Wesleyan University

Human Nature and History

Author(s): Donald E. Brown
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 38, No. 4, Theme Issue 38: The Return of Science:
Evolutionary Ideas and History (Dec., 1999), pp. 138-157
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
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 HUMAN NATURE AND HISTORY

DONALD E. BROWN

ABSTRACT

What motivatedBritish colonialism? What motivatedrenaissanceFlorentinesto finance

their state?Why did Brazilianmen find mixed-racewomen so attractive?Whatpromotes
falsity in reports of human affairs? Why did historical-mindednessdevelop in ancient
Greece and Chinabut not India?When homosexualcommunitiesdeveloped, why did gay
men pursuesexual strategiesso differentfrom those of lesbians?Why does a Heian-peri-
od Japanesedescriptionof fear of snakes sound so familiar to a Westerner?Why have
rebels tended to be youngest ratherthan eldest siblings?
To each of these (and many other) questionspartof the answer lies in specific, identi-
fiable featuresof humannature.Thus humannatureis and should be a subtantialconcern
to anyone trying to understandthe past. But human natureis also an object of scientific
study.This paperexplores a portionof this convergenceof humanisticand scientific con-
cerns by outlining and illustratinginterrelationsbetween humannatureand history.
Explorationof the interrelationsbetween history and humannaturerequiresa detailed
understandingof what humannatureis. And whateverhumannaturemay be, it is a prod-
uct of human evolution. Accordingly,key concepts in evolutionarypsychology are pre-
sented to provide theoreticaltools for understandingthe centerpieceof humannature,the
humanmind.
As much as the study of history may benefit from an understandingof humannature,
the study of history and the use of historical materialsmay also promote the scientific
study of humannature.Examples are given and several suggestions are presentedto for-
ward this task.
Finally, an argumentis made for a sort of back engineeringin which historicalevents
and conditions are traced to the specific featuresof human naturethat motivated, facili-
tated,or shapedthem. Insofaras this task is achieved, it closes the gap between recorded
history and evolutionaryhistory,between the humanitiesand the sciences.

I. INTRODUCTION

No one makes, writes, or reads history without the continuous causal participa-
tion of human nature. Human nature is necessarily involved in everything that
humans do. It follows just as necessarily that human nature shapes the course of
human affairs, the way humans perceive their affairs, and the way they represent
their affairs. One can be wholly unconscious of this or, in varying degrees, one
can consciously take account of human nature. However, insofar as one does so,
the accounting may be in error and even the best accounting is almost certainly
very incomplete.

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 139

Indeedthroughoutmuch of this century,and still today,many social scientists

have held that for most practicalpurposesthereis no such thing as a determinate
humannature;or that its essence is variability;or that it consists of a very few,
general traits-such as a capacity for culture and/or avoiding punishmentand
seeking reward.In these views, the humanmind is largely a tabula rasa and con-
cepts of humannatureare social or cultural"constructs."For many who held or
hold these views, animals may have determinate, instinctive behaviors but
humanslearntheirbehaviorsfrom theirsociety or culture.Among extremeviews
that prevailed for a period, even animals had no naturebeyond what they were
"conditioned"to have.
In oppositionto this view it was once held and is increasinglyheld today that
humannature-specifically, the humanmind-is intricatelydetailed.Among the
several reasons for the returnto this view of human natureis, for example, the
breakdownof the distinctionbetween learnedand instinctivebehaviorsthat was
broughtabout primarilyby students of animal behavior but also, and perhaps
decisively, by Noam Chomsky'spowerful critiqueof the notion that languageis
learned.He argued,againstthe "behaviorist"view, thatthe mind possesses a lan-
guage "organ"that is intricatelydetailed.By means of this organa child normal-
ly acquireslanguageas naturallyas pubic hair.Chomsky'sview of the language
organwas partandparcelof a view of the mind in generalas intricatelydetailed.1
However, to say that the human mind is intricatelydetailed, possessing the
most complex structurein the known universe,is also to say that it-and, hence,
humannature-is not well understood.2Because of its complexity,the long peri-
od of neglect in studying the mind's details, and a peculiar blindness to those
details that will be described later, formidableproblems confront the study of
humannature.
In spite of the limitationson what we know about human nature,it seems to
me thatanyone attemptingto understandhumanaffairs-past or present-stands
to benefit from an accurateunderstandingof it. In many contexts, thus, histori-
ans do and should include considerations of human nature in their work.
Accordingly, I offer here some thoughts on the interrelationsbetween human
natureandhistory.I will be concernednot only with how considerationof human
naturemay be useful in understandingthe past, but also with findingsand trends
in the scientificstudyof humannature.I will be particularlyconcernedwith evo-
lutionarypsychology,which addressesnot what the mind can do, but what it was
designedto do. I will also be concernedwith how the studyof historymay in turn
furtherthe scientific understandingof humannature.
1. Noam Chomsky, "Review of B. F. Skinner's VerbalBehavior," Language 35 (1959), 26-58.
JamesL. Gould and Peter Marler,"Learningby Instinct,"ScientificAmerican256, no. 1 (1987), 74-
85. For an overview of the study of human naturein this century,see especially Carl N. Degler, In
Search of HumanNature: The Decline and Revival of Dacrvinismin AmericanSocial Thought(New
York, 1991).
2. Although for the purposes of this paper I will equate the human mind and human nature,I
believe it should be borne in mind that human natureincludes such mattersas bipedalism, a nine-
month period of gestation, moderate sexual dimorphism,and much more that is not a part of the
humanmind. Note also that humannatureincludes many featuressharedwith other species.

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140 DONALD E. BROWN

Let me first give a few examples of the diverse ways in which humannature
plays a partin history.Subsequentsections will give furtherexamples to broad-
en the overview of topics covered in evolutionarypsychology.
Humansexuality,a topic centralto evolutionarypsychology, providessome of
the more strikingexamples of the ways in which humannatureshapesthe course
of history.Preying upon our minds, eliciting powerful emotions, spurringus to
strenuousactivity,and embroilingus in countless quarrelsthat range from petty
to savage, sexuality is always a deep humanconcern.Accordingly,Helen's face
launcheda thousandships, relationsbetween states were sealed with marriages,
despots hoarded wives and concubines, while poets, storytellers, and singers
have found ready audiencesfor endless reiterationof the themes associatedwith
sexuality.Of course there is much more in this vein and it is well known.
The historianRonald Hyam draws attentionto the role of sex in large affairs:
There used to be a theory that territoriescame under the British flag as a result of the
export of surplus capital. It would be much truer to say that the driving force behind
empirebuildingwas ratherthe exportof surplusemotional,or sexual energy.The empire
was a boon to the brokenhearted,the misogynist and the promiscuousalike. The enjoy-
ment and exploitationof black flesh was as powerful an attractionas any desire to devel-
op economic resources.3

