The highly
successful men of all times have commonly been of this type;
except those whose success has not been scored in terms of either
wealth or power. It is only within narrow limits, and then only
in a Pickwickian sense, that honesty is the best policy.
As seen from the point of view of life under modern
civilized conditions in an enlightened community of the Western
culture, the primitive, ante-predatory savage, whose character it
has been attempted to trace in outline above, was not a great
success. Even for the purposes of that hypothetical culture to
which his type of human nature owes what stability it has -- even
for the ends of the peaceable savage group -- this primitive man
has quite as many and as conspicuous economic failings as he has
economic virtues -- as should be plain to any one whose sense of
the case is not biased by leniency born of a fellow-feeling. At
his best he is "a clever, good-for-nothing fellow." The
shortcomings of this presumptively primitive type of character
are weakness, inefficiency, lack of initiative and ingenuity, and
a yielding and indolent amiability, together with a lively but
inconsequential animistic sense. Along with these traits go
certain others which have some value for the collective life
process, in the sense that they further the facility of life in
the group.
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