The qualities in
question are ensured in him by two separate means. In the first place,
survival of the fittest takes care that he and all his ancestors shall
have duly possessed them to some extent to start with; in the second
place, constant practice from boyhood upward increases and develops the
original faculty. Thus savages, as a rule, display absolutely
astonishing ability and cleverness in the few lines which they have made
their own. Their cunning in hunting, their patience in fishing, their
skill in trapping, their infinite dodges for deceiving and cajoling the
animals or enemies that they need to outwit, have moved the wonder and
admiration of innumerable travellers. The savage, in fact, is not
stupid: in his own way his cleverness is extraordinary. But the way is a
very narrow and restricted one, and all savages of the same race walk in
it exactly alike. Cunning they have, skill they have, instinct they
have, to a most marvellous degree; but of spontaneity, originality,
initiative, variability, not a single spark. Know one savage of a tribe
and you know them all. Their cleverness is not the cleverness of the
individual man: it is the inherited and garnered intelligence or
instinct of the entire race.
How, then, do originality, diversity, individuality, genius, begin to
come in? In this way, as it seems to me, looking at the matter both _a
priori_ and by the light of actual experience.
Suppose a country inhabited in its interior by a savage race of hunters
and fighters, and on its seaboard by an equally savage race of pirates
and fishermen, like the Dyaks of Borneo.
Pages:
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403