The historianMarvinBeckercites sexualityin a moreindirectform as crucialto

the success of renaissanceFlorence,when the Florentinebudgetwas financedfor
a periodthrougha sort of rotatingcredit scheme, the Monte delta Doti, in which
individual Florentines invested to guaranteethe payment of dowries for their
daughters.Since a Florentinewoman without a dowry had, in those times, little
chance of a desirablemarriage,the Monte delta Doti harnessedthe substantial
reproductiveconcernsof Florentinefamilies to providethe utterlycrucialfundsto
financethe politico-economicconcernsof theircity.4The hypothesissuggestedby
this case, and by the one describedby Hyam, is that grandhistoricalmovements
may have been fueled in partby (consciouslyor unconsciously)tappingthe pow-
erful emotional/motivational forces thatdirectlyunderpinhumanreproduction.
It is not only sex in generalthat drives or shapes humanaffairs,but quite spe-
cific aspectsof it, such as the differentforms it takes between males and females.
Men are more likely to take on multiplemates when they can, but are also more
likely to engage in violent competition for mates, more likely to seek younger
mates, and less likely to be concernedwith the social statusof their mates.5The
anthropologistLaura Betzig has documented at great length the tendency of
(male) despots throughouthistory to monopolize women.6
3. Ronald Hyam, Britain's Imperial Centuwy1815-1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion
(London, 1976), 135. Hyam pursues his argumentin Empireand Sexuality. The British Experience
(Manchester,Eng., 1990).
4. Marvin B. Becker, "The Florentine TerritorialState and Civic Humanism in the Early
Renaissance," in Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai
Rubinstein(Evanston,Ill., 1968), 109-139, 138.
5. Donald Symons, The Evolutionof HumanSexuality (New York, 1979).
6. LauraL Betzig, Despotism and DifferentialReproduction:A Darwinian Viewof History (New
York, 1986).

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 141
In his Pulitzer-prizewinning studyof race and slavery in the New World,Carl
Degler pondered the peculiar attractionfelt by white Brazilian men toward
mulatto women.7 The hypothetical explanation that he presents is that such
women represent a compromise: not as attractiveas white women, but more
accessible. While not clearly statedas such, this may be an insight into the male
psyche, and the kinds of trade-offsthat might be made as men, perhapslargely
unconsciously,compute these matters.However, there is an alternative.
The anthropologistDonald Symons argues that in naturalenvironmentsit is
generallydetrimentalto be far from the mean of the population,whetheramong
humans or any other animal species, since the mean is likely to representthe
optimal adaptationto the particularenvironment,with naturalselection pruning
away the extremes.8This being so, it would not be unexpectedthat humanshad
evolved mean detectors and mate-selectionpreferencesthat avoid the extremes
and preferthe means.
Consistentwith this expectation,it was noted alreadyin the last centurythat
composite photos that averagedout the featuresof the persons depicted in them
tended to be perceived as more attractivethan the individualswho went into the
composite. A series of experimentshave confirmedthat both males and females
do prefermean faces (except with respectto certainfeatures,such as being lighter
thanaveragefor female faces). Consequently,it follows thatthe mean in a racial-
ly mixed populationsuch as Brazil's would not be that of a white Europeanbut
somethingin between the featuresof Africansand Europeans.Thus the seeming-
ly paradoxicalpreferencefor mulattowomen may be a directexpressionof human
nature(thoughthere is no reason to thinkthat the preferencehas the fitness con-
sequencesnow that it did in our evolutionarypast).A recent study confirmswhat
Symons's reasoningwould predict,in Brazil and elsewhere.9
The humanmind is extensively adaptedto group-or coalitional living, which
has a pervasive and continuous influence on human affairs. Recent work, for
example, tracesthe origins of humanintelligence to the Machiavellianismman-
ifest in the social complexity of primatelife, isolates a specific mentalfaculty for
the detection of social cheating, suggests that the mind is specially preparedto
think abouthumankinds (more of which later),and explores the innate "Theory

7. Carl N. Degler, Neither Black Nor White:Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United
States (Madison,Wisc., 1986), 188-190.
8. Donald Symons, "Beautyis in the Adaptationsof the Beholder:The EvolutionaryPsychology
of Female Sexual Attractiveness,"in SexualNature,Sexual Culture,ed. Paul R. Abramsonand Steven
D. Pinkerton(Chicago, 1995), 80-118.
9. Doug Jones, Physical Attractivenessand the Theory of Sexual Selection (Ann Arbor, 1996).
Mate selection criteria,on which the evolutionarypsychological literatureis understandablyrich-
see a summaryin Nancy Etcoff, Survivalof the Prettiest:the Science of Beauty (New York, 1999)-
is a field in which the art historianmight contributemuch. Also of interestto the art historianshould
be the literatureon environmental,landscape, and architecturalpreferencesthat have sprung from
studies of habitatselection. See, for example, GordonH. Oriansand JudithH. Heerwagen,"Evolved
Responses to Landscapes,"in The Adapted Mind: EvolutionaryPsychology and the Generation of
Culture,JeromeH. Barkow,Leda Cosmides, and JohnTooby, (New York, 1992), 555-579; the earli-
er classic by Yi-fu Tuan, Topophilia:A Study of EnvironmentalPerception, Attitudes, and Values
(New York, 1974); and GrantHildebrand,Origins of ArchitecturalPleasure (Berkeley, 1999).

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142 DONALD E. BROWN

of Mind"that allows humansto intuit what goes on in the minds of others.10No

one makes sense of what others do and say-now or in the past-without these
intuitions.
"Ingroupbias" is one of the ubiquitousfeaturesof our coalitionalpsychology,
and its impact on the representationof history was noted long ago, when the
Muslim historianIbn Khaldunplaced partisanbias as first in his list of explana-
tions for why historical accounts tend to be false.1 As perceptive as Ibn
Khaldun'sobservationwas, however, he understatedthe problemby tracingit to
the transmissionof information;it occurs, too, and with strikingresults, in the
very perceptionsof the eyewitnesses to humanevents.12
Furtherevidence of our coalitionalpsychology is found in topics we find par-
ticularlyinteresting.Accounts of the past, thus, are heavily weighted with social
ups and downs, wins and losses. We closely attendto mattersinvolving persons
of high status and to who sides with or opposes whom. And we are more inter-
ested in concretepersons than abstractions.13
Although the causal chain of its consequences is quite different,the accuracy
with which humannatureis conceptualizedmay also influencehistoryand, espe-
cially, the representationof history.As I have arguedelsewhere, the recognition
that there is only a single humannature(barringdifferencesof sex and age) was
pivotal to the development of a historical consciousness, such as occurred in
ancient Ionian Greece and China. By contrast,in those societies or civilizations
in which the psychic unity of humanitywas denied, and humanitywas stratified
into hereditarilydistinct stocks, as in Hindu India or medieval Europe, a more
mythical view of the past prevailed.14
A few points to notice about these examples: In the case of the sexual motive
and at least some aspects of our coalitionalpsychology theremay be a significant
degree of conscious awareness,and possible intentionalmanipulationof the rel-

10. See summaries and bibliographies in Andrew Whiten, "MachiavellianIntelligence Hypo-

thesis" and LawrenceA. Hirschfeld, "Naive Sociology," in The MITEncyclopedia of the Cognitive
Sciences (Cambridge,Mass., 1999), 495-497, 579-581. See also Leda Cosmides and John Tooby,
"Cognitive Adaptationsfor Social Exchange," in The Adapted Mind, ed. Barkow et al.,163-228;
Simon Baron-Cohen,Mindblindness:An Essay on Autism and Theoryof Mind (Cambridge,Mass.,
1995).
11. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah:An IntroductionHistory [1377], transit.Franz Rosenthal
(Princeton,1959), I, 71.
12. If not in the instantof perception,it is immediatelydownstreamin the mind's processing.Two
extraordinarystudies are particularlyrevelatoryof the phenomenon:Albert H. Hastorf and Hadley
Cantril,"They Saw a Game:A Case Study,"Journal of Abnormaland Social Psychology 49 (1954)
129-134; and RobertP. Vallone, Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper, "The Hostile Media Phenomenon:
Biased Perceptionsand Perceptionsof Media Bias in the Coverage of the Beirut Massacre,"Journal
of Personalityand Social Psychology 49 (1985), 577-585.
13. On some ideas or topics more easily capturingattentionand colonizing our minds see espe-
cially "epidemiology of representations"in Dan Sperber, Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic
Approach(Oxford, 1996). On ups and downs, see Donald E. Brown, Hierarchy,Histoty, and Human
Nature:TheSocial Origins of Historical Consciousness(Tucson, 1988), 337. Disproportionateatten-
tion to high status individuals is something we share with other species; see M. R. A. Chance,
"AttentionStructureas the Basis of PrimateRank Orders,"Man (n.s.) 2 (1967), 503-518.
14. Brown, Hierarchy,History,and HumanNature.

