"There is a double streak in the human mind, a streak cunning secretiveness and a streak perhaps, of later origin that makes us all anxious to tell and astonish and impress each other. Many people make secrets in order to have secrets to tell. These secrets of early men they would convey to younger, more impressionable people, more or less honestly and impressively in some process of initiation. Moreover, the pedagogic spirit overflows in the human mind; most people like "telling other, people not to". Extensive arbitrary prohibitions for the boys, for the girls, for the women, also probably came very early into human history."
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The Outline of History
The Outline of History : Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (1920) is a work by H. G. Wells in which he summarized much which was known or believed in his time about the courses of the world's history. (Chapter titles from which quotes are taken are given separate sections, but not all chapters are quoted.)
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