The Scientific Basis of Socialism
by Henry Meyners Bernard (9780217129459)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. The Position Of Women In The Earliest Or Larval Stage In The Development Of Human Societies However human societies may actually have started, their existence as distinct organisms may provisionally be said to date from the time when, say, they emerged from the forests in small groups, at first timidly, and, later, more boldly, until they were finally cut off, as small separate colonies, from ever returning to their former arboreal habits. From that time human societies had to roam over the face of the earth in small compact bodies, perhaps as companies of cave- or rock-dwellers. The record of these earliest men having been tree-dwellers is clear and indelible. We still keep the hand-like feet which convict us of being descended from apelike ancestors. We naturally conclude that human societies only began to be specialized into compact organisms after they left the forests, for it is hardly likely that primitive men learnt more than the very first rudiments of social life in the trees. Trees, with diverging branches, tend to scatter; besides, if the early men were, say, half the size and weight of their civilized descendants, trees would offer precarious support to anything like a crowd. Caves, or the solidground, would permit of the closer huddling and cuddling which played some part in welding infant societies into organic wholes. These instinctive clingings would be stimulated by common danger from wild beasts which would collect round infant colonies as sharks collect round ships, and which, like sharks, would be persistent in their attentions. No historical record is required to assure us of this. For is not the dog whom we to-day allow in our midst on friendly terms a descendant of the animals which once, wolf-like, hung round the infant societies ? To begin ...

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