LIBRARY 
 
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LIBEARY OF CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE. 
 
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 «^^i^:t^ 
 
 \ 
 
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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE. 
 
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 Some degree of truth lias been admitted in the charge not 
 unfrequcntly brought against the English, that they are assiduous 
 rather than solid readers. They give themselves too much to 
 the lighter forms of literature. Teclmicai Science is almost ex- 
 clusively restricted to its professed votaries, and, but for some 
 of the Quarterlies and Monthlies, very little solid matter would 
 come within the reach of the general public. 
 
 But the circulation enjoyed by many of these very periodicals, 
 and the increase of the scientific journals, may be taken for 
 sufficient proof that a taste for more serious subjects of study is 
 now growing. Indeed there is good reason to believe that if 
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 people. Such themes are treated either too elaborately, or in 
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 to be easily available to all classes. 
 
 The splendid conquests of Mod-^rn Science in every branch 
 
of human knowledge are moreover, as a rule, scattered over a 
 multiplicity of monographs, essays, memoirs, and special works of 
 .nil sorts. Except in the Encyclopaedias, their varied results are 
 nowhere to be found, so to say, under one cover, and even in 
 these unwieldy compilations they are nccessai'ily handled more 
 suiinnavily than is always desirable. 
 
 Willi lli.> view of remedying this manifold and increasing 
 incunvcuLeucc, we are glad to be able to take advantage of a 
 comprehensive project recently set on foot in France, emphatically 
 tlic land of Popular Science. The well-knoAvn publLshcr,-^, MAL 
 LNinwald J' Co., liavo made satisfactory arrangements with some 
 <»[ llic Icauuig' ,iarniUs of that country to supply an exhaustive 
 series of Avorks on each and all of the sciences of the day, treated 
 in a style at once lucid, popular, and strictly methodic. 
 
 'Hif iiaiMcs of MM. P. Broca, Secretaiy of the Society 
 (l'AiitiMM]M,l,.jir : rii. Afarfni^. AroiiinpHipr TTniversitv ; C. Vogt, 
 
 I'liivcr-ity of i Muscuiu of Saint Ger- 
 
 mail! : A. ( Ii'll^ laiii, author of "Ciel" and " Phenom^nes de la 
 niysi.|iir:' A. ilovilacque, editor of the " lievue de Linguis- 
 ti(liii';' IM. h.'lly, Dr. Letourneau, and many otlici*s, whose co- 
 opt ra1i«^n li i- alnady been secured, are a guamntee that their 
 K |..(!i\( .iil.j((is Avill t(( five thorough treatment, and will in all 
 (a-(-; lie wiitlni u]t to tin- wxy latest di<roA-(M-!''<. \\\\\ kept in 
 cv.T.v rc^i^crt fully alava.t of \W \\\\\r<, 
 
 \\r lia\.'. I'll iiur lull. ln.'1'U fortuuale i:i making such fnvtlicr 
 anaiijvii:- 111 wiili .some of tlifi l)est writers and recognised 
 authoritii's laiv. as will ciial*!*' us to jtrcscm ilir series in a 
 thon)U";li!\ !'i> r li .liv..; to the reading public of this country. 
 In so <!' i: ! e uvinetd that wo are taking the best means 
 
 of sui)|>lyiu'; a want that has long been derj.ly felt. 
 
 The \..luin"^ ill aelual cej;-.,' <^f (>xeeutioii. ov C'jntomplatcd, 
 
will embrace such subjects as : Anthropology, Biology, Science 
 of Language, Comparative Mythology, Astronomy, Prehistoric 
 Archaeology, Ethnography, Geology, Hygiene, Political Economy, 
 Physical and Commercial Geography, Philosophy, Architecture, 
 Chemistry, Education, General Anatomy, Zoology, Botany, 
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 All the volumes, while complete and so far independent in 
 themselves, will be of uniform appearance, slightly varying, 
 according to the nature of the subject, in bulk and in price. 
 
 The present volum^e, on the Science of Language, with which 
 the English series is introduced, and wliich will be immediately 
 followed by others on Biology and Anthropology, may be 
 accepted as a fair sample of the style and execution of these 
 works. 
 
 When finished they will form a complete collection op 
 STANDARD WORKS OF REFERENCE ou all the physical and mental 
 sciences, thus fully justifying the general title chosen for the 
 series — '^ Library of Contemporary Science." 
 
 ciLiPMAisr A:NrD hall. 
 
 193, Piccadilly, W., 
 
 May Ibth, 1877. 
 
04 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Social Science has never "been so much talked about as in our 
 own times. "We all know now that the life of human societies, 
 like everything else, is governed by rules, by laws, and may 
 therefore become a question of science. This idea is far from 
 new, for the " Politics " of Aristotle is a treatise upon Sociology, 
 doubtless very incomplete, but nevertheless scientifically conceived. 
 And in their way the " Laws " and " The Kepublic " of Plato are 
 also sociological works, though in them the scientific method is 
 that which is most wanting. Aristotle and Plato have also had 
 many imitators or followers. To the former we may trace much 
 of what we read in Machiavelli and in Montesquieu ; on the other 
 hand, still confining ourselves to a few names, Campanella and 
 Eousseau may be counted as descendants of Plato. By the side of 
 these two schools, a third has made for itself a place ; — this we may 
 call the systematic school. It is doubtless from the results of 
 observation that systematic socialists start their theories. Eut 
 they confine their field of observation ; and they distort facts by 
 so selecting them that to their questions they may find an answer 
 
vi PEEFACE. 
 
 whicli will agree with their preconceived opinions. Vico, Condorcet, 
 Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, are the most illustrious representatives 
 of this school, and all these men possessed minds of the highest 
 order. 
 
 But have all these thinkers succeeded in founding Sociology? 
 — for this hybrid word was first brought into fashion by Comte. 
 We can hardly think so, unless we wish to close our eyes very 
 determinedly. We have the word without the thing, and it 
 cannot be otherwise. The commencement of any science_, however 
 simple, is always a collective work. It requires the constant labour 
 of many patient workmen, succeeding each other, each benefiting 
 from the toil of his predecessor, and through a long series of 
 generations. Isolated minds, let them be ever so powerful, can- 
 not do more than promulgate speculative questions that may be 
 more or less ingenious. 
 
 Again, the rise of any science is all the more laborious in pro- 
 portion as it is vast ; and what can be more complex than Social 
 Science 1 Modern investigations have taught us the fundamental 
 truth that everything in the universe must be governed by laws. 
 We have therefore our sociological laws. But it becomes more 
 difficult to discover a law in proportion as the phenomena which it 
 governs are multiple, are variable and intricate; and social facts 
 are numberless, their intricacy and their variability are extreme. 
 By dint of observations and experiments made and continued 
 during historic periods we have succeeded in formulating a few 
 astronomical laws ; and yet we are told that the isolated meditations 
 of some few systematic minds can give us a ready-made scientific 
 Sociology ! Anyone who likes to believe in this illusion is of 
 course free to do so. 
 
PEEFACE. vii 
 
 It is difficult for us to look around over the whole vast field of 
 Sociology ; for we must take into account all the infinitely various 
 manifestations of human activity, and also all the exterior agents 
 that may in any way influence that activity. Will the evolution 
 of societies always continue to unfold itself confusedly and spon- 
 taneously 1 Must we despair of ever finding and possessing a 
 scientific Sociology ? Assuredly not ; but it is all-important that 
 we should not think complete a work as yet hardly begun. 
 
 We now know how sciences first rise, and how they grow. It 
 is before all things necessary — and this is a very long task — to 
 bring together rich materials of well authenticated and carefully 
 noted facts. We must then select them, group them, class them, 
 and arrange them in order. For until then we are not entitled to 
 make inductions; we cannot see correctly the links between the 
 phenomena in past times; we ought not to risk observations as 
 to their future evolution. As a matter of course all this elabora- 
 tion will be of greater value in proportion as it rests upon a 
 larger basis. In many sciences experience may assist us in our 
 observations, and especially in controlling our inductions. This 
 precious means of verification has hitherto been wanting to Soci- 
 ology; but human societies, as they felt the need, have made 
 many attempts, which in a great measure may serve as pre- 
 meditated analytical experiments, perhaps to be undertaken at 
 some future date. 
 
 Before this vast preliminary labour that we have just indicated 
 can be accomplished centuries must first elapse; all hope of 
 a scientific Sociology would otherwise be vain. All that we can 
 now do is to make some few attempts; and it behoves us to 
 define our objects, directing our efforts to each one in turn of 
 
▼iii PREFACE. 
 
 the many sides of social life. Sociology must necessarily rest 
 upon the groundwork of many sciences : natural history, anthro- 
 pology, ethnography, demography, pedagogy, the study of climates, 
 political economy, history, etc. etc. etc. The enumeration would 
 he infinite, for everything which can, directly or indirectly, have 
 influence upon human life has also its sociological importance. 
 
 This is the scientific method. It is doubtless long and laborious ; 
 hut it is the only one that can do the work, and more than one 
 pioneer has already begun to clear the way. It wiU be enough to 
 mention the large historic pictures of Buckle and Draper, the ethno- 
 graphical works of Lubbock, Tylor, and others, and lastly Herbert 
 Spencer's book on Sociology. This latter is also mainly ethnogra- 
 phical, but it has in some way deceived the public; for more was 
 expected of its author, than whom few men in our own time possess 
 a larger or a more acute intellect, or a mind more richly fur- 
 nished. Mr. Spencer's work no doubt gives evidence of much 
 sound thought and nice perception ; but his exposition of facts 
 is singularly unmethodical, and he is often led astray by a priori 
 systematic conceptions. We may mention his very strong belief 
 in the doctrine of the Greek philosopher Euhemeros, according 
 to which the pagan gods were superior men who had become 
 deified by the people; and also his unwarrantable comparison 
 between social and biological organisms. We may add, that in 
 many of his conclusions Mr. Spencer has run directly counter to 
 noticeable facts, and to those which have been already established. 
 
 For ourselves, our own views or opinions here in this volume are 
 very confined. Such has been our intention. Our purpose was 
 to write a chapter on Sociology — tlie ethnographical chapter — 
 and we have endeavoured not to heap up our facts confusedly and 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 without order. "We have undertaken to describe the principal 
 manifestations of human activity successively in the principal 
 human races, connecting them as nearly as possible with similar 
 phenomena that have been observed in animals. In nearly every 
 case we have closed our short inquiry with an attempt at 
 generalisation, and even of induction ; but the reader will at once 
 distinguish our own personal views from the facts which in our 
 opinion will justify them, and may himseK draw any other 
 conclusion that appears to him to be more sound. 
 
 After what has been said, no one will expect to find in 
 this volume an enumeration of " Sociological Laws," drawn up 
 with all the strictness of the laws of true science. Social science 
 is yet in its infancy; to formulate its laws is therefore beyond 
 our power. But scientific laws do not spring suddenly as from 
 spontaneous generation. The way is first prepared by extracting 
 from the chaos of minute information some few general facts. 
 This has been our endeavour : we hope we may have succeeded. 
 
 Ch. Letourneau. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ETHNOGEAPHICAL PKOLEGOMENA. 
 
 Chapteh I. Enumeeation of the Human Eaces . 
 Chapter II. Distribution of the Human Eaces on the Face 
 OF the Globe 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Nutritive Life. 
 
 Chapter I. Food . .15 
 
 II. Food in Melanesia 17 
 
 y^ III. Food in Polynesia 19 
 
 ^ lY. Food in America . . . . .22 
 
 V. Food in Asia 24 
 
 YL Food in Africa 27 
 
 YII. Food and the Eaces of Men ... 29 
 
 Chapter II. Cookery 31 
 
 Chapter III. Psychology of the Nutritive Wants . . 36 
 Chapter IY. Intoxicating Substances . . . . .42 
 Chapter Y. Stupefying or Exciting Substances. . . .48 
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 Sensitive Life. 
 Chapter I. On Sensitive Life in General 
 
 55 
 
xii 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 Chapter 
 
 II. 
 
 On Genesic Want, and on Shame 
 
 PXQK 
 
 5d 
 
 OlIAJPTER 
 
 III. 
 
 Intercourse between the Sexes . 
 
 60 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IV. 
 
 Genesic Aberrations 
 
 71 
 
 Chapter 
 
 V. 
 
 The Delicacy of the Senses .... 
 
 73 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VI. 
 
 Clothing 
 
 t8 
 
 
 
 I. Painting and Tattooing 
 II. Deformations and Mutilations 
 
 III. Jewellery, Clothing, and Head-dressing 
 
 IV. Evolution of Taste in Ornament . 
 
 79 
 
 86 
 90 
 93 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VII. 
 
 On the Arts in General .... 
 
 95 
 
 Chapter YIII. 
 
 Dancing 
 
 96 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IX. 
 
 Vocal Music 
 
 99 
 
 Chapter 
 
 - X. 
 
 Instrumental Music 
 
 102 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Taste for Music generally . 
 
 106 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XII. 
 
 On the Graphic and Plastic Arts 
 
 107 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 Greek Sculpture 
 
 113 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 
 On Painting 
 
 117 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Evolution of Sensitive Life . 
 
 126 
 
 Chapter 
 
 Chapter 
 
 II. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 III. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IV. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 V. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VI. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VII. 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IX. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 • X. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Affective Life. 
 
 The Keflex Action according to Eace and 
 
 Civilisation 131 
 
 On Politeness and CEREiioNiAL Bearing . 134 
 Love for the Young in Animals . . .139 
 
 Abortion 143 
 
 Infanticide 145 
 
 Love for the Young in Humanity . . 149 
 
 Filial Love, Assistance to the Old, to the , 
 
 Sick, etc 152 
 
 The Ferocious Instincts in Humanity . .157 
 
 Benevolent Sentiments 165 
 
 The Condition of Women . . . . 173 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XI. Warlike Manners 185 
 
 I. "Warlike Manners among Animals . 185 
 
 II. Warlike Manners in Melanesia . . 188 
 III. Warlike Manners in Africa. . . 190 
 ly. Warlike Manners in Polynesia . . 192 
 
 *• . v. Warlike Manners in America . . 194 
 .YI. Warlike Manners in the Mongolian 
 
 Eace 199 
 
 YII. Warlike Manners in the White Race . 201 
 
 Chapter XII. Anthropophagy 203 
 
 I. Anthropophagy in general . . . 203 
 
 II. Cannibalism in Melanesia . . . 205 
 III. Cannibalism in Africa .... 206 
 lY. Cannibalism in Polynesia and in Malay 208 
 
 Y. Cannibalism in America . . . 213 
 YI. Cannibalism among the Mongolian and 
 
 the White Eaces . . . .214 
 
 Chapter XIII. Funereal Eites _ . 217 
 
 I. The Idea of Death . . . .217 
 
 • 11.^ Funereal Eites in Melanesia . . 220 
 
 III. Funereal Eites in Africa . . . 223 
 17. Funereal Eites in Polynesia . . 228 
 
 Y. Funereal Eites in America . .233 
 
 YI. Funereal Eites in Asia and in Malay 238 
 YII. Funereal Eites among the White 
 
 Eaces . . . . . .243 
 
 YIII. The Evolution of Funereal Eites . 245 
 
 Chapter XIY. " Eeligion in General 246 
 
 Chapter XY. On the Future Life 249 
 
 I. Future Life according to the Mela- 
 
 nesians 249 
 
 II. Future Life according to the Negroes 
 
 in Africa 252 
 
 III. Future Life according to the Egyptian 
 
 Mythology 254 
 
 lY. Future Life according to the Poly- 
 nesians 256 
 
 Y. Future Life according to American 
 
 . * * * Mythology 261 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter , XV, — Continued. 
 
 VI. Future Life according to the Asiatic 
 
 Mythologies 265 
 
 VII. The Evolution in Ideas of Future Life 272 
 
 Chapter XVI. The Gods 274 
 
 I. Mythology in General . . .274. 
 II. Myths in Melanesia .... 277 
 
 III. African Keligions . . . .279 
 
 IV. Eeligions in South America . . 287 
 V. Eeligions in Central and in Northern 
 
 America 289 
 
 VI. Ancient Eeligions in Central America 290 
 
 VIL The Polynesian Gods. . . .295 
 
 VIIL The Asiatic Eeligions . . .299 
 
 IX. The Evolution of Mythology . .317 
 
 Chapter XVII. Worship and Priesthood .... 319 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Social Life. 
 
 Chapter I. Marriage 327 
 
 I. Union of the Sexes among Animals . 327 
 
 II. On Human Marriage .... 330 
 
 III. Marriage in Melanesia . . . 331 
 
 IV. Marriage in Africa .... 335 
 V. Marriage in America .... 341 
 
 VI. Marriage in Mexico and Peru . . 347 
 
 VIT. Marriage in Polynesia . . . 350 
 
 VIII. Marriage in the Malay Archipelago . 352 
 
 IX. Marriage among the Natives in India 353 
 
 X. Marriage in Indo- China, in Burmah, 
 
 and in Thibet . . . . .356 
 XL Marriage among the Mongolians and 
 
 the Mongoloids of Northern Asia . 358 
 
 XII. Marriage in China and in Japan . 361 
 
 XIII. Marriage among the White Races in 
 
 Asia 364 
 
 XIV. The GroBco-Eoman Marriage . . 369 
 XV. European Marriage outside Greece 
 
 and Eome 373 
 
ETHNOGRAPHICAL PEOLEGOMENA. 
 
SOCIOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ENUMEEATION OF THE HUMAN RACES. 
 
 When we attempt to enumerate and to classify tlie various races 
 of men, the anthropologist and the ethnographer are at once beset 
 with difficulties, — so changeable, so multiform, and so various are 
 the human mammalia. Let it not be thought for a moment that 
 we wish, as do some over-metaphysical anthropologists, to perch 
 man up in the clouds, to pretend that our puny vertebrated body 
 has upon this earth a separate existence of its own — a gulf dividing 
 us from all other animals. Though man is incontestably a 
 mammiferous animal of the highest order, he differs, nevertheless, 
 very widely from his more humble congenerous creatures ; for with 
 him the higher nervous centres, and their use, which is shown 
 in his intelligence, are susceptible of a relatively enormous develop- 
 ment. Again, as far as scientific data will allow us to judge, the 
 origin of man is multiple. It may very well be that the now 
 existing human race descends, coming down through a long series 
 of metamorphoses, from monkey-bearing breasts. But these early 
 progenitors of man were very numerous, and even from the first of 
 very various kinds. Starting from this low primitive state, the 
 earliest types that were even nearly human must have been subject 
 to changes from the ordinary habits of life ; for during very long 
 geological cycles man was necessarily obliged to live in various 
 climates, to which he was constrained to adapt himself in order to 
 maintain his own existence. And, in its turn, this labour of 
 accommodating himself to places more or less inclement has become 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ETHNOGRAPHICAL PROLEGOMENA. [Istrod. 
 
 a cause of organic change. Everywhere on the face of the globe 
 man has formed for himself a separate existence, and he has made 
 for himself a civilisation that is more or less intelligent ; both of 
 which have served to protect hira from rough contact with the 
 surrounding elements, and have also either tended to stifle in him 
 certain preponderating energies, or to foster some latent capabilities. 
 Now there is no functional modification which is not both the 
 sign and the effect of a corresponding modification in the organs. 
 Owing to the combined influence of the diversity of his origin, and 
 to the disparity of civilisation, — to both of which we must add the 
 effect, ever various, of the innumerable ethnical unions which took 
 place during the long night of the prehistoric ages, when his 
 last thought was to write his own annals, — man modelled himself 
 after many and different types. In one place these different types 
 were clearly determined, in another they were so closely joined 
 together by intermediary mixings, and were effected so gradually, 
 that further gradation is no longer possible. In a word, that 
 has happened to man, but upon an infinitely larger scale, which 
 has happened to our domestic animals — for instance, to our canine 
 creatures. The greyhound and the bulldog, the spaniel and the 
 ^Newfoundland, are all canine mammalia, but how different are they 
 one from the other ! 
 
 But before we begin to speak of Sociology itself we must 
 endeavour, as well as we can, to unravel this chaos of ideas ; we 
 must divide the human species into different kinds, and extricate 
 some of the principal types, more or less homogeneous, from out of 
 the confused mass of the human races. We shall now attempt to 
 do this as briefly as possible. 
 
 If the anatomical characters, now so carefully studied by con- 
 temporary anthropologists, were well classified and well arranged 
 in their proper order, our task would then be simple enough. As 
 it is the special object of this book to speak of sociology, we might 
 pass over small anatomical details, tracing out the principal groups 
 and showing the peculiarities of each. But unfortunately the 
 study of anatomical anthropology is as yet in its early phases. 
 It enables us only to prove certain facts, not to classify them. 
 One anthropologist will base his classification of races on the form 
 
Chap. I.] ENUMEEATION OF THE HUMAN RACES. 5 
 
 of the cranium, on the quantity and the formation of the brain, 
 another will satisfy himself by examining the hair. In this still 
 confused state of human taxonomy we must proceed somewhat at 
 random, taking groups of characters for our guide, so as to lessen 
 as far as possible the chances of falling into error. No doubt that 
 the actions of men and women form the principal study of the 
 sociologist ; but he is bound nevertheless to connect these actions 
 as far as possible with certain anatomical facts, or at all events to 
 show the connection existing between them, — for between the 
 labourer and his work the tie is very close. An inferior ana- 
 tomical race has never created a civilisation superior to itself. 
 Over such a race hangs an organic malediction, the weight of 
 which can only be reduced by millenary efforts, and by a struggle 
 for improvement constantly going on during geological cycles. As to 
 the nobility of organisation, we see the greatest variety in men ; and 
 these differences are so strongly marked, that any idea of close and 
 gradual progression is at once excluded. Nevertheless, taking into 
 consideration only the very large and important features, we may 
 group, both anatomically and sociologically, the existing types of 
 men under three main heads : — 
 
 I. The black man, whose brain is small, especially in the frontal 
 region, which with him is narrow and receding. His cranium 
 is elongated and oval-shaped. Correlatively, his jaws are prog- 
 nathous, that is to say, the rudimentary organs are projecting. His 
 nose is more or less flat. The skin is also more or less black, and 
 the hair woolly, except with the Australian negro, who seems to be 
 a man of mongrel breed. 
 
 II. The yelloiv man, the Mongolian, or Mongoloid, is still farther 
 separated from the animal form. His brain, more developed in the 
 Asiatic Mongolians, but very small with the American Mongoloid, is 
 better shaped. The forehead — where the intelligence mainly lies — 
 is with him less sacrificed, it is even relatively largely developed 
 in the case of the Asiatic Mongolians. His cranium is large 
 and short, brachycephalous ; the prognathism is here much less 
 strongly marked than in the preceding type. His eyes, or rather 
 his palpebral openings, are very elongated, scarcely open; they 
 are contracted, and often raised obliquely, both inside and outside. 
 
6 ETHNOGRAPHICAL PKOLEGOMENA. [Inteod. 
 
 His hair is always black and straight; his skin is yellow, or 
 yellowish in colour. 
 
 III. The ivhite man has ascended a few degrees higher in 
 the organic hierarchy. His brain is developed; his forehead 
 has expanded and become straight ; his jaw-bones have become 
 reduced, and in him we no longer find the prominence of a 
 blobber-lipped mouth. His eyes are set straight, are open, some- 
 times dark and sometimes light in colour, whilst with the two- 
 preceding types they are nearly invariably black. And so with 
 his hair, instead of being always black, we see it of very various 
 colours, from quite fair to jet black. His skin is more or less 
 white, and his hair is sometimes straight, sometimes curly, but 
 never woolly. 
 
 From the sociological point of view these different types of 
 human beings are far from possessing the same dignity ; there 
 are also many subdivisions in each class of very various kinds, 
 and these differ very widely one from the other. The negro will 
 generally be found to belong to the most inferior type. The black 
 man, guided by no instincts but his own, in whom there is no- 
 admixture of blood of a superior race, has never been able to form 
 for himself any sort of cultivated civilisation. In this way the 
 yellow man — the Mongolian — is a much superior creature. From 
 a very early date, the Asiatic Mongolians, who are the best 
 specimens of this type, formed for themselves large and well- 
 organised societies, which, as well as the Chinese, are actually 
 maintaining a rivalry with the white races, and in some respects 
 may serve for them as a model. Even the American Mongoloids, 
 who of the Mongolian class are the most mongrel, the most inferior 
 in race, and whose brain is the feeblest — of whom some of the most 
 humble specimens are always to be found dwindling away in the 
 lowest stage of intellectual and social existence — even they, by their 
 better and superior types, have been able in days gone by to show 
 in Mexico and Peru some remarkable examples of social progress. 
 
 In spite of its imperfections, its weaknesses, and its vices, the 
 white men still maintain their foremost position in this steeple-chase 
 competition among the human races. It is in the heart of the ethnical 
 groups of the white races that intellectual energy has shown its finest 
 
Chap, i.] ENUMERATION OF THE HUMAN EACES. 7 
 
 and widest developments ; it is there that art, moral nobility, science, 
 and philosophy, have spread themselves the most widely. And as 
 we proceed we shall see, with some degree of detail, that the white 
 race in all its forms is now the least opposed to progress. 
 
 The following table will enable the reader to see at a glance 
 the hierarchy of both the principal and the subordinate races of 
 men. As some of the negro races differ in essential points from 
 the most common of the negro types, we have given to them a 
 separate place by the side of the principal black races with which 
 they are in fact actually connected : 
 
 THE PKINCIPAL TYPES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 I. 
 BLACK 
 
 MEN 
 
 II. 
 YELLOW 
 
 MEN 
 
 Oceanic Negroes 
 (Melanesians) 
 
 FuBB Negboxs ... 
 
 Afkican Negroes 
 
 Mongolians 
 
 Mongoloid 
 Americans 
 
 Mongoloids of 
 Various Tipes 
 
 Tasmanians. 
 Australians. 
 Papuans. 
 
 Veddahs, and Indian black men. 
 
 Andamans. 
 
 Negroes of small stature (Negritos). 
 
 Hottentots. 
 
 Inferior Africans. 
 
 iMandingos, etc. 
 Nubians. 
 Abyssinians. 
 
 Tartars, Chinese, Japanese. 
 
 Fuegians. 
 
 Southern Americans. 
 
 Central Americans. 
 
 Northern Americans (Red Skins). 
 
 Esquimaux, Kamtschadales, etc. 
 
 Lapps. 
 
 Carolines, etc. 
 
 Malays. 
 
 Polynesians. 
 
 III. r 
 
 WHITE -< Caucasun Races 
 
 MEN 
 
 
 / 
 
 Indo-Europeans. 
 
 Semites. 
 
 Berbers. 
 
8 ETHNOGEAPHICAL PROLEGOMENA. [Inteod. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THE HUMAN RACES ON THE FACE OF THE GLOBE. 
 
 Statistics are even now very far from enabling us to enumerate 
 exactly, or even with tolerable accuracy, the population of the world. 
 Only some few civilised states endeavour more or less to keep an ac- 
 count of the number of their inhabitants, a registry of their births, 
 deaths, and marriages. We are obliged, therefore, when we wish 
 to make an enumeration of each race, to confine ourselves to the 
 most general means of calculation. In round figures we may 
 say that from twelve to thirteen hundred millions of human 
 beings are struggling for their existence on the surface of our 
 little planet. It may be taken as a matter of course that the 
 many coloured and multifarious members of humanity maintain 
 their existence with very unequal chances, according as the tem- 
 perature in which they live is more or less clement; or more 
 especially according as they expend more or less intelligence and 
 energy for their use and for their protection. 
 
 If we were to judge only by the extent of area occupied, 
 and by the number of the occupants, the Mongolians, or the yellow 
 races, would hold the first rank in the world as it now stands. 
 Their dominion in Asia is very large indeed. A frontier line drawn, 
 starting from the south of the Caspian sea, just touching the south 
 of Afghanistan, running along the southern side of the Himalayas, 
 then turning southward towards the Indian ocean, and afterwards 
 joining the Irrawady river — such a line would indicate roughly the 
 Asiatic boundary between the vast Mongolian territory and the 
 much smaller territory inhabited by the more or less Caucasian 
 races. The people to the north and to the east of this line are 
 Mongolian, with a few exceptions here and there — in Burmali, for 
 instance; on the other hand, the people on the south and west, in the 
 angle formed by this broken line, are Caucasian, and advancing 
 westward, the Caucasian blood becomes purer and more free from 
 admixture. Let us not forget, too, that the Mongolians have very 
 
Chap. II.] DISTRIBUTION OF THE HUMAN RACES. 9 
 
 widely spread themselves in European Russia, in Turkey, in 
 Hungary, that they have swarmed in many directions, peopling the 
 Malay archipelago, occupying the Philippine islands, the Carolina 
 islands, and many other islands in the Pacific, mixing themselves 
 with the inhabitants and gradually moulding the aborigines of these 
 islands into the large Mongoloid race. Also that the lowest spe- 
 cimens of their type — the Kamtschadales, the Esquimaux, the 
 Samoyedes, and the Lapps — wander all along the arctic shore of 
 Asia, America, and even of Europe. And it is also very difficult 
 to avoid recognising a large admixture of Mongolian blood in the 
 indigenous American and in the Polynesian. When we recollect 
 all this, we may then have some notion of the position, morally as 
 well as materially, which the yellow race holds upon the earth. 
 
 The only serious rival to the Mongolian is the white man ; as to 
 whom contemporary anthropology contests the Caucasian origin. 
 Yet, if we consider the place and climate occupied by the white man 
 on the old continent, we shall see that the Caucasian chain shows 
 very plainly the centre of the region which we may call white; that it 
 is in the Caucasus and the neighbouring countries that the purest 
 specimens of the type are to be found. Starting from the Caucasian 
 Alps we see that the white races spread all round about on every 
 side. Towards the north and the west they cover Europe ; on the 
 south they occupy Asia Minor and Arabia ; and on the east, Persia 
 and Afghanistan. Then, going down into India they mix with 
 other races, and gradually lose their own distinctive features as 
 one gets nearer towards the Deccan. There are many linguists who 
 would have us believe that all the Indo-European races come from the 
 Caucaso-Indian Hindoo. There are certainly some representatives 
 of the white races left there even now ; but they are, so to speak, 
 the sentinels chosen out and put there to mark and define the limits 
 of their empire. Let this be said, without wishing for a moment to 
 insinuate anything against the admirable systematisation of Indo- 
 European dialects, from which, however, we must be careful not 
 to expect more than it can in reality afford to us. 
 
 Taking into account only the Caucasian population of Asia and 
 of Europe, it will be found that in point of numbers the white 
 
10 ETHNOGEAPHICAL PROLEGOMENA. [Introd. 
 
 man bears a very secondary part by the side of his Mongolian 
 rival ; and if, as it seems probable, the yellow races awake up in 
 right earnest from their long sleep and wrest from us that which 
 our superior strength gives us — that is, our industry and our 
 homicidal instruments — the white races will not find that their 
 powerful auxiliaries, the new people which are gradually growing 
 in America, in Oceania, etc., are at all too powerful to resist the 
 attack. 
 
 In point of numbers the black man holds the third place ; and 
 he, with a greater or less mixture of Aryan blood, specially towards- 
 the north and towards the east, occupies the whole of Africa, 
 excepting the Mediterranean shore, the territory of Barbary, and 
 the region of Sahara. And here we find mixed up together the 
 Berbers, the Semites, and a few even of the early instances 
 of European colonisation. What is the number of the black 
 population in Central Africa? H^o one can tell; but we know- 
 that these numerous hordes, savages though they be, are nearly 
 always stationary, and are agricultural in their pursuits. This 
 has lately been shown to us by Speke, Baker, Schweinfurth, 
 Stanley, and others. The African negro is the principal repre- 
 sentative of his type, and he also is a serious rival to the superior 
 races, for he can live and work where other races, especially the 
 white men, languish and die away. By the side of the African 
 negro wo ought to mention, that they be not forgotten, his inferior 
 brethren the Oceanian negroes, the Melanesians. Of these the 
 Tasmanian has already disappeared in face of the stronger 
 European force. The same fate is reserved for the Australian. 
 The Papuans of New Guinea only, have some chance of lasting, 
 though they have not yet advanced beyond the Polished Stone 
 age. 
 
 If we take away the white men, and the black men who have 
 emigrated, the existing American is a man of much less importance 
 than the African negro. The vast and singular empires of Mexico 
 and Peru, original civilisations, are now for ever wiped out; the 
 Aztecs and the Quichuas who peopled them at one time are now 
 destroyed, or have degenerated, or have become merged with their 
 
Chap, ii.] DISTEIBUTION OF THE HUMAN EACES. 11 
 
 Spanish conquerors. As regards the Eed Skins of tlie north, tho 
 Guaranis, the Pampeans, the Patagonians, the Fuegians, etc., of 
 South America, people rehellious for the most part against 
 European civilisation, their number is very small, and it is 
 destined to become even smaller still. A future seems to be 
 denied to these people, who are both very far backward and very 
 badly provisioned. 
 
 We may say as much, too, for the Polynesian races — probably 
 the offspring, or at least a part of them, of the ancient Peruvians, 
 — the people also inhabiting Tahiti, the Sandwich islands, the 
 Tonga islands, the Marquesas islands, I^ew Zealand, etc. These 
 people are interesting from more than one point of view, and later 
 on we shall have to speak of their indigenous, rudimentary, but 
 original civilisation. It can only be from mixing with European 
 colonists that this very curious specimen of the human type 
 can leave behind any lasting impression of his stay upon the 
 earth. 
 
 As we have said at the beginning of the chapter, it is im- 
 possible as yet to draw up a table showing the number of in- 
 habitants belonging to each of the different large human races. 
 Nevertheless, we may venture to make a few approximate calcula- 
 tions. In putting together the Mongolians, and Mongoloid 
 people, the Chinese, who are pure Mongolians, the Thibetans, 
 the Japanese, the Malays, and the Indo-Chinese, we can hardly 
 estimate their number at less than six hundred millions of inhabi- 
 tants. As regards the white population spread over the world, it 
 is perhaps going too far to reckon it at four hundred millions. But for 
 the negroes in Africa, in Oceania, the indigenous Americans, and other 
 small races scattered about everywhere, no computation with any 
 sort of accuracy would be possible. JS'ot taking into account the 
 African negro, a race which certainly will number many millions 
 of inhabitants, the other human types only form some poor 
 ethnical groups destined to disappear, or be absorbed by the 
 large battalions of the three great races — the yellow, the white, and 
 the black. 
 
 Our preliminary sketch is now completed. We have traced 
 
12 ETHNOGRAPHICAL PEOLEGOMENA. [Inteod. 
 
 very broadly, as was suitable to our object, whicb is mainly 
 sociological, the enumeration of the most important of the human 
 species. The task now before us is more minute in detail, 
 and is more difficult. We must now take each of these types 
 singly, and examine it psychologically and ethnographically. 
 We must bring them all before us, from the lowest to the highest, 
 try them, measure their faculties by the work they have done, and 
 at the same time say something of the various forms of civilisation 
 which they have attempted or which they have realised. The 
 most important considerations are not the numbers of individuals 
 belonging to each race, though this element will very often be 
 found in proportion to the actual value of the race. We shall 
 have to consider principally the originality and the dignity of the 
 industrial, moral, social, and intellectual labour which has come 
 from human effort. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 NUTRITIVE LIFE. 
 
^tjnivehsity; 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 Let us imagine an observer placed somewhere high tip in air above 
 our terrestrial equator, far enough from the globe on which we 
 live to take in a whole hemisphere at one glance, and yet close 
 enough to distinguish, with the aid, if need be, of a magnifying- 
 glass, the continents and the seas, the great ranges of mountains, 
 the white frozen tops of the polar regions, etc. etc. To anyone 
 so watching us, the earth would appear to be a system made 
 up of two hemispherical mountains joined together at their 
 base, and at the top covered over with ice. At the foot of 
 the mountains, in the middle region, which we will call tlie 
 equatorial zone, between the tropics, our aerial observer will per- 
 ceive on the continents or on the islands the existence of a rich 
 country, where both the vegetable and the animal kingdoms are 
 represented by organic forms of the largest and most various 
 kinds. He will see there a sort of outburst of life which gradually 
 becomes weaker and poorer as he draws his eye nearer to the 
 desolate countries, more or less approximatively bounded by the 
 polar regions. Beyond this the organic poverty becomes absolute 
 barrenness ; the vegetable kingdom is only seen by a small number 
 of objects of small stature ; the boned animals of the earth become 
 rare; here and there a few deep caverns that are not frozen over 
 may serve as a sort of protection to fish and other amphibious 
 creatures, to whom the vegetable world is quite useless, and who 
 live only by devouring each other. There is no doubt that the 
 
16 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 v/hole organic system of the world has not always "been as we now 
 see it. The temperature was formerly higher than it is at present, 
 and this is proved by the vegetables in the antarctic regions reduced 
 to a fossil state, but which to live require a warm, or at least a 
 temperate climate ; on the other hand, the length of the nights in 
 the polar regions has always been very unfavourable both to animal 
 and to vegetable life. 
 
 It is therefore in the middle terrestrial zone, in the clement 
 portion of the globe, that the first dwelling-place of the great 
 mammalia — and not excepting man, the foremost of the kind — 
 must, with the greatest sense of probability, be placed. But man 
 has not always been what he is now ; his most distant ancestors, 
 his precursors, if we wish, at a time when they were very little 
 different from large monkeys, did not escape from the general 
 law. The large monkeys now alive, our more or less distant 
 cousins, whom we rightly term anthropomorphites, are frugivorous 
 animals ; and man also, judging by his teeth, even though we look 
 at the formidable row of teeth of the Australian, is a frugivorous 
 animal. We may, therefore, rationally suppose that the dwelling- 
 place of the earliest specimens of the human type was placed, as is- 
 nowadays the case with the large monkeys, in the humid and warm. 
 regions, where fruit-producing plants, containing feculant and 
 albuminous matter, will grow easily and without culture. There is 
 every probability that it was in the torrid region of Asia and of 
 Africa, perhaps on the large islands or continents now submerged^ 
 that man was first born and had his being. It is in this warm 
 zone that we now find the big monkeys ; and again, the fossil 
 fauna in Europe is poor in the remains of ape-like form, and those 
 of America and Australia appear to be totally destitute of them. 
 It is in this zone that man, still savage, whose industry is yet so- 
 entirely rudimentary, now supports most easily a tolerable exist- 
 ence; it is here too that the precursor of man can only have 
 lived before he knew the properties of fire. 
 
 But from this cradle, from this Eden, man gradually spread out 
 towards the north and towards the south. At first he went into the 
 more temperate regions, where here and there he was able to live and 
 
Chap, i.] FOOD. 17 
 
 even to develop ; but only under the condition that by his skill he 
 could correct the parsimony of nature. All the great civilisations 
 of historical antiquity, even now but ill provided, were first pro- 
 duced in warm or in temperate climates. Long afterwards, races 
 who came later, the inheritors of previous societies, having acquired 
 a more scientific education — among whom were many animal kinds 
 and domestic creatures — succeeded in forming, less far away from 
 the polar circles, large human agglomerations. And even now in 
 the arctic and antarctic regions man can with difficulty find only 
 a precarious existence. In a word, nature's banquet^ as the poets 
 say, seems to be very unequally spread over the earth, when the 
 productive power of the globe, altogether careless of human in- 
 terests, is left to take care of itself. We shall soon become assured 
 of this if we look at the difi'erent countries and see what are the 
 different alimentary resources which each offers to the many types 
 of the human race. 
 
 II. 
 
 Food in Melanesia. 
 
 Excepting the desolate regions of the arctic wastes, and the 
 island known as Terra del Fuego, no country has been so un- 
 gracious to the human biped as that which is now occupied by the 
 Oceanian negro, including Tasmania, 7\.ustralia, JSTew Guinea, K'ew 
 Caledonia, and a few of the mixed archipelagoes — though they are 
 rather better provided — such as the Solomon islands and the Fiji 
 islands. In these last-mentioned islands, and also occasionally in 
 New Guinea, the introduction of certain Asiatic vegetables has 
 given some assistance to the black inhabitants ; but in Tasmania 
 and in Australia man's natural stock of provisions was, and still is, 
 exceedingly small. There the precious family of palm trees, and 
 other gramineous fruit, were not represented by any feculiferous 
 plant. The poor Australian woman is obliged to dig up the earth 
 with a pointed stick, as the Tasmanian woman had been obliged to 
 do before her race had died out, to unearth the roots, the tubercles, 
 and specially a sort of big truffle {mylitta Australia) growing at the 
 
 
 
IS NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 feet of the dead trees, in places where the soil is rich with organic- 
 decay. And she cannot afford to disdain the juice of the euca- 
 lyptus, the sap of certain ferns, the gum of the acacia, certain 
 berries, and even the algae, which, when slightly cooked, help in 
 some small way to augment the daily fare. Those are the acces- 
 sories ; but it is from the animal kingdom that the customary 
 provender is mainly supplied. 
 
 But in Australia and in Tasmania the animal kingdom is hardly" 
 more generous than the vegetable ; these are the countries in- 
 which the marsupial fauna still hold their sway. Man must hunt 
 there, and capture the different kinds of kangaroo, the wombat, 
 the opossum — whose size is hardly double that of a rat — the- 
 emu, or the Australian cassowary, and various kinds of birds. 
 By the sea-shore the molluscs form the principal article of food, 
 and at the different resting-places the people manufacture for them- 
 selves a rough sort of cookery, as prehistoric man used to do in 
 Europe in ages gone by. A few fish, and occasionally (a rare and 
 happy godsend !) the dead body of a whale cast on shore, will furnish 
 them with a more substantial nourishment ; and as a last resource 
 they have the dingo, the Australian dog, and even man himself. 
 
 New Guinea affords to the Papuan, its inhabitant, a somewhat 
 less scanty fare. Not that the flora there will be found to satisfy 
 all that man desires. According to 0. Beccari, there is not an 
 indigenous fruit to be found there at all tolerable ; but the Malays 
 have introduced a few cereals, especially rice, and also a few articles 
 of the vegetable kind, notably sago, belonging to the beneficial 
 tribe of palm trees, have been spontaneously brought on to this 
 land, which still shows itself to be Australian from the majority 
 of its organic productions. On the other hand the fauna are not 
 there wholly marsupial. The wild boar roams in the forests, 
 and has been domesticated by the Papuan, though indifferently 
 enough, because the people are obliged to blind the young to 
 prevent them escaping from the human yoke. But the dog, the 
 habitual companion of man on the greater part of this world's 
 surface, lives there a completely domesticated animal, and poultry 
 also is common. The forests of New Guinea are full of birds,. 
 
Chap, i.] FOOD. 19 
 
 and on the sea-shore the fishing assists the Oceanian negro 
 very materially with articles of food. The sea is also one of 
 the principal resources of the Papuan of the New Hebrides, and 
 of his analogous companion, the l^ew Caledonian. These countries 
 are altogether destitute of domestic animals, even of the dog. 
 People there keep themselves alive with what fish they can catch, 
 and with their agricultural industry, which is in a fairly advanced 
 state, especially in New Caledonia ; and they show some care and 
 intelligence in cultivating the igname and the taro. And these 
 people too, before the arrival of the Europeans, were the first 
 instances of mammalia who have more or less often furnished 
 themselves with a dish of meat. Man himself would furnish the 
 first dish ; — afterwards would come large bats, vampires, of which 
 we find diff'erent kinds in nearly all the Polynesian islands, and 
 also in India. 
 
 To sum up : of all the Oceanian negroes, the Tasmanians, and 
 afterwards the Australians, are the most destitute and the least 
 liberally supplied by Providence ; the Papuans of New Guinea and 
 the adjacent islands have larger resources given to them ; so have 
 the people of New Caledonia, and the negro of the New Hebrides. 
 As regards the other tribes of the Papuan race, thay inhabit more 
 fortunate islands : the Solomon islands. New Ireland, the Fiji 
 islands, where, strictly speaking, the Polynesian flora abound, poor 
 in kind, but rich in alimentary vegetables. Even in New Caledonia 
 we find the cocoa-tree, the banana, the papyrus, the sugar-cane, etc. 
 Let us now see how man is provided in the blessed region of 
 Polynesia. 
 
 III. 
 
 Food in Polynesia. 
 
 We must, in the first place, observe that, with the exception of 
 New Zealand, all the large Polynesian archipelagoes are situated 
 in the tropics, that they all have a marine temperature, which is 
 both very mild and very little changeable. In November and 
 December, the hottest months, the thermometer at Noukahiva marks 
 from 29 to 33 degrees centigrade in the shade, and from 26 to 27 
 
 c 2 
 
20 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 degrees in the night. The minimum of temperature in February 
 is 24 degrees. As we may perceive, in this happy country clothes 
 are almost useless, and if it never rained so would be houses. 
 
 All these islands are madreporical, that is, calcareous. They 
 have been slowly raised up above the level of the sea, sometimes 
 by volcanic eruptions. The mineral kingdom here is extremely 
 poor. From the nature of the soil there are no beds of metal, few 
 hard stones, except a sort of serpentine and jasper, out of which 
 the people have learnt to make themselves arms and other utensils. 
 The sea shells, the teeth of sharks, etc., have also served them for 
 the same purposes. Soft water was often scarce with them, and, 
 in order to get a regular supply, they have been obliged to dig for 
 themselves deep pits. 
 
 The organic kingdoms are hardly more varied than the mineral 
 kingdoms. As these islands have assuredly never been joined to 
 any continent, at least, not since the tertiary period, their plants 
 and their animals must have been imported there by chance or by 
 accident. As a matter of fact the flora in Polynesia came originally 
 from India and from America, and the fauna there is remarkably 
 poor. Except in the few instances when they have been im- 
 ported by man, animals have not come there except by swim- 
 ming or by flying. The animal kind are, therefore, very few : 
 a few lizards, some birds, specially parrots, which become more 
 common as one gets less farther away from Australia and New 
 Guinea, but not going beyond the island Eouroutou (153° 6' East 
 longitude). There are no savage mammalia except the rat and a 
 huge bat vampire, which is found also in New Zealand and in 
 New Caledonia. We may add a few domesticated animals, evidently 
 brought there by man, poultry, which we find even as far distant 
 as Easter island, and specially the dog and the hog; this latter 
 animal is generally of very small stature. The dogs and hogs, used 
 generally as articles of food, are found in all the large archi- 
 pelagoes ; but many of the smaller islands were deprived of them, 
 and the pig, known only by tradition in the western island of 
 New Zealand, was altogether unknown in the southern island. 
 The dog, a dog-fox, was the only kind of domestic mammalia 
 
Chap, i.j FOOD. 21 
 
 of the New Zealanders ; lie used to live in a wild state -when left 
 in the forests, but with the islanders he became domesticated. 
 
 In all these archipelagoes the flora is rich in aspect but poor 
 in kind. Erom twenty-eight to thirty only were counted in the 
 two groups the Society islands and the Marquesas, and they were 
 the most rich in vegetables ; but of these kinds there were some 
 infinitely precious. First must be mentioned the cocoa- tree, which 
 constitutes whole forests, grows even on the small islands, and 
 furnishes of itself to the islanders their drink, their food, their 
 wood for building purposes, and their rope. In the larger islands, 
 we see growing by the side of the cocoa-tree the bread-fruit tree 
 {artocarpus indsa), the providence of these countries, and of which 
 tree may be reckoned no less than thirty-three kinds. This vegetable 
 is so completely domesticated in Tahiti, that it no longer produces 
 grains, and it is only reproduced by grafting. Its presence, there- 
 fore, indicates an agricultural people. The bread-fruit tree was 
 flourishing in Tahiti, and was wanting in the other islands. It 
 was wanting for instance in Easter island. After the bread- 
 fruit tree comes the igname (dioscorea), of which there are four 
 domestic kinds (alata, hulhifera, pentophylla, aculeata), and a wild 
 plant. In the Fiji islands the natives count fifty difi'erent kinds 
 of this plant. The roots, which may be kept for six months,, 
 sometimes attain to the weight of fifty pounds, and in some 
 few localities the fruit has been picked twice in the year. Let us 
 also mention the rhizome of the colocaria esculenta, a hectare of 
 which might provide food for fifty-eight persons, and would 
 demand only the labour of three men. And last, the papyrus 
 (carica papaya), the bananas, the sweet potato, the sugar-cane, etc. 
 The greater part of these vegetables were not to be found 
 in New Zealand, where agriculture w^as unknown. But this 
 archipelago, as large in size as Italy, possesses hardly more than a 
 thousand vascular plants, among which there are one hundred and 
 fifteen ferns ; the roots of some of these were eatable, and formed 
 one of the great alimentary resources of the country. These 
 magnificent countries were both too richly and too poorly endowed 
 to allow man to make much progress there. They were too richly 
 
22 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 endowed, because with the assistance of the sea, alimentation was 
 abundant and was obtained with little labour ; for want, the great 
 spur towards progress, did not press man to work for himself, and 
 to use his intellect. They were too poorly endowed, because the 
 total absence of metal set a bar against the development of any 
 perfected industry. And also the uniformity of benign nature, the 
 contiguity of the greater part of the islands, offered but a very 
 narrow field for any sort of investigation. It was literally an 
 Eden in which man was living, as did Adam and Eve, stupidly, in 
 their earthly Paradise. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Food in America. 
 
 In America human habitation is very much more varied in its 
 kind than in the lukewarm, fertile, and uniform Polynesia. We have 
 here a vast continent stretching nearly from one pole to the other, 
 in which a great and lofty chain of mountains, with immense 
 plateaus, run down all the length of it, from north to south, and 
 whose height is often nearly equal to their breadth. Thanks to 
 these j/orographical conditions, the Mexicans and the Peruvians 
 were able, under the tropics, to found large, complex, and curiously- 
 organised societies. 
 
 As in Polynesia, the food of the Mexicans and of the Peruvians 
 before the conquest, was mostly vegetable. None of our European 
 cereals were known to them, not even the banana, which, according 
 to Humboldt, now affords a too facile nourisliment to the in- 
 habitants of the terra caliente. According to this author the 
 produce of the banana is to corn as 133 is to 1, and to potatoes as 
 44 is to 1. Among the cereals, maize formed the principal article 
 of food in Mexico, and it was cultivated also in Peru. To this 
 were added the cassava (jatropha manihot) and cocoa. For other 
 food they had the game that they killed and fish that they caught, 
 and also a sort of dog, the only domestic animal of the country. 
 According to Hernandez, there were three kinds of canine animals 
 in Mexico, which have now disappeared, having been driven out 
 by their stronger European rivals. The eatable kind, small, stubby. 
 
•Chap, i.] FOOD. 23 
 
 and dumb, was not unlike the dog which the Polynesians used to 
 eat. B. Diaz saw this dog, and even ate him. 
 
 The Peruvian civilisation, which seems to have remained quite 
 different to that of Mexico, was based upon the cultivation of the 
 potato and the quinoa. Large flocks of lamas and of alpacas were at 
 once beasts of burden and beasts of slaughter. Plants and animals 
 were looked after with great care, as we shall have occasion to 
 point out when we describe the interesting social organisation of 
 ancient Peru. 
 
 Outside the favoured zone where the great Peruvian and 
 Mexican empires flourished, there were not in America, before the 
 coming of the Europeans, other inhabitants than the tribes of more 
 or less wild savages. Here and there, in the basin of the Mississippi 
 and also in that of the Orinoco, etc., a few attempts at agriculture 
 were made ; but the vegetable kingdom, which the people did not 
 sufliciently understand, and which indeed was less bountiful in 
 alimentary plants, bore only a secondary part in the furnishing 
 of food. Hunting, and fishing in the large rivers, were the principal 
 occupations of the Indians. Everywhere, iii fact, these employments 
 have sustained man in his primitive state. They have offered him 
 an occupation according to his tastes, and they have maintained 
 him in a state of savage wildness. In uncivilised countries the 
 alimentation always becomes less and less vegetable in its kind 
 according as one gets farther distant from the equator. In 
 the vast prairies of Western America man lived almost alto- 
 gether upon one animal, the bison, which he used, and still con- 
 tinues to slaughter in very large quantities. The deer and the 
 roe, no doubt, furnished their quota, but it was to the bison that man 
 was mainly indebted for food, for clothing, and for string for his 
 bow, etc. According to the Abbe Domenech, the town of St. Louis 
 alone, in the year 1849, consumed 110,000 skins of buffalo, of deer, 
 of roe; and the different American companies used then to buy 
 annually about 90,000 skins of buffalo. In Southern America the 
 Araucanians and the Patagonians, etc., used before the conquest, to 
 lead the same sort of life as did their brothers the Red Skins, at the 
 expense of the vicunia swandown, which they could hunt as far as 
 
24 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 the coast of the Magellan straits. At the present time the 
 European horse, the bovine races, so very plentiful in the pampas, 
 and also the guanaco, a known animal domesticated long before the 
 discovery of America, and the American ostrich, or nandou {rhea 
 Americana), are the animals which furnish food to the nomad 
 inhabitants of these extensive plains. 
 
 In the extreme regions of the American continent, where the 
 vegetable kingdom descends from poverty to indigence, and where 
 no large terrestrial mammalia live in large numbers, the nourish- 
 ment is nearly exclusively animal, and it is looked for specially in 
 the ocean. In the north, the seal and the whale are the large 
 game of the Esquimaux. In default, people have to content 
 themselves with fish and with shell-fish when they cannot get the 
 domestic reindeer. 
 
 The Pescherais of Terra del Euego, or the Fuegians, much 
 inferior in intelligence to the Esquimaux of North America, and 
 having no other domestic animal but the dog, feeds upon animal 
 food almost entirely. He piles up the remains of the shell-fish in 
 kjcekkenmooddings, as prehistoric man used to do in Denmark; 
 these will form the basis of his food, which he may improve or 
 vary whenever he can capture a seal or a penguin. 
 
 V. 
 
 Food in Asia, 
 
 Leaving Terra del Euego for Asia, is like leaving the desert to 
 go into the j^romised land. In the regions that we have hitherto 
 considered, man's table has always been more or less insufficiently 
 found. Here animals were wanting, there vegetables. Taken as 
 a whole, the vast Asiatic continent may be considered a blessed 
 region, offering to man the produce of every climate in abundance. 
 It constitutes a great reservoir of animal and vegetable kinds, all 
 useful to the human race. But the distribution of these kinds will 
 vary naturally with the degree of latitude and with the climate. In 
 India, and in the Indian half of the Malay archipelago (Java, 
 Sumatra, Borneo, etc.) we find the cocoa-tree, the bread-fruit tree, 
 the banana, the sweet potato {convolvulus batatas)^ all the kinds of 
 
Chap, i.] FOOD. 25 
 
 palm trees, and notably the sago palm tree, whose edible trunk is 
 grown with so little labour in Malay and in 'New Guinea. To 
 convert into food the trunk of this tree, which is often twenty 
 feet high and four or five feet in circumference, the work of two 
 men and two women for five days will be found sufficient ; and the 
 result will give food enough to maintain a man for a whole year. 
 Eut the Malay peninsula often possesses also the cereal, which we 
 find still more frequent in Southern Asia ; rice forms the greatest part 
 of the nourishment of the Hindoo, and it is an important addition to 
 many of the Chinese. The peaceful and laborious Chinaman does 
 not content himself with vegetable food alone, however good an 
 agriculturist he may be. In reality he eats of everything; and 
 though he makes use of pork, he does not disdain rats, monkeys, 
 nor alligators, nor cuttle-fish, nor holothuriae, nor even swallows' 
 nests. The pastoral life of the ancestors of the ancient Mongolians 
 is so thoroughly forgotten by the present existing Chinaman, that he 
 looks upon milk with horror — excepting however woman's milk, by 
 the aid of which old men endeavour to remedy their decrepitude. 
 
 A near relation of the Chinaman, the nomad Mongolian, 
 wandering over the vast plains and plateaus of the north of Asia, 
 over the country of herbs, has a much less varied diet. As 
 agriculture is nearly unknown to him, he lives mainly upon the 
 flesh and the milk of his flocks, specially mares' milk, prepared in 
 difi"erent ways, and upon butter, and like substances. 
 
