Origins of the sacred, the ecstasies of love and war, Dudley Young

Tracing the origins of mankind's identity through evolutionary biology, mythology, and literature, Dudley Young, in this groundbreaking work, examines the primitive mind and the development of religion and sacredness as seen through our ancestors.

Attempting to unearth the origins of violence and to answer the question, "Are we born violent?", Young begins millions of years ago with the transformation of the arboreal monkey into a chimpanzee, and examines the implications of Jane Goodall's seminal study of chimpanzee violence. Examining the relationship between sex and violence -and the attraction of the dreaming mind to these topics - Young illustrates their proximity by pointing out, for example, how a female chimpanzee is frequently uncertain as to whether it is sex or violence an aroused male has in mind. As ape evolved into man and moved from the forests to the savannah's, he became not only more violent, but at the same time more loving and nurturing. As man's brain grew and became more advanced, his most basic instincts - sex and violence - became unharnessed and un-programmed at the same time that human civilization emerged. This period of excessive and uncontrolled lusts and passions marked the beginning of "evil" in the human experience and necessitated the creation and codification of laws that had not previously existed. The book concludes on a tragic note, with the appearance of Homer's war-dominated poetry, and also with the recognition that man's attempts to create the harmonies of civilization are forever subverted by his own fascination with the gods of chaos.