III


Nous etions deja si vieux quand nous sommes nes.--ANATOLE FRANCE.

Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis?--ENNIUS.

Tous les homines se ressemblent si fort qu'il n'y a point de peuple
dont les sottises ne nous doivent faire trembler.--FONTENELLE.

The savage is very close to us indeed, both in his physical and
mental make-up and in the forms of his social life. Tribal society
is virtually delayed civilization, and the savages are a sort of
contemporaneous ancestry.--WILLIAM I. THOMAS.




6. OUR ANIMAL HERITAGE. THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATION


There are four historical layers underlying the minds of civilized
men--the animal mind, the child mind, the savage mind, and the
traditional civilized mind. We are all animals and never can cease to
be; we were all children at our most impressionable age and can never
get over the effects of that; our human ancestors have lived in
savagery during practically the whole existence of the race, say five
hundred thousand or a million years, and the primitive human mind is
ever with us; finally, we are all born into an elaborate civilization,