We have next to consider the view which is more commonly held that the primitive mind is inferior to the civilised in degree of development, that it is more rudimentary, still at a lower stage of evolution. Even if it obeys the same laws and acts according to the same principles as our own, its powers may be more limited, its range narrower, so that it may be incapable of reaching the level of our achievements, perhaps even incapable of assimilating the higher results of our civilisation, let alone of making original contributions to its progress. If we find no evidence of such inferiority, we shall be justified in assuming the identity of the primitive's moral consciousness with our own, and all that we shall have to show will be, not that the primitive has the necessary powers, but that he does in fact exercise them. Moreover, even if there were evidence to show that the primitive mind is inferior, perhaps markedly inferior, to our own in intellectual powers, it might still have the very modest equipment necessary to grasp the simple concepts involved in our ordinary moral ideas and rules, such as truth-telling and promise-keeping, gratitude for services rendered, reparation for injuries and the sorts of acts in which they find expression.

Now about the same time as Lévy-Bruhl first put forward his view of the pre-logical nature of primitive mentality, Boas,1 in the light of his own field work and of the available evidence from other sources, came to the conclusion that the constitution and powers of the primitive mind do not differ in any important respect, either in kind or even in degree, from those of the civilised mind. Boas is as much in revolt as Lévy-Bruhl against the rationalistic psychology and the rigid determinism of what we might call the later nineteenth-century view of the development of culture as unilinear, gradual and progressive, and of the minds of contemporary primitive peoples as a less developed form of our own. He finds the explanation of the differences in the ways of life of different peoples, their beliefs and customs and institutions, not in the structure or the constitution of their minds, but in the cumulative social heritages of which they are heirs; not in their innate powers or mental processes but in the premises from which they start. He is even more emphatic than Lévy-Bruhl that the elements of a culture are intimately interconnected, and that beliefs and practices and institutions can only be understood in their context as parts of a way of life. But he contends that this intimate interconnection does not imply any law of participation or any mystic union which ignores or defies the law of contradiction or causality or differentiates the primitive from more advanced minds. What it does imply, he says, is that in order to understand man we must consider him in his environment, and his judgements and beliefs, ideals and values in their cultural context. When we so consider the characteristic products of the primitive mind, he contends,2 we shall find its constitution and powers and processes differing in no significant way from our own.3

These general conclusions were accepted, developed and defended, though with some differences of detail, by Lowie and Goldenweiser, Radin and Malinowski, and others too numerous to mention, and they have been amply confirmed by the concentrated research and the intensive surveys of primitive peoples by many trained field workers during the past forty years. Despite this, however, the belief that the powers of the primitive mind are inferior still persists in many quarters, and there have been a few anthropologists who continued in some degree to share it. What grounds, then, have been advanced for this belief, and what considerations are relevant for enabling us to arrive at a conclusion regarding it?

The argument has been conducted on three levels: (a) physical, especially anatomical and physiological considerations; (b) psychological, mainly concerned with intelligence tests; and (c) sociological, concerned with the general performance of different types of mind, as revealed in their characteristic products. Let us briefly consider the evidence at each of these levels in turn.

We need not delay long over the evidence at the physical level, for by general consent it is entirely inconclusive. Nevertheless, people will from time to time revert to it. There are, of course, physical differences between different sections of mankind, such as extent of hairiness and kind of lips. Some of these features are believed to be more, and others less distinctively human, and it has been held that those who possess the more distinctively human characteristics are further removed from the animals. If they are so in body, it is natural to suppose that they are mentally more developed too. But the evidence shows that those races, primitive or civilised, who are most distinctively human by one criterion, such as extent of hairiness, are nearest the animal by another, such as kind of lips; so that all attempts to grade existing peoples on the basis of their physical characteristics as being more or less developed have entirely failed.