 As regards the northern Mongolians, the Kamtschadales and the 
 Samoyede races, they live like their congenerous brethren, the 
 American Esquimaux, on the flesh of seals and of whales, on fish, 
 and sometimes on the milk and flesh of the reindeer, as do the 
 European Lapps. The vegetable kingdom furnishes them only 
 with roots, some berries, sometimes the young bark of the willoAV 
 and of the birch tree, and a poisonous mushroom from which they 
 make intoxicating liquor. They are essentially a fish-eating people, 
 and the food of which they are the most fond is caviare. 
 
 In Asia the white race, Aryan or Semitic, is far from having the 
 preponderance. As we have already said, it occupies only the 
 north of India, Afghanistan, Persia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. 
 
.26 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 Over the other three quarters of the vast Asiatic continent the 
 yellow man is predominant. Kow, in that portion of Asia which we 
 may call white, man lives upon our European cereals, and upon our 
 domestic animals. Nothing is more natural than this, since the 
 division between Europe and Asia is purely geographical. To say 
 the truth, our little Europe is only a sort of Asiatic peninsula, in 
 a great measure peopled by emigrants from the East, who brought 
 with them their plants and their domestic animals, to which we 
 may add the kinds indigenous to Europe ; the hos nrics, the small 
 ox of the peatmoss, the reindeer, and a sort of wattle-fenced 
 barley. Our domestic animals come, as we do ourselves, from 
 many crossings ; but there are still a certain number of horses, oxen, 
 goats, etc., still in a wild state on the high plateaus of Thibet, 
 where M. Prejcvolsky has quite lately come across the wild savage. 
 Starting from Afghanistan and coming westward one sees every- 
 where, not only our fruit trees, our cereals, our vegetables, our 
 domestic animals, but even the greater number of articles common 
 in our forests. Everywhere in these regions man is stationary and 
 agricultural, living both upon the crops that he has sown and upon 
 the cattle that he has reared. In Kashmir we find all the plants, 
 the trees, and the flowers that we find in our o'vvn climates. 
 
 In Asia the white man is generally a husbandman, and is fixed 
 to the soil. 
 
 We must, however, make an exception of Arabia, where the 
 nomad life has not yet been completely abandoned, and where the 
 people cultivate little but the date tree, though they do not disdain 
 barley and rice when they can procure them. 
 
 This short enumeration will be enough to show that Asia, where 
 the principal human types still reside, is certainly one of the great 
 matrices of the genus homo. The greater portion of humanity has 
 always lived there, and in that country have been founded some of 
 the greatest civilisations that are known to have existed : for 
 instance, the civilisations that have been created by the Indians, 
 the Chinese, the Assyrians, and the Persians. These large social 
 expansions have certainly been confined in their extent, though 
 wo cannot quite tell the reason why. They have conquered many 
 
€hap. I.] FOOD. 27 
 
 people who have always remained conquered, but who have not 
 lost their vigour. They have diffused themselves farther and farther 
 west, and have allowed the more innovating European races to 
 -attain to their present state of civilisation. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Food in Africa. 
 
 Up to the present we have seen the number of animals and of 
 plants that are useful to man grow or die away in proportion as 
 we advance towards or go farther away from Asia, the real store- 
 house of plenty for the human race. And this general fact is 
 confirmed if we take a bird's-eye view over Africa in an alimentary 
 point of view. It is in the north-east of the great African con- 
 tinent, on the side which joins it to Asia, that animals and plants 
 will be found to flourish in the greatest quantity. 
 
 It is evident that ancient Egypt had received much assistance 
 of this kind from Asia ; and these precious gifts have by degrees 
 become more or less spread over the interior of the continent. 
 There are certain kinds whose introduction is of recent date : for 
 instance, it was only in the third century of our era that the 
 camel became naturalised in Egypt. Rice, the great cereal of 
 Asia, and specially of India, which is now grown in lower Egypt, 
 was not known there before the time of the Caliphs. Corn, which 
 was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, is still little known in 
 Central Africa. Eut the African gramina par excellence is the 
 sorglio (liolcus spicatus), a sort of millet. This plant would seem to 
 be indigenous to the country, for it forms the principal nourish- 
 ment in three-quarters of the African continent. The Asiatic- 
 European grasses, and barley especially, become more and more 
 known as one gets farther away from the northern and the north- 
 eastern countries. In Barbary, on the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 we find nearly the same fauna and flora that we see in Southern 
 Europe. In the oasis of Sahara, and more generally in tropical 
 Africa, the date tree is one of the great alimentary resources ; but 
 towards the equator the vegetable food consists mainly of bananas 
 and of igname. 
 
28 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book r. 
 
 In all the portions of Africa that are well watered, the vegeta- 
 tion is luxuriant ; on the banks of the great watercourses, and of 
 the lakes, the country is extremely fertile, and will generally 
 recompense "bountifully the slightest labour. Therefore the popur 
 lation of these favoured regions is often very close. According to 
 Schweinfurth, in the district of the Shilluks, on the White Nile, 
 there are as many as six hundred, or six hundred and twenty-five 
 inhabitants to a square mile. 
 
 Everywhere among the native-born inhabitants the domestic 
 animals are the same in Asia and in Africa ; but, like the domestic 
 plants, they are distributed very unequally. The horse, originally 
 an Asiatic animal, is rarely found but in the northern half of the 
 Asiatic continent — in the countries which have been more or less 
 inhabited, or perhaps subdued, by the Egyptians in the first place, 
 then afterwards by the Romans, the Arabs, and the Moors, or 
 which at any rate have indirectly felt their influence. On the 
 banks of the Ni^er Mungo Park occasionally saw the horse in his 
 wild state hunted as an animal of food by the aborigines ; but in 
 Southern or in Western Africa the horse was, and is still, little 
 or even totally unknown. In the north the cattle, specially the 
 goat tribe, are very common, and sometimes, as in Sennaar, 
 oxen and camels both servo as an article of food. But in the 
 centre, and in the south of Africa, meat and milk are mainly 
 provided by a race of black cattle. And nearly everywhere the 
 people breed poultry of various kinds. But all over Africa one of 
 the most important elements to the chase is still wanting ; for the 
 fauna of Africa, especially in Central and Southern Africa, is 
 often exuberant. We find there in large quantities, the gnu, the 
 antelope, the zebra, the giraffe, the hippopotamus, the elephant, 
 and the ostrich — which latter animal has become domesticated by 
 the colonists at the Cape. 
 
 And occasionally, for instance on the banks of the higher Nile 
 and its tributaries, fish is an important article of food. 
 
 But it is to be remarked, that nowhere in Africa is dog eaten ; 
 and the animal is fairly common all over the country. 
 
 In short, life is not too hard for the African. But we must 
 
€hap. I.] FOOD. 29 
 
 except, first the Hottentots, who do not practise agriculture, and who 
 live very poorly upon their cattle, and also the Bushmen. They 
 both ignore the art of breeding cattle and also of agriculture. Their 
 food consists principally of roots, locusts, and the larva of ants, 
 which the Boers comically call " Bosjesman rice." These hungry 
 people nevertheless sometimes manage to catch a small head of 
 game, some bird hit by one of their poisoned arrows, or an animal 
 which has fallen into a ditch dug specially for this purpose. Such 
 are the hours of happiness to these poor creatures, which we must 
 class by the side of the Tasmanians and the Fuegians, of whom 
 we shall again say a word when we speak of the nutritive 
 inebriation in the human races. 
 
 VII. 
 
 From what has been said we may gather some general views. 
 
 There is no doubt that man is everywhere, more or less an 
 omnivorous animal ; but, speaking roughly, we may say that 
 the vegetable kingdom provides him with the greatest portion of 
 his food. This is especially the case in the tropical regions, as 
 regards the savage as well as regards the civilised man. All the 
 great civilisations have had for their principal support one or several 
 alimentary plants, domesticated or multiplied by culture. Mexico 
 had maize ; Peru, the potato and quinoa ; Africa still grows the 
 sorgho ; India, China, and Malay have rice j the rest of Asia and of 
 Europe live principally upon corn, barley, and rye. To the domestic 
 plants we may add the domestic animals. It is even probable that, 
 by domesticating certain kinds of animals, man was able to begin to 
 form important ethnical groups ; but no great society has been able 
 to form itself by remaining merely in a pastoral state. IN'ot that the 
 pastoral state is one of necessity, but that agriculture is always 
 and everywhere the sign and the cause of a superior civilisation. 
 The primitive Mexican, the Polynesian, the Papuan, have never 
 been shepherds ; the New Caledonian is an agriculturist, and yet he 
 had no domestic animal. As a matter of fact man lives as he can, 
 turning to his use, with more or less good effect, everything which 
 comes to his hand, and in the succession of his different modes 
 
30 NUTEITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 of existence he has not been guided by rule, nor by any absolute 
 laws. 
 
 It is likely that the most primitive man began by being 
 frugivorous ; then he became omnivorous, specially after he learnt 
 the properties of fire. ]S^o\v that the human race is spread every- 
 where, all over the earth, the savage in the tropical zone is from 
 choice frugivorous, but we find that he desires animal food the 
 more as he lives in countries farther north. Yet the taste for 
 vegetable substances rarely leaves him, and even in the arctic 
 regions the Esquimau will gladly regale himself upon the residuum 
 of vegetable matter found in the stomach of the reindeer that he 
 has killed. 
 
 It has been affirmed that the first civilisations worthy of being 
 so called, developed themselves only in those regions where the 
 vegetable kingdom afforded an easy means of subsistence, and 
 without labour. There is truth in this statement : but even though 
 such conditions be granted, they will not be found aU sufficient. 
 What could be more fortunate from this point of view than the 
 happy islands of intertropical Oceania 1 But yet we see that man 
 there lives still in his rudimentary state. Can we say that 
 in Polynesia man has not developed because of his isolation, 
 because his field for experiment or for emigration was too narrow 1 
 In Asia and in Europe the movement of civilisation would seem 
 to agree with this interpretation of facts, but in Africa it is very 
 different. The Kaffir is hardly superior to the Shilluk of the 
 White Nile, and the Hottentot is very much inferior to him. In 
 America, the influence of migration and of a temperate climate 
 is still more doubtful. The only attempts at civilisation, however 
 little advanced, are in the tropical regions. The people have 
 remained inactive ; and in the vast temperate regions of Xorthern 
 and of Southern America they have grown stagnant in their savage 
 state to such a point that the Eed Skin has even no idea of 
 domesticating the bison, which he spends his whole life in 
 hunting. 
 
 The ways and means, the conditions under which man lives, 
 will do much, but they cannot do all. The question of race is 
 
If W iX i -^f V 
 Chap, ii.] COOKERY. 
 
 more important. There has never been any great en 
 
 black men. Ancient Egypt was only negroid and 
 
 Asiatic and Berber races have certainly brought their contingent 
 
 towards furnishing the country. 
 
 There is a hierarchy in human races. Humanity owes to 
 the pure Mongolian race the large and interesting society of 
 Chinese. Among the Mongolian branches we may mention the 
 Malays, and the people of Central America, who have endeavoured 
 to raise themselves above the savage state. Eut still, not con- 
 sidering the Arctic races, the Mongolian, or a race sprung from 
 the Mongolian, was in a quite savage state in the Mariana islands 
 at the time of Magellan ; in the Caroline islands, at the time of 
 the travels of Duperrey ; and in the steppes of Asia, large popu- 
 lations of pure Mongolian race have not yet passed the pastoral 
 and nomadic life. 
 
 The white races only, whatever their origin may have been, 
 have altogether abandoned their primitive savagery, at least as far 
 as concerns their societies. 
 
 Eace, therefore, has a larger influence than the ways and means 
 upon sociological development. Whatever his dwelling-place may- 
 be, man is ill provided for progressive movement as long as he 
 does not possess, and has not had transmitted to him, certain, 
 faculties, knitted and bound together, slowly and laboriously ac* 
 quired in the struggle for existence. These are sociability, which 
 unites and strengthens individual action ; intelligence^ which 
 directs his efforts towards an object useful to the community at 
 large ; and a patient disposition, which makes him resolute and 
 capable of endurance. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 COOKEKY. 
 
 The use of fire is of all things the most necessary to the civilised' 
 man. It is not only indispensable for all our industries, but 
 without it we should not be able to bear even a single winter;, 
 
32 * NTJTRITIYE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 without it we should not be able to make use of the greater 
 number of our articles of food. The savage thinks less of fire than 
 we do. The Australian uses fire to warm himself, to drive away- 
 unclean or dangerous animals during the night ; but the Fuegian 
 goes nearly naked, and, like an animal, is able to brave the attacks 
 of a rigorous climate. He hardly ever warms himself. Between 
 the tropics man is far from wanting fire. There man does not need 
 to warm himself ; and if people are still in the Stone age, as they 
 are in Polynesia, fire is only useful to them for cooking purposes, 
 and even for this they can do without it without much effort. 
 But we must not despise cookery. The art of preparing food 
 by means of fire is undoubtedly one of the greatest primitive 
 inventions. Thanks to it, man has been able to increase in 
 strength, and in numbers ; for, on the one hand, his table has 
 become enriched with many dishes before unknown to him, and 
 he has also been able to use the others more fully and to better 
 advantage. There are nevertheless many people who still do with- 
 out cookery. The Fuegians^ at least in the time of Wallis, used 
 to crunch their fish raw, just as they came out of the water. They 
 would first kill them by biting them close to the gills, and 
 then devour them whole from head to tail. Or, when they 
 got the chance, one of them would tear with his teeth pieces 
 from the body of a putrefied whale, and pass them on to his 
 companions. Even in these coarse ways of life the man shows 
 himself, for wolves and crows do not hand to each other their 
 bits of food. The Fuegian women and children emulate with 
 each other in devouring raw birds. They all of them share 
 with their dogs the raw flesh of seals. At the time of Magellan's 
 passage through the straits which now bear his name, the 
 Patagonians were not more delicate than their neighbours, the 
 Puegians. The Portuguese saw them devour an ostrich (nandou) 
 without taking the trouble to cook it. At the other extremity of the 
 continent, with the Esquimaux, we find the same disregard for 
 cookery. Koss has seen the Esquimaux enjoy themselves by dancing 
 round long slices cut out of the flesh of one of their musk-smelling 
 oxen. He has seen them devour raw salmon, etc., sprinkling it over 
 
Chap, ii.] COOKERY. 33 
 
 with the oil from the seal. Between the Behring and the Kotzebue 
 straits the Esquimaux begin their meal by slitting open the 
 stomach of a seal ; they then, one after the other, force their 
 heads into the opening to suck the animal's blood ; then they cut 
 off a piece of flesh and swallow it greedily. 
 
 The Kamtschadale, without being much more delicate, does 
 make a sort of apology for cookery. He can make a sort of 
 paste with smoked and dried fish ; he is very fond of caviare, and 
 sometimes he mixes with it the bark of the willow or of the birch 
 tree. According to Father Hue, the Thibetans, who are people 
 much more civilised, eat their meat either raw or cooked. 
 
 We all know of the hideous repasts at which Bruce was 
 present when he saw the Abyssinians take delight in cutting 
 thongs out of the flesh of an ox, who was alive and bellowing 
 with pain. ITo sooner is a hippopotamus killed than the Bushmen 
 rush at him, open his belly, and fight for his entrails, as though 
 they were dogs. Thompson tells us of similar facts observed 
 amongst the Griquas Hottentots. Here we find man, Jlagrante 
 delicto, turning himself into an animal. It is not a poetical sight, 
 but it is nevertheless instructive. How little are these voracious 
 human bipeds like the man of fantasy described to us by our 
 psychologists now in fashion ! 
 
 Culinary art, like everything else, has grown by degrees. "We 
 find it in an embryo state with the Tasmanian, who because he 
 knows no other kind of vessel than such as may be made of large 
 leaves fastened at the edges with pins, and can therefore have no 
 idea of boiling water, usually contents himself with broiling his 
 meat or his fish. He cooks his eggs or his shell-fish on the hot 
 cinders. Sometimes, however, he prepares his fish by laying it 
 down on hot stones. We have now an idea of the commencement of 
 the oven of the Polynesians, and of their most complicated form of 
 cookery. The Australian, a little more advanced, would sometimes 
 make use of an underground stove — a custom no doubt imported 
 from Polynesia, where it seems to have been general, starting from 
 the Sandwich islands, in the north, down as far as Kew Zealand. But 
 the Papuans, of !N"ew Ireland do not trouble themselves with taking 
 
34 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 the skin off the animal — dog, hog, bird, or lizard — whatever they 
 are going to eat. They cast the animal npon the burning coals, 
 and when he is nearly roasted, they gluttonously devour him. 
 With the Polynesians, who are relatively civilised enough, pottery 
 was as much unknown as it was with the Australians ; and their 
 most delicate way of cooking their meat or their fish — which, indeed, 
 they would as often as not eat quite raw, dipping it into the sea as 
 though into their sauce-dish — was by digging a hole and putting 
 into the hole stones that had been heated by fire. On these ^stones 
 they would place the dog, or the hog, etc., enveloped in aromatic 
 herbs, then they would put more hot stones over him, and again 
 earth on the top as a general covering. In three or four hours' time 
 the meat was well baked, and if we may believe Cook and other 
 navigators, it was extremely good. The New Zealanders used to 
 do the same with the roots of their feculant and edible ferns. 
 But, ignorant as he may have been of the potter's art, the Poly- 
 nesian knew how to boil water. His plan — a somewhat compli- 
 cated one, which has been used in diff^erent parts of the world — was to 
 throw hot stones into the water. For this vessels are not absolutely 
 necessary. Very often he would simply pour some water into the 
 hollow place in a rock. Some of the Polynesian, and certain 
 American tribes, who were more advanced, made use of wooden 
 vessels for this purpose. Herodotus tells us that the Scythians had 
 but leathern bottles made of skins which they used for boiling ; and 
 this was also the custom with the people in the Hebrides as late as 
 the sixteenth century. At Amboyna and Ternata, in New Guinea, 
 people used formerly to cook rice and sago by putting them into the 
 fire in a cocoa-nut on a fragment of bamboo, so destroying a vessel at 
 each meal ; and this is also now the practice in the Papuan islands. 
 But cooking by means of water was not introduced until the invention 
 of pottery, which, according to Goguet, people in some countries 
 began to make by covermg a wooden vessel with earth or with clay. 
 When man has learnt how to boil and to roast his food, he has 
 learnt the two most important features in the art of cookery. The 
 rest is only a question of becoming more and more perfect, and 
 every stage of progress in cooking, in making it more various, makes 
 
€tiAP. II.] COOKERY. 35 
 
 it also more complicated. For instance, with tlie pastoral people, 
 melted butter was a most useful adjunct. The Aryans of the 
 Rig Veda esteemed it so much that they burnt it in their sacrifices ; 
 and even now the Arabs hold melted butter to be a great delicacy. 
 From milk we get articles of food as well as many kinds of drink 
 — cheese, and the koumiss (mare's milk) which the Tartars drink. 
 The coarse Lapp can ice the milk of his reindeers, and so preserve 
 it for his nourishment during his severe winter. 
 
 The greatest of culinary inventions, that of making bread, has 
 been extended to many countries. The Egyptians were known to 
 make bread of the lotus grain (nymphcea lotus). In certain countries 
 even, people make bread before they have learnt agriculture, 
 by extracting the lees from wild fruits. The Tahitians, or rather 
 the Polynesians, had already got as far as this, for the fermented 
 paste (mahei-popoi) which they prepared from the fruit of the 
 artocarpus indsa was a sort of bread. 
 
 The ethnography of cookery supplies us, therefore, with another 
 instance that no step in the general march of the progress of 
 humanity is isolated. If by nothing else than by their food and their 
 manner of preparing it, we might draw out a table of the human races, 
 showing their advancement from savagery to civilisation. At first, 
 man, hardly out of his animal state, devours without preparing it 
 -almost everything of an eatable nature that comes to his hand ; then 
 he broils, first the flesh of animals, and afterwards of fish, which is 
 more tender. By degrees he learns to prepare and to preserve, by 
 means of fire, certain fruits and certain roots. Then the rudimentary 
 intelligence of the savage rises to the idea of cooking in water, and 
 that induces him to invent the precious art of pottery. At this 
 standpoint he is in a state of relative civilisation. Culinary pro- 
 gress gets no further check, and it is the means of bringing about 
 important social events. 
 
 Henceforward there is a hearth around which the family unites 
 And governs itself, and around which the ties which bind us 
 together are formed and become strengthened. Man no longer 
 feeds as a beast of prey; he eats humanly, at first only in 
 •company with his parents and his male friends. Women, inferior 
 
 D 2 
 
36 , NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book p. 
 
 creatures, have to wait, or else to eat apart. This is a barbarous 
 usage, dating as far back as the primitive times in which man used 
 to kill and seek his food in the forest, and would swallow it 
 without preparing it, as do the wild animals. As kindly feelings 
 developed themselves, women and children became the guests of 
 man, or of men ; the family was then constituted. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NUTRITIVE WANTS. 
 
 To complete the picture of nutritive life, it still remains to us to 
 explain its psychology. It is not sufficient to enumerate the 
 principal aliments of man, or to indicate roughly how he prepares 
 them. We have also to see what are his nutritive needs — such 
 wants as he actually requires — to appreciate the energy peculiar to 
 each race ; to take note of, by some characteristic signs, the manner 
 in which he shows his wants, and the degree of pleasure he feels 
 in satisfying them. 
 
 We have abundant evidence showing that men diflFer very 
 widely in their ability and in their energy for consuming nutritive 
 matter. Speaking generally, the more coarse civilisation is, digestive 
 life will be found to hold a larger place ; for then not only is the 
 animal need stronger, but it is also less abundantly satisfied. 
 
 In the life of every living creature there is ever going on an 
 incessant work of oxydation, which wears away the anatomical 
 elements molecule by molecule. Inside the organised' tissues an 
 exchange of matter, which is itself the essence of life, is ever taking 
 place. The injured molecules are perpetually being driven out, 
 and new molecules replace them. In plants and inferior animals 
 this everlasting change of demolition and re-edification works 
 unconsciously; but it is not so with superior animals and with 
 man. With them the molecular mechanism of nutrition awakens 
 
Chap, hi.] PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NUTRITIVE WANTS. 37 
 
 in their nervous centres a conscious echo — the feeling either of 
 hunger or of satiety. The hunger of the wild animal — a roaring, 
 bellowing hunger — is almost or quite unknown to most civilised 
 animals. These latter feel little more than appetite, its agreeable 
 forerunner. But it is very different with primitive man, whose 
 larder is always more or less badly furnished. The life of the 
 savage, and especially of the savage who is neither pastoral nor 
 agricultural, is very different indeed from that of certain well-fed 
 townsfolk, whose tissues are overcharged with adipose tissues, with 
 alimentary reserves, and who often, vainly endeavouring to awaken 
 in them a simple appetite, sit down several times in the day to a 
 too plentiful table with the most mechanical regularity. The meal 
 of the savage will depend upon a thousand chances, l^ature, as one 
 used to say formerly, serves him very unpunctually. In this kind 
 of life, so much akin to that of the animal, man must eat when he 
 can and how he can, compensating as far as possible his hours of 
 famine by hours of gluttony. To know what he will eat is then the 
 great affair of life ; it is the all-absorbing care. All the faculties of \ 
 his intelligence are absorbed, and often to no purpose, in looking 
 after his daily food. For nearly every other object man's thought 
 is dormant ; the cry of the empty stomach makes itself heard 
 before every other. Man needs to eat nearly always, to eat enor- 
 mously ; and he feels extreme pleasure in satisfying this starving 
 want. 
 
 We will quote a few instances among a thousand of typical 
 examples that have been related by different travellers. 
 
 What a holiday it must be to them in Australia when a dead 
 whale is cast upon the sea-shore ! That is their beau-ideal ; that 
 is their most perfect bliss ! " Fires, lighted instantly, tell afar the 
 news of the happy event. The Australians rub their bodies all over 
 with grease, and make their favourite wives go through the same 
 toilet. They cut through the fat into the lean meat, which 
 they eat, sometimes raw, or sometimes grilled upon pointed 
 sticks. By degrees, as the natives arrive on the spot their jaws are 
 soon well at work upon the whale. You see them, some here, some 
 there, climbing over the stinking carcase, looking with anxiety after 
 
38 NUTEITIVE LIFE. [Book i- 
 
 all the tid-bits. During whole days they will stay by the body. 
 They are rubbed all over from head to foot -with fetid grease. 
 They are stuffed to repletion with fetid meat. Their excess drives 
 them to anger and to quarrelling amongst themselves; and they 
 become affected with a cutaneous disease, brought on by their 
 highly-flavoured food. Altogether they present a most disgusting 
 aspect. There is nothing in the world more revolting than to see 
 one of these young native women, a creature whose form is graceful, 
 coming away from the carcase of a whale in a state of putrefaction."*' 
 
 Analogous cases have been observed constantly among the 
 Fuegians, the Esquimaux, the Lapps, the Bushmen, and others. We 
 have already related, quoting Wallis, how the Fuegian devours live 
 fish from head to tail, exactly as though the man were a seal. He and 
 his companions swallowed down every kind of food that was offered 
 to them, caring nothing whether it was cooked or raw, fresh or salt. 
 Others would greedily eat of the flesh of putrefied whale, which one 
 of them would tear in pieces with his teeth. A Fuegian woman 
 and her children — her little ones rather — ^picked to pieces raw kids^ 
 while the blood was trickling down over their bodies. 
 
 The voracity of the Esquimaux is comparable only to that of 
 famished wolves. Eoss has seen them cutting long slices out of one 
 of their perfumed oxen, just stunned. They would cut the pieces 
 from about the nose, and stuff them into their mouths, greedily 
 sucking in enormous mouthf uls ; and at intervals, when they could 
 eat no more, stop to take breath, complaining that they could not 
 go on. They never let go their knife or the unfinished slice, which 
 they would again begin to eat as soon as they had somewhat 
 regained their strength. 
 
 In his diary kept upon his journey, Lyon has described to us • 
 one of these stomachic orgies : f " Koulittuck showed me another 
 kind of orgy practised among the Esquimaux. He had eaten luitil 
 lie icas drunk ; and at every moment he went to sleep, his face red 
 and burning, and his mouth open. Arnaloua (his wife) was sitting 
 by his side to take care of him, and to thrust into his mouth as far 
 
 * " Explorations in the west and north-west of Australia," by Captain Grey, 
 t " Journal do Lyon," p. 181. 
 
Chap, hi.] PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NUTRITIVE WANTS. 39 
 
 as she could with her forefinger, a large piece of half-boiled meat. 
 When his mouth was full she bit off the meat that remained out- 
 side his lips. During this operation the happy man remained im- 
 movable, moving only his jaws, and not even opening his eyes; but 
 every now and then, when the food allowed a free passage for 
 sound, he would express his satisfaction by an expressive grunt. 
 The grease from this savoury repast trickled down over his face 
 and over his neck in such abundance that I became convinced 
 that man became most like a brute when he ate or drank to 
 excess." 
 
 Eoss has seen other Esquimaux devour, each of them, fourteen 
 pounds of raw salmon ; and this was only by way of tasting it ! 
 Parry, too, tells with disgust how they would gluttonously swallow 
 raw fat, and suck the rancid oil which remained on the skins of 
 the seals. According to Etzel, a young Esquimau girl can eat every 
 day, and for several consecutive months, from ten to twelve pounds 
 of meat, and also a great quantity of biscuits. Eyre has seen an 
 Australian eat in one night six pounds and a half of boiled meat. 
 In spite of the very great similarity of organisation among all the 
 human types, it is difficult for us not to admit that these races of 
 enormous eaters have not a more energetic nutrition than other . 
 people, and also a greater rapidity of molecular change. 
 
 The Bushmen, and even their brethren the Hottentots, go 
 through the same kind of performances. Burchell has seen some 
 of the former make a rush at the bowels of a hippopotamus, " and 
 every now and then wipe off the grease upon their fingers on to 
 their arms, their legs, and their thighs. They would rejoice and 
 make merry, each of them over the share that had fallen to his lot, 
 while they were all besplashed with blood, and were most dis- 
 gusting objects, covered as they were with the filth." * Thompson 
 says almost as much of the Hottentot Griquas ; but he adds that 
 the power of abstinence of the Bushmen is equal to their voracity. 
 He says that " one of them has lived for fifteen days only upon 
 water and salt." t 
 
 * Burchell, " Hist. Univ. des Voy." vol. xxvi. 249. 
 + Thompson, " Travels in South Africa,'' p. 99. 
 
40 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 There are some races organically superior and much more 
 civilised who are hardly less brute-like in the way they take their 
 food. Cook has seen ]^ew Zealanders drink oil with a greediness 
 that would he worthy of the Esquimaux, empty the lamps, swallow 
 the wicks, and press round the boiler in which the fat of seals was 
 being melted, with the enraptured face of children expecting 
 bonbons. The same traveller has told us of the repast of a 
 Tahitian chief : " A woman, seated beside him, was filling the 
 mouth of this glutton by handfuls with the remains of a large 
 boiled fish and with several pieces of bread-fruit, which he would 
 swallow down with a voracious appetite. A perfect insensibility 
 was marked upon his face, and I imagined that his whole thoughts 
 were concentrated upon his stomach. He hardly deigned to 
 notice us. If he did pronounce a few monosyllables when we 
 looked at him, it was only to excite his nurse and his valets (who 
 were preparing for him the paste of the bread-fruit) to do their 
 duty more energetically." * 
 
 In Polynesia we are still in a savage country; but we find 
 manners very analogous to those in Abyssinia, where the people 
 are barbarous. At the time of Bruce's travels,t the Abyssinians, 
 after they had cut their beefsteak from the ox, who was standing 
 straight upright, would sit down to table, each man between 
 two women, and they would eat as follows : " Their hands placed 
 upon the knees of each of their female neighbours, their bodies 
 bent forward, their heads projecting and their mouths open, they 
 looking like idiots all the while, and turning constantly to the 
 hands that gave them their food and stuffed them. This went on 
 with such rapidity that they ran near risk of being choked. That 
 was a sign of their greatness. He who swallowed the largest slices 
 and who made the most noise in eating was regarded as the best 
 brought up, and who was most practised in the usages of good 
 society." We see, therefore, that in communities still coarse in their 
 manners, there is no disgust attaching to the satisfaction of nutritive 
 wants. Many a petty king in Central Africa makes his wives 
 
 * Cook, Deuii&me Voyage (" Hisfc. Univ. des Voy." vol. vii. 388). 
 t Bruce, " Hist. Univ. des Voy." vol. xxiii. 362. 
 
/ 
 
 Chap, hi.] PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NUTRITIVE WANTS. 41 
 
 chew his food for him ; the happy man has then only the trouble 
 of swallowing it. In the Marquesas islands, to take a piece of 
 chewed food out of your mouth and offer it to a friend is considered 
 an act of civility. 
 
 The foregoing instances, to which it would be very easy to 
 add others, lead us to contemplate with some degree of attention 
 the life of man who is as yet hardly removed from the animal 
 state. In him the noble faculties of the brain are wanting, or are 
 barely in existence. He has too little intelligence to force his 
 nature for his own benefit ; and, above all, he has no foresight. 
 The privations he has undergone leave but a vague recollection in 
 his disfigured memory, for his brain is hardly yet able to retain 
 any durable impression. On the other hand, the pleasure of the 
 moment, and the pleasure of eating above all others, is supreme. 
 Primitive man does not know what resistance means ; he will im- 
 moderately consume at one time the provisions that ought to last 
 him for several days. His nutritive faculties must therefore acquire 
 a great elasticity. Sometimes he will adopt this habit from choice. 
 The New Caledonian, when he eats, eats enormously, but he does 
 not pretend to eat every day. The Kafirs, when threatened by 
 famine, impose voluntary fasts upon themselves ; they do not eat 
 every day. Even the frugal Bedouin, who can at a push satisfy 
 himself with a few dates and a little milk, devours great quantities 
 of food when by chance he finds his table well served. In some 
 countries famine is so common that the people have accustomed 
 themselves to fill their stomachs with non-edible substances : for 
 instance, the JS'ew Caledonians of the Loyalty islands eat the 
 aluminous earth loaded with organic detritus, which they pick up 
 in the excavations of rocks filled with humus. Humboldt saw the 
 Otonacs on the banks of the Orinoco eat after this fashion. 
 
 We can, therefore, now see clearly to the bottom of the mind 
 of the primitive man. The noble intellectual faculties, described 
 in our treatises upon psychology as being essential to man, 
 shine by their absence in the brain of the savage. In this 
 conscient life, as yet hardly more than an outline sketch, the 
 care of digestive needs dominates over every other. To get 
 
42 NUTEITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 food to eat, to enjoy the happy pleasure of digestion, are the ends^ 
 and aims of psychical life. We should strangely abuse ourselves if 
 we supposed it was otherwise with men so-called civilised. In tho 
 societies of modern Europe, how many savages are there not still 
 existing % With the greater number of us, to find our daily 
 provender is ever the all-important matter ; and even with many 
 who imagine that they belong to the governing classes, the cream of 
 their pleasure is still that of eating, when it is increased by a 
 few pleasant savours. To tell the truth, when we look under the 
 brilliant surface of our so-called civilised societies, we find that the 
 brute has the upper hand over the angel ; and in taking humanity 
 in general as it now stands, we may say that its affective and 
 intellectual needs of a superior kind are only an epiphenomenon. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 INTOXICATING SUBSTANCES. 
 
 In his book entitled "The Last of the Tasmanians," the Rev. 
 Mr. Bonwick somewhere ridicules those who have imagined it to be 
 a sign of inferiority in the Tasmanians that they were ignorant of 
 any intoxicating substance or liquor. His satire does not really 
 touch the matter ; for in this case, as in many others, there is an 
 apparent analogy between over civilisation and extreme savagery, 
 but for reasons diametrically opposite. The truly civilised man, 
 who is both soft-minded and intelligent, has a horror of 
 'drunkenness. Ho asks for pleasures of a higher kind. On th© 
 other hand, the most ignorant savages, the Tasmanian and the 
 Australian, who in spite of their communication witli Europeans, 
 did not intoxicate themselves, still showed no aversion to drunken- 
 ness. They simply remained in ignorance of it ; only to* become 
 passionately fond of it as time went on. And so it has happened 
 nearly everywhere among the rare instances of people who have not 
 themselves invented the art of learning how to get drunk. The 
 
Chap. IV.] INTOXICATING SUBSTANCES. 43^ 
 
 Kew Caledonian has until now remained the only instance of a 
 man who has not succumbed to intoxication ; and this exception 
 is very singular. 
 
 In the bestial life of the quite inferior races the taste for 
 drunkenness supposes a certain state of progress. In order to be able 
 to make oneself drunk, one must first have been ingenious enough 
 to manufacture, or to acquire, a substance having the necessary 
 properties. And also we must begin by disentangling ourselves, 
 from the animal life, we must accustom ourselves to the nutritive 
 pleasure ; we must ask from aliments more than the mere satisfy- 
 ing of a want, something more than the happy stupor which 
 accompanies the long process of digestion. Drunkenness, in a sort 
 of way, may be said to be the poetry of digestive life. It at once 
 excites the cerebral life, and lifts man up out of the commonplace 
 routine of his daily existence. It is therefore a pleasure all the 
 more precious as man's life grows rougher, more dangerous, or more- 
 weighted with cares. Tor a poor creature ever fighting against 
 the anguish of hunger, leading an existence often like that of game- 
 constantly being pursued, it must be a great happiness to feel, if 
 even only for a moment, a joy in life, and to have the idea of worldly 
 welfare without alloy, not to know the torments of his physical and 
 moral condition, but to imagine himself a god to rule over the 
 beasts and the wild men among whom he is surrounded. The short 
 hours of drunkenness are taken for Avhat they are worth. The- 
 drunken man cares little for what may follow; the savage, whether 
 he be Australian or Parisian, never gives a thought for the morrow. 
 
 The human race has nearly everywhere sought after and found 
 the coarse pleasures of drunkenness. We can hardly count the 
 few countries in which man has not invented some means of 
 voluntarily losing the small share of reasoning power which he 
 possesses. The means may be different, but the end is always the 
 same. Alcohol is the substance most frequently used, or to speak 
 more exactly, alcoholic drinks. The drunkenness which they 
 produce is generally agreeable, and the means of manufacturing 
 them are abundant, for it is sufficient to have at one's coinmand. 
 sweet or feculant substances. 
 
44 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Booki. 
 
 A brief enumeration of the means employed in different parts 
 of the earth to deaden or to excite our conscient life may not 
 perhaps be without some interest. 
 
 In the first class of substances that are conducive either to 
 j drunkenness, or towards causing an agreeable emotion of the 
 nervous centres, we must place the multiple group of various 
 drinks. Every human race, so to say, has its alcoholic liquids ; but 
 the typical drink is the wine from the grape. "We are not quite 
 justified in agreeing with Pictet, on the strength of some etymo- 
 logies of which even we are not altogether certain, that wine was not 
 ignored by the mythical Aryans ; and though the ancient Egyptians 
 knew what wine was, though probably at second hand, it is most 
 likely that in the Greco-Eoman civilisation wine first became the 
 favourite drink of a notable portion of the white race of men. The 
 ■Greeks were so delighted with the properties of this gladsome 
 liquor, that they commissioned the god Bacchus to represent it on 
 Mount Olympus. Putting aside alcohol properly so called, and the 
 innumerable intoxicating liquors of which it forms the essence, the 
 •alcoholic drinks succedaneous with wine are to be found in every 
 -country. At the time of Marco Polo the Chinese knew how to 
 manufacture a wine from spiced rice, which the old chronicler tells 
 us was both generous and excellent. 
 
 The Tartars, a wandering and pastoral people, and kindred with 
 these Chinese, conceived the idea of fermenting their mares' milk, 
 and so making an intoxicating liquor, which they called koumiss; 
 they learnt also how to distil this koumiss, and extract from it a 
 sort of brandy, arrack, a drink of which they were very fond. In 
 Arabia, and wherever the Arabian civilisation has taken root, 
 specially in the Fezzan, and with the Moors of Central Africa, the 
 wine of the palm tree is held in high esteem. For the Mahomedan 
 casuistry, supple and nimble like that of her Christian sister, has 
 learnt how to distinguish between the heterodox drunkenness 
 stigmatised by the Prophet, and the orthodox drunkenness produced 
 by drinks of which the cursed wine forms no part. In Persia, for 
 instance, the people manufacture from aromatic substances, from 
 different fruits, specially oranges, a liquor extremely alcoholic 
 
Chap, iv.] INTOXICATING SUBSTANCES. 45 
 
 (ma-el hiat), and this the religious-minded people will drink with- 
 out any scruple. " It was very funny," Fraser says, " to see 
 Mirza-Keza take the flask in his hands, and as he turned round 
 towards me, explain in a most puritanical tone of voice, the very 
 wide difference between this precious liquor of life and those 
 prohibited and abominable things called wine or brandy, of which, 
 he assured us, he was never allowed to taste." * 
 
 In certain districts of Arabia, and in the northern regions of 
 Central Africa, in the Fezzan for instance, and even with the 
 Timmanis, and also with the Ibo, on the banks of the Niger, 
 where the Moors have more or less introduced the manners and 
 the religion of the Arabs, the people intoxicate themselves as often 
 as they can with wine from the palm tree, which has probably 
 hitherto escaped the sacred ban. 
 
 But the African drink par excellence, that of the African negro,, 
 is a sort of beer made of sorgho j this may be found from the 
 region of the higher Mle as far down as the Kafirs. But the 
 Hottentots, who are not an agricultural people, have replaced this 
 sorgho beer with a sort of hydromel made with fermented honey 
 and various kinds of roots. 
 
 The American aborigines, at least those who had any notions 
 of agriculture, have not failed to fabricate for themselves their 
 alcoholic drinks. The Indians of Guiana have learnt how to 
 make an intoxicating liquor from their cassava. But the fermented 
 drinks most common in America seem to have been invented by 
 the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. In Mexico it is the pulque, 
 or the fermented juice of the maguey — the American aloe — which 
 is held in highest honour. The use of this was so general that, in 
 the time of Humboldt's travels, the duty paid upon the pulque,, 
 brought annually into the public treasury, and only from the two 
 Mexican towns Puebla and Tolluca, a sum of 800,000 dollars. 
 The ancient Mexicans doubtless also knew of a beer made of 
 maize, or chicha; but this is more widely spread in Peru and 
 Bolivia, etc. In certain districts this blessed drink, the joy of the 
 Indians of Central America, is prepared by means of mastication, 
 * Fraser, " Hist. Univ. des Yoy." vol. xxxv. 295. 
 
46 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 like the kava of the Polynesians, of which we shall have again 
 to speak later on. This practice, disgusting as it appears to us, 
 is only another proof of how far the nutritive pleasures are 
 held in honour with the primitive man, and also how far removed 
 he is from understanding the delicacies and the polished manners 
 of him who is civilised. 
 
 In our brief enumeration we naturally confine ourselves to 
 the typical drinks, those which in a certain measure charac- 
 terise the people and the race. In addition to these there are 
 many others, less general and less important, which we have not 
 now time to mention. The reader, if he wishes to know, may find 
 a list of them in an interesting work by Professor Mantegazza.* 
 
 Generally, though not always, as we have seen by the instance 
 of the Tartar koumiss, the use of fermented drinks supposes a 
 certain degree of agriculture. But as the drunkenness produced 
 by alcohol is the pleasantest that man can enjoy, nearly all men of 
 every race eagerly addict themselves to it, as soon as they have 
 learnt its value. The inferior races, too, rush into it generally with 
 ^n animal eagerness that knows no intellectual or moral bounds. 
 This is generally the first thing they borrow from European 
 civilisation, and they quickly pay for it at the price of their 
 degradation and their rapid extinction. 
 
 But touching this matter, we must mention the New Caledonian 
 Kanaks as a singular exception ; for they, according to M. de Kochas, 
 are not to be tempted by fermented drinks. 
 
 Unfortunately we cannot say as much of the Polynesians. The 
 Tahitians, who at the time of Cook's travels refused all alcoholic 
 drinks, have since become too well reconciled to them. Their 
 speedy and bloody conversion to Christianity was accompanied 
 with a more sincere and more thorough conversion to drunkenness. 
 Distilleries were set up in every portion of the christianised 
 island. During a certain time the islanders, who were nearly 
 always drunk, debased themselves to a lower condition than that 
 of the brute. The women rushed into prostitution, calling out at 
 every moment for more rum. 
 
 * " Quadri della natura umana," etc. vol. ii. Milano. 1871. 
 
Chap, iv.] INTOXICATING SUBSTANCES. 47 
 
 There is hardly an inferior race with whom, the passion for 
 drink is so strongly developed, or with whom it produces 
 analogous effects. For rum, the Australian would willingly pros- 
 titute his wife or his wives. The Malays do their best to get 
 drunk wdth the arrack or with Java rum, which they procure by 
 means of exchange when they cannot manufacture it for them- 
 selves. The people of the Arou islands only, consume annually 
 three thousand casks, each cask holding fifteen bottles, and each 
 bottle containing half a gallon. We all know the important part 
 that fire water has upon the life, or rather upon the death, of the 
 Eed Skin of North America. And the delight coming from drun- 
 kenness is equally sought after over the whole of South America. 
 The tribes in the equatorial or the sub-equatorial regions fabricate 
 for themselves their chicha, or some similar drink. And the 
 cavaliers of the Pampas will procure it for themselves as often as 
 they can, giving in exchange leather, ostrich feathers, etc. With 
 the Puelches, the Araucanians, the Patagonians, drunkenness is 
 supreme happiness, they will sacrifice everything for it ; D'Orbigny 
 has seen an Indian woman sell her son to procure for herself and 
 her family an orgy lasting for three days. 
 
 As regards drink, and the effects it produces, there are many 
 Europeans who are still savages ; we know the fact only too well. 
 In our societies, so brilliant on the surface, a true civilisation, which 
 enlightens and ennobles, is yet far from having gone very deep. 
 There is also much suffering, and food is not always assured to every- 
 one. It is known that alcohol in every form will deaden pain and 
 will appease hunger. Still we must not necessarily conclude that 
 because the consumption of alcohol in Europe is always on the 
 increase, drunkenness necessarily follows in the same proportion. 
 The use of alcohol increases certainly much more than the abuse of 
 it. The daily fare of the labourer is gradually ameliorating, and 
 the luxury of alcoholic drinks therefore becomes introduced with it. 
 Drunkenness is a legacy of past times, which ought to disappear 
 with the moral and intellectual progress of the human kind. 
 
 As regards the desire for drunkenness among Europeans, we 
 may make an interesting remark. It will be found that this 
 
48 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 "bnital passion is most frequent in the Germanic and in the Slav 
 countries. The people in the south of France, the Italians, and 
 the Spaniards are usually sober. The reason commonly alleged, 
 that of climate, is not sufficient to explain this great difference 
 in the habits of the people. For "we may recollect that in the 
 tropics the Tahitian drinks outrageously, and that the Esquimaux 
 in the arctic regions do not possess fermented liquor. If the Slav 
 and Germanic races, otherwise so richly endowed, are so strongly 
 addicted to drunkenness, it would seem that as they entered 
 relatively later into European civilisation, they are, therefore, less 
 far removed from a barbarous life than the Latin races, and that 
 they struggle more unequally against old hereditary instincts, which 
 are destined one day for ever to disappear. The Chinese, who 
 have been civilised for very many ages past, use their alcoholic 
 drinks in moderation ; and we find this to be the case all over the 
 empire, though the winters in the northern part of China are 
 extremely cold. On the other hand, in tropical Africa, on the 
 banks of the Niger, there are towns in which all the inhabitants, 
 the governor, the priests, the laity, and even the women, drink ta 
 excess. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 STUPEFYING OR EXCITING SUBSTANCES. 
 
 So addicted as nearly every human race appears to be to- 
 drunk enness produced by alcohol, yet that has not been suffi- 
 cient for man, for he has invented drunkenness of other kinds. 
 To a certain extent, in all quarters of the globe, man appears ta 
 have believed what many rose-water pessimists are now showing to 
 us, that life is an evil, and that we ought to abstract ourselves as 
 much as possible, to prevent ourselves from seeing it in its true 
 colours. 
 
 Some day, when psychological physiology is further advanced,. 
 

 Chary.] STUPEFYING OR EXCITING SUBSTANCES, 
 
 we shall doubtless know more or less exactly what are the effects 
 of tobacco, of opium, of coffee, etc. upon the conscient cells of 
 the human brain. Upon this interesting point we possess at present 
 hardly more than the incomplete or the fantastical results of labour, 
 and we are obliged to divide these substances, these nervous 
 aliments, as they have been very wrongly called, into narcotic 
 agents and exciting agents. This is a commonplace and false 
 division ; for the most narcotic, such as tobacco and opium, first 
 begin by exciting more or less the cerebral activity ; on the other 
 hand, the most exciting, such as coffee, tea, and cocoa, end by 
 producing mental depression, as they exhaust the cerebral reserves. 
 
 The principal narcotic stimulants, as we may call them, are 
 tobacco, opium, hashish, Java betel, and Polynesian kava. 
 
 "We need not say much upon each of these agents, but we 
 must characterise them shortly. Tobacco, betel (piper betle), kava 
 (piper methysticum), are all stupefying narcotics. Cook, Porter, 
 and others agree in saying that kava, even if taken in a small 
 quantity, throws one into a state of torpor, during which every 
 noise has a painful effect. Our knowledge of the action produced 
 by betel is as yet far from perfect. It is a plant belonging to the 
 same family as the kava, but the effect it produces seems to be 
 much less powerful. As regards tobacco, it would seem that its 
 ultimate effect produces a sleepy state, more or less lightly marked, 
 accompanied with a feeling of a nutritive advantage — a precious 
 condition, which, since the discovery of America, has been propa- 
 gated all over the world. People smoke on the banks of Behring's 
 straits, and Schweinfurth has seen various kinds of nicotiana 
 tabacum cultivated in central Africa, near to Bahr-el-Ghazel. 
 
 With tobacco we may connect the poisonous mushroom. The 
 stupid Kamtschadales use this for making an intoxicating liquor, 
 which at first produces a little gaiety of heart, and afterwards 
 delirium and convulsions. 
 
 The narcotic of opium and of hashish (cannabis indica) is of a 
 more elevated kind. This is the narcotic of a man of refined 
 taste, who tries to invest his imagination with fairy dreams, and 
 to produce at the same time a delicious calm state of some 
 
 E 
 
60 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 inexpressible happiness. The brain only is active ; the rest of the 
 nervous system is so deadened that he is hardly conscious that he 
 has a body, and the feeling of heaviness is, so to say, altogether 
 extinguished. 
 
 We find the same debauch of imagination in the drunkenness 
 of the American who has accustomed himself to chew the leaves 
 of the coca-tree. He has present to his mind a display of imaginary 
 fireworks ; and this is very strong with the Peruvian or Bolivian 
 aboriginal, when he has made himself drunk with the leaves of 
 the erythroxylon coca. All this has been well described by 
 Mantegazza. 
 
 The effects produced by these three well-known substances are 
 so powerful and so agreeable that the desire to taste them easily 
 degenerates, as does that of alcohol, into a passion and into an 
 irresistible want. In the eastern towns one finds sometimes opium- 
 eaters wandering through the streets crying : " Opium, opium ! 
 give me some opium, or I shall die ! " We know the desire that 
 many of the Chinese have for this precious drug ; and their nomadic 
 neighbours, the Mongolians, imitate them in this habit, and so, 
 through pleasure, lose the qualities of their race. In the same way 
 the American coca-eater, without any hesitation, will abandon his 
 duty, will sacrifice his family and everything, for the sake of his 
 darling leaves. 
 
 Tea and coffee, by the side of which, according to Mantegazza, 
 we must put mate {ilex Paragumjensis) and Brazilian guarana- 
 {pauUinia sorhiUs), have quite another character. Man has here 
 found substances of which the utility is of the highest order, 
 and as to which it would be difficult to deceive himself. They 
 are real exciting stimulants, which give to the mind a greater 
 clearness and more vivacity ; a prolonged use of them, generation 
 after generation, must surely refine the brain of any race of 
 people. But nevertheless, we have seen in Paris a fit of madness, 
 whicli degenerated into suicidal monomania, brought on from 
 swallowing a litre of coffee ; whereas in Hedjaz, a man may drink 
 with impunity as many as twenty or thirty cups of coffee every 
 day. 
 
Chap, v.] STUPEFYING OR EXCITING SUBSTANCES. 51 
 
 If, as we have already said, alcoholic drunkenness is the poetry 
 of digestion, the delirium produced by coca, and, more strongly 
 still, the cerebral excitement brought on by too much coffee, must 
 .assuredly be held to be the poetry of drunkenness. For, far from 
 drowning the conscient personality, such stimulants will bring it 
 out into an exaggerated and deceitful relief. 
 
 And even from this point of view, most of the substances of 
 which we have just spoken have their beneficial side, because for 
 a certain time, more or less long, they create a cerebral stimulation. 
 This passing over activity is often intemperate ; the use of alcohol, 
 opium, hashish, etc. is generally paid for very dearly. But still 
 humanity need not altogether condemn these kinds of drunkenness ; 
 for human life is essentially rough, and is so all the more strongly 
 in primitive communities where the ways and means of life are 
 poor and scanty. It is something, therefore, for man, in the midst 
 of the deluge of evils which assails him on all sides, to be able 
 at will to find a moment of forgetfulness and some appearance 
 of a shelter. We must also admit that from this factitious ex- 
 citement man has often become imbued with ideas which would 
 not have come to him in his normal state, and that he has also 
 been capable of efforts which he could not have accomplished in 
 his natural weakness. 
 
 From the specially sociological point of view, man has also 
 reason to be grateful to the nervous aliments. The use of these 
 stimulants is both the sign and the cause of an ever-advancing 
 sociability. Ordinarily, and among most people, we meet together 
 without any hostile second thought, to enjoy these precious ali- 
 ments — often indeed to prepare them. In many Indian hamlets 
 in Guiana, piwari, a liquor made from cassava, is made in a 
 trough scooped out of the trunk of a tree, and all the inhabitants 
 help themselves from the same bowl. In Polynesia the roots of 
 the piper methysticum are chewed in common, when people wish to 
 make kava. The Indians of Balsopuerto, on the banks of the 
 Maranon, prepare in the same way an intoxicating liquor from the 
 yucas that they have chewed. In Polynesia, a branch of piper 
 methysticum is used often to serve as a symbol of peace. To drink 
 
 E 2 
 
52 NUTRITIVE LIFE. [Book i. 
 
 kava together was a strong mark of confidence, for it was giving 
 oneself up, more or less drunk, to the mercy of others. In South 
 America, wherever rudimentary agriculture exists, fermented drinks 
 form the basis of all the feasts ; with the people it is the joy and 
 the recompense of labour. Coffee plays a similar part in Arabia, 
 and tea in Central Asia. 
 y To sum up : many of these substances, specially the alcoholic 
 substances, put all the sensitive part of man's body into emotion. 
 They excite us to joy, to dancing, to song, to music, and to poetry. 
 Wherever fermented drinks are consumed, more or less of bacchic 
 literature will be found to exist. The stolid Chinese are no 
 exception to this rule ; they have sung of their melancholy sorgho 
 beer,* of their brandy made from grain, and of their wine made 
 from rice. 
 
 There is surely a wide difference between the heavy digestive 
 satiety of the Australian or the Esquimaux and the gladsome 
 drunkenness of wine, or the coloured visions produced by coca. 
 On the side of drunkenness the nutritive life in man borders upon 
 the sensitive ; and upon this we now purpose to speak. 
 
 * " Poesies de I'epoque de Thang," p. 105, D'Hervey Samt-Denys, 1862. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 SENSITIVE LIFE. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Oy SENSITIVE LIFE IN QENEEAL. 
 
 We have just seen the nutritive life expand, by means of a sort of 
 coarse idealisation, into an exaltation of the senses and of the 
 imagination. In the first place to find food, then to feel, and 
 afterwards to think, is the law of organic development in the 
 animal kingdom as well as in the life of an individual man, and of all 
 the human race. We need not disdain or despise the nutritive life, 
 since it forms the large basis upon which rest all the habits of 
 our conscient life ; but the phenomena of sensitive life show a 
 higher degree of complexity in our organisation. They result, as 
 does everything else, from our nutritive acts ; they are more noble, 
 and we are fully warranted in assigning to them a higher place. 
 In short, with man progress consists in making his conscient life 
 richer and richer, in extending the limits, in freeing it as much as 
 possible from the yoke of the nutritive life. 
 
 And from this point of view, the various fractions of humanity 
 wiU offer many divergences, many singularities, many degrees of 
 development. But that we may better appreciate all these 
 peculiarities, we must divide our conscient life into sections. Each 
 one of these necessary subdivisions will form the subject of a 
 separate chapter. 
 
66 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 ON GENESIC WANT, AND ON SHAME. 
 
 As Schiller says somewhere : " While the philosophers are learning 
 how to govern the world, hunger and love are performing the 
 task." The motive power par excellence of progress assuredly is 
 hunger — hunger, which will never for a long time remain asleep. 
 We have seen how, all over the world, man has exercised his 
 ingenuity to appease his hunger, and to it he is indebted for many 
 conquests. Hunting, fishing, agriculture, and all the industries, 
 and even the social institutions connected with them, have no other 
 reason for their existence than the sharp and ever-piercing needle 
 of hunger. 
 
 The energy of man will place the genesic want immediately 
 after the nutritive wants, properly so called. Like them, it is one 
 of the principal factors of the animal and human societies ; since in 
 all animals, even in those of a slightly superior kind, its satisfaction 
 necessitates an association of a longer or shorter time. However 
 short our life may be, it obliges every organised and conscient 
 being, whoever he may be, to take account of his companion or 
 companions, to take care of them, and often to obtain their consent. 
 From this necessary commonalty, specially when young people of 
 the two sexes are together, affective sentiments are born, likewise 
 moral ties and social habits. 
 