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 143

evant features of human nature.Whether intentionalor not, though, these are

cases in which a componentof humannatureis exploited to give leverage on the
performanceof anothertask (as when politicians "play the race card"to further
their own ambitionsor when sex is exploited to sell cars).
In the case of the psychic unity of humanity,it is exceedingly unlikely that,
however conscious the awarenessof the alternatives,there was any intentionto
facilitate or hinder the development of historical consciousness. In the case of
averagingas a componentof facial attractiveness,the process is apparentlywhol-
ly beyond awareness.It is also a case where a featureof humannatureproduces
somewhat surprisingresults, depending on the populationmix within which it
operates.
In most of these cases note that featuresof humannaturethat are fundamen-
tally the same everywhereplayed a role in events or movements that were more
or less historicallyunique. In the case of group-thinkand the biases it produces,
the influence of human nature was described as more continuous-yet it still
manifests itself notably and decisively in specific historicalevents (witness the
Balkans among many other cases).

II. HOW MAY WE DETERMINEWHATHUMAN NATUREIS?

Whateverhumannaturemay be, it is a productof that granderhistory,the evo-

lution of the human species, particularlythe human mind. The emerging disci-
pline that employs evolutionarytheory to understandthe human mind is evolu-
tionarypsychology, which defines its subject matteras the evolved architecture
of the humanmind, or the set of evolved mental mechanismsthat comprise the
humanmind.15
In additionto mental mechanisms,a numberof other key terms will assist us
in the discussion of the evolution of the human mind that follows: modularity,
domain specificity, frames, the environmentof evolutionary adaptedness,ulti-
mate explanation,facultativeand obligate adaptations,functionand effect, gene-
environmentinteractions,and preparedness.16
Within psychology, evolutionary psychology is centrally concerned with
understandingthe design of the humanmind:as opposedto whatit can do (which
is potentially infinite or infinitely divisible for purposes of analysis), what was
the mind designed to do? What recurrentproblems of the past was the mind
designed to solve? The answers to these questions are found in "mentalmecha-
nisms" (also referredto as modules of mind or mental organs), which are the
finite, functionallydiscrete units of mind that were designed by naturalselection
to solve recurrentproblemsin our evolutionarypast. They may be relativelysim-
ple, as in the case of brain cells in the visual cortex that respond to angled or

15. TheAdaptedMind, ed. Barkow et al.

16. Useful backgroundworks include ibid; Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificityin Cognition
and Culture,ed. Lawrence A. Hirschfeld and Susan A. Gelman (Cambridge,Eng., 1994); Steven
Pinker,How the Mind Works(New York, 1997).

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144 DONALD E. BROWN

moving lines; others are surely complex, some probably coordinating the
responsesof what were once independentmechanisms.17
Perhaps the most famous of the complex ones, the Chomskian language-
acquisitiondevice, has alreadybeen mentioned.By virtue of its existence, chil-
dren who begin before the age of six effortlessly acquireany language on earth
(and, if conditions allow, more than one language at a time). Laterin life, as the
device deactivates,learninglanguagesis much more difficultand generallymuch
less successful.18
Many mechanisms,as in the case of the language acquisitiondevice, operate
so "naturally"and beyond awarenessthat there is little to draw our attentionto
them. This is what Cosmides and Tooby have referred to as "instinct blind-
ness."19In all likelihood, we have very little insight into many of the featuresof
the human mind. We may be aware of the outputs, but still have little or no
insight into the means by which they are produced.
An importantset of ideas that originatesin large partoutside of evolutionary
psychology but is incorporatedin it derivesfrom attemptsto createartificialintel-
ligence. What these attempts show is that information-processingmechanisms
simply cannot be all-purpose, or "domain general." Before a computer can
processinformationit needs pre-existing,inbuilt"frames"thatspecify whatis rel-
evant input, what kind of a computationalproblem is being faced; so, too, the
human mind must have in-built, innate frames that direct it. These frames may
only direct our attentionto certaintopics, objects, or activities, allowing various
means of learningto finish the task. In-builtexpectations("naivetheories")may
accompanythe frames.Note thatboth the directionof attentionand the allowance
for learningare programmedparts of humannature.20The evidence so far sug-
gests that many mental mechanismsare indeed quite "domainspecific," so that
the tabularasa view of the mind thatprevailedin the social sciences duringmuch
of this century(and still prevailsin many circles) is profoundlywrong.21
Whateverthe mechanismsof mind may be, they evolved in the past and must
find theirultimateexplanationsin the past.22Moreover,in virtuallyall cases this

17. The coordination of otherwise independent modules is discussed in Sperber, Explaining

Culture,119-150.
18. Steven Pinker,TheLanguage Instinct (New York, 1994), 293.
19. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, "Beyond Intuition and Instinct Blindness: Toward an
EvolutionarilyRigorousCognitive Science," Cognition50 (1994), 41-77.
20. On the relevance of artificialintelligence, see John Tooby, "The Emergence of Evolutionary
Psychology,"in EmergingSynthesesin Science, ed. David Pines (SantaFe, 1985), 1-6; for a parallel
conclusion on differentgrounds,see Donald Symons, "On the Use and Misuse of Darwinism in the
Study of HumanBehavior,"in TheAdaptedMind, ed. Barkow et al., 137-159, 142. Studies of infants
show evidence of innate frames (and naive theories) for mathematicsand for the behavior of inani-
mate objects, animateobjects, and humans,i.e., naive mathematics,physics, biology, and sociology;
see referencesin The MITEncyclopediaof the CognitiveSciences. On innately guided learning,see
discussions and referencesbelow.
21. See discussions in Donald E. Brown, Human Universals(New York, 1991); Degler, In Search
of HumanNature;and, under the heading "StandardSocial Science Model," in The AdaptedMind,
ed. Barkow et al.
22. They also have proximate(or ontogenetic)explanationsin termsof the interactionof genes and
environmentas each individualis conceived and matures.