The evidence from the development of the brain is equally inconclusive. It is true that the greater size and complexity of his brain is perhaps the chief anatomical difference between man and the higher animals, and that it is very closely connected with his higher mental powers; but the evidence for a comparison between the brains of primitives and civilised is meagre, and experts are not in agreement as to how it should be interpreted. The evidence available suggests (we cannot put it any higher) that, among civilised peoples, the brains of persons of outstanding ability are, on the average, rather larger and heavier than those of persons of normal ability. But the differences so far observed may be due to the better nourishment of the members of the former group who have been examined; and, in any case, some men of the highest ability have been found with very small brains. The evidence also suggests that the brains of primitive people are, on the average, rather lighter and smaller than those of advanced peoples, but the evidence is too limited to enable us to generalise, for size of brain tends to vary with size of body. Moreover, there are great variations in size of brain in any group; and therefore, while the average in the civilised group may be higher, the highest in the primitive group is much above the average in the civilised.

More important, however, than mere size of brain is the development of the cortex; but here the evidence is even more meagre, and its interpretation more doubtful. For example, the analysis of the brains of a number of Australian Aborigines showed qualitative differences in the cell development of the cerebral cortex as compared with that of some civilised peoples. These differences were interpreted by Seligman,4 who saw the results before they were published, as evidence of lower mental development on the part of the Aborigines, but Shellshear,5 who carried out the investigation, suggests that they might equally well indicate greater possibilities of future development, possibilities which no man can measure. In addition, we have to remember that inferences from brain to mind are highly speculative and uncertain, and that we in fact know much more about the powers of mind of different peoples than about the characteristics of their brains. We may therefore agree with the verdict of the experts that the evidence at the physical level leaves our question where it was.

When we turn to the psychological evidence, the direct observation of mental powers, we find it almost equally inconclusive. Intelligence tests in particular have proved singularly unhelpful. No test has yet been devised which can be applied to primitive and civilised peoples with any confidence that the results will enable us to compare their degrees of intelligence, and some psychologists6 are doubtful if a suitable test for this purpose ever can be constructed, that is, one which will completely eliminate the influence of cultural factors. When intelligence tests, which had been devised to test civilised peoples, were first applied to primitives, the results were simply fantastic. They showed the intelligence of the primitive so low that no one with any knowledge of them could accept the results. It soon became obvious, however, that the reason for these results was that the tests did not eliminate differences of education and cultural background and manner of living. It has in fact been suggested7 that, if tests really suitable for bringing to light the degree of intelligence of members of a primitive society were applied to civilised people, the latter would be at a similar disadvantage and would show correspondingly poor results. All that the psychologists have succeeded in doing so far has been to construct tests which enable them to compare the mental powers of people with more or less the same background and training. This is specially true of verbal tests, but it seems to apply to the performance tests as well. It is true that some progress has been made in trying to devise more general tests and more particularly in trying to find primitives and civilised with the same educational background, such as the whites and negroes in North America. So far, those who have interpreted the results of such tests seem to think that they do not show any difference of intelligence between the two groups. Garth, who devoted most of his life to constructing and applying such tests and who admits that he began his work with the conviction that he would find such differences, came at the end of his work to the conclusion that “differences so far found in the intelligence of races can be easily explained by the influences of nurture and of the selection”.8

But even if intelligence tests do not enable us to reach a final judgement on the relative degrees of intelligence of primitive and civilised, they have not been entirely without a bearing on our problem. Firth9 claims that the results of simple performance tests have shown that the mind of the primitive functions “in the same logical way as our own minds”. Now if this is true, it disproves Lévy-Bruhl's theory of the pre-logical mentality of the primitive. Other and more general psychological tests also have led to important conclusions. Nadel constructed and applied tests to West African natives with results which he claims “finally refute the theories of Lévy-Bruhl and his school about the pre-logical nature of the primitive mind”.10 Nadel also devised tests11 intended, not to provide a comparison between white and primitive mentality, but rather to compare natives with one another, and, in particular, to discover whether there are any significant psychological differences between the members of neighbouring tribes who are of the same racial stock, and roughly at the same stage of civilisation, but whose ways of life are markedly different. The results “reveal a close correspondence between the cultural differentiation and the psychological differences of the two peoples”.12 This strongly suggests that the differences in habits of thinking and lines of mental development are due rather to differences in social heritage than to differences in innate intellectual powers.