 In order to see in man anything higher than his being the chief 
 of earthly animals, we must be drunk with metaphysical wine ; and 
 nothing will cure us of all pride on this head more surely than 
 comparative psychology. All the human sentiments are found in 
 a more or less rudimentary state in the animal kingdom. An 
 idealised love, such as some poets have conceived it, and such as is 
 felt by a few of the choice specimens of the human race, is certainly 
 quite unknown to the brute. But coarse love, the genesic need, as 
 far removed from an ideal state as it is possible to imagine, such as is 
 felt by many people who call themselves civilised, and by the greater 
 
Chap, ii.] ON GENESIC WANT, AND ON SHAME. 57 
 
 number of the savages — this altogether degrades man to the level 
 of or below the other inhabitants of the animal kingdom ; for there 
 are some animal kinds who know how to clothe their sexual 
 intercourse with a poetical covering. 
 
 There are many birds who try to captivate their female by the 
 sweetness of their song, as for instance our nightingale. Others 
 appeal to her sight ; they strut about before her, and show off their 
 bright colours. The albatross of the southern hemisphere {diomedea 
 exidans) with his beak touches the beak of his female, they both 
 swing their heads to and fro, keeping time together, and thus 
 remain for a long while looking at each other. "^ Our turtle-doves 
 and our pigeons actually kiss each other. But in this kind of way 
 the palm belongs to certain birds of paradise, and specially to the 
 amhlyornis ornata, who is certainly more delicate in his aesthetic 
 love-making than his neighbours the Papuans. This curious bird, in 
 order to carry on his love-making, builds a little conical-shaped hut, 
 and before the door of it contrives to make a lawn carpeted over 
 with moss ; he further shows off his green sward by planting different 
 objects variously adorned with bright colours — bog-berries, grain, 
 flowers, stones, and shells. And he takes care when his flowers are 
 faded to replace them with fresh ones. These singularly constructed 
 nests are strongly made ; they last for several years, and probably 
 they serve for several birds. Now these are marks of refinement of 
 which the inferior human races are quite incapable : for instance, 
 the Fuegians, the Tasmanians, the Australians, etc. 
 
 "With these races, and even with others a little more advanced, 
 shame is a feeling altogether unknown. The Fuegians and the 
 Australians go about naked, and clothe themselves only against the 
 cold, without any thought of decency. It would seem that the 
 feeling of shame arises more frequently in woman. Sometimes 
 the Tasmanian woman, who is ordinarily quite naked, takes care 
 when she sits down to use one of her feet as a sort of covering. It 
 is generally the woman who first thinks of clothing herself from 
 
 For all these matters on animal psychology we have made much use 
 of the conscientious work of M. J. C. Houzeau : *' ^^tude sur les facultes 
 mentales des animaux," etc. Mens. 1872. 
 
-68 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 feelings of decency. But often the means which she employs will 
 only very indifferently effect her object. We may mention the little 
 apron worn by the Hottentot women ; the belt with a fringe to it 
 worn by the women of JSTew Caledonia, and even this is forbidden 
 to young girls, married women only having the right to wear it. In 
 many savage tribes the young girls are obliged to go naked, even 
 among tribes in which some clothing has become common. Amongst 
 many instances where this custom prevails, we may quote the 
 Ashiras of Equatorial Africa, and the Chaymas of Central America. 
 'Columbus observed the same custom on the coast of Paria, etc. 
 But sometimes we find the opposite to be the case. In 1498, 
 when Christopher Columbus landed in Trinity island, the women 
 were completely naked, whilst the men wore their guayuco, a sort 
 of narrow bandelet. In the town of Lari, in Central Africa, all the 
 women go about quite naked, though this country is barbarous 
 rather than savage. 
 
 The notion of shame amongst savages is quite relative. In 
 Polynesia, where the women were habitually clothed with two bits 
 of stuff, the upper one with holes in it and worn in poncho, the 
 other rolled over the loins, they would undress themselves at a 
 moment's notice ; one might see them swimming round about the 
 vessels, climbing up on to the deck, and even about the masts, in a 
 state of absolute nudity. The Avomen in the Sandwich islands, 
 already half civilised according to European notions, would swim 
 quite naked towards the European vessels, and as they swam carry 
 on their heads their silk dress, their shoes, and their parasol, so 
 that they might dress themselves decently when they got on board. 
 At Tahiti, the women would uncover themselves from their belt 
 downwards out of pure politeness. A young princess, making a 
 short journey in Cook's long-boat, wished to assure herself de visu 
 that Europeans were made like the men of her own country. And 
 later, when the missionaries had christianised New Cytherea, tho 
 women used to perform the most delicate part of their toilet by 
 the banks of the sea, in places where the water was not more than 
 -a foot deep ; they would also take care to choose the places where 
 the greatest number of strangers would pass by. 
 
€hap. II.] ON GENESIC WANT, AND ON SHAME. 59 
 
 Facts of this kind are mim"berless. In Africa, the young qneen 
 of the Apingi tribe, to whom Du Chaillu gave a bright-coloured 
 piece of Indian stufl*, immediately undressed herself in presence 
 of the donor to try on the gift. In Kamtschatka, where on 
 account of the climate the women must be warmly dressed, they 
 will, without the least shame, allow their child to be born while on 
 their knees before any ostrogoth, without distinction of age or sex. 
 This disregard for clothing is not peculiar to savages only. In 
 Mendoza, a Spanish town on the confines of the Pampas, at the 
 foot of the Andes, the ladies every evening and every morning will 
 bathe together with the men, quite naked, in a brook running 
 along by the side of the Alameda of the town. 
 
 Sometimes the feeling of shame will show itself in most 
 singular ways and in the most fantastic forms. In China a 
 woman ought not to show to a man her small deformed foot ; 
 painters will avoid showing it in their pictures, and it is not 
 considered proper to speak of it in conversation. At Easra, on the 
 Euphrates, if a woman was surprised when taking her bath, it 
 would be her duty to turn her face, without caring about anything 
 else. And this too was the habit of the fellah women in Egypt. 
 
 All the foregoing facts, and one might continue to enumerate 
 others almost indefinitely, prove superabundantly that the feeling 
 of shame is altogether artificial. Like all other delicate senti- 
 ments, it is a moral ornament which man has slowly and tardily 
 acquired. And even nowadays it soon disappears when danger or 
 malady is close at hand. It is peculiarly a feminine sentiment, 
 and no doubt arose in the mind of woman from the idea of men- 
 struation and of childbearing. Men, even civilised men, feel it 
 little ; it is unknown to the majority of those who lead a savage 
 life. There are people, as the Dinkas, who glory in their absolute 
 nakedness. To them clothing conveys a feeling of dishonour; 
 it is the exclusive appanage of the woman. They ironically spoke 
 of Schweinfurth as the Turkish lady. 
 
 We need not therefore wonder that the fragile screen of shame 
 becomes easily broken when genesic want makes itself felt. 
 
60 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book n. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE SEXES. 
 
 Like animals, man at first attached no idea of shame to sexual 
 intercourse, and later on we shall have to establish that in primi- 
 tive societies promiscuity generally preceded marriage. In the 
 most savage hordes and tribes, even where conjugal union exists 
 in some gross form, the chastity of a married woman is quite a 
 relative matter, and the husband, who owns a property in his wife, 
 has the right to lend her to whomsoever he pleases. But in every 
 savage country, in the Andaman islands, in Australia, in Xew 
 Caledonia, in Polynesia, in black Africa, etc. young girls were, or 
 still are, perfectly free to dispose of their person at their own 
 will. The same liberty of manners exists even in much more highly- 
 governed countries, for instance in Cochin-China, in Japan, where 
 parents, when they are poor, let out their daughters to hire to 
 houses for the purpose of prostitution, and this noviciate will not 
 at all bear prejudice against the girl in her future marriage. Our 
 genesic instinct always has its share in our nutritive wants, it 
 has almost equal energy, and it chafes at restraint or moral teaching. 
 In insects it will survive the most fearful mutilation. Decapitation 
 even will not prevent the male of the mantis religiosa from making 
 his female become pregnant. We find nothing of this kind in 
 superior animals who have a centralised nervous system; but 
 nevertheless with them, and with man, who is their chief, the 
 need of generation is very masterful, and in primitive societies he 
 thinks little of controlling it. 
 
 As a matter of course the more inferior the race is, and 
 the nearer it approaches to animal existence, the more the question 
 of generation becomes unlimited. The life of the Australian, 
 woman is but a long state of prostitution. 
 
 From the age of ten she cohabits with boys of fourteen and 
 fifteen. As she grows older it is her duty at night to offer herself 
 to each guest made welcome by the tribe. The Australian woman 
 
Chap, hi.] INTEECOUESE BETWEEN THE SEXES. 61 
 
 who is married, or rather owned by some man, may be lent by her 
 husband. If he is absent another man takes his place. If several 
 tribes camp beside each other, the men at night go and debauch 
 themselves in the camp next to them ; for among, the Australians, 
 prostitution, like their marriage, is exogamic. 
 
 In ISTew Caledonia chastity is not more esteemed or more 
 respected than in Australia. M. de Eochas says that " we should 
 want the burin of Juvenal, instead of the smooth brush of Forster, 
 to paint these masculine savages carrying on their unholy practices 
 upon young lads ; to show how old matrons can become intent 
 upon pointing out the road to vice to young virgins, while they 
 themselves are directing the sacrifice," etc.* 
 
 In Polynesia we may say that the satisfaction felt in the desire 
 for generation was one of the principal motive-powers of life. 
 In all the archipelagoes the liberty of sexual union was absolute 
 outside the marriage state; and even in marriage it was only 
 restricted — the husband having an undoubted right to lend his 
 wife, his property, to whomsoever he pleased ; and infidelity on the 
 part of the woman was punished with only a light correction. On 
 this point the accounts of travellers are unanimous. Everywhere 
 fathers, brothers, and sometimes husbands, would offer their wives 
 to European sailors — that is, of course, if a price was paid. The 
 price asked would vary according to the fashion prevailing at the 
 time. Now it would be a red feather, again some bauble ; in the 
 early days nails were chiefly in request. Naked women would 
 climb about the ship and climb up on to the deck. Canoes laden 
 with female passengers would float about near to the vessels, and as 
 they started to go, their fathers, their brothers, etc. would tell them 
 the price they ought to put upon their favours. 
 
 These easy manners were the same all over Polynesia, including 
 Easter island, where the women, who were not numerous at the 
 time of Cook's travels, supplied their want in numbers by their 
 activity, and far surpassed the exploits of the historic Messalina. 
 In New Zealand the lubricity was less great ; the women there did 
 not prostitute themselves until they received the express permission 
 * " Nouvelle Caledonie," p. 235. 
 
62 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 of the men, their masters ; but this permission was easily given — 
 for a nail, a shirt, etc. 
 
 In all these islands the feeling of shame did not exist, even in 
 the most rudimentary state. The habitations were hardly more than 
 a roof supported by posts, without other walls than a few rush mats 
 attached from one side to the other, according to the chances of the 
 inclemency of the weather. There was no separate and individual 
 life ; everything passed coram 2^opulo. All the members of the 
 family slept beside each other under the rush mats ; the master of 
 the house, with his wife or his wives by his side ; the young boys 
 and the young girls passed the night in the same manner, com- 
 pletely naked. The young girls were brought up to dance the 
 timorodea, a most lascivious dance, and to accompany it with obscene 
 songs. Sexual union was performed publicly, and without any 
 sort of restraint. A princess named Oberea did not hesitate to 
 instruct a young girl of eleven or twelve years to cohabit publicly 
 with a young man. 
 
 To offer a girl or a woman to a visitor was, with the Tahitians, 
 an act of ordinary politeness. Bougainville has described this 
 kind of reception, so strange to our European customs : " Every 
 day our people used to walk about the country, unarmed, alone, or 
 perhaps a few together. They were invited to go into the houses, 
 and food was set before them ; but the civility of the master of the 
 house does not end with a light meal. They offered to them young 
 girls j the house was immediately thronged with a crowd of curious 
 men and women, who made a circle around the visitor and the 
 young victim, who was singled out for this act of hospitaUty. The 
 ground was strewn with leaves and with flowers, and musicians were 
 singing to the strains which were being played through the nose 
 
 upon a flute, as a hymn of rejoicing Every glad event is a 
 
 festival for the natives. They were surprised at the embarrassment 
 felt by our people." * 
 
 The conversion to Christianity in Tahiti, effected at the cost 
 of fearfully bloody civil wars, was quite apparent. Debauch 
 became more general, more revolting, and it was covered over 
 * Bougainville, " Hist. Univ. des Voy." vol. iv. 220. 
 
Chap, hi.] INTEECOURSE BETWEEN THE SEXES. 63-' 
 
 ■with, the veil of hypocrisy. The women did not go on board 
 the ships in the daytime — they went, or they were taken there at 
 night. Amorous desires were so strong in these people that, in 
 spite of the Anglican despotism, the conversation of the women 
 and children was constantly upon the most obscene subjects, and 
 they would talk in the most barefaced manner. Women were 
 fattened with a paste made from the bread-fruit (popoi), from 
 bananas, etc. During the time of the genesic impulse they could 
 not Avalk except to go and bathe themselves, and before reappear- 
 ing in public they were inspected by men and in a state of absolute 
 nakedness. 
 
 To indulge in these amorous pleasures was the chief occupation 
 and the great enjoyment of the Tahitians and the people of the 
 Society islands. To vary their delights they would often travel 
 from one island to another ; and they invented the famous society 
 of the Areois, as to which some few words must be said. Among 
 the early Mexicans — those of the eleventh century — there existed a 
 sect called the Ixcuinames, the members of which — though they 
 were in a country where the women were obliged to feed apart from 
 the men — used to hold their festivities and get drunk all together 
 without any distinction of sex, and live in a state of absolute 
 promiscuousness. The members of this society used repeatedly to 
 give themselves up to orgies and to obscene practices, mingling 
 with it all religious ceremonies and sacrificing human victims. 
 This was exactly what the Areois people did ; and the analogy is 
 another argument in favour of the Polynesians being people of 
 American origin. 
 
 In Tahiti, in the Marquesas islands, etc. the association of the 
 Areois had a religious side to it. In many countries, and with 
 many races of people, man has placed his pleasures and his passions 
 into the safe keeping of heaven. The society of the Areois was a 
 freemasonry, at once mystical and lewd, under the patronage of the 
 god Oro, the son of Taaroa, the Polynesian Jehovah. Everyone 
 was not at once, and without difficulty, admitted into the brother- 
 hood. After a long noviciate the new member, painted red and 
 yellow, was obliged to have a paroxysm of religious fervour. On. 
 
€4 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 his second trial, many months or even years after the first, he 
 solemnly swore to put to death every child that might be born to 
 him. He then belonged to the seventh and lowest class of the 
 society. He learnt their songs, their dances, their sacred mimetic 
 practices, which formed the ritual of the Areois. He could not go 
 up the various classes in the brotherhood until at each step he had 
 undergone new trials and new ceremonies ; and a special tattoo 
 marking distinguished the members in each category. 
 
 I^ow the object of this religious association was the satisfying 
 without any restraint of their amorous passions ; and for all their 
 members infanticide was a duty. In this community all the 
 women were common to all the men; the cohabitation of each 
 couple rarely lasted longer than two or three days. They passed 
 their lives in perpetual holiday-making. They feasted, they 
 wrestled, they sang, and the women danced their lascivious timo- 
 rodea. The first duty of every female member of the society was 
 to strangle her children immediately after they were born ; if the 
 child lived but half-an-hour only he was saved. To entitle her to 
 keep her child, a woman was obliged to find among the members 
 an adopted father, but they were both expelled from the association, 
 and the woman was branded with the name of " child-bearer." 
 
 It was considered to be a great honour to belong to the brother- 
 hood of the Areois. A Tahitian, whom Cook brought over to 
 England, declared that he considered himself equal to the king of 
 Great Britain because he was an Areoi. 
 
 Facts of this nature though strange are still true, and render very 
 difficult the position of certain belated metaphysicians commissioned 
 to teach in our schools the innateness of the idea of moral worth ; 
 for it is very clear that the institution of the Areois had no other 
 object than the fiery lust of the Polynesians, sanctified by religion, 
 and strengthened perhaps by the wish to lessen the inconvenient 
 increase of the population. 
 
 We have hitherto spoken mainly of Tahiti, which may be con- 
 sidered as the Polynesian metropolis, but the same amorous licence 
 was common in all the Polynesian islands. There was everywhere 
 absolute liberty in general intercourse; except perhaps a sort of 
 
Chap, hi.] INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE SEXES. 65 
 
 restriction was placed upon married women, who legally required the 
 consent of their husbands — whose property they were, and who 
 had over them the power of life and death. At Nouka-Hiva, 
 Porter says, many parents felt themselves honoured in the 
 preference that was shown to their daughters, and showed their 
 satisfaction by presents of hogs and fruits. The continence of the 
 first English missionaries astonished the Noukahivans beyond 
 measure, and one of their missionaries was obliged to escape to 
 prevent an examination of his person ; the natives were constrained 
 to believe that he was made in some peculiar way, and they were 
 resolved to satisfy their curiosity. In the Sandwich islands the 
 great difficulty was in teaching chastity to the women ; they were 
 ignorant both of the word and the thing itself. 
 
 In Polynesia generally the people have no laws or no shame in 
 anything that touches their amorous passion. But according to 
 W. T. Pritchard, an exception must be made in favour of the 
 daughters of the chiefs of Samoa, whose chastity, guarded by two 
 duennas, is the glory of the tribe. Nevertheless, before marriage, 
 the woman's innocence is verified by a most indecent examination 
 held in the presence of the whole tribe. \ 
 
 This predominance of amorous desire, and the total absence of 
 any scruple of shame with the Polynesians, coincides with an 
 infantine nature in more than one way. 
 
 AVe shall have to speak of their passion for the colour red; and 
 this passion showed itself in every brilliant object. Puttafaihe, 
 prince of Tongatabou, was very much charmed by a tin piate which 
 Cook gave him ; he said that he intended that the plate should 
 represent the traveller in his absence. At Tahiti, a princess named 
 Oberea, a woman of about forty years of age, received with 
 much gratitude a doll given to her as a present. Men and women 
 showed an excessive mobility of disposition; for from laughing 
 they instantly burst into tears. 
 
 Beside their amorous licence, perfectly innocent as it appears to 
 be to them, there is scarcely place for the affectionate side of love. 
 All travellers are agreed in saying that the feeling of jealousy is 
 absolutely unknown among the men, who regard the women simply 
 
 F 
 
66 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 as property belonging to them, or as instruments for their own 
 pleasure. This is not quite the case with the women. They 
 do not pride themselves upon fidelity, hut are not therefore 
 less susceptible of jealousy. Volatile as they are, they often 
 make some pretensions to the exclusive possession of their 
 lover, whose instability sometimes drives them to despair. All 
 over the world love with woman is a more important matter than 
 Avith man. And it would seem, too, that woman has more than 
 man contributed to ennoble it. Shame is more essentially a femi- 
 nine than a masculine sentiment, and in the condition of the 
 Polynesian promiscuous life it is in woman only that this feeling 
 would have any small place in the domain of sensual love. 
 
 The same liberty of manners, more or less close to promiscuity, 
 is seen all over the world wherever civilisation is still but slightly 
 advanced. "When any reserve, more or less, does exist, it is nearly 
 always imposed by men upon married women ; it is the right of 
 the proprietor over an object possessed. But any show of moral 
 continence, resulting from delicate sentiments, slowly acquired here 
 and there from the mental evolution in the race, is a rare occur- 
 rence. We shall perceive this more fully as we continue to observe 
 the peculiarities in the different races of the human kind. 
 
 Lichtenstein says that with the Kafir Kousas no feeling of 
 love has anything to do with their marriage. " The idea of love, 
 as Ave understand it," says Du Chaillu, in speaking of the tribe of 
 the Gaboons, " appears to be unknown to this people." According 
 to Mungo Park the Moors of Senegambia consider woman as a 
 sort of inferior animal. They bring her up simply that they may 
 apply themselves to sensual pleasures, without even asking from 
 her any intellectual qualities, and they value her as with us a man 
 values animals in the slaughter-house — by weight. 
 
 In Darfur every man is held bound to espouse the quarrels 
 of the lover of his daughter or of his sister. In Abyssinia the 
 courtesans often occupy a high rank in the court of the prince, 
 and frequently they have given to them the government of a town 
 or of a province. According to Bruce the Abyssinian women lived 
 as though they belonged to everybody. The Abyssinian marriages 
 
Chap. III.] INTEECOUESE BETWEEN THE SEXES. 67 
 
 were made and unmade without the slightest ceremony ; at their 
 banquets the most distinguished women would publicly give 
 themselves over to their paramours without any idea of shame. 
 " A couple of lovers come down from their bench to place them- 
 selves more conveniently ; then the two men who were nearest 
 to them raise their cloaks and hide them from the other guests." 
 The ancient neighbours of the Abyssinians, the early Egyptians, 
 were also very dissolute. At the time of Herodotus the lascivious- 
 ness of the Egyptian women was well known, and in ancient 
 Egypt it was the rule not to give the dead bodies of the women to 
 be embalmed until three days after their death. We may easily 
 guess why this precaution was taken. 
 
 In America the passions of the people are quite as bad as in 
 Africa. The Esquimaux, contrary to the modulating effect which 
 it is said low temperatures have upon the genesic needs, are of 
 all Americans the most shameless. The men and women sleep 
 quite naked, all huddled up together under a deer-skin. They 
 lie a little closer to make way for any guests ; and even Captain 
 Parry himself was once so made welcome. It is the duty of the 
 master Esquimaux to ofifer his wife or his wives to his guest, 
 and he also makes her over, lends her, hires her, or sells her 
 without scruple. The women will prostitute themselves as often 
 as they can when their husbands are absent. " My nation," an 
 inhabitant of the Aleutian islands one day said to a Eussian 
 missionary, "in its pairings follows the example of the sea 
 otters." 
 
 The Red Skins are less lewd, but not more scrupulous. With 
 the Nadowessioux, a tribe of North America, a woman was held in 
 great esteem because she had lodged, and treated as her husband, 
 the forty principal warriors of her tribe. The men of this race 
 seem to be but moderately inclined to these passions. But it used 
 to be, and is now, very different in Central America. As we shall 
 see later on, the ancient Mexicans were very much given to un- 
 natural desires ; and all over South America the Indians of Bolivia 
 are celebrated for the energy and longevity of their manhood. 
 Either from the force of example, or from the effect of mixed race, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 the Spanish Americans seem to have adopted these lax customs to 
 a very large extent. It was usual for the Creoles in the Antilles to 
 offer a girl to their host at night when they gave him his candle. 
 Not long ago at Santiago, in Chili, public girls might be seen 
 in very large numbers. They occupied the ground floor in most of 
 the houses, and would call to the passers-by from the doorsteps ; 
 and at the same time in their rooms a taper was burning before 
 the holy images. La P^rouse here also remarked the extreme 
 shamelessness of the people in Chili at the time of the Feast of the 
 Conception of the Virgin. 
 
 In Asia, in Mongolian Asia, as well as in the country of the 
 white men, there is great licence of manners, joined at the same 
 time to a ferocious jealousy on the part of the proprietary husbands. 
 In Malay the manners of the unmarried women are very free ; but 
 in certain localities, notably at Lombok island, adulterers are 
 punished by being tied back to back and thrown to the crocodiles. 
 In Cochin-China, in Japan, where the woman is considered bound 
 to respect her conjugal ties, parents will readily hire out their 
 daughters either to individuals or to houses for the purposes of 
 prostitution. In China, rich men will, for their own use, buy 
 pretty girls as soon as they have reached the age of fourteen. We 
 cannot here describe the singular artifices practised in China for the 
 purpose of increasing the pleasure of sexual intercourse ; they show 
 a degree of voluptuous refinement which has nowhere else been 
 imagined. 
 
 It has been thought that lewdness in a race of people has a 
 close connection with the latitude in which they live, and that 
 their amorous desire grows less strong as they dwell farther away 
 from the equator and come nearer to the polar regions. That is 
 one of the superficial views, of which in ethnology we already see too 
 many. The anatomical and physiological characters of races result 
 from infinitely complex causes, which have been gradually forming 
 themselves during the long course of innumerable centuries now 
 past and gone, and which are now nearly impossible for us 
 to unravel. Where have the existing races formed themselves? 
 under what influences ? how have they become crossed 1 what havo 
 
Chap, hi.] INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE SEXES. 69 
 
 been their surroundings 1 These are questions which we cannot 
 answer; and yet before answering them we cannot determine 
 4a,ccurately the influence and the conditions under which man lives. 
 For instance, from the point of view of genesic energy the most 
 marked difi'erences are shown among difl'erent races and quite 
 independently of climate. It is said that the Bolivian is very 
 salacious ; the Eed Skin is much less so, and with him the de- 
 velopment of the genital organs is very small. On the other 
 hand the Esquimau is very erotic, in spite of his arctic tempera- 
 ture. And again, with other Mongolians of the N'orth — the Lapps 
 of Finmark — the amorous desires are very languid, A minister 
 of a Lapland parish in Finmark, at the end of twenty years, met 
 with only one instance of illegitimate birth among his flock ; and 
 in the families of the people there were rarely more than three 
 or four children. 
 
 Although incontestably more advanced than other races, both 
 in intelligence and in morality, the white races have shown and 
 still continue to show a thousand instances of great freedom in 
 their amorous passions. The chroniclers tell us that when ^akya- 
 Mouni, the founder of Buddhism, first arrived in the Indian town 
 of Yesali, he was received by the grand-mistress of the courtesans. 
 And now the Brahmins bring up bayadeers in their pagodas, they 
 teach them singing and music, and then the girls can advantageously 
 let themselves out to hire. The holy town of Mecca is filled with 
 public women, composed partly of Abyssinian slaves ; they pay a 
 tax to the sherif, and they exercise their profession for the benefit 
 of their masters. 
 
 The white race, like all other races, most . probably began by 
 living promiscuously, of which practice they have slowly corrected 
 themselves. For a long time the exclusive possession of a woman 
 by a single man was considered as a sort of theft against the com- 
 munity. Hence there were laws which obliged women in difl'erent 
 countries to prostitute themselves religiously at least once during 
 their lifetime. On this subject the ancient writers give us abundant 
 evidence. The Lydian women were held bound to acquit them- 
 selves of this obligation before their marriage in Hagneou, the 
 
70 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 place where their chastity was sacrificed. The same custom was 
 observed in the country of Akisilena, between the Euphrates and 
 the Taurus. Once in their lives the Babylonian women were 
 bound to prostitute themselves for money, in the temple of Mylitta 
 or Yenus. The Cypriot mothers sent their daughters to prostitute 
 themselves on the seashore, oifering up their virginity to Venus. 
 Later, in Greece, the accomplishment of this amorous task on 
 behalf of the community was confided to the priestesses, or 
 heteroe, who by their works exonerated the other women. 
 
 The Latin writers, historians, and poets have given us coloured 
 pictures of the debauchery practised in Rome. Their descriptions 
 are so well known that we need not now further dwell upon them. 
 We will merely refer to the writings of Juvenal, Tibullus, Ovid, 
 Petronius, etc., to Tacitus and to Suetonius. The Romans had a 
 vocabulary of voluptuous words, for which the equivalents in 
 our own language are wanting. On the theatre they would 
 perform lascivious dances and pantomimic gestures that were very 
 loose indeed. Juvenal tells us of the effect which these spectacles 
 produced upon their contemporaries ; 
 
 Clieironomon Ledam molli saltante Bathyllo 
 Tuccia vesica) non imperat, Appula gannifc, 
 Sicut iu amplexu, etc. 
 
 Juvenal, Satyra vi. 
 
 And Boileau says : 
 
 Le latin dans les mots brave ThonnStete. 
 
 Art Po^tique, ii. 175. 
 
 The Roman people would cause decency of manners to blush 
 also. 
 
 In default of so many facts the erotic, the phallic, and the vulvary 
 religions are sufficient to show us how far the genesic need has 
 beset and tormented humanity, and how also man has witli difficulty 
 freed himself from bestiality. A few words will make this last 
 point clear to us. 
 
Chap, iv.] GENESIC ABERRATIONS. 71 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 GENESIC ABERRATIONS. 
 
 The genesic aberrations of wliich we are going to speak very shortly 
 are abnormal, but they are not unnatural, because we observe them 
 among a certain number of animals. It is in the females when on 
 heat that deviations from the amorous instincts have mostly been 
 observed. Naturalists and rearers of cattle know that certain cows 
 feel the desires common to the male beast, and that they endeavour 
 to satisfy themselves in the same way. These cows, the taurelieres, 
 are often sterile, and so also are the hens, called coquieres, who 
 imitate the genesic mimicry of the cock. In truth, in the animal 
 kingdom, when the powerful genesic instincts are thwarted, they 
 will satisfy themselves as best they can. 
 
 And with man it is not otherwise. But man, being a more 
 intelligent creature than the animals, thinks more of refinement, 
 his aberrations tend rather to augment or only to vary his genesic 
 desires. An a priori reasoning might lead us to suppose that man 
 would be less scrupulous in this respect in proportion as his 
 morality and intelligence are less developed. We find this to be 
 the case. The voluptuous acts which are stigmatised as unclean 
 among societies and individuals who are really civilised, cause no 
 repugnance to the bestiality of savage races, or to individuals who 
 are but little advanced. 
 
 That which we call an unnatural passion is not at all the result 
 of an over-refined civilisation. On the contrary, it is one of the 
 many signs of primitive savagery. It is practised in most savage 
 societies, and provokes no sign of reprobation. The Kanak 
 of New Caledonia is much less lascivious than the Polynesian, 
 and he is satisfied with sexual intercourse once a month, after the 
 very short passion of early youth is passed. Put sodomy is his 
 practice ; at night the New Caledonians meet together in a hut, 
 in more or less large numbers, purposely to give themselves up to 
 the most foul debauchery. 
 
72 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 In Polynesia people are not more scrupulous, and one of the 
 Tahitian gods used to preside at meetings held for unnatural pur- 
 poses. The l^ew Zealanders abandoned themselves to this vice, 
 even with women. Over all America, from the north to the south, 
 we find similar habits, from the region of the Esquimaux down as 
 far as the Eio de la Plata. According to Bernal Diaz, sodomy was 
 a profession publicly practised among the ancient Mexicans : 
 " Erant quasi omnes sodomia commaculati, et adolescentes multi, 
 muliebriter vestiti, ibant publice, cibum qua^rentes ab isto diabolico 
 et abominabili labore."* This practice of men disguising them- 
 selves as women for the purpose of sodomy was also a custom 
 with the people of Illinois. 
 
 The Asiatic nations, so much more civilised, are not more moral 
 in this respect. In China there used to be, and no doubt still are, 
 houses of prostitution where sodomy is practised. In the town of 
 Hebheb, in Mesopotamia, Buckingham has seen children walking 
 about in public enticing the passers-by to this same sort of 
 debauchery. In Mecca, the sanctuary of Mahomedanism, the same 
 practices were committed, even in the mosque itself ; and Palgrave 
 has observed similar facts among the pious Wahabites of Central 
 Arabia. 
 
 Everyone knows the licence practised in classical antiquity ; it 
 would be useless to quote instances. We may however call to 
 mind that in his ethereal dialogues on love Plato was not speaking 
 of love for woman. 
 
 At Rome the same vice was very common, as is attested by 
 many writers from Virgil down to Petronius. "With them it was 
 not considered to be a vice, for not until very late was it condemned 
 by public morality. It was scarcely until the early centuries of 
 the Christian era, under Judaic influence, that this point of ethics 
 became finally determined in Europe, and people truly began to 
 feel the horror and the disgust at this unnatural excess which is 
 now felt by nearly every individual in civilised countries. 
 
 This evolution in our moral senses is a most interesting study. 
 
 * B. Diaz, " Histoire veridique de la conqufite de la Nouvelle Espagne." 
 D. Jourdanet, 1st ed. ii. 59-1. 
 
Chap, v.] THE DELICACY OF THE SENSES. 73 
 
 "VYe have seen that from the age of primitive barbarism down to 
 our own times, the delicacy of our moral senses has gradually 
 become more and more refined. Our habits have gradually grown 
 more disguised. Distastes have sown themselves in our imagination, 
 they are transmitted to our descendants, in whom they grow 
 stronger than with us ; and now we cannot think, except with 
 disgust, of the habits of our ancestors, who, more coarse than we, 
 did not imagine that their daily habits w^ere other than simple and 
 commonplace. It is needless to say that if this progress is general 
 in European civilisations, we do not sometimes find contrary 
 instances. Often enough in our law-courts we are reminded that 
 under the polish of our modern society — proud as it is of its 
 advance of every kind — there is yet always remaining an old 
 remnant of savagery which it is still our duty to abolish. Memento 
 quia animal es. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE DELICACY OF THE SENSES. 
 
 What must we understand by the delicacy of the senses 1 The 
 expression is vague, for the senses are impressionable in many ways. 
 The Pere R. Salvado affirms that an Australian can follow the 
 track of a carriage in a forest at night merely by feeling with his 
 feet the impression made upon the ground ; also that he can hear a 
 horse's footstep a mile distant ; and he tells us of a hundred other 
 analogous facts, observed amongst savages of all races. Does it 
 follow, therefore, that the sense of touch in the Australian or in 
 the Pted Skin is more developed than in a blind European well 
 brought up — in a skilful pianist, or in an expert typographical work- 
 man ? Evidently not. The senses of the savage are often delicate, 
 though their field for active employment is small. Eor instance, 
 the Australian, whose sight is ordinarily very piercing, is sometimes 
 incapable of understanding the most simple drawing, he cannot 
 always recognise his own portrait. 
 
74 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 An old Japanese encyclopedia mentions the satellites of Jupiter ; 
 on an old Chinese map belonging to the Pore Kegler were marked 
 some stars of the seventh degree in size : and yet one is shocked by 
 the imperfection of the Chinese and Japanese artists in their tints- 
 and in their notions of perspective. 
 
 "We believe the reason to be that, in the perception of our 
 ^ sensations our intelligence plays more or less a large part. The 
 sensation doubtless gives rise to the idea, but in its turn the 
 idea makes the sensation more clearly felt. So that with a 
 little practice we soon arrive at lessening the deviation at 
 first necessary to allow the contact of the points in "Weber's 
 compass to give a double sensation.* The senses become more 
 [powerful when they are aided by a sustained attention and a well- 
 (developed intelligence. It is for this reason that the European 
 when he adopts a savage life often ends by mastering it, even over 
 the savages themselves, from the point of view of the delicacy of 
 the senses, for with him the registry of conscience is larger and 
 better kept. So long as man is reduced to depend uniquely, or 
 nearly so, upon the chase as a means of getting his food, he 
 accustoms himself from infancy to concentrate all his attention to 
 the knack of following the track of man or of animals. It becomes- 
 with him a question of life or death ; and on this point his mind 
 becomes well stored with subtle observations. The Indian Red 
 Skin will recognise the trace of footsteps ; he may even be able to 
 count the number of people that have passed, and to distinguish 
 from which tribes rival to his own they belonged. In this way 
 -the European, absolutely cut off from the kind of life led by the 
 savage, will necessarily be inferior to him, though ho surpasses him 
 in a hundred other things in which the delicacy of the senses are 
 concerned. 
 
 Adventure and the mode of life will sharpen or will deaden this 
 or that kind of sensibility after a whole series of generations. The 
 savage is ordinarily less sensitive than the civilised man to the 
 inclemency of his climate, to physical pain, etc. In the Magellan 
 straits, while Darwin was shivering with cold over the fire, the 
 * Weber " De subtilitate taotus." 
 
Chap, v.] THE DELICACY OF THE SENSES. 75- 
 
 Fuegians, and even the Fuegian women with a child at their breasts, 
 remained in a state of almost complete nudity, exposed to the wind, 
 to the rain, and to the snow. 
 
 Taste and smell, modes of touch, as yet imperfect, appear to he- 
 not strongly marked with most of the inferior races. According 
 to Humboldt the Peruvian Indians can distinguish at night the 
 different races of human beings merely by the smell ; they have 
 three different words to distinguish the smell of the European, the 
 American aboriginal, and the negro. But ordinarily the savage 
 does not recognise odours except from a practical point of view ; as 
 regards perfumes and foetid smells he is often indifferent. He has 
 no sesthetic notions about smells; the olfactory delicacy hardly 
 exists except in the white man. It goes to an extreme degree with 
 the Arabs of Hedjaz, who, according to Burckhardt, cannot endure the 
 least bad smell, and for this reason they dislike entering the towns. 
 
 The rudimentary state of cookery with the savage will alone 
 prove how slightly the sense of taste is sharpened in a state of 
 nature. The senses of taste and of smell are connected ; they both 
 become refined at the same time, or they are simultaneously obtuse. 
 The Bongos, whom Schweinfurth saw near the tributaries of the 
 Higher Nile, will make an excellent meal of the half putrefied 
 remains of the body of a lion ; and for this they have to compete 
 with the flies and the vultures as to who will get the larger share. 
 The Fuegian and the Australian also regale themselves on rotten, 
 flesh. And the Kafirs find this food to be excellent. The Kafirs 
 of Il^atal call it oubomi ; they use the word sometimes in a figura- 
 tive sense to express some great pleasure. They explained this to 
 the early missionaries who translated the Scriptures into their 
 language, as being the equivalent for the expression "eternal 
 happiness." This is very different from the sense of taste and smell 
 in a European connoisseur, or in an expert taster, who can^ 
 distinguish choice wines merely by their bouquet. 
 
 On the subject of hearing we may make similar remarks^ 
 The ear of the savage will often take notice of very slight noises,, 
 but it is always more or less unable to recognise and appreciate 
 musical sounds. That is an interesting point to which we shall 
 
•re SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 again have occasion to refer. Let ns remark, however, that the 
 Australian, who can hear the sound of a horse's hoof a mile off, has 
 no instrument of music, that nearly all over the world the only- 
 musical instrument owned by the savage is the tom-tom, a sort of 
 drum, more or less coarsely made. When Christopher Columbus 
 first landed in Cuba the aborigines were so much charmed with the 
 sound of his bells that they gave large pieces of gold in exchange 
 for the precious instruments. 
 
 "We find the same incapacity, we may say the same stupidity, 
 in the sense of sight in the savage. The Red Skin is rarely near- 
 sighted ; his look is strong and piercing, but he is often incapable 
 of distinguishing gray from blue. And even in many dialects in 
 Central America there is only one expression used to mark the two 
 colours gray and blue. 
 
 It may seem at first that the instances just mentioned would 
 rest upon the too-celebrated theory of H. Magnus, on the evolution 
 of the colour-sense. Must we agree with this author in think- 
 ing that at first man was able only to notice some luminous 
 intensity, that he afterwards perceived the chromatic sensation of 
 startling colours — red and yellow — and that later still he learnt to 
 distinguish between colours whose luminous intensity was less 
 clear 1 We should certainly fall into error if we were to interpret 
 too literally this ingenious theory, based uniquely upon linguistic 
 researches. It may bo that the Rig- Veda, the Zend-Avesta, 
 the poems of Homer, are wanting in expressions to designate 
 certain shades of colouring ; but direct experiments actually made 
 upon the sense of sight among the diff'erent races of people can 
 alone decide the question. Language may instruct us very well as 
 to the condition of intelligence, or the measure of ideas in man's 
 conscient life, but we need not apply to it to learn the degree 
 of sharpness or the delicacy of our senses. Senses that are very 
 I subtle may co-exist with an understanding that is very obtuse. 
 Then, though man may perceive sensations very plainly marked 
 he will be unable to test them, or to decide as to what they 
 are. If we were to push the arguments of ^I. H. Magnus to the 
 extreme limit we should bo obliged to conclude that animals, 
 
Chap, y,] THE DELICACY OF THE SENSES. 77 
 
 because they cannot talk, have therefore no sense of feeling. And 
 yet the little crustaceous animals {daphnia pulex), noticed by 
 M. P. Bert, could certainly distinguish between shades of colour,, 
 since they grouped themselves according to the different colours 
 of the solar spectre, showing a marked predilection for yellow. 
 
 What is more certain is that bright colours, red especially,, 
 are much sought after by many of the inferior human races. The- 
 I^ew Caledonian has a passion for red ; he likes everything that, 
 is of this colour ; he paints the posts of his huts, his ornamental 
 objects, his statuettes, etc., all red. We find the same love for red 
 in Polynesia. In New Zealand if any object was of a red colour, 
 with the natives it was called " tabu." We learn from Marchand,. 
 from Porter, and from Cook, that red feathers were very highly 
 esteemed in the Marquesas islands, in Tahiti, and in Tongatabou. 
 In Tahiti the chiefs offered even their wives to Captain Cook in 
 exchange for red feathers. We might easily multiply facts of this^ 
 kind. We will only observe that with the Greeks purple was- 
 the royal colour, that in all catholic countries cardinals are clothed 
 in purple, and that in different countries in Europe red is the 
 dominating colour in military uniforms, and also in many popular 
 costumes. 
 
 The conclusion of what has been said may be readily drawn. 
 The man in whom intelligence is as yet but slightly developed 
 has delicate senses as regards the exigences of savage life ; but 
 the mental side of his sensibility is still only rudimentary. He 
 feels Avarmly and likes strong impressions, but he is not quick at 
 observing, comparing, and classifying sensations and perceiving 
 nice distinctions. In this way, as in many others, his conscient 
 life reminds us of that of our own children. In studying the 
 rudimentary phase of the aesthetic sense we shall see many other 
 analogies of the same kind. 
 
J8 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 CLOTHING. 
 
 As we have noticed elsewhere,* two only of the human senses 
 are artistic : the sense of hearing and of sight, and these we have 
 •called the intellectual senses. Only the impressions and sensations 
 produced by hearing and seeing are revivifying ; they only can be 
 evoked by the imagination, spontaneously or voluntaril}''. Man 
 may try to reproduce them objectively by external and artificial 
 representations, varying them and combining them together in a 
 thousand ways. Hence we get the beaux-arts. But there is another 
 manifestation of the assthetic sense more simple and more primor- 
 dial — the taste for dress — which exists all over the world, even 
 where we perceive no trace of the graphic or of the plastic 
 arts, as for instance with the Fuegians. Eefore painting or 
 adorning exterior objects, man begins by painting and adorning 
 himself. 
 
 The desire to look well, that is, to produce upon oneself and 
 upon others a sensitive and agreeable impression, both by the 
 •colouring and the formation of one's body, is not peculiar only to 
 man. Many animals feel and show the same desires, specially 
 •during the period of generation. This fact is the more remarkable 
 in many birds, who know how to make their feathers look glossy, 
 to show off with grace, and make the most of their bright colours. 
 In this way, the artifices of certain pigeons, of the turkey, of the 
 peacock, etc., are typical. It does not appear, however, that any 
 animal has yet had recourse to adorning himself with exterior 
 ornament. But there is a bird in New Guinea (amhlyomis in- 
 ornata), described to us by O. Beccari, who is evidently on the 
 way towards doing so. He does not exactly decorate his person, 
 but during the period of generation he knows how to lay out a 
 «ort of garden ornamented with bright flowers and coloured 
 stones; and in this Eden he builds for himself his little nest. 
 
 ♦ •'Physiologie des passions," 2nd ed. p. 101 j "Biologie," 2nd ed. pp. 438-44i. 
 
Chap, yi.] CLOTHING. 79 
 
 Then when his earthly paradise is completed he brings his female 
 there, so as to fascinate her by the pleasures of sight. 
 
 As man is the most intelligent of animals, in order to look well 
 he uses artifices of more various kinds, and it is very curious to 
 study this tendency in the different portions of the human race. 
 The means used are manifold, and they may be classed into different 
 categories. 
 
 When the state of nudity was habitual to primitive man, he 
 first thought to paint or to tattoo himself, to embellish those parts 
 of his body which would best lend themselves to ornamentation. 
 This was ornamentation in its most primitive phase ; and in the 
 genesis of art it will correspond to drawing and to painting. 
 
 Man went much farther when he began to alter his own shape, 
 when he cut and altered the shape of his human body by means 
 of mutilations and deformations, some of which we shall have to 
 enumerate. 
 
 With the progress of civilisation man has clothed himself 
 more and more, and thus were lessened very considerably the 
 outward surfaces on which painting or tattooing would appear 
 visible. And also these deformations and mutilations grew less 
 and less in favour, and by degrees were no longer practised. 
 During this period the taste for dress manifested itself principally 
 in temporary and portative ornaments : such as jewellery, which will 
 still sometimes cause some slight mutilation ; such as head-dress, 
 more or less artistically arranged ; such as clothes, on which man 
 has ever exercised his ingenuity in varying the shape and in com- 
 bining different colours. We shall notice these three phases of 
 human ornamentation, which in actual practice will generally be 
 found to be co-existing. 
 
 Painting and Tattooing. 
 
 In the way of ornament we find that there is a very great 
 similarity in all the Melanesian islands, in Tasmania, and in the 
 islands of N'ew Guinea ; and we should be inclined to look for the 
 cause in a community of origin, if many facts of every kind did 
 
80 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 not prove that the human mind, especially the human mind in its 
 primitive state, often works in the same way in all countries and 
 among all races. 
 
 As over all Melanesia the colour red is the one held in most 
 honour, that is the colour usually chosen by the people to paint or 
 to decorate themselves. Even now the poor Tasmanian will cover 
 liis body with grease from the wombat, from the seal, from the 
 kangaroo, etc., with all of which he will mix red ochre. Before 
 they go to one of their dances, or to pay their visits, the Australian 
 dandies will trace or have traced on their chests and on their leg* 
 white and red lines crossing each other. So decked out they 
 admire themselves, and strut about with a vanity that they cannot 
 conceal. As it often happens with savages, the Australian women 
 paint themselves less than the men. Before fighting, the latter 
 will go through their toilet ; they cover themselves with coatings 
 of paint, in which yellow is often used concurrently with red. In 
 the laiew Guinea islands and in New Caledonia red is less largely 
 used by way of decoration. But yet the ISTew Caledonians, wha 
 are passionately fond of it, will often try, by means of lime, to 
 give a permanent red tint to their crispy hair. 
 
 To make himself appear beautiful, the ISIelanesian also tattooes 
 himself, but he does so after the most sober and primitive fashion. 
 In Tasmania and in Australia the men and the women used to, and 
 perhaps do so still, cut long parallel lines upon their chests, upon 
 their arms, their shoulders, and their legs, with a sharp stone, which 
 would immediately produce a cicatrising swelling of a light clear 
 colour. That is a kind of ornamentation of which the Australians 
 are very fond. The Papuans in New Guinea tattoo themselves in 
 the same way, except that with them the scarifications will often 
 be made to cross each other; and in certain tribes tattooing is 
 allowed to be practised only by the men. 
 
 But it is specially in Polynesia that the art of tattooing is 
 practised upon a large scale, becoming also at the same time 
 more artistic. And the process employed in Polynesia is very^ 
 different. In Melanesia it is performed by cutting, and the people 
 do not attempt to colour the cicatrices they have made upon them-^ 
 
Chap, vi.] CLOTHING. 81 
 
 selves ; but in Polynesia tattooing is effected by puncturing holes, 
 into which the people afterwards introduce coloured matter. The 
 first mode is done with a sharp stone, or a shark's tooth, etc. ; the 
 second with a small instrument with sharp teeth, something in the 
 form of a comb. In 'New Zealand both systems are employed — 
 that of the Papuans seems to have been with them practised first. 
 Tattooing by means of cutting is still the method most employed 
 by the New Zealanders ; but the system of pricking enables them 
 to adorn and enlarge upon the primitive custom. Much importance 
 is attached to this form of ornamentation ; it is a mark of distinc- 
 tion, shown chiefly upon the face. It is made by winding arabesques, 
 showing off the different features of the face, and is often done 
 with considerable skill. The practice is nearly altogether forbidden 
 to women. The lines are coloured, and the tattooer is careful to 
 draw them first only upon the skin, as is commonly done in Poly- 
 nesia. In their dealings with the Europeans the facial tattooing of 
 the New Zealanders has sometimes been exercised in a way that 
 we should little expect. Some missionaries once bought from a 
 chief a certain piece of land, and the tattoo marks upon the face of 
 the seller of the land were copied on to the deed of sale, serving 
 thereby as his signature to the contract. 
 
 But this ingenious form of tattooing does not prevent the New 
 Zealander — after the fashion of the Melanesian — from anointing 
 his face and his body with a pomade of red ochre ; and, as this 
 practice is not forbidden to women, they follow it more largely 
 than the men, who often abstain from putting it upon their face 
 for fear of disfiguring the tattoo marks. 
 
 In all the other Polynesian archipelagoes, tattooing by means 
 of holes pricked was, or is still, the only one held in honour. The 
 lowest classes of people and the children were alone exempted. 
 Iklen and women practised it, especially the men. Women did not 
 often tattoo their faces ; but even amongst these creatures coquetry 
 had its sway, for they would cover their thighs and their haunclies 
 with most wonderful drawings, which they would gladly show, 
 and would do so with a certain amount of ostentation. In all 
 these islands the tattooing was coloured, generally black, some- 
 
 Q 
 
82 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 times in blue. But the habit, which was common even as far as 
 Easter island, began to disappear at the time of Kotzebue's travels. 
 At this time the people of the Navigator islands confined them- 
 selves to painting themselves in blue, from their hips down to their 
 knees, thus making for themselves a sort of trousers. But still 
 we may observe that in Polynesia the practice of tattooing was not 
 so universal as to have been very general. It was unknown, for 
 instance, in the island of Eapa, and in Laivavai, an island belong- 
 ing to the Pomotou archipelago, where the particular customs, the 
 peculiar monuments (similar to the statues seen in Easter island) 
 would seem to argue in favour of the American origin of the 
 Polynesians, or at least of a portion of them. 
 
 Tattooing is not much practised in America ; but we find it in 
 South America, among the Charruas, among several tribes of the 
 Grand Chaco, among some small tribes of the Guaranis, and among 
 the most northern Pampas. Contrary to the habits of the Poly- 
 nesian islanders, tattooing amongst these last-mentioned people 
 is the appanage of the women ; but it shows itself only in a 
 few lines drawn upon the face, and it is used ordinarily as the 
 mark of nubility. 
 
 The Eed Skins of North America, so clever in drawing totems 
 and hieroglyphics, do not tattoo themselves, or do so but rarely; 
 and going farther still northward we do not find the practice to 
 become general until we come to the Esquimaux. And even with 
 them, as we learn from Koss, from Parry, and Beechey, the habit 
 is left to the women, and with them it is seen only in a few lines- 
 drawn over the face ; this is natural enough, for the Esquimaux are 
 people who are well clothed. But everywhere Parry has seen women 
 tattooed upon the face, upon the arms, the hands, the thighs, and 
 sometimes upon the breasts. Eor tattooing, the Esquimaux have 
 a special process of their own. They first draw upon the skin the 
 figure they wish to imprint, then following these lines they pass 
 through and under the skin a needle with a thread blackened with 
 smoke and with oil. 
 
 In South America the custom of painting the body is more 
 common than that of tattooing. The Fuegians, who are still 
 
UNIVBRSIT 
 
 Chap. VI.] CLOTHING. '^^S^^^'FtHl'S^^ 
 
 so little removed from the animal life, paint white, black, and red 
 images over their bodies and over their faces. The Patagonians 
 have the same custom. At Ealsopiierto, in the Peruvian Andes, 
 the men and women stain their faces and different parts of their 
 body with a purple rouge. On the banks of the Orinoco, when it 
 is wished to give an idea of a man's extreme poverty, it is said of 
 him "that he has not the means to paint the half of his body." 
 Both sexes have a feeling of shame if they are seen unpainted. 
 Painting with them serves as a sort of clothing ; they have therefore 
 some sort of modesty. 
 
 In Africa as in America tattooing gives way to painting, which 
 sometimes is a sign of extreme savagery, and sometimes shows a step 
 made towards civilisation. It is only amongst the Niam-Niams of 
 Central Africa that tattooing is habitual. In this country it 
 consists of four little squares, filled with punctured holes, im- 
 printed on the forehead, on the temples, and on the cheeks ; they 
 add a sort of X drawn upon the chest, and sometimes various 
 linear drawings are marked upon the arms. This tattooing is not 
 merely ornamental; it serves a social purpose, indicating the tribe of 
 which it acts as the coat-of-arms, and the totem. Eemains of aesthetic 
 tattooing still exist in certain districts of Senegambia, where the 
 women endeavour to make their lips and their gums appear blue by 
 pricking them with thorns, or with sharp iron points, touched with 
 indigo; but upon the whole, as an article of clothing, in Africa 
 tattooing plays only a secondary part. 
 
 If the people in Africa do not tattoo themselves much, they 
 are very fond on the other hand of painting themselves. The 
 favourite toilet of the Hottentot beauty is to anoint her body 
 with grease and then to sprinkle over herself the dust of red 
 ochre. Sometimes she will vary the colour, using a green 
 powder upon her head and upon her neck. Among the Kafirs, 
 who are neighbours to the Hottentots, the men also cover their 
 body with grease, and then sprinkle over themselves a mineral 
 powder. Farther northward, in Central Africa, on the banks of the 
 Niger, near lake Tchad, in Soudan, we find a change, perhaps of 
 Arabian origin, in the aesthetic ideas ; the taste for red, so widely 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 spread everywhere all over the world, gives way to a love for blue, 
 or sometimes will be joined with it. Xear to lake Tchad Denhara 
 and Clapperton saw a sultan whose beard was stained with a most 
 magnificent azure blue. The women in Saccatoo stain their 
 plaited hair with a blue colour, at the same time they paint their 
 teeth, their hands, their feet, and their nails red. The Nyffe 
 women look like an artist's palette, covered with colour of different 
 sorts. They stain their hair and their eyebrows with indigo, their 
 eyelashes are blackened with khol, their lips are coloured yellow, 
 henna reddens their hands and their feet. This medley of colours 
 is considered as the oie j^lus ultra of smartness. The people are 
 passionately fond of bright colours ; the whiteness of their skin, 
 of which Europeans are so proud, with them only excites pity, 
 or sometimes fear. This is one of the thousand facts which show 
 "US that the idea of that which is in itself beautiful exists only 
 in the minds of a few metaphysicians in Europe. 
 
 The ethnical groups in Asia, all more or less civilised, and 
 belonging for the most part to superior races, have in general long 
 since outgrown the phase of tattooing ; but, on the other hand, 
 there are many who have not yet given up painting or staining 
 themselves in a greater or less degree. "We know that in !Malay, 
 in Indo-China, where the Malay-Mongoloids are predominant, the 
 people consider it a point of honour to have their teeth black. A 
 servant of the king of Cochin-China spoke contemptuously of the 
 wife of the English ambassador (in 1821) because "her teeth were 
 as white as those of a dog, and her skin was as rose-coloured as tho 
 flower of the patata." In JJurmah tho idea of what is beautiful 
 is altogether different; there the women try to make themselves- 
 attractive by sprinkling over their face a fine powder from the 
 sandal wood, and in staining red the nails both on their hands and 
 on their feet. 
 
 In all these fashions that we have just mentioned we see 
 always the same desire — to make oneself look well. But we must 
 go into the clerical city of Lassa, the Thibetan Rome, if we wish 
 to see disguise transformed into a means of mortification, into a 
 moral practice. In that holy city, every woman who would be 
 
Chap, vi.] CLOTHING. 85 
 
 held in good repute ought, before she goes out, to smear her face 
 over with a black glutinous varnish; this is not a fashion 
 lately sprung up, for Eubruquis found it in vogue in the year 
 1352. 
 
 Vous etes done bien tendre a la tentation. 
 
 Moliere, "Le Tartuffe," iii. 2. 
 
