakest members of the community. Here are the rudiments of a system of ethics. It may seem anomalous to speak of this primitive morality, this early recognition of the principles of right and wrong, as having any relation to science. Yet, rightly considered, there is no incongruity in such a citation. There cannot well be a doubt that the adoption of those broad principles of right and wrong which underlie the entire structure of modern civilization was due to a scientific induction, based on observation and experience, which taught that the principles involved were essential to communal progress. He who has scanned the pageant of history knows how often these principles seem to be absent in the intercourse of men and nations. Yet the ideal is always there as a standard by which all deeds are judged.
It would appear, then, that the entire superstructure of later science had its foundation in the knowledge and practice of prehistoric man. The civilization of the historical period could not have advanced as it has had there not been countless generations of culture back of it. The new principles of science could not have been evolved had there not been great basal principles which ages of unconscious experiment had impressed upon the mind of our race. Due meed of praise must be given, then, to our primitive ancestor for his scientific accomplishments; but justice demands that we should look a little farther and consider the reverse side of the picture. The highly scientific desire and propensity to find explanations for the phenomena of nature lies at the foundation of all knowledge. Without such desire no progress could be made; and yet, just as most other good things can be overdone, this scientific propensity may be carried to a disastrous excess.
Primeval man did not escape this danger. He observed, he reasoned, he found explanations; but he did not always discriminate as to the logicality of his reasonings. He failed to recognize the limitations of his knowledge. The observed uniformity in the sequence of certain events impressed on his mind the idea of cause and effect. Proximate causes known, he sought remoter causes; childlike, his inquiring mind was always asking, Why? and, childlike, he demanded an explicit answer. If the forces of nature seemed to combat him, if wind and rain opposed his progress and thunder and lightning seemed to menace his existence, he was led irrevocably to think of those human foes who warred with him, and to see, back of the warfare of the elements, an inscrutable malevolent intelligence which took this method to express its displeasure.
Modern science can explain the lightning, as it can explain a great number of the mysteries which the primeval intelligence could not penetrate. But the primordial man could not wait for the revelations of scientific investigation; he must vault at once to a final solution of all scientific problems. He found his solution by peopling the world with invisible forces, anthropomorphic in their conception, like himself in their thought and action, differing only in the limitations of their powers. His own dream-existence gave him seeming proof of the existence of an alter ego—a spiritual portion of himself that could dissever itself from his body and wander at will; his scientific inductions seemed to tell him of a world of invisible beings, capable of influencing him for good or ill. From the scientific exercise of his faculties he evolved the all-encompassing generalizations of invisible and all-powerful causes back of the phenomena of