Tests of sensory acuteness such as sight, hearing and reaction times show no difference between primitives and civilised.13 This has a twofold significance. First, the results of these tests are less likely to be affected by education and social background. It is significant, therefore, that when cultural influences are thus excluded, no differences in powers appear. Secondly, they show that conclusions which have sometimes been drawn from the alleged greater sensory acuteness of the primitive are without foundation. Observers have often been impressed with the extraordinary grasp of concrete detail shown by many primitives, as well as by their powers of hearing light sounds, and noting footprints of men and animals, and so on. This was usually attributed to the greater sharpness of their senses. Now it has Sometimes been suggested that marked superiority in sensory powers shows an affinity with the higher animals rather than with civilised man, and that it is incompatible with abstract thinking and high intellectual powers generally, that is, with some of the distinctive characteristics of the civilised mind.

As the experimental evidence shows that the sensory powers of the primitive are no more acute than those of the civilised, his greater powers of accurate observation can no longer be used as evidence that he is at a lower stage of mental development. The undoubted difference between the powers of observation of many primitive and most civilised men must, therefore, be attributed to differences in training and experience, not to inborn differences. When primitive man's livelihood, and often his life, depends on his noting the slightest movements, or his recognising the footprints of man or beast, and when he has been trained from his earliest years in such work, it is not surprising that he should notice differences which civilised man will miss. There is, however, ample evidence that in similar conditions some civilised men will develop similar powers. Canadian trappers, for example, have been cited as an instance;14 but we need not go so far afield to look for examples. I have known at least one shepherd and one deerstalker in the Highlands of Scotland whose powers of observation would well-nigh rival those of any primitive of whom I have read. And there have been plenty of examples during two world wars of even town-bred civilians turned soldiers, who in the Burma jungle or on the plains of Mesopotamia or the fields of Flanders, when their own lives and those of their comrades often depended on their observation, after a time developed powers scarcely inferior to those reported from primitive people.

These examples also prove that such powers are not incompatible with high intelligence and capacity for abstract thinking. It is true that few people have the opportunity to develop both equally, but the civilian soldiers who developed such powers of observation included, among others, students and teachers of high intellectual gifts, and the shepherd and deerstalker to whom I referred gave indications of the same combination of qualities. Reckoned by our usual standards they might not be regarded as men of high intellectual attainments, but they could discuss the metaphysical basis and implications of Calvinistic theology, if not with the analytical skill of logical positivists, at least with a concentration and consistency which showed considerable intellectual ability and powers of abstract thought.

I think we may therefore conclude that no psychological test yet discovered has revealed any marked difference of mental powers among the different sections of mankind.15 There are, of course, great differences between individuals within any section, but there is no evidence of such differences between one section and another.

The main evidence which has been advanced in support of the view that the mind of primitive man is inferior has been derived from the observation of its characteristic products, as revealed in his simple material culture, his fantastic beliefs and crude customs, and, in general, his lowly achievements. “By their fruits shall ye know them”, we are told; the real test of powers is performance; and judged by its achievements, the primitive mind must be regarded as inferior. This is the stock argument of the layman, and we also find it used by at least two anthropologists, Pitt-Rivers16 and Seligman.17

In reply to this contention, two considerations may be urged, (1) What is our criterion of achievement? What test are we to apply to civilisations to discover which of them are more advanced, unless, as is often done, we just accept our own as the highest, and grade others according as they approximate to it? If we accept as our criterion science and technology, the extent and accuracy of scientific knowledge, and the control over nature and the material comforts which such knowledge has made available, there is no doubt that ours is far in advance of any other civilisation. But science and technology are very recent discoveries and their effects are cumulative at a very rapid rate. The result is that our material civilisation differs more from that of our ancestors of two centuries ago than the latter differs from that of the most primitive peoples known to history or anthropology. But no one suggests that this difference indicates on our part a different kind of mentality from, or greater intellectual powers than, our forefathers of the eighteenth century.