 If we make this exception, which is altogether of a sacerdotal 
 character, we shall see that everywhere, all over the world, it is 
 with bright colours that man tries to embellish himself; and the 
 colour most preferred, that upon which humankind has generally 
 placed its choice, is red. But there are, of course, exceptions — in 
 Africa, as we have already seen, and also in Persia, and amongst the 
 Arabs in Asia. Perhaps even in these countries the colour red is 
 not altogether displaced, for the old men of Sari, in Persia, at the 
 time of Eraser's travels, used to stain their beards bright red ; but 
 in other countries indigo was mostly used for this purpose ; and in 
 Bagdad the fashionable ladies seemed to be passionately fond of 
 blue. They were not content with painting their lips azure blue, 
 but upon their legs they drew circles and lines of the same colour, 
 round their waist they painted a blue girdle, and round each 
 of their breasts there would be a wreath of flowers painted blue. 
 The same taste is prevalent, or used to be not long since, in 
 Mongolia, where the women used to paint blue and black lines 
 upon their faces. This desire for painting and tattooing was 
 certainly everywhere very general, existing more or less among 
 primitive individuals and primitive people of every race. Our 
 European ancestors, even our historical ancestors, were not free 
 from it. In Thracia the nobles used to distinguish themselves from 
 the vulgar by painting their bodies. If we may believe Claudian, 
 the Gelons on the banks of the Dnieper used to tattoo themselves. 
 The Celts and the Illyrians used to tattoo themselves in black and 
 blue. The Picts and the Britons used to paint their bodies blue, 
 and so did also the Germans. Yegetius tells us that the Eoman 
 soldiers used to tattoo their skin. Pliny tells us that in the early 
 days of Borne the conquerors used to paint their bodies red the day 
 
86 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 they had gained a victory. Even in our own times tattooing 
 still exists to a small extent ; we see a few drawings or some initial 
 letters imprinted upon the arms; it is still used in our prisons 
 and in our armies. And the use of paint of different colours is 
 still far from being forgotten ; it plays an important part in the 
 toilet of many women. But the facts which we have just given — 
 and we might give others almost indefinitely — show that the taste 
 for tattooing and for painting exists in a large proportion amongst 
 savage people, and that it is gradually disappearing as civilisation 
 advances. And our next study, that of deformities and mutilations, 
 will also bring us to the same conclusion. 
 
 Deformations and Mutilations. 
 
 In quite the lowest stage of human development, when man is 
 hardly superior to the brute beast, he, like the animal, does not 
 think of changing the shape of his body for the sake of decorating 
 himself, or for any other reason. The Tasmanians were satisfied 
 with painting themselves, and the Fuegians continue to do so still. 
 But the Australians pull out one and sometimes two of their incisor 
 teeth from the upper jaw. Many of them pierce the septum 
 nasal for the purpose of introducing a bony stick. This custom is 
 common enough throughout all Melanesia ; and specially with the 
 Papuans, where this nasal ornament, called the ztigau^ is generally 
 cut out of a shell, in the shape of a cylinder about six inches long, 
 and it is often ornamented with red circular lines. The Papuans 
 of both sexes make use of this, and they generally pierce holes in 
 their ears large enough to admit of similar kinds of instruments. 
 These auricular perforations are used for various purposes ; it is 
 not uncommon to see the Papuan put his cigar into the hole he has 
 thus bored in his ear. 
 
 In ethnography we are often surprised to find the same usages 
 among people who are very dissimilar in race and in language, 
 inhabiting different countries, and between whom we cannot 
 even suppose any sort of relationship. And this fact is doubly 
 
Chap, yi.] CLOTHING. 87 
 
 strong in the way that different people have mutilated and deformed 
 themselves for what they have imagined to be aesthetic reasons. 
 Ear ornaments, as we know, are used nearly all over the world, not 
 excepting Europe of the nineteenth century ; the few exceptions 
 to this general custom are quickly counted. Putting aside the 
 Tasmanians and the Fuegians, for the reason above mentioned, the 
 only people who have not adopted it are the inhabitants of some 
 thinly-peopled islands, amongst which, according to Cook, we may 
 mention the Sandwich islands. Though the custom of piercing 
 that portion of the nose which divides the two nostrils for the 
 purpose of attaching some ornament is less common, it is still 
 very frequently practised. We see it in the Melanesian islands, 
 from Australia to ]N'ew Caledonia. We find it in Nepaul in Hin- 
 dostan, where large rings are substituted for the Papuan -ztigau. 
 On the banks of the Niger the Cumbri pass through the 
 nasal septum a long piece of blue glass. The aborigines of Chili 
 have the same custom. In i^orth America the Natchez wear rings 
 of bone in the nose. And the Americans on the banks of Behring's 
 straits put into their nose pieces of string, of iron, of copper, and 
 of amber. 
 
 The love for aesthetic beauty has also prompted many 
 people to disfigure their lips. We know that the Botocudos of 
 Brazil have made themselves famous because of this peculiar 
 custom. According to Thevet they slit the lower lip, parallel with 
 the mouth, and into the hole they put a disk of stone or of wood k 
 as thick as a man's finger, and as wide as a double ducat. The 
 same observer tells us that they will sometimes take away this 
 ^' botoque," and amuse themselves by putting their tongue in and 
 out of their second mouth. This habit, inconvenient and ugly as it 
 appears to our notions, was not peculiar to the Botocudos. We , 
 find it amongst many tribes in South America, notably amongst 
 the large race of the Guaranis. It seems to us Europeans that the 
 idea of so horribly deforming oneself could only arise in the brain 
 of a madman, but the practice of the botoque is found in 
 races very widely different from each other. It is common all ' 
 along the north-western shore of North America, from Behring's 
 
88 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book iL 
 
 straits to the banks of the Mackenzie river. Over the whole of 
 this vast region parents are careful to perforate the lower lip of 
 their children, then to put into the hole thus made, which at first 
 is quite small, a piece of iron or of copper wire, which is soon 
 replaced by a bit of wood or of bone, and this too is constantly- 
 exchanged for a piece of larger size. The labial orifice therefore 
 grows larger and larger until it sometimes makes almost a second 
 mouth, into which they introduce a disk as large as the hole will 
 conveniently allow. 
 
 We may be quite sure that the aborigines of Sitka island, or of 
 the neighbouring regions, have never held intercourse with the 
 negroes of Central Africa ; but, nevertheless, these latter people have 
 adopted a custom similar to that which we have just described. 
 We are told by many travellers that the labial ornament is worn, 
 especially by women, from the banks of the Niger as far as the 
 basin of the Upper Nile. In Kouka the women put into the lower 
 lip a large silver nail, so long that to make way for it they are 
 obliged to extract the two eye-teeth in their lower jaw. And 
 the inhabitants of the town of Follindochie insert into each lip a 
 piece of thin glass in the shape of a crescent. W. Baker tells us 
 that on the Upper Nile also, the women of the tribe of Latoukas 
 would dispute amongst themselves for pieces of a broken thermo- 
 meter with which to adorn their lower lip. According to Schwein- 
 furth, the same custom exists near to Bahr-el-Gliazel. There the 
 women generally, but also sometimes the men, will insert into 
 their upper or their lower lip either a nail or a disk of copper. 
 The women of the Mittou tribe seem to try to give themselves a 
 muzzle : they stretch their lower lip by means of a botoque, and 
 then endeavour to prolong their upper lip symmetrically with it. 
 We can only make guesses at the origin of this singular custom. 
 It may be that the people wished to resemble certain animals ; for 
 the primitive man has never professed for animals, especially for 
 those endowed with strength and ferocity, the same disdain which 
 we see everywhere in Europe amongst the partisans of the human 
 kingdom. Livingstone tells us that the negroes on the banks of 
 the Zambesi kill an elephant with marks of respect, calling him 
 
Chap, vl] CLOTHING. 89 
 
 "grand chief " as they do so. Many of the tribes in Southern 
 Africa pretend to have as their ancestor either a crocodile or a lion. 
 According to the Kirghiz, their race — that is the Mongolian race 
 — offers the most finished type of human beauty, that which is 
 absolutely beautiful, because the bony structure of their face 
 resembles that of a horse — the greatest masterpiece in all creation. 
 
 We are also at a loss for any reason to ascribe to the very 
 common custom of disfiguring the cranium. This habit, more or 
 less practised even still in different localities in Europe, notably in 
 the neighbourhood of Toulouse, was, as we know, the rule with 
 the ancient Aymaras in Peru, whose cranium was hardly like that of 
 other human beings. It was even, it would seem, a distinction 
 reserved only to the chiefs. We find also the same custom was 
 common in North America with the Chinuks, the Chactas, the 
 Natchez, etc., who for nearly a month, by means of a very simple 
 instrument made of two laths of wood and some string, used to 
 subject the cranium of the newborn child to a gradual and 
 constant pressure. 
 
 A similar custom was also practised at Tahiti, and in many of 
 the Polynesian islands ; and again, we see it in Sumatra and else- 
 where. Taking everything into consideration, insane as these 
 practices may appear to us, they nevertheless afford some mark of 
 superiority, for they ought to be considered as one of the many 
 attempts that man has made to change his nature and his person^ 
 according to his caprice or his want at the moment. It is by 
 making these bold endeavours that he differs from and raises 
 himself above the level of other mammalia. 
 
 We will briefly mention a few other kinds of mutilation that 
 we find practised amongst different people. To describe them 
 would lead us too far into details, and it is not our object to write 
 a minute treatise on ethnography. Among these deformations, 
 there are some that would seem to have sprung from a strange 
 notion of aesthetic feelings, such for instance as the atrophy of the 
 foot with the Chinese women — though the Chinese appear to 
 attach some erotic signification to the custom. But amorous 
 desires and an idea of the beautiful will often be found 
 
90 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book n. 
 
 hand-in-hand together. Other mutilations, such as circumcision, 
 infibulation, etc., may at first have arisen from an idea of aesthetic 
 sentiment, and then religious notions intervened and gained the 
 upper hand. It has been thought sometimes that these last-named 
 mutilations were adopted from hygienic reasons; but hygienic 
 notions do not readily enter into the brain either of the barbarian 
 or the savage. However this may be, circumcision is found in 
 many and in very different countries. Total circumcision is the 
 law both with the white and black Mussulmans in Asia and Africa ; 
 it is customary also with the Kafirs and with the Hovas in 
 Madagascar. Circumcision by simple cutting, without loss of 
 substance, is practised amongst all the Melanesians, Australians, 
 Papuans, New Caledonians, New Hebrideans, etc., and over the 
 greater part of the Polynesian archipelago, as far as Easter island. 
 According to Moerenhout, in Polynesia this operation was reserved 
 for the chiefs, and was performed ceremoniously, as is the practice 
 in the Mussulman country. We may mention the semi-castration 
 in some Hottentot tribes, and then we will close this enumeration, 
 already long enough, by remarking once more that the taste for 
 mutilation and deformation lessens gradually in proportion as 
 man becomes more and more civilised. The love of jewellery, 
 of clothing with bright colours, of artistic head-dresses, seems to 
 be the last phase of evolution in the toilet ; and on these points we 
 have now to say a few words. 
 
 III. 
 
 Jewelle7'y, ClotJnng, and Head-dressing. 
 
 In saying that the taste for jewellery and bright-coloured clothing 
 is the last stage in man's love for attirement, we do not at all mean 
 that this phase is necessarily built upon the others and that it 
 commences only when the others cease to exist. The most extreme 
 state of savagery will not exclude any kind of ornament, but the 
 practice of mutilation and of coatings of paint disappears much 
 earlier than the love for jewellery. It is true enough that all these 
 customs may exist at the same time — indeed we see that they do 
 coexist — for certain mutilations have been invented for no other 
 
Chap, yi.] CLOTHING. 91 
 
 purpose than affording a means of increasing the nnmher of ways of 
 wearing jewellery : for instance, the boring of the ears, the nose, the 
 lips, and even the cheeks. The Esquimaux who live on the side of 
 the Mackenzie river make a hole in their cheeks to put in a sort of 
 stone button — " a cheek-button," as they call it. But these artificial 
 means of adorning oneself do not at all exclude the more natural 
 means. Everywhere, since the age of cut stone, man has found 
 pleasure in wearing necklaces and bracelets, and in putting similar 
 ornaments around his arms and legs. From the lowest to the 
 most refined phases in civilisation the same taste exists : the 
 matter employed and the workmanship only vary. At first man 
 was content with shells, animals' teeth, bony fragments worked in 
 various forms, coloured and wrought stones, pierced and then joined 
 together by means of a thread. As soon as metals were known, we 
 find him decorating himself with copper, gold, silver, brass, bronze, 
 ^nd iron. This jewellery, coarse as it may now appear to the eye of 
 the civilised man, still continues to delight the savage. Men and 
 women wear it in emulation of each other ; the men are often more 
 richly adorned than the women. Hutton reckons up the ornaments 
 worn by the king of the Ashantees : a necklace of gold and stones 
 that in his country were considered precious ; on his shoulder were 
 sheaths of gold containing the saphis or talismans ; on the fingers 
 were a profusion of gold rings, and gold castanets were on the little 
 finger and on the thumb ; around his wrists, his knees, and his 
 ankles, were rings and bracelets. In countries where precious 
 metals are unknown the people make use of others. . The 
 Denka and the Bongo women on the Upper Nile overload 
 their neck, and arms, and legs, with masses of iron, of which the 
 total weight will sometimes be as much as fifty pounds. This 
 heavy jewellery naturally does not exclude ornaments of less value, 
 such as feathers, flowers, leaves, and bright-coloured berries. For 
 we find this taste common everywhere all over the world ; the poor 
 Tasmanian women, the Yeddah women in Ceylon, wear, or used to 
 wear, necklaces made of shells, and to put flowers in their hair. 
 Like our great ladies in Europe, women amongst the most primitive 
 savages have also a desire for some ornamental form of head-dress. 
 
92 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 This is a matter of much import with many people, and es- 
 pecially amongst those whose hair is woolly ; for the fleece will 
 readily adapt itself to the most ingenious forms of construction. 
 The Fiji women sometimes wear head-dresses that measure as 
 much as five feet in circumference. And in Africa many travellers 
 have been astonished at the wonderful variety of head-dresses, both 
 masculine and feminine. At Jenneh, in the valley of the Niger — a 
 country relatively civilised — the plaited hair of the women looks 
 like the helmet of a dragoon soldier. And to set off the complicated 
 architecture of these head-dresses, the people will put slabs and 
 diadems on to their heads, and round them twist the diff'erent 
 plaitings of their hair. Formerly in Abyssinia the head-dresses of 
 the men used to serve as a means for registering their acts of valour. 
 Each enem}' killed or taken prisoner gave the right to wear a tress ; 
 so that when a man had been ten times victorious he might then 
 dress his hair as he pleased. Not only are these people careful to 
 adorn their heads, but everything which is capable of receiving 
 adornment. The New Caledonians, whose only article of clothing 
 is a belt, etc., round the loins, will dress their belt as carefullj^ as 
 they would dress their hair. In other places people will ornament 
 their teeth. For instance, in the skull of a Dyak, six incisor teeth 
 had been carefully bored, and into them was inserted brass wire, 
 at the end of which there was a little ball. The aborigines of 
 India, whom Marco Polo saw, used to cover their teeth with a 
 case of gold. 
 
 As our social life becomes more refined, our taste for ornament 
 changes ; our jewellery gets to bo smaller in size and more artistic, 
 the quality is also rarer and more precious. 
 
 But it is more especially by his clothing that man has always 
 tried to adorn himself. The Polynesians knew how to stain 
 red and yellow the stuffs that they got from the mulberry tree. 
 The natives of Brazil plaited for themselves real clothes from the 
 parrot's feathers. In Maouna, in the Navigator islands, people 
 obtained the same result by intertwining the leaves of the palm 
 trees of different colours. As a general rule the love of bright 
 colours is shown in articles of clothing, in proportion as the people 
 are in a wild or barbarous state. We all know the importance 
 
Chap, vi.] CLOTHING. 93 
 
 that was given to purple in the days of classical antiquity. Homer 
 clothes Ulysses with a double woollen cloak stained with purple. 
 Martial estimates at ten thousand sesterces the price that in Eome 
 would be paid for a cloak of Tyrian purple. Pliny reckons that a 
 pound weight of the best wool dyed with Tyrian purple was worth 
 B. thousand denarii. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Evolution of Taste in Ornament. 
 
 Some few fundamental notions may be gained from the facts 
 which we have just mentioned. 
 
 The taste for ornamentation seems to be common to all members 
 of humanity. 
 
 We see it first in the custom of man covering himself all over 
 Avith paint, and the colour red is the one generally preferred. We 
 i:ire therefore obliged to admit that primitive man is not altogether 
 inept in distinguishing the various shades. It is therefore difficult 
 for us to believe, as H. Magnus would have us do, that the authors 
 of the Yedas were deprived of the chromatic sense and capable only 
 of distinguishing light from darkness. According to this hypo- 
 thesis we should have to admit that the ancient Aryans, who were 
 both shepherds and poets, were, as regards their sense of colour, 
 inferior to the besotted Fuegians and Tasmanians. 
 
 In another phase of civilisation, a little less degraded, but still 
 very savage, to the coatings of paint we may add the mutilations 
 and deformations, and to both of these we may again add the wearing 
 of jewellery. This seems to have been customary from the very 
 earliest times. 
 
 By degrees the deformations and mutilations become less serious 
 and less hideous-looking ; the jewellery becomes lighter and more 
 artistic. The taste for ornamentation is shown mainly upon the 
 clothing, which is ever brighter in colour in proportion as man 
 is less far removed from the state of barbarism. In Madagascar 
 the officers bedizen themselves with embroidery to an unlimited 
 and boundless extent. 
 
 In the primitive phases of human development the desire for 
 •ornamentation ia common to both sexes ; and often, as in the Azore 
 
94 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 islands, the men are decorated more richly than the women. 
 This is also the case in the basin of the Upper l^He, and among 
 certain tribes in North America, where the women spend a great 
 part of their time in painting their husbands. In Yucatan, the 
 men used always to carry about with them looking-glasses of polished 
 pyrite, as also did the Mexicans. Then as a race grows more 
 intelligent and less sensitive, the desire for ornamentation becomes 
 the taste of the woman. In this respect the women now alive 
 in Europe are nearer to the barbarous times than the men — the 
 dressing of their hair, over which they take so much pains, their 
 taste for bright colours, the paint which many women still continue 
 to use, are all relics of a savage past epoch ; they are small details 
 which have not yet become extinct. The boring of the ears, even, 
 is connected with one of the rudimentary phases of civilisation 
 — ^with that of mutilation. 
 
 The more man progresses, more his reasoning power develops, 
 more his intelligence predominates in his mental life, and more also 
 he gives up wearing bright colours and ornaments of every sort. 
 Perhaps, in looking at the dull costume of the European citizen of 
 the present time, some learned man in a future age may conclude, 
 after the example of H. Magnus, that we could not distinguish 
 the difference in shades of colours. 
 
 Even nowadays the remnants of ancient barbarism are seen in 
 certain costumes which we are scarcely allowed to change — in the dress 
 of official functionaries, judges, priests, and especially in military 
 uniforms. The red coat of the English soldier, the dyed trousers of 
 the French soldier, the epaulets, and all the trappings of the military 
 costume are the last manifestation of the sesthetic savage. We 
 shall eventually give them up as we have given up boring holes 
 in our noses, and depressing our craniums. The march of civi- 
 lisation is assuredly both slow and halting. Not until after much 
 trouble does the human kind free himself from the instincts of 
 inferior creatures. Poor worms that we are ; our existence is but 
 for one day ! In the eyes of the individual, almost as soon closed 
 as they are opened, everything would seem to be fixed and un- 
 changeable if the annals of humanity were not opened and laid 
 out before us to show with unmistakable plainness that progress is 
 not altogether a dream. 
 
Chap. a'ilJ ON THE AKTS IN GENERAL. 95- 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 ON THE ARTS IN GENERAL. 
 
 Man has undoubtedly talked nonsense on every subject ; but no 
 subject has been the cause of so many of his wanderings as that 
 Avhicli we call aesthetics — and in this respect a special privilege is 
 given to music. Every time that an author opens this chapter, he 
 runs a very considerable risk of losing his head ; sometimes, indeed, 
 he affects to do so — it is thought to be a sign of good taste. 
 
 We should assuredly be more moderate and more rational, if we 
 formed for ourselves a true notion of the origin and the design of 
 what we call the fine arts ; and on this head biology may serve 
 as a guide to sociology. 
 
 In man, and even in every conscient animal, a strong impression 
 will always be inclined to spread itself all through the nervous 
 system. When the impression makes itself felt in a man who is 
 very intelligent, in whom the field of a conscient life is very wide, 
 the nervous shock is transformed first into sentiments, into ideas, 
 and then, if his strength is not exhausted, into a reflex power of 
 action. In the animal, in the child, in primitive man, in woman, 
 this strong impression will oftenest directly show itself under 
 various forms, according as the impression has made itself felt in 
 this or in that organ. 
 
 Ordinarily, in the creature who, intellectually, is but slightly 
 developed, this excess of nervous shock shows itself mainly in 
 muscular contractions, in movement of the limbs, in gestures, or in 
 cries, which are the gestures of the larynx. And these phenomena 
 may, to a certain extent, be reversed. If any given impression 
 provokes ordinarily such a form of gesture, such a movement, or 
 such a cry, it will often be sufficient to perform, or to see performed, 
 this gesture, to utter, or to hear this cry, in order to feel more or 
 less the impression to which they correspond. Man may therefore 
 reproduce, or excite at will, in the cells of his own consciousness; 
 
96 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 or in those of others of his fellow-creatures, a certain number of 
 impressions, or of sentiments. 
 
 This is the whole foundation of cesthetics. From the cry we get 
 song and music. Gesture, performed more or less in cadence, 
 becomes a dance. 
 
 As every strong impression is surrounded with a crowd of 
 images and mental visions, man, in reproducing or in trying to 
 reproduce these images, will invent drawing, painting, sculpture, in 
 a word, the graphic and the plastic arts. 
 
 Naturally, too, the degree of perfection or of imperfection in 
 these arts will be closely connected with the degree of development 
 in the man who shall put them into execution — with his sort of 
 life, his tastes, his passions, and the kind of civilisation of his tribe 
 or of his race. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DANCING. 
 
 An art becomes more dignified as it becomes more intellectual. The 
 art of dancing is therefore, surely, of all the arts the most inferior 
 and the most savage. "We find it even among certain animals. 
 The males of certain birds go through real dancing evolutions 
 before their females, in order to charm them and captivate them. 
 The measured salutations of the male turtle-dove and also of the 
 male pigeon, when the amorous passion seizes them, are in fact 
 <5horegraphical exercises. 
 
 In the human species the practice of dancing is almost universal. 
 Among certain people dancing mixes itself up with everything, and 
 discloses characters of very various kinds. The three principal 
 categories are — the hunting dance, the war dance, and the dance 
 of love. 
 
 The lowest of all is the hunt dance, for this ordinarily reduces 
 itself to a coarse imitation of the movements and the manners of 
 
Chap, viil] DANCING. 97 
 
 the animals which are habitual game of the people of the tribe. 
 It was after this fashion that the poor Tasmanians and Australians 
 tried to imitate the movements of the kangaroo and of the emu ; 
 for the hunting and the taking of these animals was with the 
 negroes of Tasmania and of Australia the main affair and the great 
 joy of their life. And also, for the same reason, the dance of the 
 Kamtschadales is copied from the awkward movements of the 
 bear. The Eed Skins performed their buffalo dance before a hunting 
 expedition, always wearing the skins of the animal. Many other 
 instances of the same kind might be given. 
 
 And war, too, being only another kind of hunting, in which man 
 seeks his game in man — war also had its dance, which was held both 
 before and after an expedition. The war dance is very common, 
 from the dance of the New Caledonians, which is accompanied 
 with anthropophagical songs, down to the Pyrrhic dance. 
 
 The more a people are savage, the more the war dance is 
 characteristic, and is oftener practised. For instance, the New 
 Caledonians, before going upon an expedition, would, while they 
 were dancing, hold the following dialogue with their chiefs : 
 "Shall we attack our enemies ]" "Yes." "Are they strong?" 
 "No." "Are they brave?" "No." "Shall we kill them?" 
 " Yes." " Shall we eat them ?" " Yes."* 
 
 Like the hunt dance, this war dance is performed only by the 
 men. The war dance of the New Zealanders has always made a 
 strong impression upon European travellers. In this country the 
 dancers used to brandish their lances and their darts, and would 
 strike at an imaginary enemy with their patou-patou, singing the 
 while some wild song as an accompaniment ; for the primitive danc'e 
 was rarely performed without song or without music. We may 
 imagine that an exercise such as this could hardly be other than 
 masculine. And it was the same too in the various dances of the 
 Red Skins. These people looked upon their dances as serious 
 occupations, characterising all the incidents in their lives : a treaty, 
 a reception of foreigners, a war, a birth, a death, a harvest, a 
 religious ceremony, etc. 
 
 * De Rochas' " Nouvelle Cal^donie." 
 
 H 
 
93 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 But as soon as women begin to dance, either "before men or with 
 them, the dance has quite another character ; it is then more or less 
 connected with ideas of an amorous nature, and often becomes 
 indecent. It is generally the measured motions of the haunches or 
 of the basin of the woman that give to the dance an erotic character. 
 At Tongatabou, in the Sandwich islands, these dances, always 
 performed by women, were a pleasure much enjoyed by the people. 
 We find similar kind of dances everywhere, specially at Madagascar. 
 In India the lustful dance became a religious art. Each pagoda 
 had its bayadeers, brought up to their profession from their 
 infancy, by means of a methodical and constant training, and these 
 women were hired out at high prices to rich men, and they thus 
 gained considerable sums of money. Everyone has heard of the 
 almes in Egypt; they were a sort of unprofessional dancing women. 
 All over negro Africa the people dance wildly. It is an 
 amusement of which both the sexes are passionately fond. And 
 the dances are often very indecent, but the negroes seem to take 
 special delight in the very quick movements, which are always 
 performed in time. " As soon as they hear the sound of the tom- 
 tom," Du Chaillu says, " they lose all hold over themselves." A 
 real fit of dancing fury comes over them, and for awhile they forget 
 all their public and private misfortunes. 
 
 As we might expect, the people least given to dancing are the 
 serious and methodical Chinese. Although in China the people 
 are very fond of scenic representations, the idea of dancing seems 
 to have occurred to no one ; in the eye of a Chinaman dancing is 
 a ridiculous amusement, in which man seriously compromises his 
 dignity. 
 
 In a word, we may say that dancing is to reproduce interesting 
 scenes by preparing different kinds of pictures of animal life ; to 
 move one's body more or less violently, singing at the same time, or 
 following the measure of, a rhythmical air. That is the foundation 
 of real dancing, of dancing such as we see it amongst the primitive 
 nations, or, in our European societies, amongst the men of the 
 people. We have now nothing to say of our opera ballets, or of 
 our drawing-room dances, which are exactly what !Mr. Tylor has 
 called " the relics of past times." 
 
•Chap. IX.] VOCAL MUSIC. 99 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 VOCAL MUSIC. 
 
 As ^vo have observed, the art of dancing is not peculiar to 
 humanity. We may say the same also of music, and to a very 
 much greater degree. 
 
 Certain singing animals remind us in this respect very strongly 
 of primitive man, or of man not yet civilised. The organist of the 
 East Indies {euphonia musica) can perform the seven notes in the^^ 
 scale. The chaffinch goes farther still ; he sings real songs, some 
 of which he has invented, others have been taught to him by 
 man. One of his songs has as many as five long strophes ; it is 
 much more complicated than many of the songs of the savages, 
 which never run to any length. At the time of Cook's second 
 voyage, the women of Middleburg island, in the Fiji archipelago, 
 could only sing from la to mi. But the song, both of birds and of 
 savages, moves only at short intervals, and they do not adapt them- 
 selves easily either to measure or to rhythm. We may observe also 
 that the song of the bird is quite as artistic as that of the man, for 
 he perfects himself by practice, and also he gradually improves with 
 the progress of time. 
 
 In large monkeys also we find both vocal and instrumental 
 music in a rudimentary state. Darwin has seen a gibbon who knew 
 how to modulate an octave ; and Savage relates that the black 
 chimpanzees sometimes come together in twenties or in fifties, to 
 hold a concert by beating a hollow and sonorous piece of timber 
 with small sticks which they hold in their hands. It is perhaps 
 only a noise that they make ; but it was only by slow degrees that 
 music has grown to be other than noise ; and all over the earth the 
 drum seems to have been the first instrument of music known to 
 man. 
 
 Like dancing, music is only the art of expressing, or of awaken- 
 ing our mental feelings, which are more or less coarse, more or less 
 refined, sensitive, or affective. But it is an art very differently 
 expressive from that of dancing, for it imitates or reproduces the 
 infinitely various modulations of man's cry and of his voice. 
 
 H 2 
 
 r 
 
100 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book w. 
 
 Every strong impression in man, and esj^ecially in primitive man, 
 is shown by reflex movements, principally by the contraction of the 
 muscles of the larynx ; and from this results either the utterance of 
 cries, as with animals, or the special variations of the sound of the 
 voice. These larynxated manifestations of the affective life are 
 fatal, and are so closely bound up with the psychical phenomena, 
 that every man can understand what they mean, and also how 
 certain vital modulations excite the same feelings, more or less, in 
 everyone. In making music rest upon the animal cry of passion, 
 Diderot expressed an idea both very profound and very true. 
 
 In truth, music has the same origin as speech, and at first one was 
 taken for the other. Then as language by degrees became more 
 perfect, and words were gradually created, the spoken language 
 became divided and separated from the language which was sung ; 
 this latter was mainly used for the expression of some few senti- 
 ments, very intense and very narrow in their bearing. 
 
 Among all primitive people vocal music hardly differs from a 
 monotonous recitative in a minor key. Man is aware of an 
 agreeable impression in perceiving a musical sound, that is, a sound 
 which causes one or more of the terminal fibres of the acoustic 
 nerve to vibrate thoroughly and without confusion. 
 
 The roaring sound of the waves, on the other hand, is bounding 
 and irregular. One hears only the noise. But as regards music, the 
 ear of the savage is not exacting. When he has once perceived the 
 sound of a regular note, the man whose intelligence is but slightly 
 developed is quite struck by it, and he feels a great pleasure in 
 repeating it over indefinitely, without gradation of sound, and with 
 little or no notion of the half tones. Certain races, very far 
 developed, the Chinese for instance, are in regard to music very 
 poorly endowed. The Chinese scale in music has only five notes, 
 and no half tones ; whilst the ancient treatises on Sanscrit literature 
 divide the scale into seven intervals, with twenty-two intervals of 
 lesser dimensions. Later, the Greeks invented the diatonic system, 
 distributing the succession of sounds into a series of intervals- 
 called tones and half tones : hence arose our modern music. 
 
 But the Grecian music was only an accentuated melopea, mark. 
 
Chap. IX.] VOCAL MUSIC. 101 
 
 ing and exaggerating the intonations of the voice. Often in 
 primitive music song is accompanied with movements and with 
 gestures ; music then is hardly different from dancing. The 
 savages seen by Cook on the western and northern slopes of North 
 America had not got heyond this ; they accompanied their songs . 
 with regular movements of their hands, and keeping time by 
 striking their paddles against the planks of their canoes, and 
 performing a thousand other expressive gestures. The women 
 of Tongatabou used to sing and keep time with their music by 
 making a cracking noise with their fingers. Everywhere the 
 primitive song was only a recitative, sometimes interrupted by 
 voices imitating the cry of certain animals. With the Bongos 
 of Central Africa their song is still only a hurried sound of broken 
 words, imitating, it would seem, the barking of a dog or the lowing 
 of a cow. 
 
 If the primitive song is only a recitative, we may suppose that 
 it was intended as an accompaniment, to set off the narration of 
 some acts of warfare, of a love story, or sometimes of a mythological 
 legend. In Tahiti and in New Zealand the people used to sing, 
 to airs that were more or less monotonous, of the deeds of valour of 
 their ancestors, of the exploits of their gods and of their heroes, of 
 the creation of the Polynesian universe. That was one of the 
 favourite pleasures of the voluptuous Areois, of whom we have 
 already spoken. 
 
 As it is natural to suppose, vocal music seems to be the more 
 primitive. It is that which still makes the most impression upon 
 ■civilised man, for it must have sprung quite naturally from our 
 feelings, from our emotions, from the human passions ; and it 
 shows that we possess a rich mental foundation which lies con- 
 cealed, but which we nevertheless inherit. There are races who 
 feel a considerable enjoyment in vocal music, and who in that way 
 have received certain endowments — we may take the Esquimaux as 
 an example — to whom, if we except the drum, which is not noted 
 for the sweetness of its sound, every other instrument of music is 
 altogether unknown. 
 
 The taste for music, especially for song, exists everywhere, and 
 
102 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book u, 
 
 often among races also but very slightly advanced. The Esquimaux 
 of North America, the Polynesians, the Indo-Chinese, the Malays, 
 the Hovas of Madagascar, and the aborigines of South America 
 — these latter, according to D'Orbigny, are born musicians — they 
 all gladly sing their melodies, which are often dispiriting and sad. 
 On the other hand, there are superior races, such as the grave 
 Tuarick, the prudent and industrious Chinaman, who sing but 
 little and seem to value slightly the effects of music. Music will 
 please the sensual and impressionable races, whatever may be their 
 other moral or intellectual acquirements. If we bear in mind the 
 lessons taught us by ethnographical and social experience we may 
 even assert that, without being absolutely incompatible with the 
 force of our intelligence, and the rectitude of our understanding, 
 the artistic aptitude, and especially that of music, wiU rarely be 
 found to accompany them. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. 
 
 "We have seen that vocal music has proceeded from a cry ; in the- 
 same way instrumental music has proceeded from noise. It is not 
 difficult to retrace the reason. 
 
 Instrumental music was first a chimpanzee music. Man 
 felt a sort of pleasure in hearing certain noises; he therefore 
 studied to reproduce them. As the chimpanzees used to have 
 concerts amongst themselves by striking the hollow branches of 
 the trees, so primitive man, rather more intelligent, invented the 
 drum, the first of all instruments, but of which the construction 
 was then far less perfect than it has since become. The drum was 
 at first either a cylinder made of bamboo and closed at one end by 
 a knot and left open at the other, or it was the trunk of a tree 
 hollowed out, the aperture always remaining open laterally. Man 
 played upon the first by knocking the closed end against the 
 ground, and the other he used to beat with sticks. These two- 
 
Chap. X.] INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. 103 
 
 kinds of drums were still niiicli in use in Tongatabou at the time 
 of Cook's voyages. With a little more inventive effort, to this 
 primitive drum were added one or two diaphragms of skin. Hence 
 we get the tom-tom, that we find almost everywhere in the world 
 except among the Tasmanians, the Australians, and perhaps the 
 Fuegians, who possess no musical instrument. The Hottentots, even, 
 have invented or adopted the tom-tom. The Tahitians used to 
 play upon it. All over negro Africa men delight in it ; it is also the 
 favourite instrument of the islanders of New Guinea. Clavigero 
 says that the Mexicans formerly used drums which they sounded 
 as an alarm, and which could be heard a mile distant. Eussian 
 travellers have found the drum in the island of Oumnak, at the 
 nortli:western extremity of America, in the Esquimaux country; 
 and Parry has seen it in Esquimaux regions still farther north- 
 ward. Some other percussion instruments, rather more complicated, 
 probably sprang from the drum ; for instance, the metallic slab 
 placed on the top of the Toltec temples, and which is beaten to 
 invite the people to come to say their prayers. The Chinese gong 
 is also an instrument of the same species. The harmonica, the 
 most musical of all percussion instruments, is only an improvement 
 upon the drum. We find it even in the Marquesas islands, where 
 it is made of slabs of wood of different sizes, and on which the 
 women tap Avith a small hammer of casuarina wood. We find 
 similar instruments in Malay, where the slabs are sometimes made 
 of metal, and in Senegal, where the touchstones are methodically 
 graduated and support the gourds placed there to give a richer 
 and a fuller sound. In Java the slabs are sometimes replaced 
 by two ranges of metallic gongs graduating in size ; in form they 
 are like saucepans overturned, and are supported by pieces of cord 
 intertwined one with the other. The harmonica made of wood 
 is found also in Cambogia. But we should very greatly deceive 
 ourselves if Ave imagined that these similarities supposed a 
 conclusive proof of any intercourse between the different races. 
 In all members of humanity there is a common groundwork, 
 an analogous impressionability, which prompts in us all similar 
 ideas. 
 
104 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 After the drum, which alreadyhad thegreat meritof producingsemi- 
 musical noises, and of serving as an instrument to mark the cadence 
 in all his choregraphical amusements, man then invented wind instru- 
 ments — trumpets, whistles, flutes — at first very rudimentary, and 
 each giving only one note, and afterwards by degrees two, three, 
 and four notes. The Bushmen manufacture for themselves a call 
 whistle out of one of the bones of the leg of the antelope, and for 
 the same purpose the New Zealanders make use of a wooden 
 trumpet, about four feet long, which makes a sort of bellowing 
 noise. But over all Polynesia the people had wind instruments 
 of a somewhat less imperfect kind — coarse flutes pierced with two, 
 or four, or even six lateral holes. Men used to blow into them 
 with their nostrils, and they knew how to produce a few notes of 
 different sounds. They also invented a sort of Pandean flute with 
 six or eight reeds placed beside each other, but without thought as to 
 the length of the reed ; and this same instrument is found also among 
 the Moxos in Central America, but made after a more complicated 
 fashion, and sometimes as much as five or six feet in length. 
 "With these rude implements one can produce melodies of some 
 sort, of a very simple kind ; for the number of sounds that these 
 musical toys can give is extremely limited, and the same notes must 
 necessarily be repeated at very short intervals. 
 
 But with string instruments the field of instrumental music 
 becomes considerably larger, and wo can without much difficulty 
 construct musical implements on a wider and more varied scale. 
 We hardly ever find string instruments among the quite primitive 
 races. They seem to have been unknown to the Polynesians, to 
 the Melanesians, and to the aboriginal Americans. Even the ancient 
 Mexicans, who enjoyed a sort of advanced civilisation, and accord- 
 ing to the chronicler, B. Sahagun, were expert in vocal music, were 
 acquainted only with the drums and gongs that were made with a 
 slab, and a kind of flute. It would seem that string instruments 
 were first invented in Asia, that is, in Indian and Semitic Asia. 
 These ingenious constructions gradually became known farther 
 and farther afield, first in Egypt, where the lyre and a sort of 
 guitar were already in use ; they afterwards came into Europe. 
 
Chap. X.] INSTEUMENTAL MUSIC. 105 
 
 From Egypt and N'ubia the art of manufacturing string instruments 
 spread itself all over the African continent, but with very different 
 •degrees of quickness. The Mandingos make use of a harp with 
 ^s many as sixteen strings. The Niam-Niams, in Central Africa, 
 make little mandolines, correctly constructed, and very similar to the 
 " rababa " of the Nubians. The Bongos in the valley of the Upper 
 l^ile, who are very fond of music after their own fashion, have a 
 monochord harp, similar to the " gubo " of the Zulus, and which is 
 known throughout all the southern part of Africa. The Hottentots 
 have improved, or rather disfigured, this instrument : a small lath 
 taken from the ostrich feather and fixed to one end of the bow 
 nearly touching the catgut string, has made of the Hottentot 
 monochord a reed instrument, producing fluted sounds. That 
 they call the gourah, or gorah. And the same Hottentots make 
 use of a guitar with three strings, but on which they are incapable 
 of playing any kind of tune. In a word, the cord instruments in 
 Africa become more simple in construction the more one travels 
 towards the south. In the centre and in the north-west of Africa a 
 real musical instrument does exist, and the people know more or less 
 how to play airs upon them; but in the extreme south they are 
 content with merely making a noise. 
 
 From a musical point of view there are no people more poorly 
 endowed than the pure Mongolian race. The true Mongolians are 
 not at all a musical people. For instance, the Chinese will often 
 prefer a noise to music. They know the art of music^ because 
 they have made it conform to certain rules ; they have invented a 
 scale, they know how to mark their airs, but their music is very 
 scanty and poor of its kind, and semitones are to them quite un- 
 known. On the other hand, the Mongoloids of Indo-China and 
 the Malay peninsula, a mongrel race of people, descendants doubt- 
 less of a mixture between the Mongolians and the Asiatic black men 
 with smooth hair, are passionately fond of music. At Bankok 
 people devote themselves to it with much eagerness. It is mostly a 
 music of Aryan origin ; the airs played and the instruments have 
 both come from Burmah. 
 
 Like the Siamese, the Malays are a very musical people. They 
 
106 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii, 
 
 have composed melodies that are full of expression, and have shown 
 themselves very clever in manufacturing, with little labour, various 
 kinds of instruments : harmonicas, gongs (graduating according to 
 the exigences of the gamut), cord instruments, etc. A few strings 
 and a banana leaf bent in the form of a shell are sufficient means for 
 them to extemporise a lyre at once, on the spur of the moment 
 (Exposition Universelle de Paris, Colonies Hoilandaises, 1879). 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE TASTE FOR MUSIC GENERALLY. 
 
 Man invents music for himself in nearly every part of the world ^ 
 and it is only natural that this music should be more complicated 
 and more ingenious in proportion as his race is more intellectually 
 advanced. As soon as intelligence exists it serves for every purpose, 
 it vivifies everything ; but the energy of the taste for music would 
 be a very bad criterion by which to appreciate the degree of 
 intelligence in any people, or in any race. Though the inferior 
 races possess only a very rudimentary kind of music, they are much 
 more sensitive to its sound than our European dilettanti are to the- 
 sound of our own music. A whole army of Tahitians would dance 
 and beat time when one of their tunes was being played, and a most 
 lively sense of pleasure might be seen marked on their faces. The 
 Esquimaux women, when they heard Parry's fellow-travellers sing 
 or play any air, would eagerly put their heads forward and push 
 their hair away from their cars so as not to lose a single note. 
 The Hottentots seem to have felt an ecstatic pleasure in hearing the 
 sound of the Jew's harp. The Hovas in Madagascar are madly 
 fond of music, and every Hova of any position has his own troupe 
 of musicians. The Niam-Niams, who are a most voracious people, 
 forget to eat and to drink as soon as they begin to play their music, 
 and they will go on playing it indefinitely. The sound of the tom- 
 tom will almost produce a fit of epilepsy upon the negroes near the 
 
Chap, xil] ON THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC AETS. 107 
 
 Gaboon river. A slieik in Central Africa, when he heard the " Eanz 
 des Yaches " played by a musical box, was so moved that he covered 
 his face Avith his hands and listened in the most still silence. But 
 on the other hand, the Chinese, who are so much superior to all 
 these peoi^le, are insensible to music. 
 
 Among civilised white men, as everywhere else where music is 
 the most perfect, it is most strongly and sincerely felt by the 
 common people, and by a small number of men and women of 
 an artistic, and often of a feminine nature. Eut for the mass of 
 our people music is only a thing of fashion ; it is much more affected 
 than real. The voracious Mam-Niam will forget his dinner to 
 play a tune, but there are very few French bourgeois who would 
 do so. 
 
 We also see that music has everywhere become melodious as soon 
 as it has freed itself from the primitive stage of barbarism. It is 
 that the rhythmical amplification of the cry of passion is the basis 
 and the foundation of music, and in this respect the full bloom of 
 music has only been reached in our later generations. As time 
 goes on, humanity inclines to value the sensitive and even the 
 affective pleasures less highly ; we are beginning to see the 
 melodious phase in music already draw towards its close. We have 
 now music in its old age. For the civilised races the main interest 
 is elsewhere ; the large melodies of Beethoven, of Mozart, of Yerdi, 
 of Bellini, etc., are as the song of the swan. The prevailing fashion, 
 in which there is so much affectation, is music without expression — 
 so called harmonious music. It is the decline ; for melody is to 
 music what imagery is to poetry : it is the very essence of it. In 
 fact, musical art is withering, and it threatens to end as it began — 
 in noise. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIL 
 
 ON THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS. 
 
 In describing the arts we are obliged to isolate them, to range them 
 in a series, according to their value as a means of expression 3 but 
 
108 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 that does not in any way prejudge them according to the order in 
 which they would appear in our social life. In reality the genesis 
 of the different arts has been at one time successive, at another 
 time simultaneous, according to the very dilBferent aptitudes of 
 various races. Their origin has been most often synchronical. 
 As soon as man became sufficiently freed from the animal life to 
 feel a desire to draw out certain mental images, and to give to 
 them an actual existence, he had recourse indiflferently to sounds, 
 to forms, to lines, and to colours ; it was all-important to him that 
 his sentiment or his idea should be visible in the signs which he 
 had chosen. The troglodytes of Perigord practised line drawing 
 and sculpture both at the same time. And the Esquimaux do so 
 now, for they have arrived at about an equal degree of artistic 
 development. The Tasmanian would sing and at the same time 
 he used on the bark of the trees to make rough outline drawings of 
 fish, of quadrupeds, of men, and of women. But the Tasmanian 
 had not commenced the art of sculpture, and the Australian knows 
 only sculpture of a decorative kind. In the Australian section of 
 the last Universal Exhibition one might see an Australian lance, of 
 which the handle was cut and delicately ornamented with lines and 
 arabesques chased in relief. In this respect the Perigord troglodytes 
 were very superior to the Australians of the present day, because 
 they knew how to carve figures of reindeers and of mammoths. But 
 still, to be able to cut in relief ornamental lines, even though the 
 lines are purely geometrical, argues a certain skill in the art of 
 wood-cutting. 
 
 The taste for sculpture and the cleverness in executing it are 
 very unequally divided amongst the various races. The Polynesians, 
 for instance, who are more civilised and more intelligent than the 
 Melanesians, care much less for sculpture and are much less prac- 
 tised in the art. The monstrous gigantesque statues in Easter 
 island, and others like them found in Pitcairn island, in Laivawai, 
 and in many of the islands in the Pomotou archipelago, are the work 
 of the ancestors of the present existing Polynesians. They remind 
 us of statues of the same kind near the lake Titicaca, and must 
 have been erected by emigrants from Peru, at a time when the 
 
Chap. XII.] ON THE GKAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS. 109 
 
 Peruvian civilisation was still in swaddling clothes. The Poly- 
 nesians themselves are certainly incapable of performing work of 
 the same kind ; they cannot get beyond cutting and carving much 
 smaller objects, and even in doing these they are awkward enough, 
 excepting perhaps in 'New Zealand. The Tahitians, for instance, 
 confine themselves to decorating the posts which serve as supports 
 for their rickety dwelling-houses with figures very coarsely cut, 
 representing men, women, dogs, and pigs. The New Zealanders,. 
 who are more clever, are masters in the art of decorative wood- 
 carving. Their war arms, their utensils, ornamented with chasing 
 and arabesques, are often traced with a good deal of taste, but in 
 the art of sculpture, properly so called, they are less clever. The 
 prows of their canoes are usually set off with the figure of a human 
 being with his tongue drawn out, and with eyes of mother-of- 
 pearl; but the execution is very feeble, as is also that of their 
 little wooden statuettes, the images of their household gods, which 
 the people used to place before the door of their huts whenever the 
 master of the household was absent. It was the sign given for a 
 temporary interdiction to enter the house, and any slave who disre- 
 garded this notice, and passed the threshold of the hut, underwent 
 capital punishment. 
 
 But the taste for sculpture is much stronger with the Melanesians- 
 of New Guinea ; and these people may perhaps have taught it to 
 the New Zealanders, who, there is reason to suppose, were preceded 
 in their islands by the Papuans. The Papuans of New Guinea 
 cover with chasing the planks and the posts of their houses, the 
 prows of their boats, the pestles in which they mould their clay 
 for their pottery, the floats on their fishing-lines, their tobacca 
 boxes, etc. With them every piece of wood serves as a pretext 
 for ornamental carving, sometimes for cutting human figures, 
 of which they will load the head with feathers, in imitation of 
 their own woolly fleece. These latter subjects are often very 
 rudely executed, but the smaller cutting, in New Guinea, is often 
 done with much good taste. Wallace, from whom we learn 
 these details, wonders that so much artistic feeling can be co- 
 existent with an intelligence so blunt, and with such coarseness of 
 
110 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 manners. But artistic aptitude is sid generis. Intellectual and 
 moral improvement will doubtless enliven art, but it is very 
 different from it, and often enough refuses to ally itself 
 with art. 
 
 Except the colossal statues in Easter island, the authorship of 
 which is unknown, the Polynesian and Melanesian sculpture is 
 mostly in wood. Eor these primitive artists have but very 
 imperfect implements at their service. They are generally made of 
 stone ; and to realise their most artistic conceptions, the carvers 
 must content themselves with notching their wood, for which 
 purpose bone is their most serviceable tool, or with modelling their 
 clay when the art of pottery is made known to them. But the 
 Polynesians are as yet ignorant of the potter's art, and the Papuans, 
 to whom it is familiar, seem to have kept it for their domestic 
 uses. 
 
 In the most civilised part of Africa that is inhabited by negroes, 
 near the bay of Benin, on the banks of the Niger, wood-carving 
 seems to be practised by the people. At Katunga the people 
 decorate their doors and the posts of their verandahs. They cut 
 bas-reliefs representing sometimes a boa holding in his jaws a 
 liog or an antelope, sometimes war scenes, cavaliers bringing home 
 their slaves, etc. 
 
 In the same country, at Kiama, E. and T. Lander saw an 
 ornamented stool, supported by the figures of four men, and, 
 according to their description, the stool reminds one of 
 somewhat similar furniture amongst the ancient Egyptians. At 
 Jenna they found work which, if wo can believe their report, 
 is of a still more remarkable kind — drums ornamented Avith bas- 
 reliefs chased on brass, and on which were the forms of men and 
 of animals. 
 
 The civilisations in Central America, far superior to those in 
 !N"orth Africa, had given birth in Peru, in Yucatan, in Mexico, to 
 a sculpture of a barbarous kind, but still showing a certain degree 
 of elevation. There the artists, furnished with instruments of 
 copper, of brass, of bronze, or of a very hard stone, cut large 
 atatues out of stone and made bas-reliefs of a complex kind. 
 
€hap. XII.] ON THE GRAPHIC AND PLASTIC ARTS. Ill 
 
 In its general features this statuary reminds us of the Egyptian 
 art. Often enough the Peruvian artist did not know how to detach 
 from the body the members of the figure he was cutting ; and the 
 Mexican statuary was hardly more skilled in his art, but he was 
 more inventive. In fact, ancient Mexico was filled with hideous 
 idols, overladen with ornaments, with bas-reliefs in which nearly 
 always the personages are shown in profile, as was the case in 
 Egypt. And the two peoples also knew how to inlay in gold and 
 in silver the forms of animals and of plants. Shortly after the 
 landing of Cortez in Mexico, Montezuma sent him as a present 
 small figures of this kind, representing ducks, roebucks, dogs, 
 tigers, and monkeys. In their sumptuous gardens, the Incas 
 made artificial ground- work on which all the plants were imitations 
 in gold and in silver of the real plants of the country. The 
 Spaniards were specially struck with admiration at the maize, 
 with large silver leaves, from which an ear of gold might be 
 seen mounted on a tuft made of the same metal as the leaves. 
 Eut it was mainly in their ceramic art that the Peruvians liked 
 to show their dexterity. Matter is more pliable in the hands of 
 the potter than in those of the sculptor; a finish in the workman- 
 ship, and truthfulness in the shapings and in the expression are 
 more easily obtained in clay for the artist who is but ill provided 
 with tools. Therefore the human figures that the potters both of 
 Peru and of Yucatan took a pride in modelling are much superior 
 to their statues; there are certain faces that show a lifelike 
 expression; and we may say that art has here begun to free itself 
 from its earliest imperfections. 
 
 In this ceramic art in Central America care was taken in the 
 exact reproduction of nature ; and even many Peruvian vases 
 showing the imitation of Human figures are now considered as 
 precious ethnical relics. This art, still in its infancy, would have 
 certainly developed itself by degrees, it would in time have 
 attempted to render facial expression and individual types of men. 
 But the Spanish Conquest brutally stifled it, not only in staying 
 the execution, but in destroying pitilessly the works already 
 executed. The chroniclers tell us that the foundations of the 
 
112 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book n, 
 
 cathedral in Mexico are built with the statues of the Mexican 
 gods. 
 
 In Central America, the idea of artistic beauty was still ugly 
 enough ; and this may be accounted for from the slightly advanced 
 state of civilisation in Peru and in Mexico. But as we have already 
 observed, more than once, aesthetic aptitude is not closely connected 
 with the degree of moral and intellectual development in a race of 
 people. The Mongolian race, specially in its ethnical groups, in 
 China and Japan, are certainly far superior to the races in Central 
 America; but the art that they have hitherto produced has been 
 of a very imperfect kind. It is almost uniquely in decorative art. 
 that in these countries aesthetics have attained to any degree of 
 perfection ; and this decoration consists of little more than in- 
 genious combinations of lines. It is art of a geometrical kind. 
 In statuary, or speaking more generally, in the reproduction 
 of human figures, of animals, etc., the Mongolian has not yet got- 
 beyond the lowest grades of art. In China and Japan, statuary, 
 properly so called, hardly exists. The Chinese rarely trouble them- 
 selves but with sculpture of a small kind : statuettes or ornamenta- 
 tion, on which there is no elegance, no idea of correctness, but 
 everywhere grotesque fantasies. As regards the larger statuary, it 
 is hardly ever seen, except to reproduce in their temples the 
 conventional types of their divinities — specially Buddha ; and the 
 greatest effort that Mongolian notions of aesthetics have accom- 
 plished in this respect may be seen in the colossal bronze statue of 
 the Japanese Buddha of Koumakoura, which after all is only a 
 mechanical copy of a hieratic type. But the Japanese are 
 superior in carving of a smaller kind, and specially in the re- 
 production of animals and of plants, which they imitate with> 
 scrupulous exactitude, and not excluding elegance and a sort of 
 animation. In an artistic point of view, as well as in every 
 other, the other branches of the Mongolian race are very 
 much below the Chinese and the Japanese. But we must 
 mention a curious kind of sculpture seen by the P^re Hue 
 in a Buddhist lama temple in Tartary. In the temple at 
 Kounboun is celebrated, on the 15 th day of the first moon, the- 
 
Chap, xiii.] GREEK SCULPTURE. 113 
 
 Feast of Flowers, and the principal attractions of this feast con- 
 sists of bas-reliefs, which twenty lamas take several months to 
 model. These are religious scenes, in each of which Buddha is 
 supposed to be present, represented by a person of Caucasian type, 
 whose face is white and rose-coloured, and he is surrounded by a 
 crowd of people of the Mongolian type. The most curious thing 
 is, that in all these works of art the personages, the clothing, the 
 landscape, and everything else are all worked up in fresh butter, 
 which is carefully modelled under water, so that the heat of the 
 fingers should not disfigure the workmanship. These strange 
 designs, of a most perishable nature, are not without merit in the 
 eyes of the traveller who looks at them carefully and can appreciate 
 them. In short, for sculpture, as well as for music, and, as we 
 shall see later on, for painting also^ the aesthetic bloom has been 
 luxuriant and full only amongst the white race of people. Among 
 them we will now continue to follow the evolutioi^ 
 
 ffTT'TJITrtTTJ CIT 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GREEK SCULPTURE. 
 