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 145

is a very distantpast, often referredto as the EEA ("environmentof evolutionary

adaptedness").Actually,the EEA is not a fixed period or place, but ratherthe set
of ancestralenvironmentalfeaturesthat are requiredfor the normaldevelopment
and functioning of each particularadaptation.These are featuresthat were fre-
quently or regularlypresentwhen the adaptationevolved, which in virtuallyall
cases was duringor before the long periodin which all humanswere huntersand
gatherers.23 Thereis little or no evidence thatany featureof mind-even the sim-
plest of which is likely to be polygenic-has evolved in the evolutionarilyshort
periodof time duringwhich humanshave recordedtheirhistories.This meansthat
the minds given to us in our genetic heritageare the minds of hunter-gatherers.
However,genes producewhateverit is thatthey were selected to produceonly
in interactionwith their environments.Present-dayenvironmentsalmost every-
where, and many of the environmentsthat humanshave experiencedduringthe
periodof recordedhistory,varyin manyways fromthose of ourhunting-and-gath-
eringancestors.Thus manyfeaturesof humannaturemay not manifestthemselves
as they did in the evolutionarypast.Indeedsome behaviorsmay have morein com-
mon with the odd behaviorsof animalsconfinedin zoos than with the behaviors
producedby naturalselectionin the environmentsin which they evolved.
Consider the following case. A few decades ago a variety of circumstances
allowed the emergenceof homosexual communitiesin various urbansettings. If
not historically unprecedented,this has surely been a rare occurrence. The
anthropologistDonald Symons realized that these circumstancesconstituted a
naturalexperimentthat allowed observationof what male and female sexualities
would be like when not compromisedby each other.24The principalfinding was
thatanonymoussex with multiplepartnerswas widely practicedby males where-
as the women tended to form more stable couples much like typical heterosexu-
al coupling.
These findingswere consistentwith what Symons predictedon the basis of the
very differentreproductiveconstraintsand potentialsthat men and women have
confrontedthroughouttheirevolutionaryhistory.No amountof "extra-pair"cou-
pling allowed a woman to bearmore childrenthanshe might have achieved with
a single mate (thoughsuch couplings might increaseher resourcesfor childrear-
ing). By contrast, the reproductivesuccess of a man could be and often was
greatlyenhancedby having multiple mates.
If a woman was fertilized, she faced months of gestation if she was to bear a
child (and then, in most societies priorto this century,she faced the costs of lac-
tation and long-termchild care). Underthese circumstances,it paid for her to be
choosy about whom she mated with, and a mate who would be aroundfor the
long haul was desirable.

23. For a more precise definitionof the EEA, see JohnTooby andLeda Cosmides, "Friendshipand
the Banker'sParadox:OtherPathwaysto the Evolution of Adaptationsfor Altruism,"Proceedings of
the BritishAcademy88 (1996), 119-143, 122.
24. Symons, The Evolutionof HumanSexuality,292-305.

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146 DONALD E. BROWN

If a manfertilizeda womanhe mighthave faced-and probablyoften did face-

long-termchild-carecosts. But, unlikeany woman,he mightalso have reproduced
with no more thana few minutesof his time and a small amountof sperm.
Given these very different reproductivepotentials and constraints,Symons
argued,men andwomen evolved with sexual psychologies thatshow distinctcon-
trasts:their minds, like their bodies, are sexually dimorphic.25Under most cir-
cumstances,these psychologies result in the more-or-lessstable familial-repro-
ductivepatterns(includingtheir"doublestandards")that,so far as we know,have
characterizedmost societies in most times.26But in the radicallychanged envi-
ronmentof homosexualcommunitiesthese same psychologies gave rise, at least
among males, to patternsof sexual behaviorwith few if any precedents.
It is importantto graspthe variabilitythatis inherentin humannature,as vari-
ation is often mistakenly seized upon as evidence for the culturalor historical
ratherthan natural.Many adaptiveresponses are by design variable,depending
on the conditions.A standardillustrationof one sort of variabilityrefers to cal-
lusing. The mechanismfor producingcalluses is in us all, but only particularcon-
ditions will determinewho gets calluses and where.Among the many behavioral
examplesis falling in love: the evidence is strongthatit is a species-typicaladap-
tation,but when, where, with whom, and so on are quite variable.27Adaptations
of this sort are describedas "facultative"(as opposed to "obligate").
A furtherexample of inherentvariabilityis providedin the evidence cited ear-
lier that a basic determinantof facial attractivenessis being near the mean of a
population,so that the most attractivefaces vary from one populationto anoth-
er, even though the psychological machinery of attractivenessperception is
species-typical.Adaptationsof this sort involve "calibration"to local conditions.
Adaptationsare not necessarily always "on"in two senses of the word. In the
examplesjust given, only particularevents or conditions triggeror "release"the
adaptation.But many adaptationscan only be released at particularstages of
maturation.Thus infantsgo througha periodof pronouncedfear of strangersthat
will pass with time; languageacquisitionoccurs in a delimitedage range;and the
syndromeof romanticlove does not occur before the teenage years.
The shufflingof genes thattakes place in sexual reproductionguaranteesindi-
vidual variability,presumablyas a defense againstpathogens.As a result of this
gene shuffling,normal individuals(barringdifferences of sex and age) are uni-
versally endowed with the same mentalmechanisms,thoughthe mechanismsare
built of differentmaterialsat the molecular level (much as we can build func-
tionally equivalenthouses of eitherbrick or wood) and may thus manifest quan-

25. Comparedto otherprimatespecies, such as gorillas, the sexual dimorphismof humansis mod-
erate.
26. On the evolutionarypsychology of the double standard,see MartinDaly, Margo Wilson, and
SuzanneJ. Weghorst,"Male Sexual Jealousy,"Ethology and Sociobiology 3 (1982), 11-27.
27. Helen Harris, Human Nature and the Nature of Romantic Love (Unpublished dissertation,
University of California at Santa Barbara, 1995); Dorothy Tennov, Love and Limerence: The
Experienceof Being in Love, 2d ed. (Lanham,Md., 1999).

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 147

titative differences in their outputs.28Variabilityis also the result of imperfec-

tions and compromisesinherentin the developmentof all organisms:even iden-
tical twins develop differences,some even in the womb as well as in later life.
Finally, and very importantly,an evolved mechanismof mind has a particular
function,which is its adaptiveresponseto a recurrentproblemfaced by our ances-
tors.At the same time, though,the mechanismmay have particularside effects29
that occur so regularly,perhapseven universally,that they too might be suspect-
ed to be adaptations.For them, the functionalisttheorizingthat makes sense of
adaptationscan only be appliedindirectly.In the case of humans,the extraordi-
naryrange of our behaviorsare largely effects ratherthanfunctions,so that trac-
ing behaviorsback to theirevolutionaryfoundationswill often be difficult.
The issues are illustratedin recent thinking by the anthropologistLawrence
Hirschfeldon the origins of racialist thought.30There seem to be a great many
instancesin which racialistideas areeasy to acquireand difficultto eradicate(see
the discussion of "preparedness"below). Moreover,thereis an implicit assump-
tion that typically accompanies the basic notion of race: the idea that an
"essence"characterizesindividualsin a race even if they do not look like typical
membersof the race. This cross-culturalpatterningof racialistthoughtsuggests
some fairly direct expression of humannature.
However, duringthe long period in which humansevolved they were rarelyif
ever mobile enough to observe the physical differencesbetween humanpopula-
tions that are now seized upon to define races. There is thus little or no reason to
thinkthat racialistthinkingis an evolved featureof the humanmind. Hirschfeld
arguesthatracialistthinkingis insteadan effect of a mentalmechanismdesigned
by naturalselection to process informationon "humankinds," particularlythe
ethnic or culturalor tribaltypes that are distinguishedfrom one anotherby cul-
ture and language. His work suggests that racialist thought "parasitizes"this
mechanism.Thus, in the changedconditionsin which racial differences are now
perceivable, a mechanismthat was designed to distinguishwhat are fundamen-
tally culturaldifferences(in apparel,treatmentof the hair and body, gait, and so
on) is engaged to distinguishfundamentallynon-culturaldifferences.
It must not be thoughtthateffects are necessarilyharmfuldistortions;the abil-
ity to write history or do science-and very much more-are effects. The enor-
mous efflorescenceof humancultureand much of the variabilitythat we witness
from one society to anotheralmost certainlyresult from the extraordinarypossi-
bilities opened up by the very rich complexity of the humanmind, by the sheer
number of its instincts. Because its mechanisms are numerous, their potential

28. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, "On the Universalityof Human Natureand the Uniqueness
of the Individual:the Role of Genetics and Adaptation,"Journal of Personalio, 58 (1990), 17-67;
"TheInnateVersusthe Manifest:How UniversalDoes UniversalHave to Be?" Behavioraland Brain
Sciences 12 (1989), 36-37.
29. Side effects would include, for example, the ability of the humanouter ear to hold pencils and
glasses, though it was not designed to do so.
30. LawrenceA. Hirschfeld,Race in the Making:Cognition,Culture,and the Child'sConstruction
of HumanKinds (Cambridge,Mass., 1996).

