Savagism

“ But it is when we turn to their treatment of the non-human races that we find the surest evidences of barbarism; yet their savagery, even here, is not wholly “naked and unashamed,” for, strange to say, these curious people delight to mask their rudeness in a cloak of fallacies and sophisms, and to represent themselves as “lovers” of those very creatures whom they habitually torture for “sport,” “science,” and the “table.” ”

“ As for you, sir, who also laugh, let some man come and strike you in the face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous-looking dish, and we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in you.
There, I might go on for ever, but what is the good? Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt. A vainglory is it, and like a northern light, comes but to fade and leave the sky more dark. ”

“ The tale which I have based upon several such historical instances in real life endeavours briefly to hint at the modes of feeling likely to accompany such a relapse into barbarism in an essentially fine and sensitive savage nature. To most European readers, no doubt, such a sheer fall from the pinnacle of civilization to the nethermost abysses of savagery, would seem to call for the display of no other emotion than pure disgust and aversion ”

“ Their self-restraint in many directions is, perhaps, quite as remarkable as their self-abandonment in others; and the mere fact of one’s having lived for many years{15} among savages is in itself a testimony to their good nature. Looked at in this light, the trouble is not so much that they are in reality savage, as that they suppose themselves to be civilized; for it is from the false garb of civilization that the misapprehension has sprung. ”

“ Savages—those that are truly stunted or depraved—dedicate nearly all their tales and sayings to the subject of physical kinship, of a curse on this or that tribe, of a taint in this or that family, of the invincible law of blood, of the unavoidable evil of places. The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man and is always talking about what he may do. ”

“ The perils, I grant, are many and great, but greater still are those that lie in wait for an armed traveller. The savage may be terrified and overpowered by the massacres with which civilization asserts its tyrannical superiority but the venom of hatred has entered his soul and he meditates and prepares an ambush which sooner or later, without fail, will give him his revenge. ”

“ Duty, honour, love, self-sacrifice—these are the fruits of The Spirit; unknown to, and unobeyed by, the savage, or by the civilized man who—as has too often happened—as is happening now in too many lands, on both sides of the Atlantic, is sinking back into inward savagery, amid an outward and material civilization. ”

“ Is this lust for blood, this love of cruelty; latent in every woman and but restrained, by the gentler teachings and promptings of her more developed nature in its highest presentation? So some psychists would have us believe; but they have only slight ground for their sweeping assertion. That civilisation is but restrained savagery may perhaps be conceded; but if the restraint has grown to be the ever-dominant impulse, then has the savage been slain. ”

“ A savage, in fact, in the midst of our civilization, which, after trying to grind him into powder, and denying him everything, was unjust enough to despise him heartily for what he had made of himself unaided. Could he have refrained from taking offense at trifles, and from punching people's heads, he could easily have retained the high place he had once held on the New York stage. ”

“ It might bring a return, we feared, to the ethics of, say, the Middle Ages; our countrymen’s innate savagery would be rather more openly and avowedly practised—that would be all. They would be like the troupe of monkeys who, having been trained to go through their performance with grave and sedate demeanour, were loosed suddenly, by the flinging of a handful of nuts, into all their native lawlessness. ”

“ Is it not wiser, and more conducive to one’s personal peace of mind, to reverse this assumption, and to start with the frank avowal that the present age, in spite of its vast mechanical cleverness, is, from an ethical point of view, one of positive barbarism, not so savage, of course, as some that have preceded it, but still undeniably savage as compared with what we foresee of a civilized future? ”

“ The stages of discernment from the lowest savage to the highest civilized man constitute a series the end of which is far from the beginning.
If the discernment of the savage is little, his discrimination is less. All his sensuous perceptions are confused; but the confusion is that universal habit of savagery—the confusion of the objective with the subjective, so that the savage sees, hears, tastes, smells, feels the imaginings of his own mind. ”

“ Savages attempt to inoculate themselves with moral and other virtues by making cuts in their bodies and inserting in the cuts the ashes of animals and plants which they suppose to be endowed with the virtues in question. Just as the savage thinks that he can swallow the moral and other virtues in the shape of food, so he fondly imagines that he can inoculate himself with them. ”

“ Is the savage to be blamed because he becomes provoked at such intolerable folly? Is it to be wondered at that he should lose all confidence in people who, while claiming to be his superiors, display such despicable disregard of decency and good faith? ”

“ But when the savage hears the distant humming of the bull-roarer, at whatever distance, he knows that the mysteries of his god are in full swing, and he hurries forward in haste, leaving his work or his pleasure, and running, naked as he stands, to take his share in the worship, lest the anger of heaven should burst forth in devouring flames to consume him. ”

“ And in the savage the brain retains, as we may say, but few impressions, it is wholly at the mercy of the feeling that rushes in upon it; while in the civilized man, ideas sink into the heart and change it; he has a thousand interests and many feelings, where the savage has but one at a time. ”

“ Savage of some actions which scarcely any provocation will be thought sufficient to justify, such as seizing what he had in his lodgings, and other instances of wanton cruelty, by which he increased the distress of Savage without any advantage to himself. ”

“ For it is a matter of curious observation that some instinctive impulse or fixed principle in the nature of a savage will lead him to make a ready selection between such tokens or implements of civilization as at once win his approval and those which he rejects with indifference, disdain, or aversion. ”

“ People often indignantly ask, with reference to some cruel action or custom, whether we are living “in an age of civilization or of savagery,” the implication being that in an era of the highest and noblest civilization, such as ours is assumed to be, some unaccountably barbarous persons are stooping to an unworthy practice. ”