If, on the other hand, we take art or social organisation or religion as our criterion, it is not at all so clear that we represent the acme of achievement. Indeed, as regards such features, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to get any standard by which we can grade civilisations as higher or lower. Until we have a standard of comparison other than extent and complexity of material culture, it is unwise to speak so dogmatically of higher and lower civilisations, and greater or less achievements.

(2) Possible achievement depends on starting-point as well as aptitude and powers. Where a man can get depends on where he starts, as much as on his powers. I have already mentioned Newton's generous acknowledgement that his own achievements would not have been possible but for the labours of his predecessors. He had the advantage, as he put it, of standing on the shoulders of giants. If Newton had been born among a primitive people, he might well have left his mark on their thought and their way of life, but he certainly would not have composed the Principia. Outstanding mental powers are a condition, but not by themselves a guarantee of high achievement. Other conditions are also necessary, and these other conditions are cumulative, and after a certain point proceed at a progressively more rapid rate; so that, while we can argue from achievement to aptitude for achievement, we cannot argue from absence of achievement to absence of aptitude for achievement.18

In addition to the general argument from the absence of a high civilisation to the absence of powers of developing such a civilisation, certain specific characteristics of primitive life and conduct have been pointed to as evidence that their minds are inferior to ours. They are alleged to be lacking in foresight and volitional control, in powers of concentration and ability to endure pain, in capacity for sustained labour, and in powers of abstraction and classification. They are said to be lazy and shiftless, irresponsible and unreliable, easily discouraged, and lacking in initiative and originality. Now such judgements are not without foundation. They are not merely biased reports of prejudiced white men. Detailed evidence can be, and has been, produced to support them. Nevertheless, trained observers, who have watched primitive peoples in their daily life, and have understood their interests and points of view, hold that none of these judgements are justified, and that the natives do not, in fact, fall below our standards in most of the qualities which these judgements deny them.

The explanation of the discrepancies between these accounts of the behaviour and mentality of primitives is not far to seek. It is to be found in the point of view from which, and the interests in the light of which, the judgements are passed. The adverse judgements come mainly from such people as travellers, traders and plantation managers, and they are based on the point of view and the interests and values of the white man. They are due to considering practices and beliefs apart from their cultural context and looking at them against the background of the ideas and values of Western civilisation. The opposite judgements by field workers are made from the point of view of the natives and in the light of their interests and scales of value, i.e. in the light of their cultural context. Judged from such different points of view, the same piece of behaviour may be regarded as evidence of opposite qualities. For example, when, as we have seen,19 the Trobriand Islander discontinues his pearl-diving because he hears that his inland partners want fish for a ceremonial feast, his action may be regarded by the white trader as evidence of unreliability and irresponsibility. But to the Trobriander it is evidence of a sense of duty and responsibility. Or again, when the Australian native employed as a guide by a white man refuses to continue far beyond the boundary of his tribe,20 his action may seem to the white man evidence of laziness and unreliability. To the native, it may be evidence of devout religious feeling and loyalty to the claims of his tribe.21

No man will work strenuously, endure hardship and carry on in the face of obstacles unless he has an incentive to do so, that is, something that arouses his interest and appeals to his sense of value. To the Trobriander pearls have no value and the reward which the trader gives him in return for them does not provide a real incentive. Beyond a very limited amount, he has no use for it. Therefore, he will not work hard nor continuously at pearl-diving. But we must not conclude from this that he is incapable of working hard or with sustained purpose. He will work hard for spondylus shells which are as valueless in the eyes of the white man as pearls are in the eyes of the native. He will work hard in his gardens, not only to grow crops, but to make the gardens beautiful, because that seems to him important. Look at him as he prepares for months in advance for a Kula expedition, and what better evidence of sustained purpose could you wish? Look at him as he braves the perils of an overseas expedition in a frail craft, and you will find him facing danger and enduring hardship. It is all a question of values and incentives, and the values of the native are not the values of Western civilisation. Give the native an incentive that appeals to him, and he will work hard and with sustained purpose as he often does in fishing and hunting, and on the warpath; and we have seen that many of the incentives that appeal to him are of a non-utilitarian kind.