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 148 DONALD E. BROWN

effects areinfinite.Nonetheless, infiniteeffects do not obliteratethe instincts,the

mental mechanismsthat underliethem. Thus, within the infinite variationthere
is still a discerniblehuman nature, still a patterningof behavior, thought, and
feeling. The greatvariabilityof humanbehavioris often more by way of means
thanof ends.
What are the clues, which a studentof history might observe, that suggest a
featureof humannature?First, there is universality.3'Any traitor complex that
is found in all societies got there in one of a very few ways: early invention and
greatusefulness,32culturalreflectionof universalexperience, and humannature.
The former-such as the use of fire or cooking-are few. Culturalreflections-
such as the kin terminologiesthat everywhereat least partlyreflect the relation-
ships entailedby sexual reproduction-are probablymore numerous.But human
naturemay well be the most fertile source of universals.
When complexity is added to universality-in the absence of a demonstrable
recordof transmissionfrom society to society-it suggests even more stronglya
featureof humannature,because complex featuresare less likely to be invented
independently.Romanticlove and the syndromeof ethnocentrismare examples
of quite complex and universal behaviors and traits that almost certainly are
componentsof humannature.33
Cross-culturallypatternedbehaviors that are only nearly universal, or even
less common, may still suggest specific featuresof humannature,so long as they
are sufficiently complex and found in societies culturally isolated from one
another.34 The particularenvironmentalconditionsrequiredto triggeran adaptive
response may, for example, never have been universalor, in modernconditions,
may have ceased to be universal.
Anotherimportantclue that may appearin the historicalrecord is "prepared-
ness."If somethingseems easily learned(anddifficultto extinguish),thatsuggests
humannature.As notedearlier,it is increasinglyapparentthatin many species, not
merely humans,normalbehaviorsare the result of a combinationof instinct and
learning,in which the instinctdirects attentionto particulartopics and the learn-
ing then results from such processes as trial and error,imitation,and practice.35
Again, note thatboth the directionof attentionandthe programmed"learning"are
natural.Typically,though,the learningis relativelyeasy comparedto othernovel
tasks of similarcomplexityor difficulty.(As was also indicatedearlier,the extra-
ordinaryinterestshown in particulartopics in itself suggests humannature.)

31. Brown, Human Universals.

32. Persistencefrom very early times without usefulness is a possibility.An alleged example-in
which brain, bone marrow, and semen are believed to be a common life-giving substance-is
describedin WestonLaBarre,Muelos: A StoneAge Superstitionabout Sexuality(New York, 1984).
33. RobertLeVine and Donald T. Campbell,Ethnocentrism:Theoriesof Conflict,EthnicAttitudes,
and Group Behavior (New York, 1972); Harris,Human Nature and the Nature of RomanticLove;
Donald E. Brown, "Are Ethnicity and Ethnocentrism Natural?" SouthwesternAnthropological
Association Newsletter, 38, no. 1 (1997),1, 4, 6, 9-10, 16-17, 19.
34. Tooby and Cosmides, "TheInnateVersusthe Manifest."
35. Again, see Gould and Marler,"Learningby Instinct."But also MartinE. Seligman and Joanne
L. Hager,Biological Boundaries of Learning (New York, 1972); RichardByrne, The ThinkingApe:
EvolutionaryOrigins of Intelligence (Oxford, 1995).

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 149

An example of somethingeasily learned and difficult to extinguish is fear of

snakes. In the course of compiling a list of human universals, I was initially
uncertainaboutwhetherto include fear of snakes. Human-snakeinteractionsare
ancientand deathby snakebiteis a real hazard,so that some sort of snake-avoid-
ance adaptationwould make sense; but some peoples worship snakes, and the
fear could be a Western cultural peculiarity resulting from the bad image of
snakes in the Bible. However, it was history, in the form of a Heian-period
Japanese short story,36that convinced me that I should seriously consider the
possibility of an innate fear. The story, writtencenturiesbefore contact with the
West, described the fear and what elicits it with such complex similarityto the
way they would be describedin the West that therewas very little probabilityof
an independentculturalinvention. Subsequentinquirieshave unearthedconsid-
erable evidence that either the fear of, or a certain wariness around,snakes is
innate (among other primates,too).
Innately facilitated learning is often confined to "critical"or "sensitive peri-
ods" within which the learningis so easy and/orrapidthatit has little in common
with what is often understoodas learning.In these contexts, "acquisition,"rather
than learning,betterdescribes the process. The critical period for acquiringlan-
guage, for example, was mentioned earlier.Some forms of very rapid learning
are referredto as imprinting.
Particularlytelling clues are specific mental deficits related to specific brain
trauma.Quite a numberof these have been discovered in clinical studies-the
languagedeficits thatgo with traumato the left side of the brainprovidethe clas-
sic case.37When looked for, specific mental deficits may well appearin biogra-
phies or medical treatises, where these exist, from centuries ago. If found, they
provide strikingevidence of domain specificity in the mind.

III. PUTTINGHISTORICALMATERIALSTO USE IN ILLUMINATINGHUMAN NATURE

For many purposes, historical data are little different from ethnographicdata,
except that the formerare more spreadover time than space while the reverse is
true of the latter.It is thus a shame to think of all that informationin the histori-
cal recordsnot being put to scientific use. As I have alreadyindicated with the
case of Betzig on male sexuality,historicalmaterialscan be and are used in sci-
entific approachesto the question of humannature.
The historianFrankSulloway provides a furtherexample by tracing the ori-
gins of many radicalideas and movementsto featuresof humannaturethatresult
from birth sequence: while older siblings tend to be conservative, the younger
tend to be rebels.38This is an illuminatinginsight not only into the course of his-

36. [Anon], "TheLady Who AdmiredVermin,"in The Riverside Counselors Stories: Vernacular
Fiction of Late Heian Japan, transl.RobertL. Backus (Stanford,1985), 47-63.
37. See further,often remarkablyspecific, examples in Steven Pinker,How the Mind Works.
38. FrankSulloway,Born to Rebel: Birth Order,Family Dynamics,and CreativeLives (New York,
1986).

