Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/499

 SEX IN PRIMITIVE INDUSTRY 479

unattended with painful consequences, such as rheumatism or consumption of the lungs, for which the sweat-house, on which they so much depend, and to which they often resort for relief, especially after a fatiguing hunt or warlike excursion, is not always a sure preservative or effectual remedy."'

The male and female come together by sexual attraction, and the chances of life are increased through association which permits each to do that class of things which by rea- son of its somatic habit it can do most effectively. Man's exploits were, however, of a more striking and sensational char- acter, appealed to the emotions more, and secured the attention and the admiration of the public more, than the " drudgery " of the woman. The unusual esteem given by society to the destruc- tive activities of the male can be very well understood in con- nection with a reference to the emotions. The emotions of anger, fear, and joy, to take only these examples, represent a physiological change in the organism in the presence of dan- gerous situations. Anger is a physiological preparation to resist, to crush a dangerous object ; fear is an organic expression of inadequacy to avert the danger ; and joy, in one of its aspects, is an organic revulsion answering to the recognition of the fact that the danger is safely passed. The same type of situation incessantly recurring in the life of the race, and con- stantly met by the same organic changes, has resulted in a fixed relation of certain types of situation to certain types of emotion. The forms of activity recognized first of all in the consciousness of the race as virtuous are simply those which successfully avert danger and secure safety. Courage, intrepidity, endurance, skill, sagacity, an indomitable spirit, and a willingness to die in fight, are virtues of the first importance, vitally indis- pensable to the society in conflict with man and beast, and they are virtues of which man is by his organic constitution, by the very fact of his capacity for the rapid destruction of energy, particularly capable. Man's exploits, therefore, first of all had social attention. Even if primitive life had been as hard as

■John Hbckenwelder, History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations, pp. 1 55-8.