 It is only in Greece that sculpture has yet attained extreme 
 perfection ; but even in Greece the art did not come all at once 
 to its ideal state. There, as everywhere else, where human 
 work is seen, the evolution has been slow, resulting from early 
 efforts, feeling its way gradually as time has progressed. Greece, 
 like other countries, borrowed considerably from foreign sources, 
 and this has very materially shortened the period of her aesthetic 
 infancy. Her earliest masters — those which she copied first — 
 were the Egyptians and the Assyrians, who enjoyed an anterior 
 state of civilisation. But, as the Assyrians and the Egyptians 
 also took their lessons more or less directly from ancient India, 
 we may consider as the distant teachers of Grecian art the 
 unknown artists who have cut and engraved thousands of statues, 
 on mythological subjects, shown upon the walls of the hypogeums 
 
 1 in Ellora, and in other places. 
 
 i I 
 
114 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 In Assyria and in Egypt the general characteristics of sculpture 
 are nearly the same. They are either statues more or less of colossal 
 size, representing their divinities, in which the animal and the 
 human form are often capriciously united, or else bas-reliefs, in 
 which are pictured mythological or warlike scenes. The statues are 
 heavy, stiff, without expression, and without animation. Gene- 
 rally speaking, the artist has not been able to detach the limbs 
 from the body, The whole is a rough-hewn block, showing a con- 
 ventional figure. In the bas-reliefs there is a little more animation 
 and variety ; but even that is very infantine. Nearly everywhere,, 
 as we see in the bas-reliefs at Palenque in Mexico, the personages 
 are all shown in profile, and are placed all in a string, one after 
 the other, without the slightest attempt at any sort of perspective. 
 The execution is of the simplest kind ; and we can determine very 
 exactly what was the process from the sketch of a bas-relief taken 
 by Lepsius to the museum in Berlin. The artists began by draw- 
 ing squares on the wall which they wished to paint; then they 
 marked the points where the features or part of the body of the 
 individuals ought to come. They then drew the figures, drawing a 
 red line along the tracing of these points. The rude sketch thus 
 made was corrected, as far as was found necessary, and it was 
 afterwards definitely drawn with a brush. And not until then 
 did the sculptor begin to cut away the stone and allow the bas- 
 relief of his drawing to show itself. It was principally the 
 Phoenicians who so widely disseminated — and specially in Greece — 
 the products of the Assyrian, and even of the Egyptian arts. These 
 were generally vases with paintings and ornamental designs, 
 frequently also statuettes, which were copied sometimes upon a 
 larger and sometimes upon a smaller scale. The Phanician artists 
 were also employed to adorn the temples and the public buildings. 
 The Bible tells us of 'their adorning Solomon's temple : " And on 
 the borders that were between the ledges were lions, oxen, and 
 cherubims." In cases of this kind they were real originators. 
 They seem to have been specially expert in inventing the bas- 
 reliefs and the kinds of ornamentation; for their statues were 
 mostly in wood, and simply covered over with leaves of metal 
 
Chap. XIII.] GEEEK SCULPTURE. 115 
 
 beaten out with a hammer. It was, doubtless, in this way that they 
 taught to the ancient Greeks the art of taking castes, which the 
 Greeks practised from a very early period, and for a considerable 
 length of time. 
 
 For many centuries we knew nothing of Greek art but the 
 masterpieces, which showed us the full bloom of the Hellenic 
 genius. A few erudite men only, concerned themselves with the 
 more primitive attempts ; and their archaical studies did not go 
 very far back into past times. It has seemed to us that most of the 
 finest productions of Greek statuary sprang up, so to say, without 
 preparation, without gestation, by some sudden and spontaneous 
 generation. One fine morning a Greek sculptor awoke, conceived 
 in his brain, and then worked out in marble, the Venus of the 
 Capitol, this most perfect model of beautiful form and serene grace. 
 Hellenic mythology has thus made Yenus rise up out of the waves, 
 already clothed with irresistible beauty. But we know in fact that 
 the growth of Greek art was slow and laborious. Its beginnings 
 were very humble, as has been shown and proved to us by tlie 
 shapeless forms lately excavated at Mycenae. The plastic art of the 
 Greeks of those days was perhaps inferior to that of the Papuans 
 of to-day. It is shown by objects in terra-cotta, similar to 
 those which the children now make for their own amusement in 
 the Froebel gardens : figures of cows, of women, in impossible 
 and unrecognisable forms. The mythological conceptions of the 
 Mycenian savages of those days often associated together the form 
 of animals and of human creatures ; their rude statuettes of women 
 often show the head to be mounted with two horns. For a long 
 time their posts served them to represent their godlike images, and 
 they supposed them to be invested with the necessary attributes. 
 If it was a question of a goddess, they put round the post a 
 woman's dress. In the temples at first they erected only wooden 
 statues, painted with raw colours, and dressed very much like 
 dolls. 
 
 It is probable that these models of Assyrian art assisted the 
 Greek in freeing himself from the period of sesthetic infancy. 
 In a tomb in Attica we find Assyrian objects : a head of a beardless 
 
 I 2 
 
IIG SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 man, wearing a mitre, with slabs of bone cut in the form of the 
 female sphinx. All these objects were much superior to what the 
 Greeks could have then produced, for the idol of Juno, so much 
 worshipped by the people in Argos, was but a coarsely-cut plank 
 of timber. Pausanias also saw in the town of Argos a statue of 
 Jupiter in wood, found, it is said, at Troy, in the palace of Priam, 
 and which had three eyes, and one of the eyes was placed in the 
 middle of the forehead. The early Greek statues were stiff square 
 figures, the arms fastened to the body, the two legs and the two 
 feet joined together, the whole showing no animation and no ex- 
 pression. And Homer puts into the palace of Alcinous golden 
 statues serving as lamp-posts, intended to be young people bearing 
 torches ; and dogs of gold and of silver, he tells us, were watching 
 the gate of the same palace. We must, of course, suppose that 
 these statues were in cast-metal, similar to the golden masks 
 covering the faces of the bodies in the tomb of Mycenae, and to 
 many other objects of the same kind, dug out of the same place : 
 flying griffins, women holding a dove, imitations of leaves, cuttle- 
 fish, etc. The Greeks, too, were probably disciples of the Phoenicians, 
 for in a tomb in Phoenicia has been found a mask in cast gold, 
 covering the skeleton of the face of a newborn child. All these 
 objects are proof of art in its most rudimentary state. But the 
 people were beginning to trace bas-reliefs, and thus gave an out- 
 ward and ill-drawn picture of a battle or of a hunting scene. 
 Dating from this humble commencement, archaeology enables us to 
 follow each step made in Hellenic statuary ; it is ever in a slow 
 state of progress towards the reproduction of true and of idealised 
 nature. After the early primitive statues which were painted, 
 clothed, ornamented, the hair combed, laden with necklaces, diadems, 
 and earrings, purely hierarchical for the most part — after these we 
 see the figures of athletes. A statue was made of every athlete who 
 had been three times victorious, and the artist naturally endeavoured 
 to copy exactly the shape and form of the body, and to bring all the 
 muscles into relief. After they had succeeded in giving a true 
 picture of the forms, in observing the proportions, which indeed 
 became canonical, the artists then tried to put some life into their 
 
Chap. XIV.] ON PAINTING. 117 
 
 figures by giving them animation and natural attitudes. The more 
 we approach the Macedonian period, the more we shall see the 
 statuary endeavouring to vivify itself by the expression of the 
 human face. After Alexander, Greek sculpture ceases to reproduce 
 the figures of athletes, and begins to execute the portraits of well- 
 known personages. And when liberty was dead the supple Greek 
 genius languished and withered away; the unhappy period of 
 decadence set in, and the true art was then forever lost in Greece. 
 To trace the history of the development of sculpture would lead 
 us into endless details ; we are, therefore, compelled to confine our- 
 selves to noting only the principal phases. But the facts already 
 quoted will be enough to show us the art, first in its embryo 
 state, prgducing only infantine and shapeless sketches, very 
 clumsy copies of the objects and the creatures that man saw every- 
 where around him. Afterwards imagination finds its place; 
 sculpture becomes mythological; in the bas-reliefs, in the first 
 l^lace, it attempts complicated subjects — war scenes, or hunting 
 scenes — anything that impresses itself strongly upon the mind of 
 man. Stiffness and conventional types are the characteristics of 
 this period. At last the artist frees himself. By degrees he 
 discovers exact and scientific aids to his art ; he learns how to 
 fashion stone and marble, to make them give not only the likeness 
 of form, but even the peculiarities, the individual features, and the 
 passing habits of the time. This is the last phase of sculpture, and 
 we shall also see that it is the last degree of progress that has been 
 reached in the art of painting. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 ON PAINTING. 
 
 Painting, like everything else, has had a very humble beginning. 
 Such is nature's law, with which the great doctrine of evolution has 
 now made us familiar. Did the embryo period of painting precede, 
 
118 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 or did it follow, the not less modest early days of sculpture 1 If we 
 were to look at the plastic and graphic arts only when they are at 
 their apogee, in what we may call their adult age, we should be in- 
 clined to say that the sculptor's or the modeller's art was more 
 ancient than that of the painter. It is surely easier to copy in relief, 
 more or less awkwardly, the forms of men's bodies than to realise 
 upon a plane surface the looming of perspective, or to give light and 
 shade or any notion of colouring. Nevertheless, excepting any 
 particular case of special aptitude for this or for that art, it would 
 seem that the commencements of both were simultaneous. The 
 man who, in his state of savagery, tried to hew roughly with his 
 stone knife a piece of wood or bone, to extemporise thus a living 
 image out of his own imagination — the same man would generally 
 attempt to produce a like result by means of lines either traced or 
 drawn. These first drawings are never more than outline ; and if, 
 as was usually the case, the artist wished to represent the forms of 
 animals or of men, it, is always the profile that he shows to us. 
 
 The Tasmanian, who was ignorant of sculpture, the Australian, 
 who did not get beyond a little sculpture of an ornamental kind, 
 have both invented this primitive method. On the stone rocks in 
 Sydney, and on the rocks in Tasmania, have been found rude 
 images of fishes, of quadrupeds, of men, of birds, and of kangaroos. 
 At Port Jackson there is still existing a more complicated sketch, 
 in which the designer wished to represent one of the great dances 
 of the country, called the " corroborie." The Hottentots, and even 
 the besotted Eushmen, have left upon the rocks in their country 
 sketches of a similar kind. The Papuans of New Guinea, relatively 
 clever at sculpture, have shown less ability for drawing ; still, they 
 can trace well enough, on the sand or elsewhere, sketches of canoes 
 or of men, often obscene phallic figures, which their sculpture has 
 again reproduced. 
 
 For the art of drawing, like many other arts, there are special 
 aptitudes, which are very unequally divided among the diflerent 
 races of men. The Polynesian does not know how to draw, but 
 the Esquimaux, in many ways inferior to him, is a good draughts- 
 man. In this respect, this human type, of the age of the reindeer 
 
Chap. XIV.] ON PAINTING. 119 
 
 of our own times, resembles man of the age of the prehistoric 
 reindeer, of which MM. Lartet and Christy have dug out the 
 remains and some samples of their works, in Perigord and else- 
 ■\vhere. Yery often the weapons and the utensils of the Esquimaux 
 are ornamented with outline drawings. "VVe may see cut upon them 
 flocks of reindeers, which a hunter is pursuing as he crouches 
 •along, or else a man lying down with his harpoon in his hand, 
 and the skin of a stuffed seal close by him serving as a bait to 
 attract the animal which it is clumsily intended to represent. Or 
 again we may see a drawing of men fishing for whales, a different 
 scene in Esquimaux life. Erom the manner of execution, and 
 often from the subject represented, these Esquimaux drawings 
 remind us singularly of those left to us by man of the age of 
 reindeer in Perigord ; and it is also the same with regard to sculp- 
 tured objects. It is curious that neither the Melanesian nor the 
 Esquimaux seems to have had any idea of bringing any parts of 
 the bodies into prominence, by means of light and shade, whilst 
 the prehistoric artist had already tried to realise this sign of 
 progress. Upon an ornament found by M. Lartet in the grotto 
 of Bas-Massat, we see the outline drawing of the profile of a bear, 
 cut with great firmness, and there are notches made, meaning to 
 represent the shadow. On the other hand, the intelligence of 
 certain savages of our own times is so little awakened to any per- 
 ception of the graphic arts, that to them a drawing is quite un- 
 intelligible. The fact has often been already mentioned, notably 
 as regards certain aborigines of Central Africa ; and also some of 
 the Australian tribes. 
 
 Hitherto we have only spoken of drawing ; for it is probable 
 that drawing preceded painting. l!Tevertheless man began very 
 early to endeavour to produce certain tints, some of which he 
 observed more strongly than others, and specially the strongest of 
 all, that which is seen in the central portion of the retina — -the 
 colour red. It is a certain fact, and we have already quoted 
 instances to prove it, that nowadays there are many primitive 
 Taces, and also many of the poorer people in civilised countries, 
 who have a very marked taste for this strong colour. 
 
 Painting, properly so called, began probably by the colouring of 
 
120 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book u. 
 
 sculptured objects, of statues, of designs, and bas-reliefs, as soon 
 as men knew how to execute them. The New Caledonians will 
 colour everything that they can with red ; the roughly-cut statues 
 dug out at Mycenae were painted mostly in red, sometimes in 
 yellow ; it was the same with potteries found at the same 
 time. We know from other sources that the statues of primi- 
 tive Greece were coloured with raw tints. Each divinity had 
 its special colour ; Bacchus, for instance, was always painted 
 red. Our sculptors have now discontinued to use colours, except 
 in polychrome statuary ; but the popular taste is very different, as 
 the Catholic and the Buddhist religious images prove to us clearly 
 enough. It is in this way that the lamas in Tartary are careful 
 to colour their curious bas-reliefs, made in butter, of which the 
 P^re Hue has given us a description. This custom of covering 
 with bright colours the products of the plastic arts is very general, 
 for we find it in New Caledonia, in Tartary, and in Greece. In 
 the mind of the primitive artist, this colouring gives greater life to 
 the statuary, and also he thinks that the brightness of the tints 
 gives an additional pleasure to the eyes. It is likely enough that 
 the ancient Greeks adopted this mode, perhaps taught to them, 
 like many others, by the Assyrians, for it was their constant 
 practice. 
 
 The colouring of the statues and bas-reliefs and the colouring 
 of drawings are so closely connected that the two methods must 
 have been conceived and followed simultaneously. Among people 
 who have never got beyond the lowest grades of art, painting has 
 always been the simple colouring of outline drawings, designed 
 without any thought of perspective. The Mexican artists before 
 the days of Cortez, those of China and Japan, those of ancient 
 Egypt, did not get any farther. Soon after the landing of Cortez 
 in Mexico, Montezuma sent out artists as " special correspondents '^ 
 to draw with their pencil and colours, on some cotton stuff, the 
 faces and the war arms of the foreigners. These very elementary- 
 designs were only outline drawings ; and as far as possible the 
 artist sketched the men and the animals only in profile. In 
 simplifying them a little they were easily turned into hiero- 
 
Chap, xiv.] ON PAINTING. 121 
 
 glyphics, and words were attached, so to say, to the mouth of each 
 individual. We know that the Mexicans made constant use of 
 this drawn or painted form of writing, and the Egyptians also did 
 very much the same. The same device was also practised by the 
 Chinese, who attained to a greater degree of ingenuity, for their 
 painters knew how to represent men and animals in the most varied 
 attitudes ; whilst their hieroglyphics have become a regular system 
 of writing, and the characters hardly continue to represent the 
 objects symbolised. 
 
 What is always more or less wanting in these primitive paint- 
 ings is mainly the art of giving to the drawing, to the fresco, or 
 to the picture, any appearance of relief or of background, so as to 
 produce any illusory effect upon the imagination. A notion of 
 light and shade or of perspective is quite unknown ; we see hardly 
 a hint of it. In the Mexican drawings, in the Egyptian frescoes, 
 the personages are all put in file one after the other, and all set on 
 the same alignment. In the Chinese and Japanese pictures it would 
 seem as if the artist had taken his point of view from a balloon, 
 with the sun vertically over his head. The idea of showing sun- 
 shine and shadow, the gradations of tints, the distant objects, can 
 hardly have been present to the artist's mind. In the choice and 
 the grouping of colours more skill is shown. The Egyptian artist 
 would, from preference, choose the brightest colours, and he knew 
 how to combine them tastefully. The Mexicans excited the ad- 
 miration of the Chinese by their skill in painting and arranging 
 feathers. The Chinese are masters in the art of choosing and 
 grouping their colours. It affords a curious contrast to watch their 
 skill in harmonising the tones, while they are so absolutely ignorant 
 in the art of drawing. But still it seems that the Chinese artist 
 is conscious of his own ignorance, for often he will purposely de- 
 form real life to hide his own inability in expressing it. Caricature 
 is to him, in drawing, what buffoonery is in the conversation of a 
 fool. In the miniatures which adorn the Arab and Hindoo manu- 
 scripts we admire the same variety of different shades of colour, 
 and the same delicate taste shown in their arrangement by the side 
 of som-e drawing much less fantastical, and certainly very much 
 
122 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 more simple. Sometimes on the Arab manuscripts we see rose- 
 leaves painted in arabesques, and these are masterpieces of their 
 kind, in which the artist has shown his power of harmonising the 
 tones with infinite art. Do not these ancient and backward civi- 
 lisations contradict absolutely the theory of H. ^Magnus, as to the 
 gradual development of the colour-sense 'i When we see an 
 Egyptian fresco, or a Chinese vase, perhaps some thousand years 
 old, are we not then convinced that these cannot be the works of 
 men afflicted with Daltonism ] 
 
 Painting, like sculpture, was only fully developed amongst the 
 Aryan races, so called ; but even with them it rose from very 
 humble beginnings. In the excavations in Attica, and specially at 
 Mycenae, Mr. Schliemann has found remains of vases, generally 
 painted in red, and ornamented sometimes with circular or irregular 
 bands, sometimes with black bands, or sometimes with bands of a 
 deeper red colour than the red shown in the groundwork. That is 
 no doubt the first state of ornamental painting, since these people 
 have tried to picture, by lines of the same kind, birds and quad- 
 rupeds. The work is so rudely done that it is often difficult to 
 recognise the animal that the artist has endeavoured to paint. The 
 handwork shown in these drawings reminds us nearly of the totems 
 in use among the American Eed Skins. On other fragments we see 
 represented six warriors completely armed in coat-of-mail, and 
 painted in red upon a bright-yellow grounding ; for the primitive 
 Greeks, like other people, showed a strong preference for the colour 
 red. At a later date the Phoenician cups served as models to the 
 Greeks, and aided them in raising their art from its barbarous 
 condition. For a long while archaic art in Greece was confined to 
 copying the drawings in these Phoenician cups; at first the 
 imitations were very servile, but afterwards they grew bolder. 
 Certain passages in Homer — the description of Achilles' shield, for 
 instance — may be seen illustrated accurately enough in the Phoeni- 
 cian vases which have survived down to our times. To express the 
 variety and the succession of events, the actors concerned were 
 painted a second or a third time, and in this way whole legends 
 might be read written upon these vases. On this Greek pottery, 
 
€hap. XIV.] ON PAINTING 123 
 
 as on the Etruscan pottery, the personages are almost invariably 
 represented in profile. 
 
 On all these vases, and later upon the frescoes or upon the 
 pictures, the artists were satisfied with clothing the men and the 
 animals represented in one uniform colour. Then dawned upon them 
 the idea of indicating the shadows, but very simply, by means of 
 brown or black notchings. That was a great discovery ; it soon 
 grew to be more perfect. The first man who expressed in the 
 shadows as well as in the light part of his pictures the same tints as 
 might be seen in the model itself, became a celebrated artist. His 
 name has been handed down to us — it was Apollodorus. Hence- 
 forward man knew how " to colour the shadow," as the Greeks used 
 to say ; the art of painting was then established. But it was stiR 
 very elementary. For a long while the only kind of painting was 
 ornamental, either on the vases or in the temples. The personages 
 were very simply ranged along in a file, and their figures were 
 always seen in one bright shade of colour. But by degrees painting 
 freed itself, and became quite an independent art ; it was then 
 highly appreciated. We are told that the king Attains offered to 
 the. painter ISTicias, who belonged to the Athenian school, a sum 
 equivalent to £10,800 in our money for a picture representing 
 Ulysses evoking the shades of the dead. 
 
 Nevertheless, the ancients, both the Greeks and Eomans, in 
 painting, made only limited progress ; their painters were much 
 inferior to their, sculptors : we may judge of this by the ancient 
 frescoes which have been preserved. In this respect the Pompeian 
 museum at Naples will dispel any doubts, not to speak of the 
 frescoes to be seen in Pompeii itself. It will be sufficient to mention 
 "Diana and Actaeon," "Orpheus," "Bacchante borne by the sea- 
 panther." No doubt the best of these works are remarkable for the 
 elegance and the beauty of the personages represented. The forms 
 are sometimes superb, and remind us of those of statuary, but the 
 modelling is far from perfect, and the art of perspective, still in its 
 infancy, often resembles that of the Chinese pictures. 
 
 During the time of the Lower Empire and the Byzantine period^ 
 _painting retrograded more than it advanced. In the way of stiffness 
 
124 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 and absence of animation, certain frescoes in the Catacombs — for 
 instance, the one of " Death " — are like, and are even inferior to, the 
 frescoes at Pompeii, to that of " Diana and Actaeon " among others, 
 and the designs and the modellings are much more imperfect. Every- 
 one knows the rude state of art in the Byzantine period ; the tradi- 
 tions of the antique art are barely mechanically preserved ; the 
 Catholic mythology has replaced the Grseco-Latin mythology, to the 
 great detriment of grace and beauty. The personages are stiff and 
 the drawing is incorrect ; light and shade is barely shown in the 
 colouring ; the landscape, which is never used but to ornament the 
 background of the pictures, is hieroglyphical, and shows an utter dis- 
 regard for any laws of perspective. M. E. Veron rightly compares 
 this barbarous painting to that which decorates the Etruscan vases 
 at Corneto ; we see the same simplicity and the same ignorance. It 
 was not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that the Renais- 
 sance, the spring of European intelligence, began to show itself; 
 it was not until then that art began slowly to throw off its 
 swaddling clothes. Raphael in his first manner distantly re- 
 minds us of the poor Byzantine period ; but yet we ought not to 
 think of this when we admire the Farnesian frescoes, and the 
 admirable drawing, colouring, expression, and truth to life, shown in 
 the " Santa Cecilia " of Bologna. 
 
 It is not our object in this short notice to give a history of the 
 beaux-arts, but merely to indicate very generally the principal 
 phases of their development. We do not speak of Raphael's com- 
 petitors, of Titian's colouring, nor of the bold frescoes of Giulio 
 Rom ana, or of Michael Angelo, nor of the modern painters who 
 have been able to follow with more or less success the way shown 
 to them by their glorious predecessors. With regard to the work, 
 to the mechanical portion of the art, we shall never surpass the 
 great Italian painters of the Renaissance. Unrivalled for perfection 
 in colouring, and for the beauty and the fusion of their tints, for the 
 exactness of design and of modelling, they have made of painting 
 an art able to rival the objects represented ; to seize and mark the 
 most delicate fleeting shadows, the most fugitive passions and senti- 
 ments of man. The artists of the present day, or of the future, can 
 
Chap. XIV.] ON PAINTING. 125 
 
 only surpass their predecessors in giving ideas which were wanting 
 to the masters of the Renaissance. 
 
 But there is one branch of this art which the Italian artists did 
 not bring to perfection, and that is landscape. They had doubtless 
 learned the principal laws of perspective ; their paintings show much 
 depth, and light seems to circulate in them; but with a few more or 
 less happy exceptions, certain pictures of Salvator Eosa for instance, 
 landscape barely interested them, and, like the artists of antiquity, 
 they used it only as a background to their work. It was with them 
 no more than an accessory, and was always neglected even by 
 their greatest masters. As it is natural, the most scientific part 
 of the art of painting was perfected last ; and in this respect 
 the palm belongs no longer to Italy, but in some measure to 
 France, if we wish to value rightly the pictures of Claude Lorraine, 
 and especially those of the Flemish school, in which Paul Potter, 
 Euysdael, Hobbema, and others, have done for landscape what the 
 Italian masters did before them for the grand school of painting ; 
 they have brought it to a degree of perfection which will be always 
 difficult to surpass. 
 
 We have now come to the end of our description, very short as 
 it has been, of the origin and development of the fine arts. The 
 real side of our sensitive life lies in that direction. There is there 
 a sort of language, much more confined than our language, properly 
 so called, but more picturesque and more expressive. It is almost 
 unnecessary to remark that in the fine arts, as in every other 
 direction, where human activity is shown, the white or Aryan 
 races very far excel all the others, though they have had to pass 
 -through similar stages. Like that of all other human races, the 
 Aryan intelligence has sprung from the most humble sources ; 
 like others, she had to stammer before she learned to speak. But 
 her development is now less incomplete. She has given more 
 light to the world than all the other races ; her wisdom has spread 
 itself more widely, and she has left deeper marks of a durable 
 nature. It is no doubt very far from being the case that in any 
 given race the most intelligent will make the best artists. The 
 perfecting and refinement of our senses plays a most important 
 
126 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii, 
 
 part in our artistic aptitudes ; but the progress of art will ever 
 depend upon the general development of a race, for in everything 
 intelligence will form the basis. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF SENSITIVE LIFE. 
 
 A FEW general ideas may be gathered from what we have just 
 said. 
 
 The study of the different races on the surface of the globe, in 
 whom we sec human intelligence so variously developed, and the 
 history of those who have become gradually civilised, will show us 
 the different phases through which the sensitive life in humanity 
 has had to unfold itself. 
 
 A certain acuity of sense may be often found in the primitive 
 man, but the object is confined ; for with hira the mental register 
 of the sensations is poor and ill kept. His power of fixing his 
 attention is weak, and his memory is short. Either the gradations 
 escape him, or they are not sufficiently remarked. 
 
 Man begins by showing a preference for strong colours, specially 
 red and yellow ; he chooses these to adorn his works of art or 
 industry, or to ornament his person. By degrees this taste grows 
 weaker; he asks for milder and more varied colours, for darker 
 shades, and he gives less thought to ornamentation. 
 
 All our artistic tastes have modified themselves in the samo 
 way. The dance has gradually changed its character. At first it 
 was a rhythmical mimicry of hunting or of war; it afterwards 
 became that of love, and often joined itself to the most important 
 arts of our social life. It gradually ceased to be customary, 
 until it degenerated, in civilised societies, into an amusement, 
 in some sort archaical, and until it was hardly more than a 
 reminiscence of past times. Music, at first extremely simple, 
 purely melodious, and mainly vocal, a sort of modulated cry, 
 
Chap, xv.] THE EVOLUTION OF SENSITIVE LIFE. 127 
 
 has gradually acquired a greater fulness. Instruments, more and 
 more varied in their kind, ingeniously constructed, are used to 
 accompany the recitatives or the songs. The science of instru- 
 mental music is attained. Quite at first, harmony sets off melody 
 and makes it sound richer, hut by degrees melody loses its fresh- 
 ness and its power of expression. Music tries to produce complex 
 effects, it becomes less attractive ; but as intelligence is denied to 
 it, it languishes and loses flavour. 
 
 The graphic and plastic arts, on their side, at first very rudi- 
 mentary, slowly improve and grow to be more varied ; their power 
 of expression increases ; their representations by degrees acquire a 
 more life-like character, and a greater exactness in detail. They 
 succeed sometimes in making us believe that they are in fact the 
 objects intended; they are often more beautiful than the image 
 represented. 
 
 The genesic instinct undergoes a metamorphosis of the same 
 kind. It is there that the sensitive life is joined most closely to 
 the affective life ; it began by being absolutely bestial, similar to 
 that which we may observe among the coarsest animals. From 
 relationship, at first purely physiological, between the sexes, a 
 few affective sentiments are born. By degrees shame arises to 
 stimulate and also to guard against the gratification of the sexual 
 needs. Love is no longer an instinctive brutal pleasure. Individual 
 sympathies and antipathies show themselves, jealousy is awakened, 
 and the genesic need begins to be transformed into love ; for there 
 are tendencies more and more' strongly marked towards exclusive- 
 ness. It is at first in woman that the gradual ennoblement of the 
 genesic instincts at first arise, for in her this instinct is nearly 
 always the pivot upon which her whole moral life is made to turn. 
 
 In a word, this evolution in our sensitive life unfolds itself in 
 the cerebral activity, which is always expanding in our conscient 
 life. As regards ajsthetics, properly so called, the fact is evident. 
 The memory takes note of an ever-increasing number of sensitive 
 impressions, the imagination revivifies them and brings them 
 together, the intelligence endeavours with more and more good 
 effect to make them appear in works of art. 
 
128 SENSITIVE LIFE. [Book ii. 
 
 The amorous need, which, to satisfy itself, claims the assistance 
 of another individual, seeks mainly to enhance our affective and 
 even our social life ; but it has strong indirect influence upon the 
 testhetic taste, which it often stimulates. It was undoubtedly one 
 of the principal agents in human societies and one of the great 
 sources of our affective life, which we shall now endeavour to 
 describe. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 APFECTIVE LITE. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE REFLEX ACTION ACCORDING TO RACE AND CIVILISATION. 
 
 In mammalia and in man, who is only the first of the order of 
 mammalia, the nervous centres, the spinal chord and the brain, 
 receive through the sensitive nerves the incitements of the outside 
 world, and reflect it all along the principal nerves, and they command 
 the movement of the muscles. We have elsewhere* described at 
 length these actions and reactions, which in physiology are called 
 reflex actions. Of these some are called inconscient and others, 
 conscient. The inconscient actions operate mainly in the spinal 
 chord, the conscient are seated only in the cerebral hemispheres. 
 In our ordinary life both are mixed up and joined together, but 
 according to certain laws. 
 
 If we were to let fall upon the hind leg of a frog, whose members 
 were all perfect, a drop of nitric acid, the frog would pull back that 
 leg, move his other members, shut his eyes, etc. We should thus 
 have provoked a general reflex action, conscient and irradiated. If 
 the same experiment were tried upon a frog whose spinal chord had 
 been divided, all that portion of his body anterior to the spinal 
 chord would remain immovable, but the frog would draw back 
 more rapidly and with greater energy the leg that had been 
 cauterised. The reflex action becomes both simplified and made 
 more perfect. The reason of this is quite clear. 
 
 In the vertebrated animal, especially in those of a superior 
 iind, conscient life intervenes in most of the acts of daily life. 
 
 ♦ "Biologie," 110,156. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 Every sensation, every impression, is caused by a molecular shock 
 transmitted all along the nervous sensitive fibres to one or more of 
 the conscient cells — that is to the cerebral cells. When it has 
 reached the heart of these cells the molecular vibration there 
 becomes changed and gives rise to subjective phenomena, to im- 
 pressions, to ideas, etc. In a nervous centre so complex as the human 
 encephalon, the molecular current, stimulated by the shock of a 
 sensitive nerve, must surely divide itself into many secondary 
 currents, going from one cell to the other by means of the fibres 
 which join them together. The fractioning of the molecular wave 
 may be compared to the subdivision of a river, of which the bed^ 
 cut into many islands, is thus divided into several secondary arms. 
 
 If the conscient cells are numerous, perfected, susceptible of 
 collecting and combining a great number of impressions and ideas, 
 the molecular movement stimulated by the sensitive nerve may 
 extinguish itself in the brain, there wholly transforming itself into 
 conscient phenomena. In the contrary case the conscient cells do 
 not suffice to absorb the wave stirred up, a portion of this wave 
 jumps over them, and in spite of the will of the patient, reflects 
 itself upon this or that nervous impelling branch ; hence the 
 involuntary or reflex movements. We can therefore easily under- 
 stand why the reflex action is achieved more easily and more rapidly 
 in the decapitated frog where no conscient inhibition can arise to 
 hinder the reaction. 
 
 The greater or less degrees of energy in reflex irrepressible 
 actions may therefore give a fairly good idea of the cerebral de- 
 velopment. We may say that the superior cerebral nervous centres 
 are the more perfect as they preserve and turn to better use, in 
 transforming into conscient acts, the nervous stimulation, come from 
 outside — as they oppose it more completely to the reflex action. 
 
 In this respect monkeys are very inferior. With them the 
 
 /^reflex action is excessive. Always excited, always grinning, always 
 
 ^ in motion, they show an extremely mobile disposition. Similar 
 
 characteristics may bo noticed in our children, and in many women ; 
 
 wo may, therefore, expect to see them also in the inferior human 
 
 races, who, relatively to the superior races, are the infantine races. 
 
-Chap. I.] EEFLEX ACTION ACCORDING TO EACE, ETC. 133 
 
 Like the monkey, like the infant, the savage, and even, more 
 generally, the human being who is but slightly developed, to what- 
 ever race or sex he may belong, is incapable of governing himself ; 
 he is the plaything of outside circumstances. He will laugh or 
 cry for the most futile reasons. For laughter is common to man 
 and to many monkeys. But Darwin says that he has not observed 
 laughter in idiots. The least intelligent of men, the Veddahs in 
 Ceylon, laugh very little, or not at all. Tears are not man's ex- 
 clusive privilege, nor is laughter. According to Humboldt, the 
 saimiris monkeys in Peru — monkeys of a very inferior kind — 
 would laugh for the very slightest cause. 
 
 Among the inferior races, laughter, tears, or the wildest move- 
 ments break forth at every instant. Sturt relates that a young 
 Australian woman, when she first saw him and his companions, 
 threw herself down on the ground exclaiming loudly. In Tas- 
 mania the women were always in motion, ever gesticulating ; and, 
 according to the Rev. Mr. Bonwick, were like so many monkeys. 
 The Papuans also are ever in a state of perpetual movement, 
 always singing, crying, gesticulating, laughing, and jumping. 
 
 Nothing can be more changeable than the humour of the 
 Polynesians. All travellers liken them in this respect to children. 
 A chief in New Zealand burst into a violent fit of tears because 
 some sailors had covered one of his smart cloaks with flour. The 
 Tahitians, ever ready to laugh or cry, would change all suddenly 
 from one state to the other. Explosions of joy or of sadness would 
 disappear with them in an instant. A woman who was crying 
 bitterly because her child had just died broke out into laughter 
 when she saw Captain Bligh. In the same way the Noukahivan 
 is fantastic, irascible, subject to feverish over-excitement ; he be- 
 comes depressed very suddenly, he is uneasy, and little capable of 
 gratitude. His mental instability is excessive. 
 
 These characteristics are not peculiar to the Polynesians only ; 
 we see them in all races who are poorly developed. The African 
 negro women burst into tears upon the slightest cause, or without 
 any cause. Du Chaillu has seen some who were crying in torrents 
 and laughing at the same time. 
 
134 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 The Cliiquitos in South America are exceedingly gay, madly 
 fond of dancing and of music. The Guaranis constantly pay visits 
 one to the other, and each visit opens with a fit of crying in 
 memory of dead relations ; they afterwards dance, drink, and enjoy 
 themselves. 
 
 The Cochin-Chinaman cannot fix his attention ; it jumps about 
 from one thing to the other. He changes suddenly from gladness 
 to sorrow, and to fits of violent passion. 
 
 The Aryan races, too, when only slightly civilised, closely 
 resemble the inferior races by their moral instability. The Afghans 
 quarrel amongst themselves, they fight, and become reconciled from 
 one instant to another for mere trifles ; to conceal their thoughts is 
 altogether beyond their power. A Persian grand seigneur, Mirza- 
 Selim, broke into tears on hearing the sound of music. 
 
 Nothing would be more easy than to accumulate facts of this 
 kind ; but those already mentioned will suffice to give an idea of 
 the affective mobility of the savage, or of the man whose intelli- 
 gence is slightly developed. In some civilised societies we find 
 also the same results. The untaught white man, the infant, the 
 majority of women, in short, every organisation that has not been 
 modified by a long moral and intellectual culture, have cerebral 
 springs always ready to make themselves elastic. The outside 
 physical and moral causes annoy and disturb them repeatedly ; their 
 mental equilibrium is at the mercy of a thousand daily incidents; 
 they have never complete mastery over their own actions. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ON POLITENESS AND CEREMONIAL BEARING. 
 
 It is not our purpose to speak at length on this subject, which 
 necessarily forms an accessory part of sociology, but it may bo 
 advisable nevertheless to say a few words. 
 
 It appears that gestures, and consequently the very different 
 
 
Chap, ii.l ON POLITENESS AND CEREMONIAL BEAEING. 135 
 
 ceremonial formula customary in all human societies, have their 
 origin in reflex action. 
 
 In sociable animals the excess of nervous shock caused by a 
 strong sentiment often strikes back upon the nervous peripheric 
 system and stimulates involuntary movements, which will vary 
 according to the kind. The restless horse will point his ears to- 
 wards the object which causes him to feel emotion ; the dog will 
 wag his tail to show that he is pleased ; under similar circumstances 
 the cat will pur and raise her back. 
 
 The turtle-doves show their love by kissing each other. And 
 the dog, too, kisses his master, after his fashion, by licking him^ to 
 show his affection. But if on the other hand he is afraid of his 
 master he will put down his head^ or if need be crawl, and lie 
 down on his back. 
 
 As man is but the highest of earthly animals he expresses his 
 actions, as they do, by a reflex mimicry, which is the more instinctive 
 as he is less civilised, less master of himself. Certain of these ex- 
 pressive acts, maintained in some societies from the time of their 
 commencement, have been adopted as symbolising this or that 
 sentiment. Prosternation, a custom in some eastern despotic 
 monarchies — in Siam, for instance — is evidently similar to the 
 cowering of a dog when he is frightened. The kissing of feet, and 
 even of hands, closely resembles the act of the same dog in licking 
 the feet or the hands of his master. But in proportion as man acquires 
 the knowledge of his own dignity, of his liberty, ceremonious 
 mimicry becomes less servile and less animal. An individual is 
 no longer, as he is in Siam, " the animal of the king," he no longer 
 consents willingly to humble himself ; and therefore the gestures 
 intended to convey marks of respect become more simple. Our 
 slight bowings of the head are no more than a recognised and 
 shorter form of the more ancient custom of prostration. Nearly all 
 over the earth, if a man wishes to salute respectfully, he bows his 
 head, and places at least his right hand against his chest ; this is a 
 movement opposed to the attitude of defence. And again, to put 
 one's right hand into the hand of another, is, in a certain measure, 
 giving oneself up to him. 
 
136 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book hi. 
 
 Man being an intelligent animal lie has naturally learnt how to 
 perform this comedy of ceremonial form in various forms — not 
 taking into account that his movements of expression will differ 
 widely according to his race. The kiss, which seems to the 
 Europeans the most tender and the most natural mark of affection, 
 is unknown to the Australians, to the Papuans, to the Esquimaux, 
 to the Fuegians, to the people in the west of Africa, to the Lapps, 
 and to the greater part of the Polynesians — though not to all of the 
 Polynesians, for Cook teUs us that the natives of Tonga island 
 kissed his hands. But nearly everywhere in Polynesia the friendly 
 kiss is replaced by a more or less complicated ceremony, of which 
 the most important part consists in rubbing one's nose against the 
 nose of the person whom one wishes to welcome. In the Gambia 
 islands people used to utter violent exclamations, or else they 
 growled between their teeth. In Malay and in China the people 
 used to and still have the same custom; but they sniff at the same 
 time, so as to inhale the perfume of the individual whom they 
 like, or with whom they pretend to be on terms of friendship. 
 Here we see an instance of direct mimicry of the animal. 
 
 Polite usages, when once adopted, have been refined from what- 
 ever may have been their former state. They have grown 
 complicated and diversified, until many of them have become 
 peculiar only to human beings, varying according to the degree 
 and kind of civilisation. 
 
 The salutation shown in uncovering the head indicates a very 
 advanced social condition, for the head is the last part of his 
 person that man thinks of covering. To touch this or that part 
 of one's body, or of the body of someone else, is sometimes 
 equivalent to a mark of gratitude, or to the making of our engage- 
 ments. The inhabitants of the Tonga islands carry on their head 
 everything that is given to them, and also everything that they 
 get by way of exchange. In the latter case this is a token that 
 the terms are accepted. 
 
 In countries where human life is but little thought of it is the 
 rule to walk before anyone whom one respects, or to go first into the 
 market. This is the case, for instance, in New Caledonia. Also in 
 
Chap, ii.] ON POLITENESS AND CEREMONIAL BEARING. 137 
 
 Malaysia, civility exacts that one should turn one's back and keep 
 one's eyes closed and one's head covered ; the reason for this form 
 of politeness may be easily guessed. In Tartary, at the time of 
 William de Eubruquis, it was held to be a grave offence to the 
 proprietor of a tent to touch its cords. It was thought that the 
 slight wall of a tent, not protecting one like the wall of a house 
 from the enemy or any rash-minded person, ought to be guaranteed 
 by signs of mutual respect. 
 
 In many countries also people have not stopped at gestures; 
 they have adopted emblems of peace, as having the value of a 
 formal promise. And on this point, too, it is curious to see how 
 races of the most different kinds will resemble each other. White 
 stuffs and green branches were used as announcing pacific intentions 
 both in Europe and in Polynesia. 
 
 At ISToukahiva, politeness went in reality as far as it did in 
 appearance, judging by the formula of ancient societies. A man 
 identified himself with his host, and this perfect intimacy was 
 symbolised by an exchange of names. When the pact of friend- 
 ship was concluded, the stranger absolutely took the place of 
 his friend in everything, and for everything, making such use 
 as he pleased of his house and of his wife ; and she would often 
 feel herself slighted if her husband's ikoa did not assert his rights. 
 
 Verbal formula were very early introduced into the usages of 
 politeness. The caprice and the notions peculiar to each race of 
 people will here strongly show themselves. The least civilised, 
 such as the New Caledonians, do what they please without any 
 phrase-making. Like other islanders in the Pacific ocean, and 
 other savage people, notably the Kalmouks, they have no word 
 expressing " thank you." But in the majority of races, however 
 little civilised, there are sacramental forms of politeness. We 
 find them practised in the steppes in the south part of Asia. 
 Two Kirghises who are well-mannered ought to accost each other by 
 asking " Who are your seven ancestors'?" This is the genealogical 
 salutation. In the presence of a foreigner of distinction the 
 Kalkhas Mongolians throw themselves on their knees, exclaiming 
 " Love, Peace !" Then they ask the foreigner : " How do you 
 
138 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 like the Mongolian waters'?" The ceremonial politeness of the 
 Chinese is justly celebrated, for they have precepts and rites ruling 
 every formality in their social intercourse. According to Confucius, 
 ceremonies are typical of virtues ; they preserve them, they recall 
 them to one's mind, and may even replace them. This substitution- 
 of ceremonies, and even of ceremonial grimaces, for generous- 
 sentiments, is the law among people who have fallen to a low 
 moral state. When two Arabs from Zemen meet they assault each- 
 other with compliments. It becomes a question as to who will 
 kiss the hand of the other, but it is understood that the elder, or 
 the more distinguished man, shall finally accept the ofifered civility. 
 All travellers are agreed in accusing the Persians of theft, falseness, 
 hypocrisy, want of moral sense, and yet they of all people are the 
 most polite. It is a matter of contest with them who shall give 
 way to the other. If they receive a visit, their visitor is for the 
 while ^' their master;" their pipes, their horse, their clothes, are 
 "presents for the master;" their house and all it contains, still 
 more their villa, and still more again their fields, are at the visitor's 
 disposition. We may easily understand that these magnificent 
 offers are not made under the idea that they will be accepted. 
 
 This brief anthology of ceremonial observances may suffice to 
 indicate the principal phrases of politeness and of other things 
 connected with it. Like all human actions, those of which we are 
 now speaking change their character in proportion as man himself 
 changes and develops, morally as well as intellectually. In the 
 earliest stages man servilely copies the reflex animal action ; after- 
 wards he simplifies it, ho abridges the mimicry which often becomes 
 repugnant to him ; at last ho replaces this mimicry by formula, and 
 as words cost little, these formula become all the more exaggerated 
 and the more debasing as his normal condition is less sincere. Of 
 all the courtiers who kissed the feet of Heliogabalus and of other 
 emperors during the period of the decadence, there was not one 
 who would of his own free-will have given to this arch-sycophant 
 a single drop of his blood. And the formula of the Lower Empire^ 
 of which the traditions have come down to us, were not, and are 
 not now, taken in earnest by anybody. 
 
Chap, hi.] LOVE FOR THE YOUNG IN ANIMALS. 139^ 
 
 As a general rule, among individuals, and among races of people, 
 extreme politeness is shown in inverse ratio to their moral worth. 
 Our European politeness, grinning and insincere as it is, comes to 
 us in a great measure from the Lower Eoman Empire. But it is- 
 destined to grow more simple, if, as we may hope, we can raise 
 ourselves to show dignity and fairness in our dealings. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LOVE FOR THE YOUNG IN ANIMALS. 
 
 "When we try to seek out the causes of the phenomena of the affective- 
 life, so varied in the animal and in man, we soon find that we are 
 obliged to stop suddenly short in our investigation. Our knowledge 
 on this subject is still very limited, and a high wall, as yet but 
 slightly broken, separates it from the unknown. No doubt, in this 
 as in other things, the great doctrine of transformation may guide 
 us and light our path ; but in order that our instruction be perfect 
 we shall have first to become acquainted with the genealogy of the 
 animal kinds through its long and innumerable vicissitudes. And 
 at the outset we can scarcely distinguish and mark the principal 
 facts. 
 
 Up to the present time the apparition, among living creatures, of 
 the conscient phenomena is a fact as inexplicable in its essence 
 as gravitation. How have the afi'ective sentiments, the most 
 interesting of all these phenomena from a social point of view, 
 been developed in us 1 To this question we can only answer by 
 conjectures. 
 
 Let us take, for instance, the most constant and the strongest of 
 all affective sentiments — the love of parents for their ofi'spring. 
 The origin of this is still very obscurely hidden. 
 
 The modes of animal generation may be reduced to a small 
 number: fission, gemmation, and endogenous division; and these 
 would seem to have sprung one from the other. In the first of 
 
140 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 these two modes we may easily understand the interest that the 
 progenitor would feel for his descendant if this progenitor were 
 impressionable and intelligent. The young creature produced by a 
 divisioning or a parcelling out of the elder, it would be very natural 
 that the parent should interest himself in that portion of his own 
 being which frees and emancipates itself. But in this inferior 
 phase of civilisation the psychological me does not yet exist ; the 
 animal has surely only a vegetative life, for nothing authorises us 
 to admit a conscient life in the absence of a nervous system, how- 
 ever slightly developed it be. We do not even understand the 
 existence of the cares of progeniture among the inferior in- 
 vertebrse already provided with ovulation. Why, for instance, do 
 the ascidia^ keep their eggs under their cloak ? How can we explain 
 that certain female insects who have not known their parents, and 
 who will never see their little ones, should seem to interest them- 
 selves in the fate of their eggs 1 Why do we see them sometimes 
 prepare for their carnivorous larvse a food which is unsuitable to 
 themselves 1 
 
 It is not much easier to resolve the same problem with regard to 
 certain fish who appear to care for their progeniture. In fact, 
 with fish the part of the male is often confined to milting the eggs 
 laid by the female. How does the male stickleback acquire the 
 instinct or the desire to build a nest for his little ones, to protect 
 his female, to bring his little ones home, in case of danger 1 * 
 
 How has the toad midwife learnt to roll his hind legs around 
 the viscous thread of the eggs laid by his female 1 Why does he 
 carry those eggs ] and why does he think of plunging into the 
 water the moment they are hatched 1 
 
 No doubt many of these acts are automatical. They are here- 
 ditary habits, and are instinctive ; but how were these instincts first 
 acquired ? In order to explain these curious facts we should have 
 to make ourselves acquainted with the details of the numberless 
 adventures through which the animal kinds have passed ; we should 
 require to know the whole of the long history of zoogeny. 
 
 * These facts and others of the same kind have been enumerated and 
 discussed by M. A. Espiuas in his book *' Les Socictes Animales." 
 
Chap. III.] LOVE FOR THE YOUNG IN ANIMALS. 141 
 
 We may albstain from making idle conjectures, and confine our- 
 selves to stating that love for their young, one of the most powerful 
 sentiments of which man is capable, is also seen in the lower stages 
 of the animal kingdom. 
 
 In the superior classes of vertebrae, in birds and in mammalia, 
 the hereditary instinct is not the only motive which causes the 
 parents, and specially the female, to care for their young. The 
 foundation of psychical life is the same in them as in man ; the 
 conscient will intervenes and brings intelligence to its aid. Animals, 
 too, have received from their parents the lessons and the cares 
 which they give to their offspring. 
 
 Maternal love is certainly the strongest sentiment of which many 
 birds and mammalia are capable, and this sentiment sometimes in- 
 spires them with a devotedness which would do honour to the human 
 kind. A female wren, observed by Montagu, spent sixteen hours 
 a-day in looking for food for her little ones. At Delft, when 
 there was a fire raging, a female white stork, not being able to 
 carry away her young ones, allowed herself to be burnt Avith them. 
 In 1870, in Paris, during the German bombardment, a shell bursting 
 in a granary did not drive away a female pigeon who was sitting 
 upon her eggs. • 
 
 In the mammalia the maternal love shows characteristics that we 
 may call human. J. J. Hayes tells us of a female white bear for- 
 getting the Esquimaux dogs, the huntsmen, a,nd her own wounds, in 
 order to hide her own little bear with her body, to lick her and to- 
 protect her. In Central Africa a female elephant, all covered and 
 pierced with javelins hurled at her by the escort of black men attend- 
 ing on Livingstone, was all the while protecting her young one with 
 her trunk, which her own large body enabled her to cover. In 
 monkeys the intelligence is mixed up more strongly still with 
 maternal love, sometimes to thwart and stifle it, sometimes to exalt 
 it and to prompt it with ingenious resources. Occasionally the 
 females of the ouistiti (Jiapale) will commit infanticide. If they 
 grow tired of their children they eat their heads, or crush them against 
 a tree. Often, in the midst of the greatest danger, the female onthro- 
 pomorphse will give proof of the most touching acts of devotion. In. 
 
142 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 Sumatra, a female ourang-outang pursued with her little one by- 
 Captain Hall, and wounded by a gun-shot, threw her infant on to 
 the highest branches of the tree on to which she had climbed, and 
 continued until she died exhorting her young one by her gestures to 
 escape. In Brazil Spix saw a female of the stcntor niger, who, 
 wounded by a gun-shot, collected her last remaining strength to 
 throw her young one on to one of the branches close by : when she 
 had performed this last act of duty she fell from the tree and died. 
 
 The main characteristic in the love of animals for their young, 
 strong as the love may be, is that it is short, and is strictly con- 
 fined to the time necessary to allow the offspring to provide for 
 themselves. Parents and children then become complete strangers 
 to each other. As an instance, it is curious to see the turtle-dove 
 maltreat and drive out, as soon as they have grown up, her young 
 ones, which only a few weeks previously she had watched over 
 with so much care. 
 
 From this point of view, man, and man of the inferior races 
 especially, differs only slightly from animals. We may affirm that 
 among certain savage people the tenderness shown to their pro- 
 geniture is less than that which we see in many animals who 
 are highly endowed. In these belated races, the purely animal 
 instincts are held in check by an intelligence that relatively is 
 more fully developed. !Man's insight, even when it is most 
 confined, will enable him to see farther ahead than wo find to 
 be the case in the majority of animals. He foresees from a 
 distance troubles, annoyances, the cares of a family; and as his 
 morality is still but poorly developed, he often sacrifices his 
 posterity for the sake of his own personal welfare. We can 
 hardly doubt of this fact, so little flattering for the human kind, 
 if we study abortion and infanticide among the different races. 
 
Chap, iv.] ABORTION. 143 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ABORTION. 
 
 In the primitive forms of human societies morality is of the most 
 rudimentary kind ; the pubh'c opinion of the horde or of the tribe 
 bears very slightly upon individual actions. Parents can dis- 
 pose of their children as they please ; a fortiori they have the 
 power of preventing their birth. Even the greater number of the 
 written codes of law in use amongst societies where civilisation is pro- 
 gressing are silent as to abortion ; and we must go back to the Zend- 
 Avesta to find legal decrees upon this subject. Among races that are 
 still quite savage, it is as lawful for a pregnant woman to disburden 
 herself of her fruit as it is to her to cut her hair. We shall here 
 follow our usual custom in citing facts in support of our opinion. 
 Amongst all races we shall find instances of the same custom. 
 
 The Tasmanian woman, anthropomorphous as she is, used to 
 practise abortion very frequently. She was unwilling to become a 
 mother until after several years of married life, in order, as Mr. 
 Bonwick says, to preserve the freshness of her charms. The means 
 used to procure abortion were primitive, as was the intelligence of 
 the race : to obtain the desired eff'ect an old woman would beat the 
 belly of her who was pregnant. A similar custom used to exist 
 also in Australia at the time of the arrival of the first European 
 colonists. 
 
 Mr. Bonwick assigns only a sentimental reason for the existence 
 of the practice. There is often another cause, and a powerful one 
 — ^the difficulty of finding food for the children. 
 
 In New Caledonia the women, whether married or not, procure 
 abortion very constantly. They employ different means : the most 
 simple is " the banana process," which consists in swallowing green 
 bananas cooked and made boiling hot. This usage has become 
 proverbial ; it is said of a woman in the island who has procured 
 abortion : " There is another who has eaten bananas." According 
 to the morality of the country, there is not the slightest blame 
 attaching to any woman doing such a simple thing. 
 
144 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 In Formosa island, which is inhabited by a more developed race, 
 it is not allowed to women to have children before they are thirty- 
 six years of age ; and the priestesses perform an act of social duty 
 in stamping upon the belly of every woman who becomes pregnant 
 before the lawful time. This is not done from caprice or from 
 individual egotism ; the State ordains it, to prevent the popiilation 
 from becoming too great for the resources of the island. 
 
 In America also we find the practice of abortion very widely 
 spread. It was customary with the inhabitants on the shores of 
 Hudson's bay. And nowadays in La Plata the Payaguas make 
 their wives procure abortion as soon as they have given to them 
 tAvo live sons. Their neighbours the Mbayas do the same. 
 According to Humboldt the aborigines of the basin of the Orinoco 
 river have similar customs. The women there use abortive drugs 
 very largely, and they usually postpone the labours of maternity 
 until they have come to an age relatively advanced. 
 
 Among the civilised people belonging to the white race, with 
 whom material life is more easy, with whom morality is more 
 developed, whose codes of law endeavour with more or less success 
 to preserve the public welfare, abortion is stigmatised by public 
 opinion and is severely punished by law. We know that it is 
 still practised amongst ourselves upon a large scale, as it was 
 formerly practised by the Greeks and the Komans. Our law 
 reports give us abundant information on the subject ; and there is 
 not a doctor to whom women have not come to ask for abortive 
 drugs. On this matter, as on so many others, we must, if we 
 wish to learn the truth, look below the moral varnish of our 
 modern civilisations. In the heart of those of our societies 
 apparently the most refined, there still subsists, and for a long 
 time will subsist, an old remnant of barbarism. 
 
Chap, v.] INFANTICIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 INFANTICIDE. 
 
 Abortion is a learned form, and at the same time a dangerous one, 
 of the system of Malthusian prevention. As infanticide is both 
 more simple and less dangerous, it is for this twofold reason more 
 largely practised. Even among animals instances of it are not 
 uncommon. We find this foreseeing cruelty among wasps, who, 
 as they do not make for themselves a winter storehouse, kill their 
 joung who are hatched too late in the autumn. In primitive 
 societies life is rough and food is scarce. Man lives from hand to 
 mouth, eating when he can, and a numerous family is an intolerable 
 burden. He therefore remedies this by putting to death a great 
 number of children, especially girls. Such acts are thought to 
 be natural enough, and no one finds fault. For in the heart of 
 these rudimentary societies the instinctive feeling of aff'ection for 
 the young is soon overcome by the desire to leave the future un- 
 fettered. Examples of this are numerous enough. 
 
 All through Melanesia infanticide used to be practised, and 
 perhaps is so still to a very considerable extent. The Tasmanians, 
 often famished with hunger, thought little of the lives of their 
 own offspring. There as elsewhere, it was mainly the children of 
 the feminine sex who were sacrificed. In the case of the death of 
 their parents their children would be buried with them alive. 
 No one had leisure to trouble himself about orphan children. 
 Maternal love, thwarted by the inexorable necessities of a miser- 
 able life, showed itself in another direction; the same women 
 who would kill their children without a flush on their cheeks 
 would bring up and fondle little dogs. 
 
