ABSTRACT
The evolution of society and of language and the evolution of mind raise in the respect the same difficulty: the most important part of cultural evolution, the taming of the savage, was completed long before recorded history begins. It is this cultural evolution which man alone has undergone that now distinguishes him from the other animals. The transition from the small band to the settled community and finally to the open society and with it to civilization was due to men learning to obey the same abstract rules instead of being guided by innate instincts to pursue common perceived goals. The innate natural longings were appropriate to the condition of life of the small band during which man had developed the neural structure which is still characteristic of Homo sapiens. Logical positivism has been trying to show that all moral values are ‘devoid of meaning’, purely ‘emotive’.
