ABSTRACT
Recorded human history bears the stamp of continuing violence at such a level that any detached observer might well conclude that humans are the most dangerous of all creatures, being ever prone to engage in conflicts with their own kind. But was it always so? And if it was not, what does it tell us about the future? Can some of the behaviour of former times be rekindled? Or have men and women been cast in some supposed mould, like Adam and Eve, in which human behaviour is forever locked? Are humans destined to repeat the mistakes to which they are genetically prone, so that the concept of human social progress might be largely illusory?