 The Australians, so similar to the Tasmanians, are also quite as 
 pitiless. They rid themselves of a great many of their newborn 
 especially of the girls. 
 
 This is the principal reason of the numerical inferiority of women 
 amongst them, and surely one of the causes of their bestial pre- 
 
 I 
 
146 AFFECTIYE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 miscuity, of which we shall again have to speak. And male- 
 children, too, in Australia, were spared only relatively. Sturt 
 relates that an inhabitant of the interior of Australia made use of 
 his sick child by breaking his head against a stone, and then eating 
 him after he had roasted him. 
 
 Among the other Melanesian races the children are not much 
 better cared for ; but we must curtail our enumeration, as we have 
 many facts to quote of the same kind observed among the greater 
 part of half-civilised races. 
 
 In certain tribes in Southern Africa the aborigines lay great 
 stone traps for lions who disturb them, and they bait these traps 
 with their own children. The inhabitants of Follindochie, in 
 the valley of the Niger, will gladly barter their children for the 
 smallest trifle. And according to M. Eaffenel, so do the Zolas- 
 in Senegambia. 
 
 But it is principally in the islands where food is not plentiful 
 that infanticide is general. It was very generally practised all 
 over Polynesia. In the Sandwich islands more than two or three 
 children were never kept in one family ; the others were strangled 
 or buried alive. In Tahiti there was hardly a woman who had not 
 put to death at least one of her children. We know that in the 
 Tahitian archipelago the association of the Areois — of whom we 
 have already spoken — held infanticide to be obligatory on all its 
 members, except in the cases of some few exceptions, which were 
 clearly specified. For instance, of the chiefs, the firstborn child 
 was spared ; but the most distinguished chiefs were held bound to 
 put to death only their eldest sons and all their girls. "VVe must 
 remark that the brotherhood of the Areois was composed of the- 
 flower of the population, that its practices were authorised and con- 
 secrated by the religion of the country. But the human plant, as 
 Alfieri expresses it, grew in this happy climate, and the Society 
 islands were overflowing with their population. We see there a. 
 most practical instance of the utilitarian origin of morality. 
 
 Also the natives of Tikopia, an island only seven miles in cir- 
 cumference, imposed upon themselves the law not to spare more 
 than two of their male children ; the others were strangled. In. 
 
Chap, v.] INFAj>^TICIDE. 147 
 
 some exceptional cases the girls were respected, hence the absolute 
 necessity for polygamy. And for the same reason the natives of 
 the Eadik islands (A-ur) put to death the third, or at least the 
 fourth child of every wife. 
 
 Sahis popuU suprema lex. 
 
 At the risk of ' being monotonous we must continue our dis- 
 agreeable but instructive task; for it is important to show 
 how weak in the poorly-cultivated man are the sentiments which 
 our moralists and our philosophers commonly regard as the glorious 
 appanage belonging to our kind. 
 
 Among many American tribes the people used to hold the lives 
 of their children quite as cheaply as in Polynesia. The Yuracares 
 in South America made a sport of abandoning and of burying their 
 children. The Moxos of the same country also did the same ; and 
 specially, as is customary among savage races, they did not spare 
 the twins. The Peruvian aborigines, too, who are more or less 
 christianised, do not baptise their twins, they bring them up 
 always regretting their birth. Charlevoix has observed similar 
 facts among the Eed Skins ; he saw a foster-child buried alive with 
 the corpse of the mother who had nursed him. 
 
 Socially speaking, the Esquimaux and the' Eed Skins have 
 nothing in common, for the Eed Skins of North America exter- 
 minate the Esquimaux as venomous beasts wherever they find 
 them. But still the one rage of people hold the lives of their 
 children in as little estimation as do the other. The American 
 and the Kamtschadalian Esquimaux do not hesitate to put their 
 children to death if they are in the slightest way weak or de 
 formed. In these arctic regions the struggle for life is hard to 
 bear, and a poorly-organised person cannot be tolerated. Two 
 Esquimaux women volunteered to Captain Parry to barter their 
 children for some trifles, and thinking the bargain concluded, 
 began to strip the children of their clothes, as not forming 
 part of the sale. In Greenland, or more generally among all 
 the Esquimaux, if a mother were to die, the children would 
 be buried with her. Their religion justified this custom, as it 
 
 L 2 
 
148 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book ni. 
 
 everywhere justifies social necessities, and our uncontrollable 
 wants. The Esquimaux believed that from Khillo, or from 
 the sojourn of the dead, the mother would call for her child, 
 aijd the father therefore took care to bury with him the straps 
 which she had used to enable her to carry him. 
 
 In China, a country so enlightened in many respects, a country 
 in which the established religion is little more than a code of 
 morals, abandonment of their children, and also infanticide — 
 specially of the girls — has long been customary. Marco Polo 
 observed it even in his time, in spite of the foundation of 
 hospitals for foundlings, and in spite of edicts. The Chinese 
 morality had to give way to the over abundance of their popu- 
 lation. Besides abandoning their children the Chinese allow 
 the parents to sell them, and the sales are openly and publicly 
 made. 
 
 We find the same customs in many districts of India, from 
 Ceylon up to the Himalaya. It is chiefly among the black Indian 
 natives that infanticide is most openly practised ; and indeed it 
 is customary with every inferior and poorly civilised race. Here 
 too, as elsewhere, it is the girls who are mostly sacrificed. The 
 Katodis used to keep only one or two in each family. The Ghauts 
 in the Vindhya mountains act in the same way, and they also 
 have sanctified the custom by making it one of their religious 
 precepts. From manners such as these, polyandry, as we find it 
 practised in Ceylon and in the Himalaya, will follow as a necessary 
 consequence. But the custom of female infanticide is in no wise 
 peculiar to the remains of the inferior aborigines of India. Among 
 the highest born of the Raijpoot it is a common practice. They 
 consider it dishonourable to have an unmarried daughter; it is 
 degrading to marry her below her rank, it is ruinous to marry her 
 to a man of higher rank who asks for a dowry ; as a last resource, 
 therefore — and this clears away every objection — by the sacrifice 
 of a girl " the bad powers " are appeased. 
 
 It is instructive to note that these people who do not hold 
 infanticide to be even a peccadillo, would undergo anything rather 
 than hurt a cow. In many places, girls who have been spared arc 
 
Chap. VI.] LOVE FOE THE YOUNG IN HUMANITY. 149 
 
 considered as merchandise. The Indians at Tullee, near the source 
 of the Jumna river, will barter them for the merest trifle, or will 
 sell them for a few rupees. But, on the other hand, it is a matter 
 of great difficulty to get them to sell one of their sheep ; for they 
 say: "The sheep gives us wherewithal to clothe ourselves, but 
 what can we do with a girl 1 " 
 
 Among the Semitic and European races, even those who are the 
 least civilised, the moral sense has made some way. The historians 
 tell us that the inhabitants of Mecca, in times of famine, have been 
 known to sell their children for a measure of corn. But these are 
 cases in which a superior force overrules everything; and, as a 
 general rule, among the Semitic races, and with Europeans, the 
 abandonment or the murdering of their children are individual acts, 
 and are relatively rare. In Europe it wiU be found that as time 
 has progressed the occurrence has become gradually less and less 
 frequent. Eor if we may believe Saint Vincent de Paul, the 
 abandonment of chiLdren in the seventeenth century was then 
 common. And here is one of the thousand arguments, and not 
 one of the weakest, which we may adduce in proof of the pro- 
 gressive movement of humanity. Man has sprung from a very low 
 state ; but he can, and will, ever continue to rise to a higher and 
 better condition. 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 LOVE FOR THE YOUNG IN HUMANITY. 
 
 According to European notions the facts which we have just 
 mentioned are atrocious. There is still taught in our schools the 
 obsolete theory that our moral ideas — the ideas that we Europeans 
 of the nineteenth century now possess — are innate in all the human 
 kind. How can those who defend the commonplaces of university 
 teaching explain the fearful state of manners which we have just 
 described 1 The doctrine of advancement, of slow and progressive 
 evolution, is the only argument that can rest unshaken by facts 
 
150 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book ui. 
 
 such as these. That doctrine accepts them because they are found 
 to exist, and classes them, as do naturalists, considering them 
 characteristic features in the inferior places of civilisation. 
 
 Are we to understand, then, that love for their children is un- 
 known to primitive man 1 By no means. How should we feel, 
 we the descendants, still rough and uncouth after the efforts of 
 so many ages, if these ancestors, coarse as they appear now to us, 
 had not bequeathed to us the rudiments of love 1 Can it be that 
 a sentiment, so primordial that we find traces of it even in the 
 inferior animals, should be foreign only to man ? 
 
 Even amongst the wildest hordes, parental love, especially that 
 of the mother for her children, exists, but in an instinctive state, 
 and is overcome by the inexorable necessities of existence. Primo 
 vivere. This sentiment has not been exalted as is the case w*ith us, 
 by education, by literature, and by tradition. Sentimentality is 
 unknown in these embryo societies; animal ferocity is not kept 
 in check by moral feeling, by human respect, or by the severity 
 of the laws. In truth, during these inferior phases of joint 
 evolution an idea of morality hardly exists ; laws that are purely 
 traditional scarcely influence individual actions ; children are the 
 absolute property of their parents. And when hunger does not 
 cry too loudly primitive man will love and fondle his children, 
 perhaps as tenderly as he who is civilised. This may be proved by 
 numberless facts. 
 
 Even the poor Euegians on the Magellan straits caress 
 their children and play with them. Wallis saw the parents make 
 their young ones jump about in their canoes, lift them up into the 
 air, and hold them over the water to amuse them by frightening 
 them. 
 
 In South America the Yuracares do not allow themselves to 
 scold their children ; they consider that it would be very %vrong to 
 vex them. The Esquimaux make dolls for their little girls, and 
 small bows for their boys ; they never eat until their children have 
 had their share. An Esquimau father and mother, passing a spot 
 where the summer previous a child whom they adopted had 
 died, knelt down and began to cry and to mourn. An Esquimau 
 
€hap.vi.] LOYE for THE YOUXa IN HUMANITY. 151 
 
 father advised that the dead body of his child should he buried 
 in the snow ; for he said that the mother, who had died before, 
 would cry out in her grave if stones or blocks of ice were to weigh 
 heavily upon her offspring. 
 
 The Polynesians, prodigal as they were of the blood of their 
 newborn children, were very fond of those whom they had spared. 
 In the Marquesas islands the women used to nurse their fostep 
 children most tenderly, they heaped upon them the most delicate 
 attentions ; the men pressed between their arms the children whom 
 they thought were their own ; it was not otherwise in the Sandwich 
 islands. 
 
 The coarse Hottentots are as fond of their children as people of 
 other races. As soon as he is born the little Hottentot is fastened 
 with straps on to his mother's back, and he does not leave her. On 
 the banks of the Niger the maternal affection is so strong that after 
 the death of their children the mothers will carry upon their heads 
 small wooden images in commemoration of their little dead ones, 
 and they will not allow these emblems to be taken from 
 them. They seem to consider them as living images, and before 
 eating themselves they always offer food to these little wooden 
 children. 
 
 Nevertheless, among savages, love for their children does not last 
 very long. We can understand that it should be stronger in the 
 woman than in the man ; in every race, civilised or not, woman is 
 in this respect more instinctive than her companion. Maternal 
 affection increases very considerably with the constant intimacy 
 which the early cares towards the child render necessary ; for nurs- 
 ing among savages lasts sometimes for five or six years, to such an 
 extent that a foster-child in the Marquesas islands has been known 
 to take a cigar out of his mouth before beginning to suck the 
 breast. In these same islands, where life is easy, the boy, when 
 he has grown up, builds for himself an ajoupa of branches and of 
 leaves, and troubles himself no longer about his family. The 
 parents at first appear still to be fond of him, but they resign 
 themselves to the life he has adopted, and soon they think no more 
 about him. In much the same way many birds and mammalia 
 
152 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 drive out their little ones as soon as they have arrived at an aga 
 when they can provide for themselves. 
 
 It is not until along process of culture has developed the mental 
 life, enlarged the intellectual horizon, and created affective senti- 
 ments, that the instinctive love of the progenitors for their offspring 
 can ennoble itself and fully conquer physiological wants. Lasting 
 ties then unite the parents and their children, for the sentiments of 
 the children model themselves more or less upon the sentiments of 
 the parents by reason of a long and intimate daily intercourse. 
 Parents and children have both acquired their share of the mental 
 qualities of their race and of their nation — without speaking of 
 money or the care of social position, two very powerful factors in 
 societies which are called civilised. But all that with the savage- 
 exists only in an inchoative state. 
 
 CHAPTER yil. 
 
 FILIAL LOVE, ASSISTANCE TO THE OLD, TO THE SICK, ETC. 
 
 In humanity, parental love for children is assuredly the foundation- 
 stone of the affective life. In the animal kingdom it is also the 
 most fully developed of all the benevolent sentiments. It has 
 certainly been the object of selection, for it is indispensable to th© 
 keeping together of all the superior kinds. On the other hand, 
 the love of the young for their progenitors is less necessary, 
 and is therefore rarer and much more feeble. The majority of 
 animals do not know it, the savage feels it only slightly; even 
 amongst civilised people filial affection is much less energetic than 
 the paternal, and specially than the maternal love. 
 
 The affection shown towards parents and assistance given to old 
 men are very closely allied, especially in primitive societies, where 
 all the members of a horde or of a tribe are more or less closely 
 related ; or again, when promiscuity is common, aad the children 
 do not know their own father. We shall therefore study simul- 
 
Chap. VII.] FILIAL LOYE, ASSISTANCE TO THE OLD, ETC. 153- 
 
 taneously filial love and assistance, given or not, to old men, and 
 more generally to the infirm and to the sick. 
 
 In order that they may be more developed in man, the nobl& 
 sentiments of which we are going to speak do not appertain to him 
 exclusively ; we may mention some undoubted instances that have 
 been observed in animals. Latreille had cut off the feelers of an 
 ant; she was assisted by her sister ants, who, when they had 
 examined her wounds, covered them with a mucus taken from 
 their mouth. A queen bee, nearly drowned, w^as surrounded by 
 the working bees, who took care of her and licked her until her 
 strength was restored. 
 
 It is not wonderful that some feeling of joint responsibility 
 should exist in ants and in bees, for they are both very sociable 
 animals ; but this feeling can develop itself in animals whom the 
 caprice of man has compelled to live together, as may be seen from 
 the following fact. A friend of mine, M. Yihre, a chemist in Paris, 
 brought up a couple of canary birds, who had come direct from 
 the Canary islands, and he put them both together into a garret 
 in his country house at Nanterre. This couple, well fed and 
 almost free in their actions, increased and multiplied. Fifteen or 
 sixteen years afterwards the garret was inhabited with a tribe of 
 canaries, sixty or seventy in number ; and among them there was 
 some mixture of the green canary, for strangers had been intro- 
 duced into the family. The mother bird, then seventeen or 
 eighteen years old, was so enfeebled by her great age that she 
 could hardly flutter. She could barely drag herself to join in the 
 common meal. Two of her descendants — two only, and they were- 
 both of the pure breed — perceived this and came to her assistance. 
 They took care of her until her death, as much as nearly two years 
 afterwards. They fed her from their own beaks, as they would 
 a little one; and what is equally singular, the old grandmother 
 welcomed them by beating her wings, as the young ones do. This 
 was not an instance of filial love, for the two charitable birds were 
 distant descendants of the mother ancestor ; it was an act of what 
 we too proudly call " humanity," though this noble sentiment is 
 far from existing in the hearts of all men. 
 
154 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 In fact, in all primitive humanity the lot of the aged and the 
 infirm is generally pitiful. Over all Melanesia it is customary to 
 put to death the aged and infirm, as they are so many useless 
 mouths. The Xew Caledonians, who regard the head of their 
 father as a sacred ohject, consign their parents to some secluded 
 spot, and leave them there to die. They sometimes bury them 
 alive, and the sufferers take the whole thing as a matter of course. 
 The old people will often ask for death, and will walk towards 
 the ditch into which they are felled hy a blow on the head. 
 The same custom was generally practised in one of the Fiji 
 islands. There it had been established by the religion of 
 the place; for religious ideas are most frequently first prompted 
 by the requirements of a people or of a race. The Fijians 
 believed that a man goes into the future life exactly in the 
 same condition as that in which he has left the present. There 
 was therefore a very strong argument to prevent him from allowing 
 himself from falling into decline. Hence arose the duty of the 
 children to warn their parents in time, and to kill them was their 
 Jast act of earthly gratitude. The children did not fail to obey. 
 A mortuary feast was held, to which friends and relations were 
 invited ; then the victims walked quietly towards their ditch, and 
 after a tender farewell the sons would, with their own hands, 
 strangle their parents. 
 
 Similar facts have been noticed nearly all over the world. 
 Campbell relates that among the Matchappi Kafirs, the old men are 
 held to be contemptible, and are forsaken ; they die of hunger and 
 their bodies are left as prey for the wild beasts. In Polynesia the 
 fate of the aged and of the sick is not less hard. They were often 
 driven out of the house, and sometimes were buried alive. Accord- 
 ing to Robertson, to put one's old relations to death, was a general 
 custom from Hudson's bay down to the La Plata river, and we 
 may almost say down to the island of Terra del Fuego. The 
 Esquimaux either buried them after they had strangled them 
 (H. Ellis) or they shut them up in an iglou of ice. The Itonamos 
 -of South America used to stifle their sick. In times of famine 
 
Chap, vii.] FILIAL LOVE, ASSISTANCE TO THE OLD, ETC. 155 
 
 the Euegians asphyxiate and eat the old women, in preference to 
 their dogs, who they say eat otters. 
 
 The Kamtschadales used to kill their parents to be rid of them, 
 and would then throw their bodies to the dogs. The Kamtschadalian 
 conscience justified itself on religious principles : to be eaten by 
 the dogs was. a sure way of being taken to the next world, for the 
 dogs themselves were so good. The Koriaks and the Tshuktshi 
 were like the Fiji islanders, who wished to leave this present world 
 in a good condition, so as to be happy in the next ; they therefore 
 required of their children to kill them before they got old. 
 
 The Thibetans, respectful towards their parents, give very little 
 assistance to the sick, especially to those afflicted with any con- 
 tagious illness. As soon as a case of smallpox declared itself in a 
 house the inhabitants would all leave it : they would go away from 
 the town, and the sick person would die uncared for and alone. 
 
 These animal customs are not peculiar only to the inferior races, 
 properly so called ; they will always be found where civilisation is 
 in a backward state. The Massagetse used to bury their old men. 
 A tribe at Sardis used always to fell their old men by hitting them 
 with a stick. In ancient Bactriana dogs were kept for the special 
 purpose of devouring the aged and sick ; they were called the " dog 
 buriers" (Strabo). It is not long since that the Abasians would 
 willingly sell their fathers or their relations. 
 
 We have only to make a choice of facts related by historians and 
 travellers in order to prove how little susceptible of affection is 
 man, in the primitive stages of his existence, for his aged parents, and 
 for the infirm of every sort. 
 
 Are we to understand therefore that the poorly developed man 
 does not feel filial love 1 By no means. But the capacity of altruism, 
 or the feeling ion others, is with him very slight, and is easily 
 quenched by contrary sentiments. During this period of his mental 
 evolution man's moral sense is very unsteady ; he may be charitable 
 or unforgiving, according as circumstances will sway him. 
 
 The New Zealanders used to show a great respect for their old 
 men ; they used to place them in the best seats at their feasts ; and 
 
156 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 often the chief would feed the common people for the simple reason 
 that they were old. In Senegambia the phrase : " strike me, but 
 do not curse my mother," is familiar even among the slaves. At 
 Kaarta the Bambarrans call all the old men " baba," or " papa ; " 
 they pay a sort of respect to their .white hairs. 
 
 The Dayours on the Upper Nile venerate the old men, and in all 
 their hamlets some gray heads may be seen. This is a very fertile 
 region; life here is easy, the struggle to live is not cruel, bene- 
 volent sentiments can therefore afford to show themselves. Also 
 in California, among some of the Catholic missions, when hunger 
 did not make itself too severely felt, the old men lived at the 
 expense of the community, and were fairly well cared for; and 
 here the aborigines belonged to a very inferior race. 
 
 The Tartars, much superior to the Californians in the hierarchy 
 of the human types, and also much more civilised, whose pastoral 
 life guarantees them against hunger with tolerable certainty, are 
 kind and hospitable, and they show a great respect for paternal 
 authority even after they are married. In China these sentiments 
 have grown with the march of civilisation, and respect for their 
 parents and for the aged has become with them an imperative 
 moral duty. After the death of their parents their sons continue 
 to celebrate each decade of their existence as though they were 
 alive. To forsake one's old father is a crime that they rarely 
 commit. The emperor will sometimes give to the old men a yeUow 
 dress as a mark of homage. Asylums for the aged, for widows, foi 
 the infirm, hospitals for foundlings, where they are well cared for, 
 benevolent societies for affording assistance, houses for the education 
 of the poor, are numerous, and in some cases date from a very early 
 period. As long back as the days of Marco Polo the emperor 
 decreed that the homeless children should be brought together and 
 be educated. We cannot but see in all this an indication of a high 
 degree of moral elevation. Let us add that in China the respect 
 for intellectual accomplishments is also not less noteworthy. A 
 Chinese society is formed with the object of collecting every old 
 piece of paper on which there is any writing or printing, so as to 
 save it from the rubbish heap. The tramps, the literary scavengers 
 
Chap, viii.] THE FEEOCIOUS INSTINCTS IN HUMANITY. 157 
 
 employed in collecting these scraps, carry placards on which may 
 be read : " Carefully respect the paper on which any letters are 
 written." This is in truth a degree of educational respect both 
 touching and piteous. One must go to China to see characteristics 
 that are so pathetic. 
 
 The Chinese laws have pushed the case of joint responsibility so 
 far that some of them defeat their own object ; for instance, the 
 law holding amenable to be punished with death the man who 
 was the last to see any other person, for this will often prevent a 
 man from affording assistance to one who is drowning, or to one on 
 his deathbed. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FEROCIOUS INSTINCTS IN HUMANITY. 
 
 The organisation of benevolent institutions can only be possible in 
 a society that is itself well organised. But still true humane 
 sympathy for one who is sufiering is not unknown among many 
 primitive people. From this point of view, what are the character- 
 istics that we find in different races ? Or, in a more general manner, 
 how is human life thought of in the different human groups 1 
 From an ethnico-psychological point of view these questions are 
 all-important. 
 
 The altruist sentiments, as the positivists say (the power of 
 being able to put oneself in another's place and feeling for him), 
 are certainly the result of a high degree of culture. Doubtless they 
 ■are not altogether wanting to the inferior races, and we shall have 
 to mention some instances of this ; but they are uncommon and in- 
 constant. In the early phases of civilisation this regard for the 
 feelings of others has only dawned upon the human conscience. 
 
 The Australians do not think any more of the life of a man than 
 they do of that of a butterfly. But they feel with great violence 
 the desire for vengeance, and will satisfy it upon any member of 
 the tribe to which one who has offended them belongs. In speaking 
 of the genesis of the moral sense v/e shall have to return to this 
 
158 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii, 
 
 curious fact. The same contempt for human life may be observed 
 all through Melanesia. We shall see later on that in New Cale- 
 donia the chiefs will gladly, m their own family circle, eat one of 
 their subjects. Similar manners used to prevail in the Fiji islands. 
 A Fijian named Loti ate his own wife, after he had roasted her over 
 a fire which she, by his own orders, had prepared. He committed 
 this atrocity simply to attract attention, to acquire some degree of 
 notoriety. To kill anyone in this country is an act that entails no 
 consequences. A man may bring himself into good repute by so 
 doing ; consequently the natives take care always to be well armed. 
 
 The negroes in Africa are hardly more humane, in the European 
 sense of the word, than are those in Melanesia. The contempt with 
 which the Ashantis regard human life is well known ; in fact 
 it goes beyond all belief. At the death of one of their princes, 
 these people are sacrificed by hundreds, and even by thousands. 
 Other butcheries take place at stated periods : at the beginning of the 
 season for gathering the ignames, or of the harvest, etc. Sometimes 
 a young virgin girl is impaled in order to remedy the slack condition 
 of their commerce ; and worse still, the people are not content with 
 killing, they often exercise their ingenuity in torturing their victims 
 before sacrificing them. Bowdich saw a man whose hands were tied 
 behind his back, and who had been tortured as follows : a stake 
 hanging down in front of him was fastened to one of his ears ; the 
 other ear, nearly altogether detached from his head, was hanging 
 only by a shred ; a blade of a knife ran through his two cheeks ; 
 he had several large gashes cut into his back ; a knife was passed 
 through the skin under each shoulder-blade ; and he was led about 
 as a beast of burden by a cord pulled through a hole made in hia 
 nose. 
 
 The negroes in Senegambia, who are in some slight measure 
 civilised, and have in them a mixture of Moorish blood, are ex- 
 cessively violent and cruel. Murder is very frequent there, and 
 undying vengeance is with them an act of duty. According to 
 Mungo Park, they make a study of doing harm to others, and 
 take pleasure in watching their sufferings. 
 
 The vast American continent used to contain, and does still 
 
Chap, viii.] THE FEEOCIOUS INSTINCTS IN HUMANITY. 159^ 
 
 contain, nations or tribes whose manners are very widely different ; 
 but except perhaps some of the tribes in Central America, ferocity 
 of disposition is everywhere the predominant character. In 
 speaking of cannibalism, of the treatment inflicted upon prisoners 
 taken in war, of the different religions in America, we shall have 
 to mention many very atrocious facts, among others the punishment 
 of prisoners by the Red Skins and the Brazilian Indians, and of 
 the human sacrifices of the Mexicans. 
 
 The Indians whom La Perouse saw at Port-des-Frangais, in-- 
 South America, Avere very irritable, subject to fits of anger, per- 
 petually quarrelling amongst themselves and threatening each other, 
 and extremely vindictive ; they were much more savage in their 
 manner than many wild animals. The Malays, who appear to be 
 cold, taciturn, cunning, masters of their own actions, bold, and 
 despising peaceful occupations, are, we are told by travellers, singu- 
 larly cruel, and at the same time they have always a noble bearing 
 and an extreme politeness of manner. If we may believe Mccolo 
 Conti, an old traveller who wrote in the year 1430, the Malays- 
 looked upon homicide as a joke. He says : " If one of them 
 bought a sword he would try it at once by plunging it into the- 
 chest of the first man who passed him." Public opinion was in 
 nowise shocked ; the skiU of the murderer would rather be praised 
 if the blow had been artistically dealt. We see another instance 
 of this ancient ferocity in the well-known Javanese custom " to- 
 run a muck." In Malay, as elsewhere, for one reason or another, 
 a man would be tired of life. Then instead of killing himself, a& 
 a man might do in Europe, he clutches his kriss (a sort of dagger) — 
 he often first makes himself drunk with opium — and wreaks his wild 
 fury upon any one he meets. Ten, fifteen, or twenty persons may 
 be killed by a man in this state of madness, before he is himself 
 either killed or even arrested. The Malays do not consider that 
 "running a muck" is at all dishonourable. A man will adopt 
 it from any or from the slightest cause ; the " muck-runner " 
 may consider himself unfairly dealt with, or he may have lost 
 at play, or any other reason will prevail with him. In the 
 time of war, a whole body of men may sometimes be seen 
 
160 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 concerting their plans to " run a muck " through the enemy's 
 ranks. They will rush with most furious energy, and allow no 
 obstacle to stay them. 
 
 The Polynesians too, relatively a soft-mannered people, as gay 
 and fickle as children, held human life quite as cheaply. The 
 chiefs would maltreat, wound, or kill the common people, as 
 their caprice prompted them. With the consent of a priest, any 
 Polynesian, especially one of the lower classes, might be seized and 
 ■sacrificed to the gods. We shall again revert to this in speaking 
 of the religion of these people. 
 
 Humanity and philanthropy are the smallest among the good 
 qualities of the difi'erent branches of the Asiatic Mongolians. The 
 nomad Turkomans, who wander about through the Khorassan, are 
 literally beasts of prey. They run madly through tlie agricultural 
 districts, and make a sport of killing the people or of making slaves 
 of them. For the slightest fault, for any caprice of their own, they 
 will put to death their wives, their children, and their servants. If 
 we may believe Father Hue, the Mongolians, those properly so 
 called, have lost the old ferocity which at one time characterised 
 their invasions into Europe and into Asia. They would now seem 
 to be soft mannered, peaceful, and hospitable. According to a more 
 recent traveller, this softness has grown into apathy and treachery 
 among all the tribes in which there is any trace of Chinese customs 
 or of Chinese blood. 
 
 The Chinese, so estimable in many ways, and even so admirable, 
 seem to be able to reconcile their extreme contempt for death with 
 a degree of treachery that is also equally excessive. In their 
 liistory we read of a series of frightful civil wars, of bloody 
 rebellions, followed by most cruel tyranny. On the other hand, 
 we all know with what placidity the Chinaman will look upon 
 capital punishment. Quite recently, a man who was condemned 
 to die readily found a substitute, who, for a small consider- 
 ation, at once consented to undergo the punishment. At the 
 same time, these people, who hold in such slight estimation the 
 lives of others and also their own, will submit to any burden 
 without a murmur ; they will, in their own country, let themselves 
 
Chap, viii.] THE FEROCIOUS INSTINCTS IN HUMANITY. 161 
 
 be governed by a handful of Europeans ; they will servilely obey 
 the Malays, who are so inferior to them. It is difficult not to 
 trace this enervation of character among the Chinese to their own 
 civilisation, which during the course of some thousands of years has 
 ever tended to govern all the acts in their daily life, to paralyse 
 individual enterprise, to hold implicit obedience to the State 
 officials as absolutely imperative, and to despise every warlike pro- 
 fession. The complication of these results has at last ended in 
 stifling all the primitive natural energy of their race. According 
 to Father Hue, it is always the Chinaman's endeavour not to com- 
 promise himself ; and this sentiment has grown into a saying which 
 the Chinese have ever ready in difficult situations : " Lessen your 
 desires." May this maxim be taken to heart by certain European 
 nations, in which the governing classes are evidently trying to 
 become Chinamen. 
 
 This enfeeblement of the Chinese is not a characteristic originally 
 natural to them ; it has been acquired. It is the result of institu- 
 tions, otherwise beneficial, but which have taken thought only of 
 intellectual development, and given none to the strengthening of 
 the character, or to the training of the moral system. The Japanese, 
 on the other hand, so similar to the Chinese, and to whom they owe 
 the brightest spots in their civilisation, have always maintained the 
 primitive energy of their ancestors. With them, to forget a wrong 
 done is stigmatised as an act of cowardice; they hold military 
 courage to be no more than ordinary virtue. 
 
 Their suicidal custom of embowelling themselves, which is 
 practised even now, must no doubt be called an act of madness ; 
 but it is certainly incompatible with an enfeeblement of the national 
 character. Now, among any people, no quality is more primordial 
 than freshness of mind; without that, intellectual development, 
 even to a considerable extent, will benefit little. Eut alone, it can 
 assuredly bring forth no fruit. To extend the frontiers of human 
 knowledge man must generally brave the prejudices of his time, 
 forget himself, disdain his own personal Avelfare : to think strongly, 
 he must first have willed strongly. 
 
 It would be equally rash to deny or to exaggerate the influence 
 
1G2 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 of the institutions with which we are surrounded upon the character 
 of a man or upon a race of people. Every man when he is born 
 inherits a moral system, and this system will form the basis of his 
 nature during the whole course of his existence. Education is not 
 disarmed by the force of instincts transmitted to him by his 
 ancestors, but its power is greatly limited. The influence of social 
 surroundings upon each single individual is very small, but it goes 
 on increasing mathematically from one generation to another ; it is 
 the untiring effort of the drop of water ever falling upon the granite 
 which bores the hole and at last splits the rock. The slight mental 
 changes produced in each man by the social atmosphere in which 
 he lives add themselves together and make a sum-total, and in a 
 given time they may entirely metamorphose the character of a 
 people or of a race. In China the Mongolian has become cowardly 
 and servile, but in Japan his primitive energy has been more 
 fully preserved. 
 
 Similar effects may be observed in the different ethnical groups 
 of the white race. The real Hindoo, who is the Brahmin offspring 
 of the ancient emigrants come from the steppes of Central Asia, 
 is now enervated and effeminated; but at the same time he is 
 humanised. In him all trace of his ancestral ferocity has dis- 
 appeared. With certain Hindoo Buddhists the humanising senti- 
 ments have been so exaggerated as to become animalised, for they 
 have founded hospitable asylums even for their dumb creatures. 
 The mainspring of his character has become weakened, and hundreds 
 of millions of Hindoos now submit themselves to a handful of 
 English conquerors. In India if we wish to find some little 
 courage or energy, we must go up to the northern regions, where 
 the stamp of native wildness still exists. The Sikhs are fearless ; 
 the Eaijpoots are drunkards, sensual, and cruel, but they are 
 still courageous. 
 
 In Persia the moral degeneracy of the white race has, we are 
 told by all travellers, grown to excess. The people there will 
 tolerate with abject servility the most capricious despotism. The 
 Persian himself is hypocritical, cowardly, and ferocious. The 
 only white men not yet crushed by European civilisation, and 
 
'Chap, viir.] THE FEROCIOUS INSTINCTS IN HUMANITY. 163 
 
 who, during tlie primitive epochs, gave to our ancestors their 
 ethnical superiority, are the clans in the Caucasus, whom the 
 Eussians have had so much trouble in bringing under their 
 subjection. 
 
 Among these mountaineers, as among the Arabs, the human 
 sentiment is shown by their religious feeling of hospitality ; and 
 the sanguinary instincts of past ages is still seen in their desire for 
 vengeance, which they hold to be a sacred duty. The obligation 
 is always handed down from father to son. We know that it is 
 almost the same with the Arabs, both in Asia and in Africa, who 
 have come to an equal stage of civilisation. 
 
 Among the so-called Indo-European nations, now the most 
 •civilised, the sanguinary instincts of the animal, though very 
 much deadened, often awake and still show themselves in a 
 thousand different ways. It may be that abandonment is no 
 longer practised, that we do not eat our old men, as the Thracians 
 used to do in the days of classic antiquity ; but, nevertheless, in 
 the heart of nations apparently the most civilised, acts of cold 
 inhumanity, of actual savagery, are of daily occurrence. As has 
 been recently shown by Dr. Eordier, in examining the skulls of 
 assassins, atavism reproduces even now in Europe a certain number 
 of savages who belong to the age of polished stone. This ferocity 
 is not yet quite extinct, and shows itself only too plainly in a 
 great social crisis, when all legal restraint is thrown aside, and 
 ■especially when, in a cause more or less well generally understood, 
 the fluctuations in public morality appeal to the sanguinary 
 instincts against a foreign or domestic enemy. 
 
 Our modern humanity is much oftener upon our lips than in 
 our hearts. It is indeed narrow enough, and hardly held to be 
 'Obligatory except among people of the same race, or more strictly, 
 people of the same country. Christopher Columbus, who passes 
 with us for a type of noble heroism, thought that he was not 
 doing wrong in ordering that the natives of the Antilles should be 
 extirpated, that they should be devoured by bloodhounds ; and 
 until the end of the eighteenth century this practice, worse than 
 savage, was continued in Cuba and in the island of St. Domingo 
 
 M 2 
 
164 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book nr. 
 
 by the French and Spanish colonists against the maroon coloured 
 negroes. In Cape Colony the Dutch drove out the Bushmen, and 
 even the Hottentots, as though they were wild beasts; and we 
 know only too well that in the same savage way the English 
 colonists have exterminated the Tasmanians. 
 
 Does all this mean that, as regards benevolent and humanising 
 sentiments, man has not progressed since the early primitive ages % 
 It would be ridiculously absurd to maintain such a theory. At 
 first man was but little different from other superior mammalia. 
 His kindly feelings were weak, intermittent, easily mastered by 
 his instincts and personal wants ; but as hunger, the all-powerful 
 incentive, gradually slackened its hold, man's egoism has by 
 degrees become less violent. At first people were fond only of 
 their children, and were fond of them only for a short time, after 
 the fashion of animals. Then man began to show care for the 
 aged and infirm. For a long while humanity was not extended 
 beyond the members of one's own family or one's own tribe. In 
 modern times, among civilised nations, except when war is raging, 
 the fact of being a man has asserted a claim to certain rights. 
 We need not be accused of over optimism if we believe that 
 humanising sentiments are destined to extend themselves still 
 much more largely. But this noble side of the moral man has 
 grown very slowly in the human conscience, as we may see clearly 
 by some examples among the inferior human types; for they, 
 in this way, as in many others, show us the successive stages 
 through which the superior branches of humanity have passed. 
 It will therefore not be uninteresting to study in the different 
 races the manifestations of altruist sentiments, to see the gradual 
 passage from the bestial to the human state. 
 
■Ohap. IX.] BENEVOLENT SENTIMENTS. 165 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 BENEVOLENT SENTIMENTS. 
 
 We may easily understand how the feelings of pity, of compassion, 
 etc., arise and have their existence. If any organised creature is 
 touched by the suffering of one of his kind, it is painful to him to 
 know of the suffering. The exterior signs of the pains of others 
 strike hack upon the individual who watches them ; they call to 
 his mind the recollection of the same pains which he himself has 
 undergone, they reproduce a more or less weakened image of what he 
 himself has felt. From such a condition to that of aiding one who 
 is in pain, the step is but a short one ; it is a generous way of 
 relieving and aiding oneself. According as man's imagination is 
 more or less strong, the reflection of grief will be more or less 
 strongly pictured, and the feeling of pity will also be strong in 
 proportion. In all this, intelligence, properly so called, can have 
 no place. We need not, therefore, be astonished to see the feeling 
 of pity very strongly developed in certain animals, and only 
 rudimentary in certain men. 
 
 If, in a flight of parrots, some are killed by a sportsman, the 
 others will for five or six minutes flutter round about the dead 
 bodies of their lost companions ; they will cry plaintively, and 
 will also allow themselves to be killed in their turn. . Bullfinches, 
 cardinals, and sizerins (a sort of linnet) will also do the same. 
 J. Eranklin tells us a touching story of two little parrots, called 
 *' the inseparables." The female had become gouty, and the male 
 fed her for four months. He assisted her in climbing on to her 
 perch, and when she was dying he increased his marks of care and 
 tenderness, mourning all the while most pitifully. After her death, 
 he languished and died himself at the end of a few weeks. 
 
 The oiiistiti, when they are taken prisoners, hasten to their 
 sick and nurse them. This surely is a case in which humane 
 
ICG AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book irr. 
 
 sentiments intervene, for there is ordinarily no relationship between 
 these animals, brought together merely by chance. 
 
 It would seem that, as regards sympathy for the feelings of 
 others, the lowest of the human races are inferior to some kinds of 
 animals of which we have just made mention. It is certain that 
 the faculty of being moved by the sight of suffering is both a 
 sign and a cause of social progress ; we must, therefore, expect to 
 find it very weak in those human types stiU in a primitive state. 
 The Fuegians, the Tasmanians, and the Australians are celebrated 
 for their total moral insensibility. The I^ew Caledonians are^ 
 almost incapable of gratitude. 
 
 According to A. Eourgarel, the New Caledonian woman is the- 
 most vicious of all animals. The aborigines of South Africa, th& 
 Hottentots and the Kafirs, are also extremely hard. It is only in 
 the equatorial regions of the African continent that travellers have 
 observed acts that are really human, and there they would seem 
 to be specially the privilege of the woman. In the Gabooil 
 country, where women are treated just as beasts of burden, they 
 are nevertheless capable of pity and of compassion. Du Chaillu 
 relates that he himself fell sick, and they overwhelmed him with 
 care and attention. And we must here notice that humanity for 
 another race is not common even among the white races. 
 
 In Senegambia, where the negro blood has become more or less- 
 mixed with Moorish blood, these altruist sentiments are con- 
 siderably developed. After the burning of the town of Bali, 
 Clapperton saw the inhabitants of Koulfani, a neighbouring town, 
 send to the houseless creatures everything except that of which 
 they themselves were in urgent need. The women in this region, 
 will sometimes shoAV their compassion by acts of the greatest 
 delicacy. An old woman met Mungo Park in a famished state,, 
 and completely stripped by a black chieftain ; she gave him some- 
 thing to eat, and went away without waiting to be thanked. Oa 
 another occasion, the same traveller, possessing no other worldly 
 goods but the saddle of a horse which had been stolen from him,, 
 was taken in and lodged by the women, whom he heard before he 
 went to sleep singing as follows : " The winds are roaring, the rains- 
 
Chap. IX.] BEXEYOLENT SENTIMENTS. 167 
 
 are falling ; the poor white man came and sat under our tree ; he 
 had no mother to give him his milk, no woman to grind his corn. 
 Let us have pity on the white man. He has no mother," etc. In 
 the same country, the French traveller Eaffenel was treated in 
 the same way. " They knelt," he says, " upon the mat on which 
 I lay down ; . some were fanning me, others were rubbing me, 
 others were giving me milk and baked pistachio nuts. Their song, 
 which became gradually more and more melancholy, ran something 
 in this wise : ' The white man who has come from a great way over 
 the sea has stopped here. He was tired, tired because he had walked 
 in the heat of the sun. He was very hot, and water was running 
 down his cheeks from his white forehead. He was very hungry 
 and very thirsty. Take the finest mats and spread them under the 
 white man, that he may repose his weary limbs. And our master 
 said to us : "'Take your big fans, and fasten your scarf -belts, and 
 wave them over the head of the white man to dry up the drops of 
 water that stand in beads upon his forehead. Take your gourds 
 and fill them to the brim with the best milk from my cows, that 
 the white man may slake the thirst which is devouring him.' " * 
 
 These facts, and others of the same kind, would lead us 
 to think that compassion was especially a female virtue. But 
 when we are speaking of a creature so widely and wonderfully 
 various as man, it behoves us to draw our conclusions prudently. 
 In sociology, more than in most other matters, we shall find ex- 
 ceptions to the rule. For instance one would think that there was 
 no virtue more essentially feminine than shame ; but nevertheless 
 in many countries the men only wear any sort of clothing. We 
 find this to be the case on the banks of the Orinoco, and among 
 many African tribes. In some cases clothing is the privilege given 
 to the married woman, in others to the young girl. As regards 
 the feeling of pity, the diversity is equally great. The negro 
 women in Senegambia are susceptible of acts of delicate charity, 
 but the Bechuana Kafir women would, without blushing, watch their 
 husbands, after a victory, decapitate the wives of their prisoners 
 simply to possess themselves of their necklaces, which bore too 
 '* Eaffenel, " Nouveau Vojage aux pays des Negres," i, 275. 
 
1G8 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 heavily round their necks. Thevet relates that the Brazilian 
 aborigines used to keep their prisoners of war for a certain time, 
 they would bring them up, and provide them with wives ; then at 
 a given moment they would eat them amidst pomp and ceremony. 
 Then, says Lery, the wife of the dead man, after some feigned show 
 of grief, would always be the first to eat a piece of her late husband. 
 The aborigines of Central America were always, and are still, 
 generally soft mannered and sociable. When they were once 
 conquered they submitted themselves docilely to a few Spaniards ; 
 they would often show themselves to be devoted to their masters, 
 in spite of the masters' cruelty towards them. D'Orbigny has seen 
 them weeping for grief because they were obliged to kill one of 
 their high-priests. The islanders of Cuba showed to Christopher 
 Columbus the heartiest and the warmest welcome. A chief whose 
 wife had been taken away from him went with tears in his eyes 
 to entreat Barthelemy to give her back to him ; and after his 
 prayer was granted he returned with four or five hundred of his 
 subjects to clear away a piece of ground for the Spaniards. 
 
 It may astonish us to learn that the poor Esquimaux, coarse 
 mannered as they are, have sometimes shown instances of great 
 generosity. They gave to Ross and his companions a handsome 
 present of fish, and looked for nothing in return. With delicate 
 politeness they thanked the English, who had allowed themselves 
 to be lodged by them. A woman, whom the doctor upon the expe- 
 dition had attended, brought to him the most precious object she 
 possessed : a stone from which fire could be struck. 
 
 In the primitive man, whose morality is still in the course of 
 formation, whose animal instincts speak so loudly, and whose 
 disposition is so extremely changeable, there is no steadiness of 
 character. Kindness and ferocity may be found co-existent. 
 During this early phase there are in man, so to say, several 
 psychical beings; mental life is fragmentary, and man's actions 
 will depend upon the impression of the moment. The Poly- 
 nesians, who show a most infantine versatility, are both soft 
 mannered and cruel. Porter extols the courtesy, the bravery, and 
 the affability of the Noukahivans ; he is astonished at their 
 
Chap, ix.] BENEVOLENT SENTIMENTS. 169 
 
 brotherly dealings. Cook has seen the Tahitians divide into equal 
 portions one single piece of bread-fruit, mutually exchange their 
 clothes, and show themselves willing to oblige each other. The 
 inhabitants of Easter island, during a time of famine, ofifered to 
 Cook some potatoes from their own scanty meal. Bligh speaks 
 with admiration of the gaiety, the good-humour, and the sociability 
 of the Tahitians, whose life is ordinarily a long period of amuse- 
 ment; and in Bashee island, some of Dampier's sailors, who 
 had deserted, were kindly received by the natives, who gave to 
 each of them a wife, a field, and all the implements necessary to 
 cultivate it. 
 
 Let us repeat, the most striking moral contrasts may be seen in 
 the ill-developed man. The Malay tribes, for instance, have justly 
 earned their reputation for being ferocious ; but Wallace speaks in 
 the highest terms of the morality of the Borneo Dyaks. They 
 appear to be honest, scrupulous, never committing acts of violence 
 among their own tribe ; but the very same men are, tribe against 
 tribe, intrepid in pursuing each other. 
 
 We know that among the Chinese humane sentiments may be 
 seen in their large number of hospitals, of institutions giving 
 assistance to the weak, to the infirm, to widows, by the establish- 
 ment of pawnshops, etc. We need not be astonished at all this, 
 for in China we find an ancient and ingeniously contrived system 
 of civilisation. We may be more startled to see the refined notions 
 of chivalry existing among the Mongolians in Tartary. For in- 
 stance, in Tartary, if one wishes to pass unmolested through an 
 enemy's village, one may do so by putting women in front of the 
 caravan, and giving to them the care of driving the animals. It 
 is held to be a point of honour in the country not to attack women, 
 or to steal from them the animals they are driving. And yet 
 these people, who have such generous manners, are the descendants 
 of the terrible Mongolians, whose bloody invasions cast so much 
 terror upon the whole of the old continent. 
 
 In the same way, too, the Turkomans, in whom the Mongolian 
 blood predominates, and whose life is but a long series of thieving 
 and murder, practise hospitality in a most generous way. The 
 
170 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 stranger, unless he be a declared enemy, is welcomed into their tents 
 ■with the greatest courtesy ; his only danger is if he should wish 
 to exchange the hospitality of one host for that of another. 
 
 This virtue of showing hospitality is not, as we are aware, the 
 peculiar privilege of the nomad Turkomans. It is also "in soma 
 way a moral characteristic in the generosity of the Arabs. In 
 Arabia, everyone, both rich and poor, chiefs and simple Bedouins, 
 are strictly enjoined to exercise it. The force of public opinion has 
 so willed it, being prompted thereto from the simple feeling of 
 neighbourly duty. The most cutting reproach that can be made 
 against an Arab tribe is that " the men have not the heart to give 
 everything, and the women can refuse nothing." 
 
 Later on we shall have to inquire the reason for the feeling of 
 duty. It is beyond all doubt that this feeling becomes increased 
 by inheritance ; but, as with everything appertaining to the human 
 conscience, its manifestations will be found to differ very widely. 
 In the sixth century of our era Antar practised hospitality upon a 
 truly grand scale. It is therefore considered a most imperious 
 moral obligation among all the present existing Arabs who have 
 preserved the civilisation peculiar to their race. 
 
 The sentiment of a joint responsibility, of a joint feeling for the 
 sufferings of others, has in the moral system of the Indians shown 
 itself in a form that we may well call excessive. If a man has lost 
 a lawsuit, or undergone an injustice, he will kill himself in order 
 that his blood may fall upon the head of his offender. Heber 
 relates that in the district of Ghazeepore (Hindostan) a man who 
 had been nonsuited in a trial as to the possession of a field, brought 
 his wife there and burnt her alive, in order that her spirit should 
 come back after her death, and that the ground might be cursed. 
 Before the English conquest the last resource of the people against 
 the tyranny of the rajahs was to assemble silently before the palace 
 of the master, and, if need be, to let themselves die cf hunger if the 
 rajah did not yield to them. The quite primitive man — the 
 Australian, for instance — will kill and eat his own child without 
 any feeling of regret or of remorse ; the Hindoo, on the other hand, 
 has such confidence in the altruist sentiment among the men of his- 
 
Chap, ix.] BENEVOLENT SENTIMENTS. 171 
 
 race that he will base his vengeance upon it. The two men rush 
 to the opposite extremes of the scale of humanity. The Hindoo 
 has assuredly once been in the present position of the Australian, 
 and his example, along with many others, proves to us how indefinite 
 is the field of our moral evolution. 
 
 j!Srothing, however, could be further from the truth than to con- 
 sider the humanising sentiments as virtues invented by the Aryan 
 races. We have seen instances even among the inferior human 
 types ; they will be found to generalise themselves in the hearts 
 of every people who have arrived to a certain degree of civilisation. 
 European Christianity has taught us charity and neighbourly love ; 
 but the Chinese have built and dedicated temples to Pity. 
 
 We all know very well how slowly has sympathy, the power of 
 feeling pain ourselves because of the suffering of others, developed 
 itself from the earliest times of the Greco-Koman antiquity down 
 to our own days. Between Ormuzd and Ahrimane the struggle 
 has been long, and it is yet far from terminated. In the beginning 
 of their history the Grecian heart was hard ; the foreigner was to 
 them more or less an enemy ; the slave, a sort of domestic animal, 
 whom we might, according to Aristotle, hunt out as though he 
 were game. Eiit the Greek religion soon instituted places of 
 refuge for the outlaws, the conquered, the slaves, and even for the 
 guilty. Euripides even went so far as to define the truly good 
 man : " he Adio lives for his neighbour." * In Kome nearly the 
 whole population used to take their delight in watching the bloody 
 sports in the circus ; the vestal virgins (oh feminine sensibility !) 
 by lowering their thumb would thereby command the deaths of the 
 gladiators. But by degrees the Greco-Koman philosophy encouraged 
 humanising influences, which Christianity claims for itself to have 
 invented. Have we yet reached the ultimate stage of this evolu- 
 tion 1 In order to think so we must both ignore the past and blind 
 ourselves as to the present. 
 
 AVe do not need to go back to the primitive phases in our social 
 evolution to show irrefragable traces of the progress of humanity. 
 
 This humane evolution in the Greek mind has been admirably de- 
 scribed by M. E. Havet, ia his " Origines du Christianisme." 
 
173 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 Our own history will supply us abundantly. Let us take one 
 instance : During the first centuries of the dark ages, the right of 
 shipwreck was a right belonging to the monarch, and a prince of 
 L(^on, in Erittany, calmly contemplating the terrible rocks off the 
 coast of Finisterre, said, without feeling the slightest twinge of 
 conscience, that they were worth to him more than all the precious 
 stones of the most opulent monarch. As a matter of fact, the 
 confiscation of waifs of all sorts coming from shipwrecks, then so 
 frequent upon this coast, brought him, one year with the other, an 
 income of ten thousand golden crowns. "We nowadays spend a 
 much larger sum in constructing with great labour and at great risk 
 ingenious watch-towers upon this same dangerous coast. 
 
 Our own European history, bloody as it may be, is but a long 
 effort, not always conscious of the past, towards humane progress. 
 During the early ages treatment of the slaves was gradually 
 softened ; then the slave himself at last became politically equal 
 with his master. The distinctions of caste and of class wore them- 
 selves away ; the vassals began to encroach upon the fiefs of their 
 lord. The nobles, who were dominant only by the right of 
 eonqu-est, slowly lost the warlike virtues of their ancestors, without 
 always acquiring those belonging to a more humane epoch. This 
 slow work of equalisation is, doubtless, far from complete; but 
 even now in civilised countries, the fact of being a man carries 
 with it its " rights." Instruction has become, and will tend to do 
 so more and more, a common source of wealth ; consequently real 
 inequality, moral and intellectual inequality, will always fatally 
 diminish. Now, this gradual elevation of the mind and of the 
 conscience is necessary, for it is the result of ethnical competition ; 
 and the people, who, in this salutary state of rivalry allow them- 
 selves to be outrun, are destined to disappear from off the face of 
 the world. 
 
Cbap. X.] THE CONDITION OF WOMEN. 173 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CONDITION OF WOMEN". 
 
 The ideas implanted in the human brain of right and of justice, 
 and also of the feeling of respect for the weak, are the fruits of a 
 high degree of culture, little recognised, perhaps unknown, in 
 primitive civilisations, in which man, realising certain conceptions 
 of the Greek mythology, has not yet emancipated himself from 
 the animal state. It is woman's misfortune all over the earth to 
 be weaker than her companion ; we may therefore expect to find 
 that her lot is harder in proportion as the society to which she- 
 belongs is more rudimentary. The condition of women may even 
 furnish us with a fairly good criterion of the development of a 
 people, as we shall see when we examine the principal human races 
 from this point of view. 
 
 In Australia woman is a domestic animal, useful for the purposes 
 of genesic pleasure, for reproduction, and, in case of famine, for 
 food. Hunting and fighting are man's occupations. The woman 
 has to follow him on his excursions, carrying her children and a 
 flaming brand to light the fire — this being the stock of furniture 
 belonging to the family. On the seashore it is she who has to go- 
 into the water in search for shell-fish, which form the staple article- 
 of food. She does not eat until after her master has first filled 
 himself ; she then feeds upon the remains which he has thrown to- 
 her as though she were a dog. 
 
 As we have already seen, the life of the Australian woman is a 
 long series of prostitution ; her savage owner does not seem to have 
 for her the slightest feeling of afi'ection. He regards her as a thing, 
 and as a thing of little value. The Eev. Father Salvado says : 
 " One evening, as I was repeating my breviary, I heard outside a 
 noise resembling a constant repetition of blows, and also the cries 
 of a woman. ... I immediately went out, and saw eight savage 
 women mercilessly belabouring each other with their ouanes, or their 
 sticks. I rushed into the middle of the fray to try and separate them. 
 
174 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 but the wind rendered my words inaudible. One can hardly say 
 they were women ; they were rather wild beasts. I then took a 
 stick and laid it well over the shoulders of the most savage of 
 them, and so put an end to their squabble. Some of them had 
 their heads cut open, others their shoulder-blades broken, and blood 
 running down in torrents. There was not one whose black skin was 
 not all stained with blood from her head to her feet. Seeing their 
 husbands sitting round the fire looking at them and laughing all 
 the while, I scolded them roundly. * What ! ' I cried, ' your wives 
 are killing each other, and you stay there quietly and do not think 
 of separating them 1 ' They answered me : ' Who would wish to 
 interfere when women are quarrelling ] ' * You, of course, who are 
 their husbands.' 'We? It is no matter to us.' 'What do you 
 mean, it is no matter to you 1 Suppose one of them were to die, 
 wouldn't that be of consequence to you 1 ' ' IN'ot in the least ; if 
 one were to die we still have a thousand others.' " 
 
 The placid contempt for women in Australia is shown in the 
 most bestial way : three days after a man's death his wife becomes 
 the property of his brother-in-law. It is rarely enough that an 
 Australian woman dies a natural death. " They generally despatch 
 them before they grow old and thin, for fear of losing so much 
 good food. . . . She is so little thought of, either before or after 
 her death, that we may ask ourselves if a man does not put his 
 dog, when alive, exactly upon the same footing as his wife, and if 
 he thinks more often and more tenderly of one than of the other 
 after he has eaten them both 1 " 
 
 In the other Melanesian islands the lot of the woman is hardly 
 softer ; for among the Oceanian negroes humanity is not the pre- 
 dominant quality. In Fiji a man has the right to sell his wife, or 
 to kill her if he so please. They often fasten their wives to a tree 
 or to a post and then whip them. In New Caledonia the wife is 
 not allowed to eat with her husband ; she lives in a detached part of 
 the habitation. The hardest part of the work is imposed upon her, 
 she is even subject to bad treatment, and she often puts an end to 
 her trouble by suicide. 
 