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150 DONALD E. BROWN

tory, but especially into the biographicalelement in history.At the same time,
Sulloway builds upon and confirms one of the more strikingfindings of recent
personalityresearch:that siblings, who sharethe experience of a common fami-
ly, have personalitiesas differentfrom one anotheras randomlyselected mem-
bers of the population.
Anothercase has thrown light on what has long been considered one of the
most importantof all humanuniversals:the incest taboo. Much of its importance
rested on the claim that it distinguishedhumansfrom animals and may perhaps
have been the initial culturalinnovationthat launchedhumanityonto its cultural
career.This was the influentialargumentof Sigmund Freud (and, later, Claude
Levi-Strauss).39But aroundthe beginning of this centuryan alternativewas pre-
sentedby the FinnishanthropologistEdwardWestermarckwho arguedthatavoid-
ing incest was an adaptation,a partof humannature.It operatedin such a way that
siblings who grew up togetherhad little or no sexual interestin each other.During
much of this centuryWestermarck'sviews were dismissed along with nearly all
otherargumentsfor humanshaving particularinstinctsor a determinatenature.
But various lines of evidence began in the 1950s and 1960s to support
Westermarck'sposition and to undermineFreud's, which included the further
assumptionthatfamily memberswere especially attractedto one another.Among
the crucialfindingswere, first,thatnon-humananimalsdo avoid incest, and, sec-
ond, that in some societies unusual childrearingcircumstances were eliciting
what came to be called the "Westermarckeffect," but between children raised
togetherwho were not siblings.
The most thoroughlystudiedcase involved the use of census records,not unlike
those that would be consultedby historiansfor many purposes.In this case they
were the household registries collected by the Japaneseoverlords during their
period of rule on the island of Taiwan. From these records-supplemented by
interviewswith personswho had been affectedby the practiceto be described-
the anthropologistArthurWolf extractsstrikingsupportfor Westermarck.40
The records and interviews showed the consequences of rearing children
togetherin the intimacyof the household and then expecting them to marryeach
other.In some areas, including Taiwan, the Chinese had a practice of reducing
conflict between mothers-in-lawand daughters-in-lawby adoptinga young girl
and raisingher, with an agreementwith her parentsthat she would be the future
brideof a son of the family thatrearedher.The son and his futurewife thus grew
up together in the same household. What Wolf's research shows is, as the
Westermarckhypothesiswould predict,thatthese marriageswere disproportion-
ately unsuccessful (so long as the children who were involved were reareddur-
ing the critical period that invoked the Westermarckeffect). These marriages
more commonly ended in separationor divorce, more commonly resulted in

39. See eitherBrown,Human Universalsor Degler, In Searchof HumanNaturefor summariesand

references.
40. ArthurP. Wolf, Sexual Attractionand ChildhoodAssociation: A Chinese Brief for Edward
Westerm-iar-ck(Stanford,1995).

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 151
unfaithfulness, and were less fertile than the other forms of marriage.When
changingconditions allowed young men and women to opt out of the marriages
of this sort that had been arrangedfor them, they regularlydid (thoughthe mar-
riages they then enteredwere still arranged).
Variousalternativeexplanationsof the Chinese case have been suggested, but
the rich dataavailableto Wolf have allowed him to show thatthe alternativesfail
to explain his findings. Moreover,evidence from other places-children reared
together in socialist communes in Israel and cousins who marry each other
among Lebanese Muslims-also supportthe Westermarckhypothesis.41
But the historian Keith Hopkins, calling on surviving census records from
RomanEgypt, has found the single known apparentcounter-instance,in which
brothersand sisters from various strataof society seemingly marriedfor love.42
While this is a strikinguse of historicalmaterialsby a historianto throwlight on
an importantproblemin the study of humannature,the appropriateinterpretation
of the Egyptiancase is still in doubt.Wolf commentsthatif the practicereally was
encouraged,and if Freudwas correctin thinkingthatfamily membershave a nat-
uralinclinationto takeeach otherto bed, then whatis notablein the Egyptiancase
is how few such marriagesresulted.43In addition,there is the slendernessof the
datato begin with, the remotenessin time thatmakes furtherverificationdifficult,
the absence of informationon the conditions under which siblings were raised,
and the fact thatit is a single case from all of known history and ethnography.
A crucialelement of both Wolf's researchand Hopkins'scontributionwas that
their materialsprovidednaturalexperimentsthat could not be duplicatedin the
laboratory.The discovery of naturalexperimentson humannaturewould be par-
ticularlyimportantcontributionsfrom history.
Let me now suggest some otherpossible lines of research,involving such dis-
paratemattersas the sexual motive in conquest, color prejudice,and the origins
of ethnicity.
One of the more significantevents in history was the explosive expansion of
Muslim peoples far beyond the homeland of their religion. Sexual motivation
may have played a part in this event in two ways. First, Islam allowed men to
have four wives and, furthermore,allowed them to keep slaves as concubines.In
a stable populationwith a more or less even sex ratio, every man who had more
than one mate generally deprivedsome other man of any mate. But undercon-
ditions of expansion,particularlywhere conqueredmen are killed or deprivedof
theirmates with impunity,more and more of the conquerorsmay have multiple
mates without depriving their fellows of theirs. Furthermore,the paradisethat

41. JosephShepher,Incest:A Biosocial View(New York, 1983); JustineMcCabe, "FBDMarriage:

FurtherSupportfor the WestermarckHypothesis of the Incest Taboo?"AmericanAnthropologist85
(1983), 50-69.
42. Keith Hopkins, "Brother-SisterMarriagein Roman Egypt," ComparativeStudies in Society
and History 22 (1980), 303-354. It should be noted that royals apparentlymarriedtheir siblings in a
small numberof other societies but there is no clear evidence that such marriageswere consummat-
ed and, at any rate, very few people were involved.
43. Wolf, SexualAttractionand ChildhoodAssociation, 429.

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152 DONALD E. BROWN

awaitsthe faithfulMuslim male is stocked with virginalhouris to attendhim sex-

ually.44Death in holy war sends him directly to that paradise.Although some
commentatorsregardthese rewardsas metaphorical,for the rank and file very
good sex must have been understoodas a rewardfor the faithful male. There is,
thus, a primafacie case for a strongsexual motivationin the Muslim expansion.
I believe it is also the case that sexual mattersare discussed sufficiently openly
in Muslim literatureof the periodthattesting the hypothesismight be easier than
would be the case for British imperialism.45
Color prejudice,whereby persons of lighter skin are favored, is a prominent
featureof the present-dayworld. This prejudiceis found even among persons of
African descent.46A few of the varioushypotheses set forth to explain this prej-
udice are as follows: The anthropologistVictor Turner,working with African
materialsbut not with reference to racial issues, found evidence to supportthe
idea thatin many if not all societies white is associatedwith good and black with
misfortuneor evil. He arguedthat associationswere at the root of these ideas: in
his African materials, good being associated with mother's milk and semen,
black being associated with decay and feces.47 Other scholars have made the
associationwith the light of day and darkof night.
Yet other scholars, attemptingto explain the specifically racial color prefer-
ences, have arguedthat the power and prestige of Europeansover the last few
centuries,along with their ethnocentricpreferencefor their own skin color, has
made light skin the ideal. Evidence in supportof this thesis has been found in the
ancient Mediterraneanworld, where prejudice against dark-skinnedAfricans
seems to have been muted.48
A more recent explanationhas been formulatedin terms of a specific feature
of humannature.According to evidence marshaledby PierreL. van den Berghe
and Peter Frost,49the skin color of boys and girls is aboutthe same until puber-
ty, afterwhich females are lighter;moreover,women's skin lightens duringovu-
lation and darkensduringpregnancy.Thus within a given population(thatis eth-
nically/raciallyhomogeneous) lightness of female skin correlateswith and is a
signal of fecundability,so that an evolved male attractionto or preference for
lighter-than-averageskin color in women has a clear adaptiverationale(if it is

44. Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne YazbeckHaddad,The Islamic Understandingof Death and
Resurrection(Albany, 1981).
45. The sexual motive in conquest is probablyquite common. In an epic poem that is the princi-
pal Bruneiaccountof its origin and rise to regionalhegemony-stretching aroundcoastal Borneo, up
to Manilain the Phillippines,and (accordingto the Bruneiview) to Sulawesi off the east of Borneo-
the captureof women and theirremovalto the homelandis a prominenttheme. See Donald E. Brown,
"Bruneithroughthe Sha'er and the Silsilah," Solidarity99 (1984), 10-15.
46. See, for example, Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall, The Color Complex: The
Politics of Skin Color amongAfricanAmericans(New York, 1992).
47. Victor W. Turner,"ColourClassificationin Ndembu Ritual,"in AnthropologicalApproaches
to the Stud)yof Religion, ed. Michael Banton (London, 1966), 47-84.
48. See, for example, St. Clair Drake, Black Folk Here and There: An Essay in History and
Anthropology,2 vols. (Los Angeles, 1987), where various other theories are also summarized.
49. Pierre L. van den Berghe and Peter Frost, "Skin Color Preference,Sexual Dimorphismand
Sexual Selection:A Case of Gene CultureCo-evolution?"Ethnicand Racial Studies9 (1986), 87-113.

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 153

too light, however, as in albinism,it is not consideredattractive).Vanden Berghe

and Frost's survey of the coded literaturefrom a sample of societies throughout
the world indicates that men do show this preference(occasionally it is said to
be preferredin both men and women), showed it priorto contactwith Europeans,
and showed it even amongthe darker-skinnedconquerorsof lighter-skinnedpeo-
ples (as among the Moors in Spain).
Van den Berghe and Frost's argumentis about human nature,and applies to
any and all societies. It suggests yet anotherbasis for a preferencefor light skin
that in racially complex societies might have contributedto the color prejudices
of the modern world.50But van den Berghe and Frost caution that further
researchwill be requiredto confirmor disconfirmtheir findings. Furtheranaly-
ses of historicalmaterialsseem particularlylikely to be useful.
A significantissue in which historicalmaterialsclearly lie at the center of the
controversyis whetherethnicityis somethingthathumannaturemay have adapt-
ed to or is historically shallow, perhapsdating no earlier than the expansion of
Westernpeoples aroundthe world beginning in the sixteenthcentury.These are
questions on which anthropologistsare at present scandalously divided. Some
considerethnic identities"primordial"while othersconsiderthem the productof
Westernimperialism,falsely projectedinto a more ancientpast.
Since our very word "ethnic"derives from a word in common use in a more
ancientpast (the Greekethnos),partof the solutionto this problemwill lie in care-
ful attentionto the past meaningsof wordsthatarenow interpretedas ethniciden-
tities:did they or did they not signify ethnicidentities?In this case, straightforward
historicalanalysisis all thatis requiredto determinewhetherethnicityhas the his-
toricaldepththatwould at least allow it candidacyas a traitof humannature.

IV. WHATIDEAS NEED TO BE PUT IN PLACE IN A PRODUCTIVE

CONSIDERATIONOF HISTORYAND HUMAN NATURE?

I will offer eight suggestions.Firstis to acknowledgethattherereally is a human

nature,in spite of decades of social-scientificneglect of the topic or even denials
that thereis such a thing.And, whateverit may be, humannatureis a productof
evolutionarytime, not historicaltime. There is no reason to think that in the his-
toric period the genetic foundation of human nature, particularlythe human
mind, has changed much if at all.51 The conditions within which human nature
must now develop or manifestitself have changed,of course, but no moderncon-
ditions so indelibly and thoroughlyaffect our developmentthat our phylogenet-
ic heritagemay be ignored.

50. Van den Berghe and Frost also cite evidence thatin stratifiedsocieties the upperstratatend to
become genetically lighter, because 1) high-status men are more successful at obtaining lighter-
skinned women and 2) these women coincidentallyinclude a disproportionatesample of those who
happento be genetically lighter.The ensuing lighteningof the upperstratathen becomes a furtherfac-
tor promotingprejudiceagainstdarkerskin. This occurred,for example, in Japan.
51. There apparentlyhave been some adaptationsto the dietarychanges that followed the domes-
tication of plants in protohistoricif not historic times.

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154 DONALD E. BROWN

2. Ideally,the theoreticalframeworkfor the study of humannaturethat exists

in Darwinianselectionism should be exploited. Theory directs attentionto prob-
lems thatmight otherwisebe missed. In this case it also links the study of human
affairswith the remainderof science.
3. We need to realize, as mentionedearlier,that we do not have a good under-
standingof humannature.Even if some featurespresentlyseem clear, others are
murky,and some must be wholly invisible. Some things that seem to be human
nature may of course turn out not to be. Thus the application of ideas about
humannatureto solve historicalproblemswill not be cut and dried.
4. The idea needs to be graspedthat the constantsof humannatureare entire-
ly compatiblewith variableoutcomes.The facile generalizationthatif something
varies (say, across societies) it must be cultural(or social) and not naturalis not
true. Moreover,it is perhapsa general rule that runs throughoutnaturethat par-
ticularsin all theirvariety are combinationsof generalities.Carefulthoughtwill,
of course, have to be given to how it is thatconstantsmake humanhistory (I will
returnto this point below).
5. As an aid to determiningwhat is or isn't humannature,little is more impor-
tant than a comparativeperspective. Only by comparingdiffering periods and
peoples can we see what holds constant,or what shows a regularpatterningthat
may indicate, say, a facultative adaptation.Comparisonreveals what internal
views of places and times easily miss.
6. In the course of comparison,an eye for similaritiesmust be cultivated, to
balance out the ease with which differences are spotted and focused upon. Both
in anthropologyand history there is something approachingan addictionto the
unique and the differentthat needs correcting.This near-addictionmay itself be
a fairly direct expression of humannature,as humansare exquisitely adaptedto
see differencesof many sorts among and between theirfellow humans,but have
almost no adaptations whatever for perceiving the common background of
humanity (which explains why it took a Chomsky to discover the language
instinct).52
7. Discovering and exploiting naturalexperimentsperformedin the course of
historywill be of exceptionalimportance.I have alreadygiven two cases, includ-
ing that of incest avoidance, for which both anthropologistsand historianshave
made very useful contributionsby discovering and analyzing situationsfar from
the normalin humanaffairs.Experimentallyanalogoussituationsin the past may
turnout to be fairly frequent,once the rightquestionsdrawour attentionto them.
8. Finally,certainpitfalls may need to be avoided, such as the allure of narra-
tive, of subjectivity,and of personalizationwhen these are not appropriateto the
problemat hand.A particularyimportantpitfall, given recentarchlyrelativistand
cultural-constructivisttendencies of the social sciences (tendencies that histori-
ans have not escaped either),53can be avoided by employing the anthropological

52. Donald Symons, whom I thankfor commentingon draftsof this paper,drew my attentionto
this, and variousother,points that I make here.
53. RichardJ. Evans, In Defense of History (New York, 1999).

