The origin of man / by Carveth Read.

  • Carveth Read
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The origin of man / by Carveth Read. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    civilization intensifies, numerous ways of getting a livelihood, which (as we have seen) derive their motive force from the spirit of the pack, gratify that spirit under so many disguises and with so little direct personal collision, as to be compatible with a good deal of friendliness and benevolence; and co¬ operation direct or indirect steadily increases. But the primi¬ tive jealousy and grudging are not extinguished, and on the skirts of society prowls a ravenous pack, watching and gnashing its teeth. Increasing capacity of forming ideas of remote ends and of co-ordinating various activities in their pursuit, implies the inhibition of many aggressive or distracting impulses that would frustrate our plans, and thereby constitutes an auto¬ matic control. And although it is now fashionable to de¬ preciate the power of intelligence in human life, surely its development has had great influence. As men come to foresee the many consequences of an action, they learn to modify and regulate it, since each foreseen consequence, good or evil, excites some impulse either reinforcing or inhibiting the action. Reflections, too, upon all the circumstances of our lot has done much to ameliorate it. The “conditions of gregariousness” (to use W. K. Clifford’s definition of morality) have been expounded by the more penetrating and comprehensive minds —prophets, poets and philosophers; and some disciples have understood them, and have persuaded many to believe. Nor have such luminaries arisen only in the later phases of culture when their writings have been delivered or their sayings recorded. Probably it was some one man who first had the insight and the courage to point out to a tribe that had ignored the fact, that whether a custom had been broken with a good intention or not affected the agent’s guilt and ought to affect the penalty exacted. Some one man, probably, first saw what injustice is often disguised under the specious equality of the lex talionis; another first tried to assuage the bitterness of a vendetta and to restrain its destructiveness by appointing compensation; another, perhaps, first proposed to substitute animal for human sacrifice, or a puppet for a slave. And when
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