 We have already remarked in the course of this book that 
 
•Chap. X.] THE CONDITION" OF WOMEN. 175 
 
 primitive races of the most different kinds will often resemble each 
 other in many ways. And in no respect do they differ less than in 
 the slavery to which they subject their wives. It is a great defect 
 to be weak, even in our most civilised societies, but in the early 
 stage of human development it is an unpardonable wrong. In the 
 negro districts of Africa woman is not treated much better than 
 in . Australia, but in Africa she is rarely eaten — certainly much 
 less often than in Australia. The reason is that on the African 
 continent game may be found, and the pursuits of the African 
 negro are pastoral, or more generally agricultural. Baker has 
 nevertheless related, according to the testimony of an eye-witness, 
 the history of an anthropophagical feast, which was held at Gondo- 
 koro on the Upper Mle, and for which the female slaves and the 
 children furnished the dishes. As a general rule, however, the 
 female negro is not eaten in Africa by the stronger race, though she 
 is forced to do the hardest and most laborious work. 
 
 Among the Hottentots and the Kafirs man hunts or is engaged 
 in warfare — occupations which have all over the world ever been 
 considered as the most noble. He also looks after the cattle, the 
 enclosing of his fields; he tans the skins of his oxen, with which he 
 clothes himself more or less. Among the Kafirs, to look after the 
 cattle is considered as a superior occupation ; and in Kaffraria the 
 cow is called "the hairy pearl." With primitive man the domesti- 
 .cation of the bovine race has always marked a stage of progress. 
 But all the other less distinguished labours have devolved upon 
 the woman. In the Hottentot country and in Kaffraria she builds 
 the habitations, she plaits the mats, she bakes and moulds the 
 pottery. Among the Kafirs who are agricultural she digs the 
 earth, sows it, and gathers in the harvest. Man has no idea of 
 helping her, and all over negro Africa woman's condition is 
 very similar. With the exception of the Hottentots, nearly all 
 the African negroes practise agriculture in a certain measure; 
 but the care of cultivating the land is specially incumbent 
 upon the women and the slaves. As everywhere else, she 
 cultivates the soil ; but when she has sufficiently fed her husband 
 she may then dispose as she pleases of the surplus produce of the 
 
176 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 harvest. As in Kafifraria, these poor creatures have to build th& 
 habitations. In some districts half negro and half Moorish, for 
 instance among the Solimans, the women are the barbers and the^ 
 surgeons. On the other hand, the m^n sow and wash the stuffs^ 
 The women have everywhere to share with the oxen, the mules, and 
 the asses the labour of carrying the burdens ; the men do not 
 degrade themselves by giving any assistance. Women also grind 
 the corn with stones in round holes dug in the rocks. In this 
 region, as in Southern Africa, man reserves to himself the care 
 of tlie cattle, he milks the cows and leads them out to graze, etc. 
 He is everywhere the blacksmith. To beat and fashion iron in 
 Africa is considered a noble profession, which sometimes confers 
 special political rights. It is also a scientific trade ; in Kafifrariai 
 the blacksmith is called " the iron doctor." 
 
 We find the same custom in the basin of the Upper Nile ; all 
 over Africa man is a huntsman, a soldier. During his many leisure 
 hours he will lie down lazily in the shade, smoking or chattering 
 while his wife is digging and doing the hardest part of the 
 work. 
 
 In the middle part of Africa, as in Australia, the woman never 
 shares the repast with the man; her children show their disdain for 
 her and do not listen to her ; the head of the family will often 
 knock her down upon the most frivolous pretext. And everywhere 
 the poor creature will submit humbly to her sad lot, bearing it all 
 without a murmur. It appears to her natural that she should 
 be so oppressed. And in countries where the Moorish influence 
 is predominant the lot of women is not much better than among, 
 the negroes. In Senegambia they cultivate the soil, bear the 
 burdens, and even watch the cattle ; they have not the privilege of 
 eating with their husbands. When he mounts his horse they must, 
 hold his stirrup for him. They are beaten and cast off at pleasure. 
 In Darfur they are treated in the same way ; one may often see 
 them, laden with baggage and provisions, following on foot their lord 
 and master, who is comfortably seated on an ass. Their husbands 
 will gladly lend them to strangers — it is their right to do so — for a 
 fitting retribution. In this country, only the sultan's daughters hava- 
 
Chap, x.] THE CONDITION OF WOMEN. 177 
 
 the right to exercise any will of their own without caring for 
 that of their husband. The power of their father suffices to 
 overrule every other authority. 
 
 Among the nomad races the absolute subjection of women be- 
 comes more difficult. We need not, therefore, be astonished to find 
 that the Tuarick women are much more free than the Moorish 
 women. They enjoy an amount of liberty which is relatively 
 large ; they move about without restraint, and will gladly talk 
 with the men. They are not even always bought by their 
 husbands, as is usually the custom in Africa ; the purchase-money 
 will often take the form of a handsome present made to the father. 
 
 It seems thafc everywhere the primitive lot of women has been^ 
 or is still, a state of servitude more or less hard, more or less 
 capricious, according to the race and the country. In Polynesia, 
 among this infantine race of people whom travellers, and especially 
 those of the last century, have delighted to paint to us in too 
 bright colours, woman was, as everywhere else, considered as a 
 thing belonging to the man. No doubt, nearly everywhere, before 
 her marriage she enjoyed the fullest degree of amorous liberty ; but 
 once married, she became as a field let out to hire by her owner. 
 Adultery was strictly forbidden to her unless in the case of previous 
 authorisation; but it was her duty to prostitute herself if her 
 husband told her to do so — it always being for his advantage — 
 whenever he pleased to give her to a friend or to a stranger. In 
 most of these islands the women were obliged to find and prepare 
 the food for their husbands, either in laboriously breaking the fruit 
 of the pandanus, so as to extract the nut, or in spending whole 
 hours, barefooted, on sharp coral reefs, up to their waist in the 
 water, exposed to the heat of the sun, endeavouring to catch shell- 
 fish or other sea produce. When the feast was made ready the 
 men would gluttonously devour the best parts, and the women had 
 to be content with what was left, or what was thrown at them. 
 Nearly everywhere they were forbidden to sit down to eat with the 
 men. In Tahiti, they were even obliged to cook their food upon 
 difi'erent fires, and to eat in different huts. They were obliged to 
 respect all the places frequented by man, also men's war tools and 
 
 N 
 
178 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 fishing implements. The head of their husband and of their father 
 was to them a holy thing. They were forbidden to touch any 
 object which had touched those tabooed heads, or to pass in front of 
 the men when they were lying down. In the Marquesas islands, 
 the women were not allowed to go into the boats ; it was said that 
 their presence frightened away the fish. The best and most choice 
 food, that which was called divine, because it might be ofi'ered to 
 the gods, was altogether forbidden to women. At Tahiti, this- 
 comprised all winged creatures, cocoa-nuts, and plantains. The 
 pig was everywhere reserved for men and for gods. The power 
 of being able to eat as much pork as they pleased was, for the 
 women in the Sandwich islands, one of the greatest attractions 
 of the Christian religion. In the little island of Rapa, all the- 
 men were considered as holy beings by the weaker sex ; and all 
 through the year the women were obliged to put the food into their 
 mouths, but in the other islands this was only done during the 
 periods of taboo. 
 
 In some of the archipelagoes, at iN^oukahiva, in the Friendly 
 islands, the men used to cultivate the land, used to construct the 
 houses and the canoes, but nearly everywhere all the hard labour 
 was the lot of the women. They had to plough, to manufacture 
 stuffs from the mulberry tree, and to carry the burdens. In New 
 Zealand it was considered dishonourable for one of the masculine 
 sex to carry a burden. Man there confined himself to fishing and 
 to fighting. 
 
 Over all Polynesia we find a general sameness ; but that does- 
 not prevent certain local differences, specially as regards the con- 
 dition of the women, which became harder in proportion as the- 
 natural resources of the island were less meagre. In New Zealand 
 for instance, feminine servitude was more severe than at Noukahiva,. 
 where the alimentary resources were more abundant. In this last 
 island the women were obliged only to take care of the children, to 
 fabricate stuffs from the mulberry tree, to prepare the popoi\ the 
 kekai, the JcaJcu, which were pastes or thick soups made of the 
 bread-fruit. The men would cultivate the ground and they would 
 fish. As these occupations employed only a few hours in the week> 
 
Chap. X.] THE CONDITION OF WOMEN. 179 
 
 the rest of their time was passed in sleeping, singing, bathing, 
 plaiting wreaths of flowers, etc. In the Tonga archipelago the 
 condition of the feminine sex was, exceptionally, very much softer ; 
 they were there considered, not as beasts of burden, but as com- 
 panions. Kare instance, but still giving another proof of how 
 different is the condition of man. 
 
 In the savage parts of America, from the island of Terra del 
 Fuego up to the Arctic regions, the condition of woman is almost 
 everywhere that of a beast of burden. The Fuegian woman has in 
 all weathers and at all seasons, notwithstanding the severity of the 
 climate, to go into the water to look for shell-fish, or to empty the 
 water out of the canoes. It is she who builds the rudimentary wig- 
 wam j it is often she who has to punt the canoe. She acquits herself 
 of all these labours, even when she is acting as nurse, and is 
 carrying on hor back, in a skin, the child to whom she is giving 
 suck. As her recompense, when she is old and can no longer work, 
 man will generally eat her, if he is slack of food, after having 
 suffocated her by holding her head in the smoke of a lire made of 
 green wood. If one asks them why they do not rather sacrifice 
 their dogs, they will answer : " The dog eats the iappo " — that is, 
 the otter. 
 
 On the continent, where life is somewhat less difficult, and some- 
 what less bestial, woman is not ordinarily kept as reserve food in 
 case of need, but she is always condemned to do the hardest work. 
 In Patagonia man sleeps when he is not hunting, and when he is 
 not hunting he is sleeping. The woman skins the animals that the 
 man has killed, she prepares the skins, she softens them, joins them 
 together with the sinews of the animal, either to make large cloaks, 
 ornamented afterwards with paint, or to serve as walls for their 
 tents. When the game in any district has grown scarce, the woman 
 rolls up the skins and the posts which support the tent, she runs in 
 the horses and loads them, or, when there are no horses^ she loads 
 herself — and then the tribe decamp from their habitation in search 
 of a more propitious dwelling-place. 
 
 Farther north we find the same manners, in spite of the difference 
 in the climate and in the kind of life. While on their journeys 
 
 N 2 
 
180 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book hi. 
 
 the man thinks that he ought to have no other care than to ward 
 off the jaguar ; he therefore carries only his bow and his arrows ; 
 hut the woman is burdened with the baggage, the provisions, and the 
 children. When they halt she has to collect together the wood, and 
 do the cookery, while the man is lying down in his hammock. He 
 will put an end to his wife without the slightest scruple. A Moxos 
 Indian does not hesitate to kill his wife if she miscarries, an acci- 
 dent that cannot be infrequent in such a kind of life. In Paraguay 
 it is considered criminal in a woman to be intimately acquainted 
 with a man of another tribe. 
 
 This harsh treatment of women does not depend upon the race, 
 but upon the degree of civilisation. The ancient Peruvians had 
 rid themselves of their barbarous manners, and among them the 
 hardest labour was always performed by the men. Eut with the 
 Ked Skins of the north it is very different, for they are still in a 
 state of savagery. Except the fabrication of their hunting and war 
 instruments, all the labour there is incumbent upon the woman. 
 Upon her devolves the care of the household and the kitchen ; she 
 prepares the skins and the furs ; she gathers in the wild rice ; she 
 digs, she sows, and plants the maize and the vegetables ; she dries 
 the meat and the roots for the winter stock ; she makes the clothes, 
 the neck collars, etc. The man will disdain to aid the woman even 
 in the construction of their canoes when it becomes necessary to 
 make one ; fighting, hunting, smoking, eating, drinking, and sleeping 
 are his only occupations. He considers it dishonourable to be 
 obliged to work. 
 
 The ]Nrootka Columbia woman collects the mussels and other 
 shell-fish, as does the Puegian woman. Like the man, she rows 
 and paddles the boats; she makes the flaxen and the woollen 
 clothing ; she brings the sardines into the habitations and there she 
 is obliged to prepare them. In Sitka island, in New Archangel, 
 the women act as night- watchers. In this country the natives 
 build their temporary dwelling-houses on high places, in some way 
 protected by nature, and at night, while the men are sleeping in 
 their huts, the women watch outside, collected together round the 
 fire, and they pass the hours relating their own domestic quarrels. 
 
Chap, x.] THE CONDITION OF WOMEN. 181 
 
 On the other side of Eehring's straits we find in Kamtschatka 
 a somewhat improved division of labour; this is the case in all 
 the Asiatic Mongolian or Mongoloid races, among whom the most 
 important and probably also the most ancient features in our 
 civilisation first took their rise. In Kamtschatka the man under- 
 takes to build the iourtes, to fabricate the utensils for household use, 
 to manufacture his implements of war and the chase, to prepare 
 the food, to skin the Avild animals and the dogs, out of which skin 
 he afterwards makes his clothes. The women tan the skins by 
 scraping them with a stone knife, then they rub them with fishes' 
 eggs more or less fresh ; they afterwards stretch them, cut them, 
 and sew them together again, and so make their clothes and their 
 shoes. In the nomad districts of Mongolia, where the women enjoy 
 a considerable amount of liberty, they ride, straddling as they 
 do so, from one tent to another ; but they are very far from being 
 idle. They have to fetch the water, often from a great distance, to 
 collect for fuel the argols (the manure of their flocks), the only com- 
 bustible matter in the country, to milk the cows, to make the 
 butter, to tread the wool, to tan the skins, and to make the clothes. 
 The work of the man consists in putting his cattle out to graze ; 
 the rest of the day is spent in galloping from one iourte to 
 another, where he stays awhile chattering and drinking either tea 
 or koumiss, or else he is shooting as well as he can with his stone 
 gun, or with his bow and arrows. He is ever ready for a gallop over 
 the steppe, and his horse rarely remains long unsaddled. In Thibet, 
 where people are civilised, but in a theocratical way, the condition 
 of the women is perhaps less favourable. All the hard work falls 
 upon them. They have to dig, to buy the provisions, and to weave 
 their stuffs. Each woman has generally three or four brothers for 
 her husbands, and as a dutiful wife she is bound to make herself 
 equally agreeable to them all. In an amorous point of view she 
 has great liberty, for in Thibet adultery is an unknown oftence ; 
 the husbands have long been accustomed to share their wives, and 
 consequently they ignore every sort of formality. 
 
 In China, where the Mongolian race has acquired, after its own 
 fashion, a high degree of civilisation, the highest attained by men 
 
182 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 of the yellow race, woman, without being made absolutely servile, 
 is considered as a minor, and kept in a state of perpetual subjection. 
 When a Chinaman has girls only bom to him he does not consider 
 that he has got any children. The Chinese girl is merely a creature 
 of traffic; she will sell herself to the man who offers her most. 
 " The newly-married woman," a Chinese author says, " ought to be 
 merely as a shadow and as an echo in the house." She does not 
 eat with her husband nor with her male children. She serves at 
 table in silence ; she lights the pipes ; she has to be satisfied with 
 coarse food, and is not allowed to eat even what her son leaves on 
 his plate. 
 
 The women, still in a state of slavery in Cochin-China, where 
 they have to perform more than their proper share of hard work, 
 especially the paddling of the boats, are much more free in 
 Burmah, where the white and Mongolian races have become 
 mixed; but even here their legal status is very inferior. As 
 in Rome, where women had not the right to profane by their 
 presence certain sanctuaries, so in Burmah it is forbidden to 
 them to enter a court of justice. Their legal deposition is held to 
 be of slight value ; they are obliged to give it while standing at 
 the door. They are held responsible to answer with their person 
 for the debts of their father or of their husband. The Burmese 
 woman is merely a thing possessed ; she is quite a venal creature. 
 Chastity is altogether disregarded, the girls are allowed to prostitute 
 themselves just as they please. 
 
 In India, the lot of the woman is little better ; and yet there the 
 Aryan blood and Aryan influence is predominant. The Menu 
 Code will give us ample instruction on this point. "Woman, it 
 says, during her childhood is dependent upon her father, in her 
 youth upon her husband, in her widowhood upon her sons or her 
 paternal relations, or in default of them, upon the sovereign (liv. v.. 
 V. 148). She must always appear good-humoured (id. v. 150), to 
 worship her husband, even though he be unfaithful, as though he 
 were a god {id. v. 154). As a widow she ought not to pronounce 
 any other name but that of her deceased husband {id. v. 157). 
 The Hindoo laws and manners, until modem times, were modelled 
 
•Chap, x.] THE CONDITION OF WOMEN. 183 
 
 upon these sacred precepts. At the time of Sonnerat's travels it 
 was held shameful in an honest woman to be able to read or to 
 dance ; these useless sources of pleasure were reserved to the 
 courtesan and to the bayadeer. The husband habitually spoke of 
 his wife as " servant " or " slave," and she was always bound to 
 *Gall him her "master lord," sometimes "my god;" but she was 
 never allowed to call him by his name. During a certain period 
 •every month the Hindoo woman was considered to be unclean, 
 •defiling everything that she touched ; she was obliged to undergo 
 legal purifications. "We find indeed that there still exists in 
 Europe a popular prejudice to the same effect. The Breton sailors 
 declare that a woman in a state of menstruation if standing near a 
 compass will always affect it and cause it to point untruly. 
 
 Among the Afghans the woman's condition of slavery is still the 
 same. She is a venal thing which man buys and sends away when 
 he pleases, which he hires for money to his friends. A widow, 
 when she re-marries, ought to be paid for by the relatives of the 
 second husband to those of the first, unless she marries her brother- 
 in-law, which indeed is always considered to be her duty. 
 
 The people in the eastern part of Afghan are still more brutal. 
 With them the woman, or rather the girl, is a pecuniary coin. 
 Among many African tribes the cow is considered to be the coin 
 by which every object is valued. We know that it was the same 
 with the ancient Eomans, and that one of the early Eoman coins 
 was called " the cow," and bore an impress of the animal. Among 
 the Afghan tribes of whom we are now speaking woman is judged 
 after the same manner. To them, a girl represents sixty rupees ; 
 and as they hold all crimes to be redeemable offences, as did 
 also the ancient Germans, the ransom to be paid is counted by 
 the number of girls. Twelve are required to redeem a murder, 
 six for the mutilation of a hand, an ear, or a nose, and one for a 
 tooth. 
 
 With the Arabs, too, the condition of the woman is still very 
 low. Among certain wandering tribes it was held to be a strict act 
 of duty to give to the guest for his night companion one of the 
 women of the family, generally the wife of the master of the tent. 
 
184 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 The young girls only were not necessarily bound by this law. 
 Among other tribes, those of Asyr for instance, when a father 
 wished to marry his daughters he would lead them, decked out, 
 into the market, and would cry : " Who wants to buy a virgin ] " 
 It was the recognised law in the tribe. 
 
 There does not seem to be more care for woman and her interests- 
 among the stationary Arabs than among these nomad people. At 
 Mecca men will not give to their wives any religious instruction, 
 for they think it would put them upon too great an equality with 
 their masters ; and also, in spite of the Koran, certain Arab theo- 
 logians refuse to allow to woman a place in Paradise. Buckingham 
 has seen in Bagdad women dressing and undressing their husbands, 
 waiting upon them and kissing their hands. 
 
 In short, whether the race is superior or inferior, the subjection 
 of women, more or less absolute, seems to have been the custom 
 all over the world ; and in the ancient written laws we find 
 many traces of this state of feminine slavery. Nearly every- 
 where girls have been excluded from the rights of inheritance. 
 Where landed property belonged not to the individual but to the 
 family, it was difficult to allow the right of property to girls, who, 
 as they married, went into and became part of another family, 
 and would thus have caused a dismemberment of the common 
 patrimony. In certain Basque cantons the difficulty was eluded 
 by making of the heiress a head of the family, who stood in 
 place of her husband. The Menu Code, the ancient laws of Athens 
 and of Bome, simply disinherited girls ; the Voconian law, which 
 Cato caused to be passed, forbade leaving to girls more than 
 one-quarter of the patrimony. It was only in default of male 
 inheritance that, according to the old Germanic code, women 
 were allowed to inherit land. And nowadays, in Eussia, girls 
 inherit only a small fraction, perhaps about a seventh. The 
 French Civil Code everywhere treats of women as minors ; and no 
 civilised country has yet thought advisable to allow to women any 
 political rights. 
 
 We may say that the lot of woman in humanity is harder as 
 man is more bestial, and that her gradual emancipation increases 
 
Chap, xi.] WARLIKE MANNERS. 185 
 
 concurrently with the progress of civilisation. We shall probably, 
 sooner or later, arrive at a system of equalisation of rights; but 
 it is prudent to advance slowly and with caution. It is an 
 undoubted fact that in the human kind woman has been the op- 
 pressed half. As we have already remarked, the feminine portion 
 of humanity have the unpardonable fault of being weak, and 
 unjust as it has been, this tyranny, much more than millenary, 
 has left its impress upon the feminine nature. That woman is 
 organically inferior to her companion, and specially as regards 
 cerebral development, is a point which anthropology has decided 
 beyond all possible doubt. But feminine inferiority is not only 
 physical, it is also moral and intellectual ; debility has its action 
 upon the mind as well as upon the muscles. Muscular inequality 
 will no doubt last as long as the human race, it is only of secondary 
 importance ; but cerebral inequality is a very different matter. If 
 the political emancipation of women in our democratic countries 
 were to come prematurely, it would certainly be followed by a 
 general backward movement. After having first been used as a 
 beast of burden, as a domestic animal, woman became a slave, then 
 a servant, then a subject, then a minor. We have yet to promote 
 her to the major state, to strengthen her brain by instruction that 
 is befitting to her, to prepare her by degrees to bear her share in 
 political equality, in order that she may exercise it for the common, 
 welfare. 
 
 CHAPTEE XT. 
 
 WARLIKE MANNERS. 
 I. 
 
 Taken in the aggregate, such as he has been and still is, due' 
 regard being paid to time and place, man is, as we have already 
 seen, a singularly mischievous animal. But we are yet a long way 
 from having finished the enumeration of the misdeeds of the human 
 kind, and a glance cast over the warlike manners of the different 
 
186 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 races will furnish us with much unpleasant and disheartening 
 information. 
 
 Man is not a creature standing apart in the universe. By his 
 ■origin, by his organisation, he belongs to animality ; and, more or 
 less, he has the same wants and the same instincts. To kill 
 in order to live is an imperious law, which the animal world cannot 
 disobey. This is an inflexible law, as hard as brass, to which 
 •every creature is more subject in proportion as he is less clever in 
 ingeniously supplying the parsimony of novercal nature. For the 
 -creature, man or animal, without invention, without foresight, 
 the furthermost limits of subsistence are soon reached, and 
 he must, under pain of death, drive out his rival competitors. 
 This is the case with the herb-eating animals, and also with 
 men who are omnivorous. As regards the flesh-eating animals, 
 the murder of the weak is the whole essence of their existence ; 
 many delight in it, and find a real mental pleasure in causing 
 suff'ering to their prey. Audubon has given us a graphic 
 description of the cruel pleasures of the white-headed American 
 eagle when he has captured a swan : " He drives his sharp-edged 
 beak into the bottom of the heart and into the bowels of the 
 swan; he roars with delight in gloating over the last convul- 
 sions of his dying victim, while he is using all his efiforts to make 
 him endure the greatest possible horrors of agony." The anthro- 
 pomorphous monkeys, too, treat the inferior quadrumanes very 
 harshly ; they beat them, they bully them, and they kill them 
 The so-called Aryan races conduct themselves nowadays much 
 in the same way with other human races inferior to themselves. 
 Gorillas fight and kill each other as men do, shrieking and 
 bellowing forth their hideous war-cries. 
 
 This is slaughter after a primitive fashion, showing no intellir. 
 ^ence, or no powers of strategy ; the vertebrated animals hardly 
 know of any other. They have their foreign wars and their 
 civil wars, they have their regular pitched battles, they spread out 
 their columns, they perform their manoeuvres, they make their 
 charges, retreats, reverse attacks, and they have their reserve 
 forces ; but they have not yet invented instruments of slaughter. 
 
€hap. XI.] WAELIKE MANNEES. 187 
 
 In this respect we are superior to them. In their struggles they 
 always fight hand-to-hand ; they often tear each other fearfully, 
 though they frequently give each other quarter, and the prisoners 
 are captured by their conquerors, who drag them off, as they 
 also take away their dead. We may add that among the termites 
 there is a regular class of warriors, who form a permanent army. 
 P. Huber has been the historiographer of a great and glorious war 
 between two powerful republics of our native ants, living at a 
 hundred paces one from the other. While the two armies were 
 raging, were tearing each other to pieces with their pincers, were 
 pouring out upon each other bitter poison, and acquiring renown 
 by their prodigies of valour, the civil population was continuing 
 its way in the forest, occupied, as is right in human societies, 
 in doing its peaceful work necessary for the maintenance of the 
 two states. The thirst for glory is not easily appeased. Like 
 many great wars between human beings, that of which we are now 
 speaking had no other real result than enormous bloodshed and 
 numerous prisoners captured upon both sides. The victorious 
 army barely succeeded in driving back the enemy ten feet. With 
 ants a retreat of ten feet means a conquest of considerable 
 importance ; but how many lives were sacrificed to obtain this 
 result ! Admitting that the fortunes of war are capricious, and 
 that the defeated side does not always succeed in recovering 
 its lost territory, it is still evident that, in order to keep them- 
 selves in good fighting condition, the ants must prepare in the 
 time of peace, and they are careful to cultivate all the gymnastic 
 and military exercises. Si vis pacem, etc. Poor humanity ! Even 
 in the kind of exploits of which she thought she had best reason 
 to be proud she cannot lay a claim to originality ; for as regards 
 warlike ideas and manners, man has done little more than imitate 
 those of the ant. 
 
 We have said that the main reason of animal and of human wars 
 was the necessity of living, and consequently of finding for one- 
 self nourishment. In order to live we must satisfy our needs, 
 whatever they may be. The motives of war are multiple, and 
 if hunger takes the foremost place, love will certainly claim 
 
188 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir, 
 
 the second in primitive societies. We know that many tribes are 
 exogamic, and that in the times of historical antiquity many wars- 
 have been occasioned by the carrying away of women. In this 
 respect also, man closely resembles the animal ; but how should it- 
 be otherwise, when he is but the crowning-stone of a long line of 
 animals 1 From these humble ancestors man has inherited a great 
 number of ferocious instincts, still only half extinguished even among 
 the most civilised races. A poet has said in speaking of mankind : 
 
 Le vieux sang do la bete est rest^ dans son corps. 
 
 As we may naturally suppose, these inferior sentiments are the 
 more imperious, and show themselves in a less disguised form in 
 proportion as man himself is more primitive ; but everywhere they 
 exist in a latent condition. Humiliating as it may appear, this 
 side of human nature is not less instructive ; we must now notice 
 the principal features. 
 
 II. 
 
 Warlilce Manners in Melanesia. 
 
 As is our custom, we shall begin with the most inferior type of 
 human beings; but in this instance we come across a singular 
 exception quite at the commencement of our enumeration of 
 sinister characteristics. Man is such a many-sided creature, he is so 
 variously fashioned after the innumerable wanderings through which 
 each race has been obliged to pass, that in ethnical psychology it is 
 very difficult to separate and distinguish the different bases of his 
 existence. The rule is often violated by the most flagrant excep- 
 tions. It will generally bo found that the absence of scruple and 
 the cowardly ferocity of cunning in the manner of waging war, is 
 in proportion to the savage condition of man ; and yet we find a 
 sort of chivalrous loyalty in the wars of the Australians and of the 
 Tasmanians, who are such poor and inferior types of liumanity. 
 Here, as everywhere, the rule is often broken. Sometimes they 
 ■would fight without having the slightest regard for the commonest 
 
Chap. XI.] WAELIKE MANNERS. 189 
 
 notions of courtesy ; sometimes they would have recourse to 
 cunning, as did, for instance, a body of armed Australians, who 
 were hidden in the long grass and tried to entrap Stuart and his 
 companions by sending them their wives to tempt them with 
 their amorous devices. But in Tasmania and in Australia loyal 
 warfare is, or used to be, a sort of duel. The two enemies drew 
 themselves up face to face, and from each side the combatants 
 stepped forth one by one, throwing their javelins at each other. 
 When the whole series of duels was exhausted the tribe most mal- 
 treated declared itself conquered, or else they recommenced the struggle 
 in the same way, but the second time lighting with their clubs. 
 Each warrior was held bound to give and to receive a blow aimed 
 at his head, and which he was not allowed to parry. The victory 
 remained with him whose skull was the toughest. Their desire to 
 equalise the chances was so strong that Australians have been 
 known to give arms to Europeans who were unarmed, before 
 proceeding to attack them. 
 
 The scruples that the Australians and the Tasmanians might 
 feel are altogether foreign to the JSTew Caledonians. During these 
 last twenty years we have seen more than once in France, and es- 
 pecially in Germany, learned historians bring the whole battery of 
 their erudition to prove that success is always lawful. The New 
 Caledonians, too, are of the same opinion. According to them, all 
 means are good to destroy the enemy. This is no more than the 
 doctrine of the sportsman with regard to his game. In ISTew Caledonia 
 wars are incessant, for the country is divided into many small nations, 
 who are always jealous and doing their utmost to injure each other. 
 Public opinion here agrees with that in Europe, in believing that 
 nothing is so admirable as success ; but the great grievance of the 
 !N'ew Caledonians against the French authority and against the mis- 
 sionaries is, that they are restrained from fighting. " We are no 
 longer men," they say, " since we do not fight." Endless cunning 
 practices are the basis upon which they build all their strategy. To 
 engage themselves in a combat in which the chances are equal, and 
 so run the risk of being killed, would, in their opinion, be mere 
 madness. The real glory is in being able to spy out their rivals, 
 
190 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book hi. 
 
 to lay traps for them, to attack them suddenly, and even to rush 
 in upon them at a banquet to which they have been invited. The 
 main object is to massacre the enemy, and to eat them. Warfare 
 as practised by the !N"ew Caledonians is therefore merely a battue 
 of human beings. 
 
 III. 
 
 Warlike Manners in Africa. 
 
 In Africa, where anthropophagy is rare, war is nevertheless not 
 more humane. The Kafirs will exterminate the Bushmen without 
 distinction of age or sex, when and where they may find them. 
 The Bechuana Kafirs will sometimes cross the Kalahari desert 
 simply for the purpose of killing the Damara Hottentots. Being 
 totally unconscious of what humanity is, they will rob the dead 
 and the dying, they will kill the wounded and the helpless 
 women, even when these imploring for mercy show to them their 
 breasts, crying : " I am a woman, I am a woman." 
 
 In Equatorial Africa, as in all savage countries, rivalry amongst 
 the tribes is the cause of everlasting war ; and the manner of 
 fighting as practised by the white people, attacking the enemy 
 always in front, is considered by them as ridiculous. To lay 
 ambushes, to rush upon the enemy unawares, to kill him while 
 he is sleeping, to assassinate a woman carrying her water, these 
 and such like exploits are considered worthy of praise. Farther 
 north, in the African zone, where the Moorish and the Mahomedan 
 blood have become somewhat mixed, in those regions where 
 barbarism has followed savagery, warfare is still the normal con- 
 dition of the people. War will be carried on between two towns 
 instead of between two tribes, and the two rival towns are perhaps 
 only a few hundred yards apart. It is with the men as with the 
 ants whom we have lately described. Man spends his whole life 
 in setting traps, in fighting, in taking his revenge, in taking others 
 prisoners, or in being sold. 
 
 In the human kind warfare is ordinarily a masculine necessity ; 
 the woman will doubtless feel the effects very strongly, but she 
 herself does not take active part. In the Australian wars the- 
 
Chap. XI.] WARLIKE MANNERS. 191^ 
 
 women and the children place themselves behind the warriors and 
 wait patiently for the result. That is the rule, but there are 
 exceptions. In the Kawen archipelago {a-ur) the women form 
 the rearguard, and laden with sacks of stones they hurl them 
 over the heads of the warriors fighting upon their side. And near- 
 to Darfur, in Africa, there are a race who also utilise their 
 women in their wars. The women do not take a direct part in 
 the battle, but they stand behind the combatants and hand to 
 them iron lances heated in a brazier. Here is a lesson for our 
 modern statesmen whom we Europeans now hold in such high 
 honour. The military service, obligatory upon men, has already 
 produced all the fruit of which it is capable ; but what a glorious 
 perspective is open before the nation who shall first decree military 
 service to be binding also upon women ! 
 
 In Abyssinia we still find barbarism, but it is gradually dimin- 
 ishing or is modernising itself. The social condition there will 
 bear a close resemblance to the ancient European feudal system. 
 There are many princes who are nearly independent ; they govern 
 their subjects and maintain themselves by warfare. They have 
 feudatories, vassals forming the cadres of their armies, with which 
 professional bravoes and freebooters will enroll themselves, having, 
 or claiming, everywhere the right to be billeted upon the peaceful 
 population. The people are less ferocious, they kill each other 
 less frequently; but they still practise the fearful custom of 
 emasculating the enemy lying on the ground. The victorious 
 warriors in this way bring home their trophies; they are very 
 proud of them, and they go to present them to their chiefs. The 
 Abyssinians have also another warlike custom, altogether modern, 
 — that of insignia or decorations, awarded to them by their chiefs. 
 These decorations are of various kinds. They are sometimes war- 
 tippets made of lion-skin, panther-skin, or of velvet, or of blue or 
 scarlet cloth ; or they are armlets in argent or vermilion, or they 
 may be half crowns. We see, therefore, the Abyssinians are on 
 their way towards civilisation. 
 
192 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Warlike Manners in Polynesia. 
 
 A verse of La Fontaine's, which has become proverbial, tells us 
 that childhood is ignorant of the feeling of pity. The observation 
 may also be applied ethnographically. The most sensitive races, 
 those whose changeableness of humour is excessive, are cruel 
 almost unconsciously, as children are, whom they often resemble 
 very strongly. 
 
 Among all the inferior races there are moral characteristics of a 
 most infantine nature, and in this respect no race is more curious 
 than the Polynesian. Its mental condition may be well compared 
 with that of our European children of ten years of age. The 
 Polynesian tribes were constantly in a state of warfare, often 
 merely for the pleasure of fighting, sometimes for more serious 
 motives — either to feast themselves upon human flesh, if they 
 were an anthropophagous people, as in New Zealand, in the Mar- 
 quesas islands, etc., or for the sake of capturing prisoners and 
 making slaves of them. In the Marquesas islands there were 
 those who lived on the mountains and those who lived on the 
 plains, and both would wage war^ the one against the other, for 
 the sake of robbing the produce. The mountaineers would covet 
 the fruit of the bread-tree from the inhabitants on the plain, and 
 these latter used to climb the mountains to steal the fehi {musa 
 fehi) which grew on the high places. 
 
 Whatever may have been the motive of the war, the conquered 
 were always treated with unmerciful cruelty. They were generally 
 all massacred, men, women, and children, no distinction being made., 
 At Tahiti the people practised a sort of scalping of the beard, 
 which they cut off together with the skin round about the chin ; 
 and this they would wear as a sort of trophy. At Noukahiva they 
 killed their wounded, and the conquerors stained their swords with 
 the blood of their prisoners, which henceforth acquired considerable 
 value, and were often called by the name of the deceased warrior. 
 
 In New Zealand they would knock down the prisoners, as did 
 
Chap, xi.] WAELIKE MANNEJRS. 193 
 
 the Eed Skins, first seizing them by their hair on the top of their 
 head. 
 
 But in Polynesia warfare had lost the degrading character which 
 specially marked it in New Caledonia. 
 
 No doubt the defeated side were horribly slaughtered; some- 
 times the whole tribe was completely exterminated. In New 
 Zealand the savages have been known to cut np into pieces the 
 enemy as they were lying on the ground, without waiting even 
 till they were dead ; or else they tortured them as did the Eed 
 Skins. The laying of ambushes was not to them the most im- 
 portant consideration in their strategical plans. They usually 
 attacked each other in front ; the issue was often decided in naval 
 battles, in which they would fight hand-to-hand on planks of wood 
 laid as platforms across their boats. There were often chivalrous 
 challenges made from one man to another in the presence of two 
 witnesses. Although custom in Polynesia had decreed that all 
 the conquered people should be exterminated, sensuality sometimes 
 took the place of rage, for young women occasionally obtained 
 their pardon by tearing open their spare clothing and offering 
 themselves naked to their conquerors. But the inhabitants of the 
 Sandwich islands, though they did not abandon the cruel practices 
 natural to their race, nevertheless attempted to lessen some of 
 the hardships of war by adopting humanising institutions. They 
 established places of refuge, and inside a certain boundary women, 
 children, and conquered prisoners always found a sure protection. 
 Plags were hoisted on to these asylums, and from a long distance 
 the place of refuge might be seen. The belligerents might also 
 announce or demand that the fighting should cease, in holding out 
 green branches, particularly those of the ]-nper hava, which was the 
 symbol both of peace and of drunkenness. 
 
 But there was in all this, as in every other phase of Polynesian 
 life, something very infantine. Before going into action the New 
 Zealanders would excite themselves by singing a war song, and they 
 would accompany it with dancing and contortions of various kinds. 
 They therefore threw themselves into a fury before they began to 
 fight. On the other hand, as we find to be common among savage 
 
 o 
 
194 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 people, their patriotism was very narrow ; they took no regard of 
 people out of their own tribe ; the inhabitants of one village enjoined 
 Cook to destroy all those in the neighbouring village. Their light- 
 headedness, the main reason of their homicidal manners, often 
 drew with it its own consequences ; not counting that in many 
 islands, specially in the Marquesas and in JSTew Zealand, each tribe 
 took care to fortify for themselves certain places to which the 
 access was considered difficult. A refuge might be found there 
 in case of defeat. They would sometimes hold a siege, which, 
 indeed, never lasted very long ; for after a few days' resistance the 
 besieged party, from the volatile nature of their disposition, grew 
 tired of their imprisonment, and threw down their cards, as having 
 lost the game. 
 
 V. 
 
 Warlike Manners in America. 
 
 The human races have in the course of ages so mixed them- 
 selves up together, and we are so ignorant as regards their origins, 
 that it is now extremely difficult for us to draw the moral portrait 
 of any human type ; we find on every side exceptions which im- 
 pertinently come before us to violate the rule. Among the 
 Australians and the Tasmanians we have seen a vague chivalrous 
 instinct, among the Polynesians a sort of loyalty and feeble 
 humanising desires. In America, except among the ancient 
 Peruvians, the warlike spirit nearly invariably discloses a most 
 atrocious character. Cunning, without any kind of scruple, forms 
 the whole art of their strategy ; and with them a victory is always 
 followed by most merciless cruelty. Instead of the puerile light- 
 headedness of the Polynesian, we often find in the American a long 
 system of calculation. The aborigines of Peru have been known 
 to plan for twenty years an insurrection against the Spaniards, and 
 the Indians of the Grand Cliaco to watch for two or for three years 
 certain Spanish establishments before beginning to attack them. 
 
 Inhumanity towards the conquered was everywhere excessive; 
 men would gloat over their cruelty, 'deriving from it evident 
 pleasure. 
 

 Chap, xi.] WARLIKE MANNERS. 
 
 The Indians of the Pampas used to fight as did thenomadic" 
 Mongolians ; they would prepare a campaign merely for the plea- 
 sure of exterminating the Gauchos, and the Spanish American 
 colonists. Their troops of horses would provide them both with 
 animals to ride upon and also with food in case of need. They 
 would gallop over the vast plains without stopping to draw breath, 
 halting occasionally for a moment to change their steeds, and 
 keeping always the best chargers for the battle. The Guaranis, or 
 rather the natives of Brazil in general, were ever in a state of per- 
 petual war amongst themselves ; they were " hereditary enemies," 
 according to the phrase lately brought into use by a great European 
 nation. Every sort of truce was unknown to them. Following the 
 American habit, they would for a long while spy out their enemy 
 before rushing upon them as suddenly as they could; and they 
 would often tear each other to pieces with their teeth. When sur- 
 prise was impossible, the two armies would bellow, and cry, and 
 threaten for two or three days before the attack, reminding each 
 other in Homeric speeches that formerly on this or on that occasion 
 they had mutually eaten each other, their parents, their relations, 
 and their friends. When they captured prisoners they would treat 
 them very well for a certain time ; they gave them wives and 
 abundance of food ; and then at a given moment they massacred 
 them ruthlessly and ate them afterwards in a ceremonious manner, 
 taking care first to smear with their blood their own male children 
 so as to make them stronger. The victim would appear brave and 
 boastful before his torturer; he would sing his war song, and 
 remind his enemy how many of their prisoners his own tribe had 
 •eaten when they had been victorious. 
 
 Similar customs were practised over the greater part of the 
 -two American continents, and Mollien found them still in vogue 
 in Columbia at a recent epoch. As we shall see, the ancient 
 Mexican had usages of the same kind. As regards the Eed Skins 
 of North America, they did not eat their prisoners — at least, not at 
 the time of the European conquest ; but, on the other hand, they 
 exercised their ingenuity in torturing them. Their victims, tied to 
 a post, sang their war songs, while the men, women, and children 
 
 o 2 
 
196 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book ut. 
 
 of the victorious tribe would tear them with knives, pull out their 
 nails, burn them with hot coals, and do other acts of hideous 
 cruelty. 
 
 The Eed Skins thought that to allow themselves to be captured 
 was as bad as letting themselves be killed ; it was a sign of abominable 
 clumsiness, which greatly tarnished the reputation of a warrior. 
 The prisoner was for ever dishonoured in the eyes of his own 
 people, and was considered by them as though he were a dead man. 
 On the other hand, if the conquerors had sustained grave losses, 
 instead of putting their captives to death they would lead them to 
 the huts of their own warriors whom they had lost, and if the 
 widows consented to accept them, they simply took the places 
 of the men who had been killed. The deserters then, without a 
 thought of hesitation, would fight against their whilom friends, 
 who, in their turn, had turned their backs equally upon them. 
 If we may believe Charlevoix, it would seem that the social 
 tie between the members of a tribe was of the weakest kind. 
 Every member of a tribe, even when he was master of his own 
 actions, was free to accompany his companions on to the field of 
 battle, or to refrain from doing so, as he pleased. Among the Red 
 Skins war was carried on without the slightest feeling of chivalrous 
 honour. To kill, capture, or scalp as many as possible of the 
 enemy, and lose as few as possible on their own side, was to them 
 the whole end and aim of their glory. A victory which had cost 
 them many lives brought with it the degradation, sometimes the 
 condemnation of their chief, who had been triumphant, but a man 
 wanting in address. 
 
 The same absence of loyalty in battle, the same manners that we 
 may well call savage, are practised also in Sitka island, in the extreme 
 northern part of America. In this region the tribes, perpetually in 
 a state of warfare, never attack each other openly ; their wars are 
 one long series of assassinations, simply for the purpose of thieving 
 or revenge. In the latter case the desire for vengeance will satisfy 
 itself in the Australian fashion, without the slightest care for justice. 
 They wish simply to kill somebody belonging to the rival tribe: 
 man for man, woman for woman. 
 
Chap, xi.] WARLIKE MANNERS. 197 
 
 Before bringing to a close this short study of the warlike manners 
 of the native Americans, we must say something of Mexico and 
 Peru, the only states in which the American man arrived at a 
 tolerable degree of civilisation ; and even with them their civilisation 
 was more mechanical than it was moral. 
 
 As regards the treatment of their captives, the practices of the 
 Mexicans w^ere horrible. With them, as everywdiere else, religion 
 had authorised the sanguinary instincts of the people. The Mexican 
 gods grew thirsty for human bloody and to appease their thirst the 
 people undertook never-ending wars. The half-civilised Mexican 
 did not act differently from the savage Brazilian. Like the Brazilian, 
 he would fatten his prisoner before eating him ; his only care was 
 that the sacrifice should be performed by a priest, and that it 
 should be offered to the gods. The priest would ordinarily begin 
 the ceremony by cutting open the chest of the victim with a knife 
 kept specially for the purpose ; he would then take out the heart, 
 which was immediately offered up to the idol. The owner of the 
 prisoner then took away the body, to feast upon it at his 
 leisure. In every village there were strongly-made cages in which 
 men, women, or children would be kept shut up in order to fatten 
 them. The ceremonies of the sacrifice would vary according to the 
 divinity to whom it was offered. Sometimes the prisoners had the 
 skin torn off their bodies. At the feast of Tezcatlepoca, a penitential 
 festival, they would sacrifice and afterwards cut into pieces a fine 
 young man whom for twelve months previously they had carefully 
 fed up with delicacies of every description. May we not under- 
 stand by this sanguinary custom a barbarous allegory teaching us 
 the vanity of human pleasures 1 
 
 All this cruelty, we may remark, was coexistent with an ingenious 
 system of military organisation. The Mexican armies were hier- 
 archical, divided into corps-d'arm6es of eight thousand men, and 
 these were again subdivided into companies of three and four 
 hundred men. They possessed a national flag, military orders 
 were distributed, severe discipline was exacted, and they had 
 hospitals for the sick and for the wounded. 
 
 The military organisation of the Quichuas, or ancient Peruvians, 
 
198 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 was also very remarkable. It has been reckoned that their foot 
 rogiments numbered two hundred thousand men strong; and 
 these troops were organised into corps-d'armees, battalions, and 
 companies, commanded by a whole hierarchy of chiefs, from the 
 corporal up to the Inca, the commander-in-chief. The combatants 
 were armed with bows and arrows, lances, darts, axes, and short 
 swords, all of which were usually made of copper ; but the javelins 
 and the arrows were sometimes tipped with pointed bones, for the 
 age of stone was not then very far distant. When they were on. 
 the march, magazines followed at regular intervals, well furnished 
 with provisions to supply the wants of the soldiers. If we except 
 the use of powder, we may compare the organisation of the ancient 
 Mexican and Peruvian armies with that of the armies of modem 
 Europe. The Quichuas erected forts upon their mountains, they 
 had also telegraphic fires, and they instituted a system of couriers. 
 Like all the inferior arts, that of slaughter was very soon brought 
 to perfection. 
 
 The Peruvians differed from all half-civilised races, and even from, 
 many modern nations, in the motives which induced them to com- 
 mence their wars, and in their manner of treating their prisoners. 
 They did not go to war, as did the Mexicans, in order to offer 
 up to the gods human victims, and then to eat them after- 
 wards ; their wars were crusades, wars of proselytism. It is surely 
 more ennobling to make war for ideas, even though they be false, 
 than for the sake of conquering territory and subduing one's 
 neighbours. The Quichuas endeavoured to propagate the worship 
 of the sun, which, of all such sorts of worship, is certainly the 
 most excusable. They began first by persuasion ; if that was not 
 accepted they declared war upon their neighbours rebellious to their 
 doctrine, but giving them notice beforehand of their attack, and 
 not exacting from the conquered more than submission to their 
 Avill. One of the Peruvian princes said : " We ought to spare our 
 enemies, otherwise we shall be doing 'injustice to ourselves; for 
 they and everything that belongs to thom will soon be our pro- 
 perty." The gods of the defeated party were not treated with 
 disrespect ; they were taken possession of, and were transported to 
 
Chap. XI.] WAELIKE MANNERS. 199 
 
 Cuzco, into a sort of pantheon. These facts may serve to show that 
 the Peruvians were the first of the American races, and we shall 
 find still stronger proofs when we come to study its social 
 organisation. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Warlike Manners in the Mongolian Mace. 
 
 It is a difficult matter to form a true idea of the tone of mind in 
 any race of people, but a few leading ideas may he gathered from 
 the observations collected by different travellers, noting some and 
 ignoring others. And from many and widely collected sources of 
 information, it would appear that in spite of the barbarous inroads 
 made by the Mongolians, of which Europe has not yet alto- 
 gether lost all recollection, the Mongolian race, taken as a whole, 
 is of all human races the least warlike. "We do not mean that all 
 the yellow populations are easy tempered. There are Mongolians 
 of very various natures. The majority of the human kind are 
 yellow men, and their difi'erent ethnical groups are still far from 
 having risen to the same degree of civilisation. Even nowadays, 
 the Turkomans are a ferocious people j they treat the Persians, 
 their neighbours, as though they were wild beasts, and they 
 religiously sacrifice their old men, under the idea that it is agree- 
 able to their god. Certain tribes in Bhotan, or in Thibet, delight 
 in making night attacks, in preparing ambushes, etc. They eat 
 the liver of the men they have killed ; from their fat they make 
 wax tapers, which they burn in front of their idols ; they make 
 use of their bones for flutes ; of their skulls they make cups, 
 which they bind round with silver. The nomad Mongolians still 
 slaughter their prisoners without any distinction as to age or sex. 
 These people are yet in a phase of barbarism, through which all 
 human beings must pass ; but, on the other hand, there are many 
 facts attesting the general peaceful humour of the race. 
 
 The Lapps are fond of quarrelling amongst each other, but in 
 their quarrels they never make use of the knife which they always 
 carry with them. The inhabitants of the Loo-Choo archipelago, 
 thd possession of which islands is the cause of a dispute between 
 
200 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 the Chinese and the Japanese, seem to "be wanting in every war- 
 like sentiment. They have no arms, either oCfensive or defensive. 
 They declared to the traveller Hall that they did not know what 
 war was like, either by experience or by tradition, and that it was 
 with the greatest astonishment that they looked at the kriss used 
 by the Malays. 
 
 The most civilised group of all the Mongolian race hold the art 
 of war in poor esteem. In China the profession of a soldier is 
 hereditarily the lot of the Mantshu Tartars, encamped here and 
 there in different parts of the country, who mix but little with the 
 laborious population ; and these people in their turn disdain the 
 others as useless men. But still these troops are commanded by the 
 mandarins, themselves Chinese for the most part, and named in 
 the lists as civil mandarins, to whom they are always subservient. 
 
 The imperial government prescribes to its soldiers precautions 
 which would astonish most of our European generals ; for instance, 
 the bearers of culverins in the Chinese army are enjoined to stuff 
 their ears with cotton. Certain details of Chinese tactics aj^pear 
 to us now to be singularly simple-minded. At Ning-Po, in 1842, 
 when the Chinese soldiers made an attack at night upon the 
 English troops, they were careful to carry lighted lanterns upon 
 their heads. In 1857 they remained in their trenches, quite un- 
 covered from the fire of balls and bullets, or else in their junks, 
 until they were forced into hand-to-hand combat, or until a large 
 battery of fire was turned upon them. Then they surrendered, 
 indignantly angry at the disloyalty of their enemies. 
 
 The Chinese have in general quite lost the animal faculty which 
 urges man to rush furiously upon his enemy; and also, on the other 
 hand, they have not acquired the feelings of a superior kind which 
 impels upon man the duty of sacrificing himself, in case of need, 
 for the sake of the general welfare. Their moral evolution is 
 incomplete, or it has miscarried. No doubt with them certain ani- 
 mal inBlincts are dead, and they are not yet replaced by instincts 
 of a higher and better nature. 
 
 Even when they are facing the enemy the Chinese officers and 
 Chinese soldiers will stultify themselves by smoking opium. They 
 
Chap, xi.] WAllLIKE MANNEES. 201 
 
 care very little for the interest of their country. They are totally 
 devoid of moral impulse. They have good qualities : a great power 
 of passive resistance, much perseverance, industry, and extreme 
 docility; they are excessively patient, and this enables them to 
 bear hunger, thirst, and the inclemency of the weather. There 
 are, in fact, different sorts of courage, among others that of the 
 wild beast, which is only the effect of reflex action ; there is also 
 the courage which is truly humane, that of a thinking creature 
 Avho voluntarily sacrifices himself for a superior interest. The 
 Chinese have lost the first of these moral forces, and they do not 
 seem to have yet acquired the second ; and in this respect many of 
 our Europeans resemble the Chinese more closely than they perhaps 
 
 VII. 
 
 Warlike Manners in the White Race, 
 
 The different branches of the white race of men have, like all 
 other human groups, passed through very many changes, very 
 many admixtures ; and by going back to past times we shall have 
 the greater chance in being able to trace out, more or less intact, 
 the primitive natural qualities of the people. JN'ow, in the warlike 
 manners of ancient India we find the impress of a real moral 
 elevation, but which most modern Europeans would certainly call by 
 no other name than folly. The Menu Code prohibits the use of 
 poisoned, bearded, or incendiary arrows. It is ordained that the 
 disarmed, wounded, or those who surrender themselves shall be 
 spared. The man on horseback, or in a war-chariot, must not 
 kill the soldier on foot. It is forbidden to attack anyone overcome 
 by fatigue, him who is asleep or lying down, the soldier in flight, 
 or one who is already engaged against an adversary. The conquered 
 country ouglit to be respected. Security ought to be guaranteed 
 to all its inhabitants ; neither the laws nor the religion of the 
 conquered people ought to be altered. 
 
 We see here very many precepts which may, perhaps, be adopted 
 in Europe some thousand years hence, but which nowadays would 
 
203 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 only provoke a smile or disdainful shrug of the shoulders from any- 
 of our celebrated statesmen. 
 
 Primitive man, to whatever race he may belong, is a savage 
 animal. And in this respect the white man is no better than the 
 others. He has been, and is capable of again becoming, as ferocious 
 as an Indian Guarani. We have just, seen to what degree of 
 humanity the ancient Indians had risen ; but yet nothing can be 
 more bloody than the history of all the Aryan nations. Nothing 
 can be more atrocious than the warlike manners of the Hebrews, 
 or, in general, those of the Semites. After victory the people of 
 God slaughtered and massacred whole nations ; they made a sport 
 of crushing to powder the heads of children. Ninus, the conqueror 
 of the Medes, crucified their king, his wife, and their seven 
 children. At this time slavery was the mildest treatment which a. 
 prisoner could expect. 
 
 The Romans were not more humane, and their history affords 
 us abundant examples of unmerciful ferocity. We will only 
 mention the massacre of the Jews by the virtuous Titus, the Gallic 
 hecatombs accomplished by Julius Caesar. In this respect the 
 annals of modern Europe, from the fall of the Roman Empire 
 down to our own times, show us some awful instances. Even if 
 we pass over the darkest parts of the early Middle Ages it will be 
 sufficient to mention the Hundred Years War in France, the 
 Thirty Years War and the sacking of Magdeburg in Germany,, 
 the horrors committed by the Spaniards in the War of Indepen- 
 dence in the Netherlands : and during all this fearful sacking of 
 towns, murder, theft, violation, were acts lawful, or perhaps held 
 worthy of praise. 
 
 Even nowadays, or at least at a very recent date, the most- 
 civilised of the European people make a sport of exterminating the 
 inferior races. In Tasmania, the English, holding their Bibles in 
 their hands, have, with full determination and in cold blood, 
 destroyed the aborigines of the country, no doubt following the 
 example of the savages themselves who were swarming in the 
 country. The American government has more than once put a. 
 price upon the heads of the Indian Red Skins. On the 2nd of 
 
Chap, xii.] ANTHROPOPHAGY. 205 
 
 October, 1749, Cornwallis, then Governor of Halifax, offered ten 
 guineas for every Indian Micmac killed, scalped, or taken prisoner. 
 On the 10th of August, 1763, Amherst gave orders not to make 
 prisoners of the Indians but to exterminate them. 
 
