Human motives / by James Jackson Putnam.

  • Putnam, James Jackson, 1846-1918.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Human motives / by James Jackson Putnam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be to seriously misunderstand my mean- ing and the facts at issue. We need not, indeed, confine ourselves to writers of romance. Every student of folk-lore and the histories of primitive races, every student of evolution, such as Darwin, is aware that reproduction forms an essen- tial part of the duty of every living thing, and that the preparations for it are multi- fold and vast to a degree infinitely tran- scending — one might think — the actual necessities of the case. It is so imperative that plants and animals should provide for the perpetuation of their species that they adopt inconceivably subtle and varied methods to bring this result about and to make sure that it shall succeed. It is in this light that the whole matter should be studied, and no thinking person can remain in ignorance of the fact that a large pro- portion of the conventions of men’s social lives have, among other things, this end in view. Around this great function of