directed to some end. It is this teleological unfolding of
activity that constitutes any object or phenomenon an "animate"
fact. Wherever the unsophisticated savage or barbarian meets with
activity that is at all obtrusive, he construes it in the only
terms that are ready to hand -- the terms immediately given in
his consciousness of his own actions. Activity is, therefore,
assimilated to human action, and active objects are in so far
assimilated to the human agent. Phenomena of this character --
especially those whose behaviour is notably formidable or
baffling -- have to be met in a different spirit and with
proficiency of a different kind from what is required in dealing
with inert things. To deal successfully with such phenomena is a
work of exploit rather than of industry. It is an assertion of
prowess, not of diligence.

Under the guidance of this naive discrimination between the inert
and the animate, the activities of the primitive social group
tend to fall into two classes, which would in modern phrase be
called exploit and industry. Industry is effort that goes to
create a new thing, with a new purpose given it by the fashioning
hand of its maker out of passive ("brute") material; while
exploit, so far as it results in an outcome useful to the agent,
is the conversion to his own ends of energies previously directed
to some other end by an other agent. We still speak of "brute
matter" with something of the barbarian's realisation of a
profound significance in the term.

The distinction between exploit and drudgery coincides with a
difference between the sexes. The sexes differ, not only in
stature and muscular force, but perhaps even more decisively in