Similar considerations apply to the native powers of volitional control and concentrated attention. Watch the funeral rites of the Australian Aborigines and you may well conclude that they have no control of their emotions. But watch their youth as they submit without murmur or complaint to the painful rites of initiation, and the verdict will be very different. They have the same capacity for volitional control as we have, but we and they exercise it on different occasions and in different connections. Again, in order to promote concentrated attention, you must arouse interest. We should not conclude, therefore, that the native has no powers of concentration, merely because some of the things which interest us do not call such powers into play. They may seem to him the merest foolishness. Boas makes the following comment on the conclusion, drawn by a traveller, that the natives of a particular Indian tribe, with whom Boas was well acquainted, had no powers of concentration because they showed evident signs of weariness after a short conversation in which the traveller asked them questions which required an effort of thought and memory. “The questions put by the traveller seem mostly trifling to the Indian and he naturally soon tires of a conversation carried on in a foreign language, and one in which he finds nothing to interest him. As a matter of fact, the interest of these natives can easily be raised to a high pitch, and I have often been the one who was wearied out first.”22 Other field workers have had the same experience in this respect as Boas. Rouse the interest of the native and you will get sustained effort and concentrated attention. It is, however, true that the most primitive peoples live mainly in the present. The conditions under which they live do not normally call for long-term projects and comprehensive plans, but this does not prove that they are incapable of sustained effort in the pursuit of distant ends; and, before we pass final judgement on their attitude in this respect, we should remember that it has been commended by the greatest moral teachers as the highest wisdom.

What, then, of the capacity of the primitive for abstraction and classification? An analysis of primitive languages shows that different people classify according to different principles.23 Therefore the fact that primitive people do not always classify according to the same principles as we do does not prove that they do not classify at all. Nevertheless it is true that, on the whole, primitive people are more concrete and specific than we are, both in their thought and in its expression. Yet there are some primitive languages in which abstract terms are quite common,24 and experiments conducted by Boas with people whose language is lacking in abstract terms showed that they could easily construct and use them.25 But, in the main, the modes of life of these people make little call for abstract thinking. This, and not any absence of capacity for it, is the reason why it is less common among them. Radin may be guilty of exaggeration when he claims that the proportion of abstract thinkers among primitives is probably no less than among more advanced peoples, but the impressive evidence which he has quoted26 about such thinkers goes far to justify the description by Goldenweiser27 of the belief that primitives are lacking in capacity for abstract thought as “an obsolete dogma”. Similar considerations apply in reference to the other qualities in which the primitives are said to be lacking.28

There is one other important piece of evidence regarding the mental powers of primitive man, namely, the performance of natives, and especially of native children,29 when educated and trained by whites. I propose to consider this evidence along with the views of the three recent field workers who, against, or it may be in ignorance of, the considered opinion of the overwhelming majority of their colleagues, suggest that the mental powers of primitives are markedly inferior to our own. I want to consider their views not so much because they bring out any points of importance which we have not already considered, but partly to show the grounds on which such views are based, partly because the main evidence for them relates to two of the peoples whom I have chosen as representative primitives,30 and partly because one of them may be cited as a hostile witness in support of the contention of this lecture; for while he draws the conclusion that there are important differences between the powers of the native and the white mind, his admissions and much of his evidence seem to point in the opposite direction. The three writers in question are Pitt-Rivers,31 Seligman32 and Bryant.33

