Natural Man

by Arthur B. Moss

But it is not my purpose further to pursue the subject of man's origin, which, while it is confessedly a most interesting question, is one upon which no man who is not a skilled scientist can write or speak with authority. I can only deal with probabilities. Nobody, so far as we know, was present to witness the first man spring into existence. Indeed, we do not know that there was a first man! And if there was a first, it does not follow that he was conscious of being made, or when he was completed that he had the pleasure of seeing his maker, who told him how it was done. Or, on the other hand, if he were evolved from some lower creature it does not follow that he was conscious of the evolution. But at least we can be sure that history speaks with no uncertain sound concerning man's progress in the world and the means by which it was achieved. As a civilised creature man is not many centuries old. Even now we find many savage races existing on the earth, and in type so low in the scale are they that they more nearly resemble the brute beasts, both in intellect and in physique, than the higher forms of men. Now if we would study the progress of the human race to any advantage, we must study it apart from all prejudice, and not allow religious or superstitious notions concerning the superiority of one class of people to warp our minds and prevent us from understanding the important part played by savage peoples in the battle of life. For it must always be remembered that man's history is one of fearful warfare, not only between men and men, but between man and the lower animals.

It is no flight of the imagination to say that there exist the clearest proofs that man many ages ago lived in "holes in the earth," and went in constant fear of animals who sought him as their prey. Sometimes he would have to scramble up trees to elude the vigilance of these sagacious beasts; sometimes the tree would form no place of safety, and he would have to run for dear life or become a living sacrifice to these savage beings.

In the course of time man learnt how to keep himself warm, while the beasts of the field perished from cold or parched with thirst and famished with hunger, sunk and died; he learnt how to huddle himself up close to a fire in his mud-hut, out of all danger from the enemy. In addition to this he learnt how to speak, to communicate his thoughts to his fellows. These were great steps in advance. Man was still in a nude condition. But now he began to form a theory as to the cause of the phænomena of the universe. He began to establish the reign of the gods. All his gods, naturally enough, at first were fetishes. Those animals which he considered superior to himself he elected as special objects of worship. As soon as he found that these were not superior, but inferior, to himself, he began to make gods after his own image.

Out of small tribes in course of ages grew great nations. Men could now manufacture weapons of destruction with which they could procure food and destroy their enemies; thus little by little were built up the nations of the earth. All advance, all progress towards civilisation made by primitive man was made by opposing with all his strength and skill the destructive forces of nature, and by strenuous attempts at improving upon human nature itself. Was man then inherently depraved and prone to evil continually? Not so. The germs of evil and good were alike sown in his nature; and if either of these was developed by favorable circumstances an evil or a good result followed of necessity. That man was not depraved by nature is seen by the fact that in the general evolution of things, instead of growing worse he has continued to improve—from the low, brutal and immoral creature of the past, to the purer, loftier, nobler being—the highest that can be found to-day.

In his natural state, it is true, man was a wicked being. He had no intuitive knowledge of right and wrong. He had to perform an act, and he was never sure until he felt the results whether it was good or bad. In his natural state he was dirty, untruthful, unjust. No god came to tell him that "cleanliness was next to godliness;" nor admonish him to be truthful and just in all his dealings. He was left alone to use his own unaided intelligence as best he might.

To test the truth of these assertions one has only to turn to savage races existing to-day. It will be found on investigation that not only are they unclean in their habits and destitute of any idea of justice, but for the most part they are unblushing liars and ingenious thieves.

All the characteristics in human nature that are called virtues are purely of artificial growth, and result from man's cultivation of his better self; or, in other words, from his improvement upon nature's spontaneous course of action.

In support of this view I may here quote J. S. Mill, who says ("Essay on Nature," p. 48): "Children and the lower classes of most countries seem to be actually fond of dirt: the vast majority of the human race are indifferent to it: whole nations of otherwise civilised and cultivated human beings tolerate it in some of its worst forms, and only a very small minority are consistently offended by it. Indeed, the universal law of the subject appears to be that uncleanliness offends only those to whom it is unfamiliar, so that those who have lived in so artificial a state as to be unused to it in any form, are the sole persons whom it disgusts in all forms. Of all virtues this is the most evidently not instinctive, but a triumph over instinct. Assuredly neither cleanliness nor the love of cleanliness is natural to man, but only the capacity of acquiring a love of cleanliness." On page 57 the same writer declares that "Savages are always liars. They have not the faintest notion of truth as a virtue."

Having then all these bad qualities of nature, how is it that man has been able to put them into subjection and advance along the road to civilisation even at the pace that we have seen? Such advance has been wholly dependent upon the energy and skill with which he has opposed the destructive forces of nature, using one law to counteract another, and upon the determination with which he has striven to improve upon human nature itself.

For centuries man groped about in the dark. Nature was deaf to his appeals and blind to his sufferings, and her daily performances frightened and bewildered him. And yet he did his best to ascertain the causes of the phænomena of the universe. But his best guesses were wide of the mark. Outside of nature he sought for explanation. He thought he had scaled nature's heights and fathomed her debts when he had merely gazed a few miles into the vast expanse of space above; and when the most learned among them declared that god was the author of the universe, a great theological enterprise commenced. Every nation started a god on its own account, and if one proved to be insufficient, a few more were easily drafted in, with a devil to keep them company.