ABSTRACT
Among the differences which distinguish the mentality of primitive communities from our own, there is one which has attracted the attention of many of those who have observed such peoples under the most favourable conditions–that is, before their ideas have been modified by prolonged association with white races. The first people to study the natives of South Africa have made statements fully bearing out the opinions of the writer just quoted. This chapter explores why it is that primitive mentality shows such indifference to the discursive operations of thought, of reasoning, and reflection, when to us they are the natural and almost continuous occupation of the human mind. Instead of imagining the primitives whom we are studying to be like ourselves and making them think as we should do in their places, we should endeavour to guard against our own mental habits, and try to discover what the primitives' way of thinking would be.
