existence. When we read the descriptions of our nature as given by
William James, McDougall, or even Thorndike, with all his reservations,
we get a rather impressive idea of our possibilities, not a picture of
uncivilized life. When we go camping we think that we are deserting
civilization, forgetting the sophisticated guides, and the pack horses
laden with the most artificial luxuries, many of which would not have
been available even a hundred years ago. We lead the simple life with
Swedish matches, Brazilian coffee, Canadian bacon, California canned
peaches, magazine rifles, jointed fishing rods, and electric
flashlights. We are elaborately clothed and can discuss Bergson's
views or D. H. Lawrence's last story. We naively imagine we are
returning to "primitive" conditions because we are living out of doors
or sheltered in a less solid abode than usual, and have to go to
the brook for water.

But man's original estate was, as Hobbes reflected, "poor, nasty,
brutish, and short". To live like an animal is to rely upon one's own
quite naked equipment and efforts, and not to mind getting wet or cold
or scratching one's bare legs in the underbrush. One would have to eat
his roots and seeds quite raw, and gnaw a bird as a cat does. To get
the feel of uncivilized life, let us recall how savages with the
comparatively advanced degree of culture reached by our native Indian
tribes may fall to when really hungry. In the journal of the Lewis and
Clark expedition there is an account of the killing of a deer by the
white men. Hearing of this, the Shoshones raced wildly to the spot
where the warm and bloody entrails had been thrown out

... and ran tumbling over one another like famished dogs. Each tore
away whatever part he could, and instantly began to eat it; some
had the liver, some the kidneys, and, in short, no part on which we