hus according to Mr. Keysser, who has no theory to maintain and merely
gives us in this passage the result of long personal observation, the
Kai savages are thinking, reasoning men, whose conduct, however strange
and at first sight unintelligible it may appear to us, is really based
on a definite religious or if you please superstitious view of the
world. It is true that their theory as well as their practice differs
widely from ours; but it would be false and unjust to deny that they
have a theory and that on the whole their practice squares with it.
Similar testimony is borne to other savage races by men who have lived
long among them and observed them closely;[435] and on the strength of
such testimony I think we may lay it down as a well-established truth
that savages in general, so far as they are known to us, have certain
more or less definite theories, whether we call them religious or
philosophical, by which they regulate their conduct, and judged by which
their acts, however absurd they may seem to the civilised man, are
really both rational and intelligible. Hence it is, in my opinion, a
profound mistake hastily to conclude that because the behaviour of the
savage does not agree with our notions of what is reasonable, natural,
and proper, it must therefore necessarily be illogical, the result of
blind impulse rather than of deliberate thought and calculation. No
doubt the savage like the civilised man does often act purely on
impulse; his passions overmaster his reason, and sweep it away before
them. He is probably indeed much more impulsive, much more liable to be
whirled about by gusts of emotion than we are; yet it would be unfair to
judge his life as a whole by these occasional outbursts rather than by
its general tenour, which to those who know him from long observation
reveals a groundwork of logic and reason resembling our own in its
operations, though differing from ours in the premises from which it
sets out. I think it desirable to emphasise the rational basis of savage
life because it has been the fashion of late years with some writers to
question or rather deny it. According to them, if I understand them
aright, the savage acts first and invents his reasons, generally very
absurd reasons, for so doing afterwards. Significantly enough, the
writers who argue in favour of the essential irrationality of savage
conduct have none of them, I believe, any personal acquaintance with
savages. Their conclusion