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 155

distinctionbetween "emics"and "etics."54An emic analysis consists of seeing a

culture or society or period the way the locals see or saw it, using their terms,
their perspectives, their values. An etic analysis, by contrast,is from the view-
point of an objective, scientific observerand, hence, is often an outsider's view.
Some anthropologistsnowadaysdeny the possibility of objectivity,so thatan etic
analysis, they would say, is simply that of an outsider imposing his or her
assumptionson the society or cultureof another.
With regardto human nature,however, this position is an extreme extrapola-
tion from social science's alreadyexisting overemphasisof socioculturaldeter-
minism. It needs correctionby considerationof the interactionsbetween human
natureand the conditions-including those that are socioculturallyand histori-
cally specific-that do indeed vary from place to place and time to time. A com-
binationof emics and etics will go a long way towardprovidingthat correction.
Emic analyses alone have two problems.First, if they are to be analyses and not
just verbatim(and untranslated)repetitionsof what othershave said, they always
rest on some etic/objective assumptions.Second, emic analyses are often con-
fined to what is verbalized(especially to what is lexicalized). To confine analy-
sis to what individuals speaking their naturallanguage readily put into words
would omit an incalculably large part of what goes on in all human minds. No
one should advocate such a loss to our attempts to understandhuman affairs.
Fortunately,untutoredhumansare naturallyendowed with a considerablecapac-
ity to infer more than what is put into words in any naturallanguage.55

V. DOES HUMAN NATUREFUNDAMENTALLYSTRUCTUREHISTORY?

To repeat, nothing that humans do is done apartfrom or without their nature.

Earlierin this paperI quotedRonaldHyam on two contrastinghypotheses of the
motivationbehindBritain'scolonial expansion-one involved the exportof sur-
plus capital,the other involved sexual motives. The role of human naturein the
lattercase is more readily grasped,more unadulterated,or nearerto the surface.
But humannatureis just as much involved in the alternative,thoughthe specifics
are more obscureand perhapsmore mixed in their components.
To preventthe idea that humannatureinfluences human affairs from becom-
ing a vacuous truism,however, will requireattentionto particulars:which fea-
tures of human natureaccount for which features of history?As in the case of

54. The terms"emic"and "etic"are takenfrom the distinctionin linguisticsbetween phonemicand

phoneticanalyses. The formerrefers to the distinctionsof sound that are perceived as meaningfulin
a given language,while the latterrefersto distinctionsof sound thatcharacterizethe languagebut that
may or may not be perceivedas meaningfulby its native speakers(emically, English speakersdo not
distinguishinitial and medial "p,"but etically the formeris aspiratedand the latteris not). See Emics
and Etics: The Insider/OutsiderDebate, ed. Thomas N. Headland, Kenneth L. Pike, and Marvin
Harris(NewburyPark,Calif., 1990).
55. Recall the earlierdiscussion of Theory of Mind. The concept of a non-verbal"mentalese"that
lies beyond or beneathlanguage is also relevant;see Pinker,How the Mind Works.

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156 DONALD E. BROWN

sexual motivation, sometimes the answer may be relatively straightforward.

Similarlystraightforwardis the string of historically particularinnovationsthat
includes the megaphone, writing, semaphore, printing press, typewriter,tele-
graph,telephone,radio, television, fax machine, and word processor.As innova-
tive and unique as each was, to a significantdegree surely they all are augmen-
tations or extensions of human speech. A much longer, but perhapsmore com-
plicatedand ambiguouslist of innovationscan be attributedto the humanpreoc-
cupationwith sex. And we could also note the extent to which the augmentations
of speech just mentionedare employed in the pursuitof sex.
Ethnocentrism,which taps human natureso repetitively,seems no small part
of contemporaryas well as ancient history.The ties and sentimentsof kinship,
along with the friendships and alliances based on reciprocity,everywhere and
always shape human affairs.56Certainlymore could be added to the list of the
those featuresof humannaturethat more overtly shape humanhistory.
This line of thoughtwas employed in the early days of anthropology,when the
invention of the spear and club were envisaged as cultural extensions of the
humanarm.Much later,the anthropologist-philosopher David Bidney pushedthe
idea further by defining culture in general as the self-cultivation of human
nature.57Utilizing these basic ideas, a case can be made for a sort of back engi-
neering in which not only specific featuresof culturebut of society and history,
too, can be traced to specific elements of human naturethat motivated, struc-
tured,or facilitatedthem. This is not to say that the task will be easy or even to
say thatwe now know how to do this. Methods will have to be worked out.
The historianCarloGinzburg,in a paperentitled"Morelli,Freudand Sherlock
Holmes: Clues and Scientific Method,"employs the basic idea.58He posits a
mentalmechanism(withoutactuallyusing this term)for "conjecturalreasoning."
This mechanismevolved in responseto the problemsfaced by hunters,so thatby
means of this mechanism hunters could determine by minute observations of
their environmentsthe whereaboutsof prey. From the observed they could pro-
ject to the unobserved,distant from them in time and space. Once this mecha-
nism existed, however, it could be put to other uses.
Thus Ginzburggoes on to arguethat whetherit is the art historianor the psy-
chiatrist or the detective all use that same mental mechanism to pursue their
crafts. Medical diagnosis and science in general depend upon it. Thus Ginzburg
neatly illustratesthe idea of a mental mechanismthat evolved with a particular
function in the EEA subsequentlyhaving diverse highly significanteffects in the

56. Kinshipand reciprocity,issues of moralsignificanceeverywhere,providedthe contexts for the-

oretical solutions to the Darwinianpuzzle of how altruismcould have evolved. For a brief summary
of these seminal contributionsto humanevolutionarybiology, and a furtherexplanationfor the evo-
lution of altruism,see Tooby and Cosmides, "Friendshipand the Banker'sParadox."
57. David Bidney, "HumanNatureand the CulturalProcess,"AmericanAnthropologist49 (1947),
375-399. Useful terms for thinkingabout adaptationsand their culturallydiverse effects are present-
ed in Sperber,ExplainingCulture.
58. CarloGinzburg,"Morelli,Freudand SherlockHolmes: Clues and Scientific Method,"History
Workshop9 (1980), 5-36.

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 HUMAN NATUREAND HISTORY 157

world we now inhabit.To be sure it is a hypothesisonly: we do not yet know that

conjecturalreasoningis a distinct module or that it was specifically huntingthat
posed the problemsit was designed to solve. Variouslines of researchand more
fully developed argumentswill be required to confirm, refine, or disconfirm
Ginzburg'sargument.59
What I am suggesting here is a form of reductionism,but not one in which
complex phenomenaare reduced to the overly simple. The mind is an exceed-
ingly complex entity, and much that seems so easy and simple to us-such as
speaking-is far, far more complex thanwe realize. Earlier,I noted the phenom-
enon of instinct blindness:we are largely blind to all the mental machinerythat
has provedso adaptivethatit operatesautomaticallyand beyond awareness.The
details of the mind's complexity, however, were placed there by our evolution-
ary history; when we find ways to reveal those details we will at the same time
reveal much of our very ancient past.
Thus, linking the study of humanaffairsto humannaturewill not only yield a
fuller understandingof those affairs-present as well as past-it will complete a
link between history as historiansgenerally understandthe term and history as
evolutionary biologists understandit. This unification of human knowledge
seems to me to be a worthy goal.

Universityof Californiaat Santa Barbara

59. The hypothesisthathumanintelligence emergedto solve subsistenceproblemsis the principal

alternativeto the Machiavellianintelligence hypothesismentionedin an earliernote. See a discussion
in Byrne, The ThinkingApe.

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