“ Almost or quite devoid as he is of the feelings and ideas we call moral—holding by force whatever he owns, wresting from the weaker the woman or other object he has possession of, killing his own child without hesitation if it is an incumbrance, or his wife if she offends him, and sometimes proud of being a recognized killer of his fellow-tribesmen—the savage has no distinct ideas of right and wrong in the abstract. ”

“ But what are such sober infirmities to the vices that arise from defiance and despair? Your savage has his virtues, but they are mostly physical,—fortitude, abstinence, patience: mental and moral virtues must be numerous or few, in proportion to the range of ideas and the exigencies of social life. With the savage, therefore, they must be fewer than with civilized men ”

“ It may be said, perhaps, that as the ideal is always in advance of the actual, and it is easy to show that any present stage of society falls far short of what it might be and ought to be, the distinction between savagery and civilization is a matter of names. ”

“ The savage, like ourselves, feels the oppression of his impotence before the powers of Nature; but having in himself nothing that he respects more than Power, he is willing to prostrate himself before his gods, without inquiring whether they are worthy of his worship. ”

“ Even the savage of course in some measure exemplifies this law of human nature, and is lord of the brutes; and what he is and man is generally, compared with the inferior animals, such is man civilized compared with the barbarian. ”

“ Though descended from civilized ancestors, it cannot be denied that when for a length of time, a people have been used to the modes of savage life common to the rude stages of society, not feeling themselves restrained by penal laws, nor under the influence of reason or religion, nor yet impressed by apprehensions of disgrace, they sink into the habits of savages, and appear scarce a grade above the brutal race. ”

“ The captain was convulsed with laughter.
But, in truth, the mental toilet of most of us is as defective and almost as risible as was that of this savage Court. We take on our opinions without paying heed to conclusions, and the result is absurd. Better be without any opinions at all. A naked savage is not necessarily an undignified object; but a savage in a dress-coat and nothing else is, and must ever remain, a mockery and a show. ”

“ We have seen how, to clothe himself, the savage robs the beast; how, like animals, primitive man constructs his habitation, provides food, rears a family, exercises authority, holds property, wages war, indulges in amusements, gratifies social instincts; and that in all this, the savage is but one remove from the brute. ”

“ But we must now observe that the "actual experience," properly so called, of the savage is so limited and so coloured by misconception and superstition, that his knowledge of the world varies very much from the conceptions of civilised races. He seeks an explanation, a theory of things, based on his experience. ”

“ Far otherwise is it with man at the stage of savagery—the stage of petty groups pursuing a self-centred life of inveterate custom, in an isolation almost as complete as if they were marooned on separate atolls of the ocean. ”

“ INCARNATE HUMAN GODS
The instances which in the preceding chapters I have drawn from the beliefs and practices of rude peoples all over the world, may suffice to prove that the savage fails to recognise those limitations to his power over nature which seem so obvious to us. ”

“ His appetites, his tastes, his habits, even his bodily functions are perverted. Of course, there are degrees of depravity, and varieties of perversion. In some respects, savages approach more nearly to the natural state than civilized man, and in other particulars, the latter more nearly represents man's natural condition; but in neither barbarism nor civilization do we find man in his primitive state. ”

“ Being a savage—and, consequently, led entirely by feeling, which is perhaps the chief characteristic of savage, as distinguished from civilised, man,—he hated his enemies with exceeding bitterness, and loved his friends with all his heart. ”

“ Ignorant savages were they, with many cruel and idolatrous customs, who were cannibals and murderers, and given up to the worst vices of the heathen. Their abject and pitiable state, he told us, the Lord God had witnessed with Divine commiseration, and had determined that the light of Christian love should shine upon their darkness, and that Almighty wisdom should dissipate their besotted ignorance. ”

“ It may be urged that even these practices do not bar a claim to a stage of civilization, if we still allow the term where superstition about God and cruelty towards men match the most foul and atrocious practices of savages. ”

“ For the savage is by no means so illogical and unpractical as to superficial observers he is apt to seem; he has thought deeply on the questions which immediately concern him, he reasons about them, and though his conclusions often diverge very widely from ours, we ought not to deny him the credit of patient and prolonged meditation on some fundamental problems of human existence. ”

“ How much more care does it not require to avert the steps of the converted savage from crime, than that of others of your flock!—is he not naturally more debased, more prone to adopt the broad and easy path that ever lies plain and palpably before him? ”

“ A species of savage ferocity now appeared to have seized upon the crowd, and the people, in making up their minds to do something which was strikingly at variance with all their preconceived notions of right and wrong, appeared to feel that it was necessary, in order that they might be consistent, to cast off many of the decencies of life, and to become riotous and reckless. ”

“ I tell you, sir, that, besides its being forbidden, both by law and gospel, it's an idiotical and totally absurd practice, that of duelling. An honest savage has more sense than to practise it—he takes his bow or his gun, as the thing may be, and shoots his enemy from behind a bush. ”

“ Worse than Savages.—With all our civilization we are put to shame even by the savages. The savages know of no fastidiousness of the sexual instinct and of no brothels. We are, indeed, likewise savages, but in quite a different sense. ”

“ What more natural, therefore, than that the savage should offer excuses to the beasts and the fruits for the painful necessity he is under of consuming them, and that he should endeavour to alleviate their pangs by soft words and an air of respectful sympathy, in order that they may bear him no grudge, and may in due time come again to be again eaten and again lamented? ”

“ The picture of a lad, who was born on a desert island—though of English parents—and really deserves to be called a savage, growing up with no other companionship than that of his father's murderer, is boldly conceived and executed with some power. ”