Pitt-Rivers is concerned with the problem of why primitive peoples tend to die out when they come in contact with Western civilisation. The explanation seems to him to be psychological, a weakening or failure of the will to live, due to innate mental disabilities which render the primitives incapable of adjusting themselves to changed environmental conditions. This lack of “culture potential he thinks, cannot be modified without an infusion of new blood which would change the innate constitution of their minds.34 We are not concerned with his general thesis,35 but only with the difference which he alleges to exist between the primitive and civilised mind, and the evidence which he submits in support of this difference. Using Jung's distinction between psychological types, and especially his distinction between introvert and extrovert, Pitt-Rivers suggests that the difference between the primitive and the civilised mind can most simply be explained on the hypothesis that the extrovert type predominates among the primitive and the introvert among the civilised.36 The extrovert type he considers the less developed, the more infantile; it is less analytic, draws fewer distinctions; it relies more on concrete imagery, memory and imagination, and less on abstract reasoning; it has a narrower range of imagination, and shows less originality. The more mature introvert type has the opposite characteristics. Now Pitt-Rivers admits that we find both types of mind in every society and at every level of development, but he thinks that the introvert type predominates at the civilised level and that it is responsible for its higher achievements.37 and he seems to assume that this is shown by the height to which it has in fact risen. In other words, he assumes that mental powers are not only a necessary but a sufficient condition of high achievement. Apart from general considerations of this kind, the only empirical evidence which Pitt-Rivers gives for his contention is taken from an article, the materials for which were supplied by Bryant, and put into form for publication by Seligman. The contents of this article will be considered below.

I can find no evidence that Seligman himself accepted the conclusions which Bryant drew from the experiences recorded in his article.38 He does not refer to it by way of support for the conclusion which he derived from his own examination of the mentality of the Australian Aborigines. That conclusion is, and he states it without any sign of dogmatism, that the “available evidence furnishes indications of intellectual differences between the less and the more advanced races, which may fairly be regarded as correlated with differences in brain structure, and hence as racial”.39 The evidence on which he bases this conclusion is threefold: (1) the evidence regarding the relatively undeveloped character of the Australian brain to which I have already referred;40 (2) the rudimentary nature of the culture of the Aborigines;41 and (3) observations which he made on natives engaged in domestic service and farmwork in connection with a mission. These observations were supplemented by the reports of the whites who supervised the native workers. The results of these observations suggest that the native men were competent in any activity which depended mainly on memory, but not in any activities which involved the solution of problems, and that, when unwatched, they showed no tendency to persevere till the job was finished; and that the women showed little ability to plan ahead. In games, on the other hand, the natives showed themselves capable of good teamwork. The ‘general impression’ left by these observations is summed up thus: “The Australian is perhaps less capable of being trained to lead even a simple form of European life than a high-grade defective”.42

On this evidence, two comments may be made. (1) The observations were made on natives, not engaged on their traditional activities in their natural environment, but working under the direction of whites on a mission settlement, and on tasks which were quite alien to the native way of life. (2) The natives observed were adults who began this work after they had become habituated to the ways of their own people. In fact they worked on the settlement for only part of the year, and returned to the bush for the rest of the time. It is, therefore, difficult to say which, if any, of the characteristics displayed by them were due to their innate endowment rather than to their early training and cultural background. In view of these considerations it is doubtful if Seligman would have drawn even the tentative conclusion that he did, if he had not been so impressed with the anatomical evidence regarding the structure of their brains. Be this as it may, a considerable body of evidence has since come to light which shows that his conclusion is untenable. This evidence consists partly of the observations of trained field workers like Elkin43 who learned the language of the natives and lived with them in their normal environment, and partly of the performance of the natives after they had more experience of European contacts. In this connection, the record of the native schools is particularly impressive. Let me quote the summary statement of Ashley Montagu which is duly documented, and also confirmed by all recent field workers among the aborigines. He writes: “The Australian Aboriginal native endowment is quite as good as any European, if not better. In support of this statement their exists a certain amount of evidence of the weightiest kind, such, for example, as the opinion of observers who have lived among them for many years, and who are not by any means inclined to be prejudiced in their favour. Then there is the more direct evidence of the effects of schooling. The rapidity with which the native learns, and, what is more important, the consistency with which he generally maintains that learning, is abundantly borne out by such a fact as the recent achievement of a school whose scholars were comprised entirely of Aborigines and which, for three successive years, was ranked as the highest ranking school from the point of view of scholarship in Australia. The ease with which the natives acquire good English when it is spoken to them, as compared with the difficulty with which the white man acquires the native language, has often been remarked upon by white observers. Such a fact as that a pure-blooded Australian Aborigine, who had learned to play the game of draughts by watching over the shoulder of players playing the game, recently (1926) decisively beat the ex-draughts champion of Australia in a series of matches, is also worth mentioning. Instances of this kind can be greatly multiplied.”44

Finally I want to consider the arguments of Bryant's article to which I have already referred, not only because it deals with the Bantu mentality, but also because of the use Pitt-Rivers makes of it, and because of the writer's long and intimate knowledge of the Bantu. He lived among them for thirty-three years, during several of which he taught “at the same time and in the same classroom”45 European and native children and adolescents.

His main conclusions, which refer “solely to Africans in the untutored state”, are: (1) “that some innate difference does at present exist between the minds of the average adult male of the European race and that of the average adult male of the African”; (2) that the mental powers of the African (male) “develop more rapidly than those of the European up to about 12”. This is followed “first by a gradual arrest of normal growth, and then by an actual decline of mental powers”; and (3) that “no appreciable difference is discernible either in the development of their mental faculties or in their powers between the female sections of the two races”.46

It is impossible to discuss here all the interesting questions raised by this article. I must content myself with calling attention to three of the most important points, (1) Bryant reports that the retardation in the rate of mental development after puberty is much more marked in the case of those boys who began their education after puberty than in those who entered school at the age of 6. But this difference cannot be due to differences in innate endowment. No conclusion about innate mental powers can be drawn from the performance of one class unless it applies to the other class also. (2) The writer assumes that there is an important difference between the mental powers of European boys and girls. Even if we grant this very questionable assumption, the difference between the mental powers of the Bantu and the white is not very significant if it is only of the order of the difference between the powers of European boys and girls. (3) Bryant reports three facts which throw much greater doubt on his conclusion than he seems to realise. (a) He tells us that he can find no significant difference in mental powers between the Bantu native who has grown up under native conditions and has received no formal education and the back-veldt Boers who live under similar conditions. “Developing under like conditions,” he writes,47 “the two types of mind tend to approximate and ultimately attain an equal level.” (b) Native boys attending the native colleges in Natal generally prove themselves able to tackle work of the highest standard as successfully as white boys.48 (c) South African native students who have had the opportunity of getting a university education in Europe and America have shown themselves able to hold their own against their white rivals.49

The first of these facts, which seems about as damaging as any fact can be to his thesis, the writer records without comment. The second, which as he admits might be supposed to disprove his conclusion, he tries to explain away on the ground that those “powers of reasoning and understanding” in which he maintains the whites have the advantage are not adequately tested by anything in the college curriculum.50 The third fact he regards as a “difficulty” which he must “honestly note”, but of which he cannot offer any satisfactory explanation. But he thinks that “the number of such natives is at present so exceedingly small as hardly to justify any modification of [his] general position”.51 But the fact that, in the only instances in which natives have been tested on relatively52 equal terms against whites, the natives have not been found wanting in intellectual capacity is rather more than a difficulty for a theory which holds that they are so inferior in such powers; and the numbers which were so small in 1917 have since increased considerably but there is no indication that the intellectual powers of the enlarged numbers are significantly different.53

It is in view of these damaging admissions that I have claimed Bryant as a hostile witness for the conclusion that there are no fundamental innate differences between the primitive and the civilised mind. In addition, other field workers among the African natives deny some of the facts on which Bryant bases his conclusion, especially the alleged decline in native mental powers after puberty. Nadel,54 who carried out intelligence tests on natives between 12 and 18, found not a decline but an increase corresponding to age. Junod,55 who had as long an experience in teaching natives as Bryant, and who is regarded by those competent to judge as a keener and more critical observer, states that, while he met examples of such a decline, they were by no means the rule; and he reports that his opinion, in this respect, is shared by other white teachers of the Bantu.56 To this testimony has to be added a considerable and growing body of evidence of the intellectual powers and achievements of educated natives despite all the disadvantages of the colour bar which, as Hoernlé57 shrewdly suggests, was erected because the Bantu showed, not too little, but too great a capacity for assimilating Western civilisation.

We have now before us the views of the only recent field workers, with whose writings I am acquainted, who maintain that there is a marked difference between the innate powers of the native mind and of our own. I have perhaps considered them at greater length than their intrinsic merits or their place among anthropological writings deserve. But I have done so deliberately. The belief that the primitive mind is inferior to our own is so pleasing to our vanity, and is still so widespread that it is important to consider the only kind of evidence which has been advanced in favour of it. That evidence is not impressive and will not stand critical examination. I think we may therefore accept the conclusion of the overwhelming majority of trained field workers and anthropologists that there are no good grounds for believing in the existence of such differences. This conclusion is all that the evidence warrants, and all that the more cautious anthropologists draw.58 It is quite compatible with the belief that there may be a larger proportion of outstanding individuals among one people, and that the talents of their most outstanding individuals may reach a rather higher level. But it does mean that there is no difference of principle between the primitive and the civilised mind and that the innate endowment of the great majority of individuals in different cultures is much the same. For our purpose this is more than sufficient. If it is true, it means that the moral consciousness of man is everywhere the same, and that such differences as we find in the moral judgements of different peoples, in the ideals they regard as good and the rules they regard as right, cannot be attributed to differences in the innate constitution or powers of their minds. Their moral judgements must, therefore, be regarded as expressions of the same moral consciousness as our own, and ethical theories which claim to explain the deliverances of the moral consciousness must account for them.

It might, however, be contended that, even if primitive people have the innate capacity which would enable them to grasp our moral ideas and concepts, they may not have exercised it or attended sufficiently to these concepts or to their relations. But as far, at any rate, as the concepts and relations involved in our ordinary moral rules are concerned, there is overwhelming evidence that the facts are otherwise. As we have already seen and shall see further, the moral codes of all primitive peoples include some, and some of them include all, of the rules which we find in ordinary lists of moral rules among ourselves, such, for example, as rules about truth-telling, promise-keeping, reparations for injuries, respect for person and property, and so on. General compliance with these rules is so obvious a condition of mutual confidence and effective co-operation between individuals that it is well-nigh universally recognised as essential to the well-being of any group. Indeed this is taken so much for granted by workers among primitives that they seldom call attention to the many cases in which such rules are accepted as obligatory. They dwell rather on the many and seemingly strange exceptions to them which the natives regard as right, the many circumstances in which they do not seem to think of applying them, and the narrow circle of people within which alone they regard them as binding. We shall therefore have to consider not only what rules primitives recognise as right, but also and more particularly what interpretation they put on those which they do recognise, to whom they regard them as applicable, why they regard them as right, what exceptions to them they recognise, and what they consider the justification for these exceptions.

Before we consider the light which the ways of life which we have described and other evidence about primitive peoples throws on these and allied subjects, there is another question to which we must devote some attention. It is often held that primitives obey the moral rules and customs of their people, mainly if not merely, for fear that failure to do so will arouse the anger of supernatural agents and bring misfortune or disaster on themselves or their people. According to this view, the moral customs of primitives are largely magico-religious taboos, not understood to be obligatory in their own right, but accepted on authority and obeyed because of their magico-religious sanctions. If this view of primitive conduct were true, we could scarcely call it moral at all, and a consideration of its nature would throw little light on the nature of morality as we understand it. We shall therefore have to examine the evidence for this view and consider the extent to which primitive moral rules have magico-religious sanctions, and the influence which their magico-religious beliefs exercise on their moral ideas. A consideration of some aspects of the relation between primitive morality and religion is also necessary to justify my attempt to treat primitive morality by itself, and not as a part of religion. This task will occupy us in the next two lectures.