 We regard as atrocious the customs of certain belated groups of 
 the white race : the Khivites, for instance, quite lately used to 
 pay each of their soldiers so much for every one of the enemy 
 whose head was cut off ; and this, of course, without prejudice to 
 honorary rewards, prizes for valour, etc. "Within the last few 
 years a French general, after having massacred a handful of 
 Italian patriots, telegraphed to Paris saying that '^ the Chassepots 
 had done wonders;" and in 1870 the army of the "nation of 
 thinkers " shelled the French towns and shot down all the franc- 
 tireurs they could find. It is not now our purpose to speak of 
 civil wars. 
 
 In short, the Europeans who are so proud of what they call 
 their civilisation are still only in a state of mitigated and disguised 
 barbarism ; they have yet to make very great progress before they 
 have advanced in morality, in kindness, in humanity, and in 
 justice, as far as the results show them to have advanced in the: 
 mechanical arts during the last fifty years of this century. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 I 
 
 ANTHROPOPHAGY. 
 I. 
 
 Even though we still hear of the most civilised nations taking- 
 pleasure in the slaughter effected either in civil or in foreign wars, 
 we cannot doubt that the moral sense is a fruit of mental maturity 
 ever ripening in the human brain. Our ancient ancestors and our 
 poorly-developed contemporaries used to or still feel scruples on 
 this account to a very much smaller extent. But anthropophagy 
 often becomes confounded with homicide, either in war or other. 
 
204 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 wise, amongst the inferior degrees in the evohition of mankind. 
 Neither public opinion nor individual conscience will trouble itself 
 for so small a matter, especially if the man eaten be an enemy — that 
 is, if he belongs to another tribe. In this case, to eat one's neighbour 
 is an honourable and glorious action. Primitive man in this respect 
 is absolutely animal ; he resembles many fish, or reptiles, even 
 mammalia, who will gladly eat animals of their own kind. There 
 are certain human tribes, as we shall see presently, who fatten up 
 human beings to put upon their tables, exactly as do the Mexican 
 honey ants (myrmecocystus Mexicanus), who kill in the winter 
 individuals of their own caste for the sake of the honey to be found 
 preserved in their abdomen. 
 
 Our Pharisaical morality considers such acts to be atrocious. 
 In this we may be right ; but we forget to protest when, in time 
 of war, flaming shells are thrown into a town filled with women 
 and children, with the aged and the sick ; or when in a war, civil 
 or other, by the help of engines as ingeniously constructed as they 
 are diabolical in their elFect, man will in a few hours crush into 
 powder thousands of his fellow creatures. But nevertheless in 
 the eyes of humanity and of common sense, to kill a human being 
 is certainly more reprehensible than to eat him after he is dead. 
 
 In an interesting sketch presented to the Anthropological Society 
 in Florence in the year 1878, M. Herzen showed plainly from 
 observations made in the laboratory of physiology in the same town 
 that cynophagy is repugnant to certain kinds of the canine race, 
 and not at all to others. We may say as much of the existing 
 human races ; but there is not now one race extant who has not 
 been anthropophagous at some past epoch. There are different kinds 
 of cannibalism, and we have elsewhere endeavoured to classify 
 them. The principal are cannibalism from actual want, cannibalism 
 from love of gluttony, cannibalism from warlike or revengeful 
 anger, cannibalism from religious motives, cannibalism from hlial 
 piety, and lastly, the most exalted of all is judicial cannibalism, 
 "We will quote a few examples of these different kinds of anthro- 
 pophagy; and we shall be obliged to pick out our instances, for 
 the stock to choose from is amply abundant. 
 
Chap, xii.] ANTHKOPOPHAGY. 205 
 
 II. 
 
 Cannihalism in Melanesia. 
 
 The most common kind of cannibalism is certainly tliat which 
 is caused by actual want. It is practised almost everywhere amono- 
 savage races, but specially in countries where the eatable mammalia 
 do not exist, or where they are scarce. In the islands of the 
 Pacific ocean, for instance, on the Australian continent, the native 
 fauna are very parsimoniously supplied to the human beings. As 
 we have already seen, the Australians, when hard pressed by hunger, 
 will kill their wives and eat them ; they have even dug up corpses 
 recently buried. Cunningham found the throat of a woman in 
 the sack of the Australians who accompanied him. Certain tribes 
 in South Australia made use of human skulls for their drinking 
 cups ; but we must consider that these poor people did not know 
 the art of pottery. We can understand that cannibalism should 
 be most common among the least civilised of the Australian 
 tribes, amongst those who were still living in hordes, governed by 
 hereditary chiefs. The Melanesians are all more or less stained 
 Avith cannibalism. In proof of this assertion, we will quote a 
 few examples, but shortly, not to be fastidious. Cannibalism is 
 frequent in New Guinea. 0. Beccari, as well as many others, has 
 told us that it is so. In the Fiji islands it has become celebrated. 
 Though the Fijians were more or less christianised, they used to 
 pull to pieces and roast their enemies killed upon the field of battle ; 
 they would sometimes devour even their own wives. With them, 
 a dish of men was served at every official banquet ; they used 
 to call human flesh "long pork." An anthropophagous repast 
 graced every Fijian solemnity; for instance, the inauguration of a 
 temple. Cook has declared the same passion for human food to 
 exist at Tanna, where, as indeed at Fiji, pigs, fowls, roots, and 
 fruits were to be found in abundance. 
 
 As to the cannibalism practised by the ^ew Caledonians, 
 we have the most precise and the most authentic information. 
 Before the arrival of the Europeans the islanders knew of no other 
 
206 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book ni. 
 
 mammalia than the vampire-bat and the dog-fish. They therefore 
 had recourse to cannibalism from actual want of food. The 
 desire to eat human flesh was the cause of frequent wars among 
 the different tribes. The chiefs sometimes said to the people : " It 
 is a long while since we have eaten any meat; go out and get 
 some." The struggle was over' when the desired object had been 
 effected, as soon as a few men had been killed. Human flesh 
 was considered by the ■N'ew Caledonians to be a delicacy; they 
 ate it because they liked it. There were chiefs who allowed 
 themselves to taste one of their subjects as they were sitting in 
 their family circle, and they would occasionally have the pieces 
 preserved in salt. Public opinion was not severe upon these 
 princely repasts ; they were thought rather to be dignified. After 
 a friendly meeting, those of the chiefs who had taken the lion's 
 ' share in the feast would send a few pieces to doubtful friends, so 
 as to insure their alliance and good-will. 
 
 We may now see that the New Caledonian morality was far 
 from throwing discredit upon anthropophagy. These people 
 had a peculiar tool specially adapted for cutting human bodies 
 into pieces ; and very generally before sitting down to a feast the 
 natives would begin by a dance, holding their knife in one hand, 
 .and a lance in the other. 
 
 III. 
 
 Cannibalism in Africa. 
 
 The African negroes are not more scrupulous than the Oceanian 
 negroes as to eating human flesh, and anthrojDophagy, at least 
 accidental, has been found to exist almost everywhere in Africa 
 where the black men prevail. The Kafirs, who are a pastoral and 
 -agricultural people, and who are relatively intelligent and civilised, 
 are not ordinarily cannibal ; but they will become so in times of 
 famine, as did the ^Mantati Kafirs seen by Thompson. It has 
 been remarked that some of their tribes, after having become 
 anthropophagous from necessity, kept up the habit from sheer 
 gluttony. Gardiner gives an instance of this among the Zulus. 
 Not many years ago some tribes of Easuto Kafirs lived altogether 
 
iChap. XII.] ANTHEOPOPHAGY. 207 
 
 upon cannibalism in the middle of a fertile country in which game 
 was plentiful. Like the European troglodytes, our ancestors, they 
 used to live in caverns, where they would take and devour the 
 human meat. A misfortune which befell them constrained them 
 in the first instance to have recourse to such an extremity, but 
 they long kept up the practice. In the year 1868, they had not 
 corrected themselves of it, for at this time an English traveller 
 saw in their caverns some human bones from which the flesh 
 had been quite lately dragged. The corpse, he relates, had 
 been pulled to pieces in a skilful way. The lower jaw had been 
 ■detached by blows from an axe ; a hole had been bored in the 
 top of the skull, so as to extract the cerebral substance ; the long 
 bones had been split open longitudinally, so as to extract the 
 marrow, as had formerly been the practice with prehistoric man. 
 'No doubt accidental cannibalism, proceeding from actual want, is 
 not very rare even among modern Europeans, as we learn from 
 the stories related by many travellers ; but if they ever acquired 
 the practice of cannibalism, as did the Kafirs, they must also have 
 lost it again quite lately. 
 
 Among the Eantis in Central Africa, one of the most intelligent 
 people of the negro race^ cannibalism is an habitual custom. 
 'They adopt the practice peacefully and commercially. All the 
 -Eantis, except the chiefs, the kings, and those who have been 
 •exceptionally distinguished in the eyes of their own tribe, are 
 eaten after death, instead of being buried. But the Eantis have 
 certain scruples in their notions of anthropophagy. As far as it is 
 possible they do not eat those of their own tribe, but they procure 
 the corpses of the neighbouring tribes by giving them their own 
 •dead bodies in exchange ; and up to the present moment no Fanti 
 moralist has thought it expedient to censure this custom of making 
 use of the dead. 
 
 We find very similar practices among the Niam-Niams on the 
 Upper Nile, who, besides eating their prisoners of war, also 
 eat the bodies of those of their own tribes who had died from 
 abandonment — bodies which may be compared to those amongst 
 ourselves who have to undergo the scalping knife of the anatomist. 
 
208 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 Schweinfurth was once present at a sort of idyllic anthropophagical 
 feast among the Niam-Niams. Between two huts, the doors of 
 which were opposite to each other, a newly-born child, on the point 
 of death, was laid out on a mat. At the door of one of the huts 
 a man was calmly playing upon a mandoline ; at the door of the 
 other, an old woman, surrounded by a group of young boys and 
 girls, was cutting up and preparing gourds for the supper. A 
 caldron full of boiling water was quite ready, and the cook was 
 waiting only that the child should die, that his corpse might be 
 used as the principal dish. The whole scene was rendered mor& 
 animated by the brilliant rays of a dazzling sun. 
 
 In the same region the Monbouttous, a pastoral and agricultural 
 people, inhabiting an extremely fertile country, and belonging also 
 to a superior kind of black race, are inveterate cannibals. They 
 eat little food but the bodies of their captives. They are in a state 
 of perpetual warfare with the inferior tribes around them, in order to- 
 procure for themselves human flesh. They cut up the dead on the 
 field of battle, and drive home before them as a flock of sheep the 
 prisoners whom they intend to reserve for future meals. 
 
 Cannibalism is a general feature in primitive manners. It does. 
 exist, or has existed, all over the world, and among all races of men. 
 The facts which we have just quoted will dispel any doubt as to- 
 its practice in Melanesia and in Africa ; and nothing can be easier 
 than to collect equally strong proofs of its existence in Polynesia. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Cannihdllsm in Polynesia and in Malay. 
 
 The study of cannibalism in Polynesia is particularly interesting. 
 We should here alone have matter enough to prove that the law of 
 social progress is not an illusion, as the modern amateurs of pessimism 
 think they believe. When the voyages of European navigators- 
 first made us acquainted with the Polynesian islands, cannibalism 
 was then everywhere more or less the frequent custom, we could 
 then study the difl'erent periods of its evolution. In some of 
 the archipelagoes it was carried on in all its primitive brutality ;. 
 
Chap, xii.] ANTHROPOPHAGY. 209 
 
 in others it was rare, and a thing of chance ; in others it no longer 
 existed, but still evident traces of it might be found both in the 
 language of the people and in the forms of their religion. 
 
 In ]S"ew Zealand, a country close adjacent to Melanesia, in- 
 habited by men who were ignorant of agriculture, and having no 
 other domestic animal than the dog, anthropophagy was practised 
 without the slightest feeling of shame. The New Zealand tribes, 
 constantly at war one with the other, would go hundreds of miles 
 into the interior to fight, merely that they might feed themselves 
 upon human flesh, or to capture slaves, generally intended to appear 
 as the plat de resistance at the great feasts which they prepared for 
 their parents or their friends, either immediately before setting out 
 upon a campaign, or else upon some occasion of unusual rejoicing. 
 The New Zealanders were very partial to the flesh of women and 
 of children. On the field of battle they would pull to pieces one 
 of the enemy taken prisoner or wounded, without even waiting 
 until he was dead, or giving themselves the trouble to kill him. 
 They had progressed so far that they did not eat the bodies of men 
 of their own tribe, and they would not touch those who had died 
 of sickness ; but they most conscientiously made use of the whole 
 of the body they did take, and they were careful also to perforate 
 the cranium so as to extract the cerebral substance. Contrary to the 
 customs in the other archipelagoes, the New Zealand women used 
 often to take part in these cannibal festivals. 
 
 This custom, which appears to be horrible to Europeans of our 
 own time, was natural enough to the New Zealanders. To eat one's 
 enemies, who, they said, would have eaten them instead if they had 
 been victorious, was in their eyes legitimate enough. Judicial laws 
 and religious ideas formed part of this theory of cannibalism. If a 
 chief was killed, the people had the right to exact that his wife 
 should share the same fate. She was given over to the conquerors, 
 who put her to death. Then the bodies, when they were roasted, were 
 eaten with great unction under the direction of the priests or the 
 arikis, who first tasted some of the dainty bits cut out of the victims. 
 They attached great importance to eating the left eye of their con- 
 quered enemy; for the soul of the departed^ the waidowa, was placed 
 
 P 
 
210 ArFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 in this eye, and therefore in eating that they doubled their own 
 existence. In New Zealand religion had sanctified cannibalism, as 
 it everywhere sanctifies the dominant inclinations of any race of 
 people ; but the fundamental reason for cannibalism in New Zea- 
 land was the desire to eat meat. To these poor islanders, often 
 half starved with hunger, as they had no mammalia to kill for the 
 purposes of food, flesh, in whatever form it came, seemed to be 
 delightful. A soft mannered and most affable chief said to the 
 traveller Earle ; " Human flesh is as soft as paper," 
 
 Disgusting as these manners may appear to us, we should be 
 wrong in concluding that the New Zealanders were incapable 
 of human, or even of soft-hearted sentiments. If one of their 
 relations or friends had been killed in battle, they felt their 
 grief very strongly ; at least they showed it in such a way that 
 would shock the feelings of most Europeans similarly afflicted- 
 They w^ould cut their foreheads and their cheeks with shells or 
 with sharp stones ; and they also showed, in the same way, the 
 joy they felt at seeing a friend w^ho had long been absent. They 
 used to wear, hung round their neck, little stone figures, with 
 eyes made of mother-of-pearl, in memory of the dead whom they 
 regretted. 
 
 As a matter of fact, human morality is very variable, and in every 
 country, not excepting those the most civilised, it has sanctioned, 
 and does still sanction, acts much more blamable than cannibalism. 
 
 The New Zealanders, both men and women, were a cannibal 
 people ; they practised it openly, and with no sort of feeling of 
 shame. But the inhabitants of the Marquesas islands began to- 
 have some scruples as to eating human flesh. The women (and 
 this may be noted as an example of their notions of shame, and is- 
 altogether to their honour) of these islands felt a great repugnance 
 to anthropophagy, which, indeed, was forbidden to them by the 
 customs of the country ; for in ordinary times only the chiefs, the 
 high priests, and the old men had the privilege of cannibalism. It. 
 was only in times of war that this right became extended to the 
 populace, to the Jcikinas. Even at the end of the last century the 
 men in the Marquesas islands began to have their doubts as to the- 
 
Chap, xii.] ANTHROPOPHAGY. 211 
 
 morality of this custom. An old chief boasted to Porter, somewhat 
 ostentatiously, that neither he nor any member of his family had 
 ever eaten human flesh, or flesh of a pig, either stolen or one who had 
 died of sickness. But even up to a late date cannibalism has been 
 in vogue in the Marquesas — perhaps it still continues. The desire 
 to procure some roasted human food was the cause of very many 
 minor wars and skirmishes. In latter times the people have begun 
 to reproach each other mutually, one tribe against another, with the 
 practice of cannibalism; but these timid protestations of public 
 opinion were not strong enough to prevail against an old and long 
 established custom. The pulling to pieces of the bodies, and the 
 divisioning out of shares, was done most methodically according to 
 hierarchical order. The victim was usually strangled, as was the prac- 
 tice with other animals, so as not to lose the blood. Here, as in 'New 
 Zealand, the eyes were considered to be the most choice morsels, 
 and they were off'ered to the warriors. The heart was eaten raw. 
 The rest of the body, stuff'ed with the leaves of the ti, was cooked 
 in the Oceanian oven. Then Avhen the carcase was sufficiently 
 roasted it was cut up with a sharp-pointed stick. The feet, the 
 hands, and the ribs were reserved to the chiefs. The thighs and 
 the most delicate parts were considered the property of the high 
 priest. 
 
 In the Friendly islands, and in the Sandwich islands, the people 
 used to eat their enemies without the least scruple ; a chief in the 
 Sandwich islands told Cook, laughing as he spoke, that human 
 flesh was the most savoury of all food. At Bow island they used 
 also to eat their enemies, and even those of their own side who fell 
 in battle ; in general everyone who died of a violent death, and at 
 last the assassins. This is the only spot in Polynesia where the 
 existence of judicial anthropophagy has been proved. People here 
 were perhaps more greedy than elsewhere after the taste of human 
 meat, and especially of the female flesh, which the islanders declared 
 to be more tender. But Bow island was one of those small coral 
 reefs so numerous in the Pacific ocean. The animal kingdom was 
 here very poorly represented, and it was more difficult than in the 
 larger islands to find food rich with azote matter. 
 
 i^ 2 
 
212 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book hi. 
 
 In the Tahitian archipelago, where feculant fruits and fish were 
 plentiful, where there were dogs and pigs, cannibalism was little 
 more than traditional. By chance, or from a feeling of vengeance, 
 they might roast and be glad to eat a piece of a conquered foe, but 
 in general cannibalism was condemned by public morality. It had 
 formerly been the custom, and evident traces of it were to be found. 
 For instance, in the human sacrifices the priest ofi'ered to the chief 
 the eye of the victim, and if it was refused he then presented it 
 to the gods with the rest of the body. These gods, the Tahitian 3 
 thought, were very fond of human flesh. After an offering of this 
 sort, the people might ask of them anything, and their request was 
 granted. 
 
 Certain names recall to our minds the ancient custom, for 
 instance Aimata, the name that Pomare bore before his accession, 
 and which signified " eating the eye." Some of the vernacular 
 phrases also give us proofs of the old habit : in Tahiti a time of 
 famine was spoken of as " the man-eating season." 
 
 In the Javanese archipelago there were some very curious forms 
 of anthropophagy : there was anthropophagy from feelings of filial 
 piety, and judicial anthropophagy. 
 
 The Battas in Sumatra, a numerous and well-governed people, 
 whose habits were agricultural, who possessed a regular system of 
 laws and of government, an alphabet and a literature of their own, 
 used religiously and ceremoniously to eat their old relations, taking 
 care, however, to choose for their feasting a season of the year 
 when lemons were plentiful, and also when salt was cheap. On 
 the appointed day the old man destined to be eaten would get up 
 on to a tree, at the foot of which his friends and relations were 
 standing about in groups. They sang a funeral hymn, beating the 
 trunk of the tree as they did so in cadence. The purport of 
 their song was : " The season has come, the fruit is ripe, let it now 
 fall down." • The old man descended from his perch, his nearest 
 relations would kill him carefully, and those standing by would 
 devour him. 
 
 The Battas practised also anthropophagy of the most exalted 
 kind: judicial anthropophagy. With them the adulterer, the 
 
UHAP. XII.] ANTHROPOPHAGY. 213 
 
 night thief, those who had treacherously attacked a town, a 
 village, or a particular person, were condemned to he eaten hy the 
 people. They were tied to tln^ee posts, th^ir legs and their arms 
 stretched out in the shape of a St. Andrew's cross, and then when 
 a signal was given the populace rushed upon the body and cut it 
 into shivers with hatchets or with knives, or perhaps more simply 
 with their nails and their teeth. The strips so torn off were 
 devoured instantly, all raw and bloody ; they were merely dipped 
 into a cocoa-nut bowl containing a sauce prepared beforehand made 
 of lemon-juice and salt. In the case of adultery the outraged 
 liusband had the right of choosing first what piece he liked best. 
 The guests invited to the feast performed this work with so much 
 ardour that they often tore and hurt each other. Though judicial 
 anthropophagy may be the most scientific form of cannibalism it 
 cannot nevertheless be practised without awakening in man all his 
 most savage instincts, of which it is the last remnant. 
 
 V. 
 
 Cannihalism in America. 
 
 Cannibalism exists, and has existed, in America from the Arctic 
 regions down to the island of Terra del Fuego. In this latter 
 island its existence has been proclaimed by Magellan, Candish, 
 and Fitzroy. The Moxos and many of the Guarani tribes were 
 inveterate cannibals, as we have already seen in speaking of their 
 custom of fattening the prisoners and treating them well before 
 eating them. The Mexicans, who were relatively civilised, had 
 similar customs, which became sanctified by their religion; for in 
 their sacrament they used to eat and fight for pieces of a statue 
 made of maize kneaded together with the blood of a child. 
 
 The first French missionaries among the Red Skins found 
 cannibalism to be the custom. Father Brebeuf saw the Hurons 
 eat one of their neophytes, and Charlevoix relates the story of 
 twenty-two Hurons devoured by the Iroquois. Again, in 1833, 
 Captain Back's expedition gave us another proof of cannibalism 
 among the Eed Skins in I^orth America. 
 
214 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 The Kootka-Columbians, who form a sort of connecting link 
 between the Eed Skins and the Esquimaux, will also freely resort 
 to anthropophagy. Some of them offered to Cook the roasted 
 skull and the hands of a man already half eaten. One of their 
 chiefs was so partial to human flesh that at every new moon he 
 caused a slave to be killed, to be eaten at a banquet which he 
 gave to the other chiefs of a lower rank. The affair was conducted 
 with much ceremony. The guests began by singing a war song, 
 and by dancing round a flaming fire which was kept alive by oil 
 being constantly poured on to it. Then the chief had a handker- 
 chief tjed over his eyes, and for a while he played a game of 
 blind-man's-buff with a few slaves who had been collected ; 
 and the unhappy wretch who was caught by the chief was 
 instantly slaughtered and pulled to pieces', and his smoking flesh 
 was distributed to those invited to the feast. 
 
 In the time of famine, the Esquimaux are not more scrupulous 
 than the Nootka-Columbians. If one of their hordes is very much 
 in want of food, they will rush furiously upon another horde, mas- 
 sacre them and pull to pieces the dead bodies, and then devour the 
 raw flesh in its half-frozen state. We must say, however, that 
 anthropophagy from mere feelings of gluttony, as practised by the 
 Nootka-Columbians, appears to be unknown to the Esquimaux. 
 These latter do not become cannibal except during times of famine. 
 It would seem also that, formerly, they were more than once used 
 as game by their implacable enemies the Ked Skins ; for they call 
 them IrtMly, a name given by the Greenlanders to anthropophagous 
 men — their wild imagination making them think that they were 
 men with dog's heads. This mythological conception would alone 
 prove that cannibalism was no longer their constant practice. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Cannibalism among the Mongolian and the White Races. 
 
 As we have said, and already half proved, cannibalism is not a 
 necessary part of the existence of any human race. It is only 
 more common in proportion as the social condition is inferior. 
 
€hap. XII.] ANTHROPOPHAGY. 215 
 
 Among the superior races, the Mongolian and the white people, 
 it is no longer a general and habitual custom ; but it has existed 
 in times gone by, and reappears every now and then accidentally. 
 
 An ancient Hindoo traveller relates that the inhabitants of 
 Bhotan used formerly to eat the livers of those of their enemies 
 whom they had killed, seasoning them with butter and sugar, that 
 they used to convert their skulls into cups and bind them round 
 with silver, and their bones into jewels and musical instruments. 
 <5uite latterly, during the Taiping Chinese 'War, an English mer- 
 chant in Shang Hai met his servant bringing home the liver of 
 one of the rebels, to eat it, not from any idea of gluttony, or of 
 want, but from a higher moral motive — to give himself courage. 
 
 The white race is no more than the other races indemnified 
 against cannibalism, which appears to be a sort of original sin in 
 humanity. The Mongolian people in Eastern Europe were the 
 first to set the example to the ancient Greeks. Herodotus tells 
 us that the Massagetoe used from compassion to knock down and 
 afterwards eat their old parents. With them, the old men who 
 were allowed to die a natural death were considered as impious 
 persons, and their bodies were thrown to the wild beasts. The 
 same manners prevailed among the Issedons in the eastern part of 
 ■Scythia. In the early days of Grecian history cannibalism was 
 reprobated, but the legends of Atreus and of Lycaon show us 
 plainly that the ancient custom had not long fallen into disuse. 
 
 In the first centuries of our era instances of cannibalism were 
 observed in Europe, and St. Jerome says that he saw in Gaul 
 anthropophagous Scotchmen who were particularly fond of the 
 breasts of young girls and of the thighs of young boys. 
 
 The Semitic people, less civilised than many Indo-Europeans 
 belonging to the white race, used to, and would again very soon, 
 fall back into the practice of anthropophagy. Josephus has 
 related with much hypocritical and foolish rhetoric, the story of 
 a Jewish mother who cooked and ate her child, while the vic- 
 torious Titus was mercilessly besieging in Jerusalem the last 
 defenders of the Jewish independence. The Arab historian, 
 Abd-Allatif, rakes up a whole anthology of cannibal history in 
 
216 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 speaking of a famine which desolated Egypt in the 597th year of the 
 Hegira (1200). In all the^towns of Egypt, at Alexandria, Es Soua, 
 Damietta, Kons, etc., anthropophagy was practised upon a large 
 scale. People devoted themselves to eating men and children, the 
 latter especially, for a child roasted was reputed to be an excellent 
 dish. Punishment by fire, which was inflicted upon the eaters, 
 was so little prohibitory, that when the tortured men had been 
 roasted, they were occasionally devoured. Cannibalism, which 
 seemed at first to be horrible, became at last engrafted in the 
 manners; people became fond of it. A woman pregnant with 
 child made human flesh her habitual food ; a grocer had stowed 
 away a large provision of human flesh, which he had salted. We 
 need not be astonished at this, for quite recently in Arabia, at the 
 time of the last famine, Ave saw the Arabs occasionally resorting to 
 anthropophagy, following the example of their ancestors. 
 
 Moreover, similar facts are not very uncommon in the modern 
 history of the European nations. Schiller tells us that the Saxons 
 had become cannibal towards the end of the Thirty Years War. 
 In France, in 1030, during a famine which lasted for three years, 
 men ate their fellow-creatures as did the contemporaries of Abd- 
 Allatif. A man was condemned to be burnt who had put up for 
 sale human flesh in the market-place at Tournay. In his quaint 
 chronicles, Pierre de I'Estoile, giving us other interesting details, 
 speaks of the cannibalism of the Parisians during the blockade of 
 Paris by Henri IV. — the good king Henri — in 1590 : A rich lady, 
 when her two children died of hunger, made her servant salt the 
 bodies — this being done she ate them ; also the lansquenets used to 
 hunt down men in the streets of Paris, and hold their cannibal 
 festivals at the Hotel Saint Denis, at the Hotel Palaiseau, and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 A little later, the day after the assassination of the Marechal 
 d'Ancre, the people dug up his corpse, and one of them cooked 
 the heart upon burning coal, and ate it after seasoning it with 
 vinegar. 
 
 We may perceive that wo should be wrong to be over proud of 
 our present civilisation, which is yet so imperfect. The beast is 
 
Chap, xiii.] FUNEREAL RITES. 217 
 
 not so very far behind us, he is even in us in a latent form. But 
 this anthropDphagical review which we have now concluded has at 
 least one consoling side : it shows us, after its own fashion, that 
 the evolution of the human mind is progressive. Like other 
 creatures, man begins by being an animal, and he is not, more- 
 over, the least ferocious. In this poor, half-starved, coarse creature 
 hunger dominates over every other want ; all kinds of meat to 
 him are good, even that of his fellow-creatures who are nearest 
 to him, his wife, his children, and the members of his own 
 family. After a while he eats only his enemies, that is, his 
 rivals, the people of the neighbouring tribes. He is cannibal 
 from vengeance or from gluttony ; but he does not gloat over his 
 passion except when he is eating prisoners or slaves. Then at a 
 later date his cannibalism becomes a religious or judicial ceremony, 
 and therefore of much less frequent occurrence. From that con- 
 dition it gradually comes to be condemned and scouted by public 
 morality, and man does not go back to it except in cases of extreme 
 famine, or in a state of madness, when his intelligence and his 
 morality have foundered, and the beast once more shows itself to 
 be the master. 
 
 But it more often happens that the Europeans of our own times, 
 when they are in the most dire distress of hunger, in cases of 
 shipwreck, for instance, will rather die than go back to the 
 cannibalism of their ancestors. Poor and imperfect as man is he 
 is a perfectible creature, a conclusion that may be to us both 
 consoliug and gratifying. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FUNEREAL RITES. 
 I. 
 
 Tlie Idea of Death. 
 
 We cannot with certainty deny that the idea of deatli has been 
 given to some animals. M. Houzeau relates that in Arkansas 
 
218 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 a woman had been killed by the Indians in battle, and that her 
 dog persistently remained by her side and allowed himself to die 
 of hunger. M. Houzeau also reminds us of the fact quoted by 
 Cuvier of a dog caressing a lioness as they lived together in the 
 Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and that when the lioness died the 
 dog also allowed himself to die of inanition. We know that the 
 parrots which we call " the inseparables " die of grief in case of 
 widowhood. These facts will show beyond doubt that certain 
 animals are endowed with a great moral sensibility, but they do 
 not prove that though animals give way under their affliction 
 they have therefore a clear idea of the death that is awaiting them. 
 That is not the foreseeing and determined suicide of which we 
 see many examples in the human kind, and very often too among 
 the savage races, contrary to the generally received opinion. But 
 even were it well established that no animal was gifted with a defi- 
 nite notion of death, we must guard ourselves against recognising in 
 this fact a very important difference between man and the animal ; 
 for, as we shall see, the idea of a natural death is foreign to the 
 ethnical groups of men taken in a mass. The difi'erence being 
 rather in the existence or in the non-existence of funereal rites ; 
 and even here, between these two extremes, the movement is very 
 slowly and very gradually accomplished. 
 
 A kind of lama (the auchenia guanaco) seems to have an idea 
 of death and also a feeble notion of making his own grave, for all 
 animals belonging to this kind who are free in' their motions go to 
 the same spot to die, there to pile up their bones. We find a 
 stronger instance among the ants, for after their battles they bring 
 home with them the dead bodies of their warriors. According to 
 Battel the anthropomorphous (gorilla gina) always take care to 
 cover over with branches and dead wood the corpses of the animals 
 of their own kind. On the other hand, many hordes of human 
 <5reatures abandon without a thought the dead bodies of those of 
 their own tribes. We must nevertheless declare that the for- 
 saking of the dead seems to be uncommon in the human race. 
 The funereal rite is a humane feature generally adopted by all 
 races, and those learned gentlemen who are beset with the notions 
 
€hap. XIII.] FUNEREAL EITES. 219 
 
 of digging a gulf between man and the rest of the animal king- 
 dom might, with some show of reason, make of man a " funereal 
 kingdom." 
 
 As we shall see in our sketch of the principal human races, the 
 rites and the f unebrial ceremonies offer a very considerable variety ; 
 but the rites are nearly always closely connected with the idea that 
 men have conceived of the existence beyond this actual visible life. 
 In one place the dead are abandoned, in another they are eaten. 
 Many people throw their dead bodies into a hole in the ground, 
 and then cover them over with earth and with stones. In some 
 countries people hide them in the naturally made grottoes, or in 
 caverns of different forms, which they shut up and cover over as 
 well as they can, to preserve the dead bodies from the wild beasts. 
 Other people or other tribes have ideas diametrically opposite : 
 instead of protecting their dead they take care that they are eaten 
 by the wild beasts, by birds of prey, or by dogs brought up specially 
 for the purpose. One people will dry and mummify their dead ; 
 another will leave them on a sort of platform, or in a boat, put up 
 among the branches of a tree. 
 
 If we except bestial abandonment, all these customs have been 
 prompted by the same sentiment, by a pious care for the future of 
 the deceased. Man does not ordinarily believe that all human 
 personality vanishes away in the tomb until he has learnt the harsh 
 lessons which science only can teach him. The primitive or 
 ignorant man looks upon death merely as an accident, a shock 
 which gives a new phase to existence. It is to him but a vapour, 
 a shadow of the departed spirit, something that emancipates itself 
 from the body in a state of putrefaction ; and this something is 
 the conscient me of the individual, which then begins afresh a 
 new life, more or less in imitation of the old one. Sometimes he 
 imagines that the absent one will one day return back into the 
 body, which is but temporarily abandoned, and he endeavours to 
 keep for it as far as possible its ancient resting-place. Assuredly, 
 the daily phenomena, such as sleep, dreams, the syncope, etc. have 
 given great assistance towards misleading on this point the infantine 
 judgment of primitive man. To this coarse-minded creature it is 
 
220 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 inconceivable that he should pass from the exuberant drunkenness 
 of life to the absolute nothingness of death. For in the early ages 
 of the human evolution man is far from having tested accurately 
 the conscient and the unconscient sentiment. Man then readily 
 lends to inanimate objects "which impress him in so many different 
 ■vvays, ideas, sentiments, and passions analogous to those which he 
 himself feels. As we have just said, and as the poets have so 
 often warbled to us, sleep seems to be really the brother of death ; 
 they are scarcely distinguished one from the other. Sleep appears 
 to be so very like a temporary death, during Avhich time the mind 
 frees itself and wanders vaguely hero and there ; and death, too, 
 on its side, does not difier much in appearance from a long sleep, 
 which must also lend itself to the idea of a double existence. 
 
 It is necessary to bear in mind these general views in order to 
 understand the customary funereal rites, very various, and some- 
 times oddly strange, to which the different groups of men have 
 bound themselves. "We shall now mention some of these customs, 
 but we shall have to rest satisiiod with recording only the most 
 typical. 
 
 II. 
 Funereal Bites in Melanesia. 
 
 Even in Melanesia, among the Australians and the Tasmanians, 
 the lowest of the ^lelanesian type, so similar in everything one to 
 the other, we find differences in the funereal rites. "With them the 
 corpse was sometimes buried, or sometimes placed where there had 
 been a slight excavation. In the case of inhumation the body was 
 generally set in a crouched position, the knees bent up against the 
 chest, and the arms crossed. The cloak of the dead man was 
 fastened around him. This funereal attitude was or is still prac- 
 tised among many people, among the Andaman ites, the Peruvians, 
 the ancient Scotchmen, etc. and it has given rise to much con- 
 jecturing ; the most simple reason ought, however, to be the most 
 probable. In the imagination of the greater part of primitive men, 
 death is but a long sleep. Granting this su2)position, nothing seems 
 more natural then than to give to the body the same attitude of 
 
Chap. XIII.] FUNEREAL EITES. 221 
 
 repose which a man would naturally fall into hy the fireside in the 
 evening after a day's hunting, or after a fighting expedition. 
 
 Sometimes also the Melanesians of whom we are speaking would 
 place their dead either in the trunks of hollow trees, or in a cofiin 
 made of bark. In any case they w^ould lay close beside the deceased 
 his warlike and his hunting implements. 
 
 The burying-places were generally isolated and destined only for 
 •one individual; but the Australians wished sometimes that their 
 bodies should be placed close to each other. This was a custom 
 intended principally for the young people. For the older men 
 more ceremony was practised ; and instead of burying them they 
 burnt them. They afterwards collected together the ashes of the 
 bones to make amulets, which should protect them against sickness 
 and assure their success in hunting or in war. All these customs 
 show that the Australian and the Tasmanian believed in another 
 life beyond the grave. It seems also that there, as in many other 
 countries, the something which they imagined to remain after death, 
 the manes, in point of fact, was regarded much more as an object 
 of terror than as an object of afi'ection. After the death of a man 
 his friends avoided speaking of him, and all the members of the 
 tribe who bore the same name were then considered bound to change 
 it. A similar custom exists elsewhere in other races, notably in 
 Polynesia. 
 
 The Tasmanians and the Melanesians used also, when they lost 
 ■certain of their own relations, to wound themselves ; they would 
 break a bone in their finger. Did they thereby wish to give a sign 
 of their grief, or did they intend to appease the angry manes of the 
 deceased 1 We may say with certainty that they did not believe 
 in natural death. In their minds death had been brought about 
 by some malicious device invented by an enemy ; and they thought 
 therefore every death ought to be avenged by the near relations of 
 the deceased. It was held to be a strict act of duty to kill the 
 presumed assassins, who ordinarily belonged to one of the neigh- 
 bouring tribes ; and the amount of bloodshed was in proportion to 
 the rank of the deceased, or to the afi'ection and esteem in which he 
 was held. An Australian, who wished to show to Father E. Salvado 
 
222 AFrECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii, 
 
 the tenderness that he felt for him, promised him that if he died, 
 he (the Australian) would kill at least half-a-dozen of his own 
 countrymen. This, among others, is one of the unhappy results 
 coming, not from the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which 
 slowly disclosed itself to the human conscience, but from the belief 
 in a temporary resurrection after death — an idea that is very 
 common in all races of men. 
 
 It does not seem that incineration was practised with the Papuans 
 and the New Caledonians. But sometimes the Papuans will dry 
 and mummify their dead, and then carefully preserve the corpses 
 in their huts. Some New Caledonian tribes will allow the corpses 
 to get putrid; they will then take up the bones and put them 
 either in a cranny of a rock, or in a small cavern dug out in the 
 middle of a wood. They will generally bury them in a cemetery 
 belonging to the tribe, which place is regarded as a sacred spot. 
 Some of the New Caledonian tribes bury only their chiefs, and 
 content themselves with placing the bodies of the common people 
 on to the branches of trees, or in tying them with their backs against 
 the trunks of the trees. In every case they put beside the remains 
 of the deceased all his utensils which may be useful or agreeable 
 to him — his lance, his pagagays, his jewellery, etc. 
 
 The death of a chief being considered, in New Caledonia, as^ 
 a public calamity, and also the population having always an un- 
 fortunate tendency to exceed the extent of their provisions, it is 
 considered obligatory after a loss of this kind to abstain from 
 conjugal intercourse for a fortnight or even for a month. As we 
 see, it is not here a question of court mourning. At the end of 
 the term fixed a commemorative festival is held to indicate its- 
 expiration. 
 
 Prom the foregoing facts we may conclude that the Melanesians, 
 and even the lowest types belonging to the race, believe in a 
 resurrection of some sort after death ; and for a time, more or less 
 long, after the death of those near to them they are moved with 
 sentiments either of affection or of cruelty. 
 
Chap, xiii.] FUNEREAL EITES. 22$ 
 
 III. 
 
 Funereal Rites in Africa. 
 
 An affectionate regard for the dead exists also among the 
 Africans, and even amongst their most humble races. It is diffi- 
 cult for us to guess if the Eushmen have any ideas as to a future 
 state, and what those ideas are. However this may be, they are 
 sensible of the death of their friends, for they energetically show 
 their grief by breaking the bone of their little finger. Some of 
 the men impose upon themselves this unhappy practice ; but even 
 among the Bushmen the woman appears to have a more affectionate 
 nature than the man, for with her this mutilation of the finger is 
 much more common. This partial amputation of the little finger 
 seems, in the minds of the women of this race, to be a sort of 
 sacrifice to which they attribute very various effects ; they will 
 sometimes inflict this punishment upon their children to prevent 
 them from dying. 
 
 The Bushmen rarely bury their dead ; but the Hottentots, who 
 are more civilised, lay their dead bodies into a shallow ditch- 
 Like many of the Melanesians, they place the corpse in a curled- 
 up position, winding round it a kros, or a cloak, and being a thrifty- 
 minded people, they are careful to select for this purpose the worst 
 cloak they can find. 
 
 As regards funereal rites, the Kafirs, who are hereditary enemies 
 to the Hottentots, do not differ much from their neighbours. 
 "We may have already observed that the Kafir is not ordinarily^ 
 a soft-hearted man; their different tribes give little thought 
 to their dead. The nomad Kafir will usually not do more than 
 throw the corpse of his relative into an open ditch, common to all 
 the tribe, and situated at a certain distance from the kraal. The- 
 corpse is then left to the care of the hyenas and the jackals. One 
 may not unfrequently see a son unceremoniously dragging along 
 towards the common ditch the dead body of his father, or that of 
 his mother. The chiefs only are buried in the public place, and 
 with some show of respect. This public place was in the inclosure 
 
'\ 
 
 224 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 where the men of the tribe usually met together. Their corpses 
 were covered over with a cairn of stones. 
 
 "We find a great uniformity in the funereal rites among the 
 negroes of Central Africa. The law of the people is to bury their 
 dead ; they put them in a ditch in the form of a pit, and the body 
 is laid in a curled-up position. Clapperton found this custom 
 practised at Yourriba, at Koulfa, at Borgou, and at other places. 
 Schweinfurth found similar customs among the Bongos on the 
 Tipper Nile, but with a studied refinement on their part. The 
 Bongos carefully dig out of the wall forming part of the funereal 
 pit a hole large enough to receive the bent up corpse. Their in- 
 tention, prompted by pious solicitude, is to avoid the pressure of 
 the earth upon the body, for they afterwards fill up the pit by 
 throwing in fresh earth. This is a pious care springing evidently 
 from the idea that the dead man is still sensible to pain. Fears 
 of the same kind have troubled the minds of many other races. 
 ** Let the earth be light," is an established saying, even in Europe, 
 in the funebrial orations. In a Vedic hymn addressed to Death 
 we find the same idea poetically expressed : " Oh Earth ! cover 
 him as a mother covers her child with the lappet of her dress." 
 
 As we have already said, in the imagination of the primitive or 
 poorly-developed man, death is generally only another form of life. 
 At Koulfa, in Equatorial Africa, the people carefully bore a hole in 
 the top of the tomb, dug very often just outside the door of the 
 deceased person. Near to this hole they place the scarf, belts, and 
 various objects, praying the deceased to give them to this or that 
 person who had died previously. The Niam-Niams, who often also 
 bury their dead in a sitting position, carefully first deck them out 
 with feathers and the skins of animals, as though for a festival. 
 They paint them red, for most savage people consider red to be the 
 finest of all colours. 
 
 In the western side of tropical Africa, among the Timmanis, 
 there are in the towns mortuary houses where the remains of 
 the kings and of the chiefs are deposited. These houses are 
 never opened; but in the walls narrow holes are bored, through 
 which, at certain stated times, food and palm wine are introduced. 
 
Chap, xiii.] FUNEEEAL EITES. 225 
 
 And the Timmanis, before they begin to eat, are careful to subtract 
 for the dead a small portion of their meal, which they will throw 
 down on the ground. This is also a custom among the Fantis, the 
 Ashantis, and others. We find similar customs almost all over 
 the earth. It is the idea of a resurrection in its earliest form. 
 But that is very far from the idea of an eternal immortality which 
 the majority of Europeans believe, or pretend they believe. The 
 something, which these savage people naively suppose to remain 
 after death, has all the wants, all the objects, all the good qualities, 
 belonging to the deceased when he was alive. 
 
 Nothing can be more innocent tlian the offerings of food, of 
 arms, of ornaments, etc. ; but we cannot say as much for the 
 funereal sacrifices proceeding from this same hypothesis of a future 
 life, of which our priests, our moralists, and our professors of 
 philosophy do not cease to vaunt the salutary effects. 
 
 The funereal sacrifices are perhaps, in certain cases, nothing more 
 than an extension of the custom of funereal mutilations in vogue 
 among so many people, more or less savage, whose grief, affected 
 or sincere, is shown by their inflicting upon themselves wounds 
 and mutilations. The Melanesians, the Hottentots, and others 
 will often break a bone in their little finger upon the death 
 of a near relative. Elsewhere people content themselves with 
 lacerating their skin, or making incisions in their flesh, more or 
 less deep. At the time of Bruce's travels the Abyssinians 
 showed the grief that they felt at the death of a relative or of 
 a lover, by slightly cutting the skin upon their temples with the 
 nail of the little finger, which they purposely allowed to grow 
 for this reason. 
 
 Erom the notion of causing suffering to oneself we soon come to 
 that of causing suffering, or of bringing about the sacrifice of others. 
 In this way we may account for a practice prevailing in Ashanti. 
 There, at the death of the king, his sons, his brothers, and his 
 nephews, under the influence of a feigned madness, rush out of the 
 royal palace, and discharge their guns indiscriminately at any person 
 they may chance to meet. But the ceremony is usually conducted 
 more methodically, with greater solemnity^ and also with more 
 
 Q 
 
226 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 appearance of reason. "When it is supposed that the deceased has 
 merely passed from this sublunary world to an invisible but 
 similar state, what can be more natural than to give to him for 
 his companions the creatures that he most cared about while he 
 was alive upon this earth 1 If the dead man has filled any position 
 here in this life, may it not be supposed that he will arrive in the 
 life beyond, loved, caressed, surrounded, and waited upon, as was 
 his daily custom here below 1 Therefore, upon his tomb will bo 
 sacrificed his familiar animals, his horse, or his dog — as was the 
 practice in Borgou — or else his wife, his nearest relations, and his 
 slaves. 
 
 This barbarous but perfectly logical custom is in vogue in many 
 districts in Equatorial Africa. In Ashanti the death of the king 
 is followed by whole hecatombs of slaves. It would indeed be 
 most indecorous if an Ashanti king went into the future state 
 without an escort proportionate to his illustrious rank. At Katunga 
 in Guinea, when the king dies, the cabocir, or Djannah chieftain, 
 three other cabocirs, four wives of the late monarch, and a quantity 
 of favourite slaves are all obliged to poison themselves. The 
 poison is given to them in a parrot's egg, and if by chance it 
 does not take effect the patients are considered bound to hang 
 themselves in their own houses. At Jenna, in Dahomey, when 
 the governor dies, one or two of his wives kill themselves upon 
 the same day, so that the deceased may have agreeable companions 
 in the post-mortem government of which he has gone to take pos- 
 session. And also at Katunga, when the king dies, his eldest son, 
 his first wife, and the principal personages in his kingdom are 
 strictly bound to poison themselves upon his tomb, so that they 
 may be buried with him. This custom has also a political bearing, 
 for it prevents the consequences, often very baneful, of an here- 
 ditary monarchy. Thanks to it, at Katunga, the king is always 
 elected, and his son can never succeed him. 
 
 When the funebrial services are over — that is, on the supposition 
 that they exist — the people not unfrequently think about some sort 
 of funereal memento. In this respect there is a very long gradation 
 of ideas. The Eushmen appear generally to abandon their dead. 
 
-Chap, xiii.] FUNEEEAL EITES. 227 
 
 The Hottentots bury them in a shallow ditch, and then cover them 
 over, as may happen, with some earth and a few stones. The 
 Kafirs throw the common people into the public open ditch, a sort 
 of sewer, and bury only their chiefs, raising over the grave a pile 
 of stones in a conical form. In Equatorial Africa they also bury 
 the people of rank or position in a cylindrical pit about six feet in 
 depth. The ditch is often indicated by a mound . of earth, or by 
 the erection of a stone about one foot eight inches or two feet in 
 height, something similar to the menliirs (druidical stones) or 
 celtiques. The Niam-Niams and the Bongos are also careful to lay 
 the body from east to west. The former people lay the face 
 toward the east if it be a man and towards the west if it be a 
 woman. It would be most disrespectful to lay a woman so that 
 she should face the rising sun ! But the Bongos, their neighbours, 
 have ideas diametrically opposite. With them the privilege of 
 facing the east is allowed only to the women. 
 
 The sun, the dazzling sun, under which man must exist and have 
 his being, has played a great part in every system of mythology, 
 and people belonging to all races have given much thought as to 
 whether or not they ought to lay their dead bodies facing the east. 
 
 We have just seen that the celtiform menhir was invented in 
 Central Africa. It has also been invented elsewhere, in Hindo- 
 stan, in the Fiji islands, and in other places ; we may also say 
 the same of another funereal construction, still more celtiform, the 
 dolmen. 
 
 The Hovas at Tananarivo, in Madagascar, lay their dead under 
 real funereal dolmens, consisting of five flat stones, four vertical 
 and one horizontal ; then they cover over the whole with flint stones, 
 so making a tumulus. The flagstone at the top is often of enormous 
 size. M. Dupre saw one of which the side measured thirteen 
 metres, and contained altogether ninety cubic metres. 
 
 Man is really a sheeplike animal. The similarity between the 
 funereal monuments of the Hovas and those of the prehistoric 
 Europeans of the age of polished stone would be almost sufficient 
 proof, if so many other analogies, certainly spontaneous, to be found 
 liere and there aU over the earth, did not otherwise decide the 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 question so as to leave no room for further doubt. In numerous 
 circumstances of the same kind, similar ideas have been found in 
 very many men of every race. This is an encouraging fact for the 
 sociologists, and allows them to hope that at some future date the 
 vast subject which is now engaging their thoughts may furnish 
 them with the conditions necessary for a pure and reasoning 
 science. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Funereal Rites in Polynesia. 
 
 The funereal rites, as well as many other customs in Polynesia, 
 present a great uniformity of ideas, not excepting, however, mere 
 local differences. 
 
 Ordinarily the Polynesian dead man was not buried, but care- 
 fully dried in the open air, then set in a curled-up position, rolled 
 in bandages made of paper stuffs, and so preserved in a particular 
 morai. The operation of drying the dead man was long and full 
 of risks. The corpse was first laid out in the open air and upon a 
 framework upheld by four posts, somewhat similar in construction 
 to the central flag in the double Polynesian canoes. Sometimes, 
 for instance at Noukahiva, the framework was replaced by the 
 trunk of a bread-fruit tree scooped out in the form of a boat, and 
 again covered over after the drying with another trunk scooped 
 out like the first and fitting on to it hermetically. The majority 
 of the islanders imagined that the life beyond was a very distant 
 island, and that the voyage there was very long. They were 
 careful, therefore, to place beside the dead body his arms and 
 his implements ; they gave him his club, a cocoa-nut shell for 
 drawing water, food to eat, water to drink, fish, and some of the 
 bread-fruit ; all these were intended to sustain the shade of the 
 deceased, which was supposed to wander for a long time round 
 about the body. 
 
 In order to dry the body they often extracted the intestines 
 through the anus, then every night they seated the man upright 
 and rubbed him with cocoa-nut oil. When the operation wa» 
 successful they had only to enrol the mummy in his bandages. 
 
Chap, xiii.] FUNEEEAL EITES. 229 
 
 In the Gambler islands the corpse was prepared in the same 
 way, but it was not set in a cuiied-up position. Once dried 
 it was laid horizontally, the arms fastened to the sides, in a 
 funereal grotto. In Easter island the inhabitants buried their 
 dead under the large flat'stones which bore the celebrated colossal 
 statues. 
 
 The ]N"ew Zealanders also buried their dead, but not until three 
 days after their decease, and when they had well rubbed the body 
 with oil and placed it in a crouching position. They then put a 
 pile of stones over the tomb, and on the stones they laid a few 
 provisions. 
 
 A singular fact observed by Cook in New Zealand shows us 
 how carefully we ought to interpret the ethnical "feimilitudes, even 
 when they are of a special kind. The New Zealanders had 
 erected a cross upon a tombstone and decorated it with feathers, 
 very similar to the cross ordinarily used by Catholics. 
 
 We have seen that the inhabitants of the Gambier islands place 
 their dead in the natural grottoes. At Tonga, as in other places in 
 the world, over the bodies of men of distinction is raised an 
 artificial grotto, or sort of dolmen, formed by large slabs of stone. 
 
 In many countries the grief or the regret felt by the survivors 
 after the loss of a relation or a friend has given rise to the idea, 
 not only of erecting a funereal memento but also of engraving or 
 painting certain emblems. The Polynesians were not an artistic 
 people, but they had practised that kind of funereal art to some 
 small extent. In a mortuary morai at Tahiti Cook saw some 
 strips of wood on which had been cut forms of men and of 
 animals, notably the figure of a cock, and to give the cock a more 
 realistic appearance it had been painted red and yellow. In 
 another place the people had cut a small figure out of stone. The 
 large statues in Easter island were probably formed with the same 
 idea, and whether they were or not cut by the present race of 
 people, and with their rough tools made out of volcanic glass, of 
 which M. Pinart has recently presented some specimens to the 
 Anthropological Society, we may nevertheless observe that sculpture 
 in stone is an art almost unknown to the Polynesians. 
 
230 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 In certain archipelagoes, the custom of wearing mourning, even 
 for a long period, was commonly practised. At Tahiti the women 
 used to wear a head-dress of feathers of some special colour, and 
 they would also cover their face with a veil. The women who 
 had washed, anointed, and prepared the corpse were subjected to a 
 most rigorous taboo, lasting for five months when it was the body of 
 a chief. During all this time they were not allowed to touch food 
 with their fingers ; everything they ate had to be put into their 
 mouths. And everywhere, as a sign of mourning, on the funereal 
 grounds people used to plant casuarinas trees, bearing no leaves — 
 a gloomy-looking plant something like the shavegrass. Singing 
 and a show of lamentation were held imperative. In the Mar- 
 quesas islands, if the deceased were a man, the lamentation of the 
 women was accompanied by the most curious sort of mimicry. 
 The widow and a few young girls used to jump in cadence round 
 about the corpse, performing lascivious gestures ; and then bending 
 over the dead man so as to examine him, they would cry : ^* He did 
 not move, he is quite still. Alas ! he is no longer in this world." 
 But funereal grief in Polynesia was shown not only in moaning 
 and in ceremonies ; lacerations, mutilations, and sacrifices were also 
 held necessary. Moral grief was not considered sufficient ; .there 
 must also have been some shedding of blood. 
 
 These sanguinary customs were general all over Polynesia, and 
 they were very uniform. Nearly everywhere the people used to- 
 tear their faces with a shark's tooth or with a sharp stone. But at 
 Tongatabou funereal grief, real or affected, was shown in a more 
 cruel manner than at any other place. The marks of sorrow were 
 shown in exact measure according to the social position of the 
 deceased. After the death of a chief the people used to shave^ 
 their hair, to lacerate their face and their body; they used to 
 torture themselves by burning their skin, by driving sharp points 
 into their thighs, their sides, their cheeks ; they broke the bones 
 of their little finger, and also those of the ring finger, as was the 
 custom in Australia and in other places. 
 
 However violent may have been the grief of the Polynesians, it 
 was not always sincere, for at Noukahiva Porter saw a widow, 
 
Chap. XIII.] FUNEEEAL EITES. 231 
 
 "whose husband had been devoured by a shark, prostitute herself 
 to some American sailors, though at the time her chest, her neck, 
 and her arms were all covered with gaping funereal wounds. 
 Hypocrisy is not a vice peculiar only to civilised races ; but we 
 may recollect that the Polynesians are endowed with most infantine 
 fickleness of disposition, and that the feeling of shame is quite 
 unknown to them. 
 
 In ISTew Zealand one outburst of grief was not considered 
 sufficient. Sometimes they would dig up the dead at certain 
 periods of the year, and go through a fresh bout of weeping, 
 which was also accompanied with fresh lacerations, cut deeply, 
 and inflicted quite voluntarily. 
 
 In addition to this manifestation of grief by these torturings 
 and lacerations, a desire was often felt not to allow the deceased 
 to go alone into the world beyond ; and to gratify this holy wish 
 other human beings were sacrificed. 
 
 Doubtless the New Zealander's notion of morality did not always 
 compel a woman to outlive her husband ; but if she spontaneously 
 hung herself on a tree, her conduct was thought to be worthy of 
 great praise. In certain tribes this moral obligation was held to 
 be a. strict duty; and at the death of a chief it was customary 
 to strangle all his widows over his tomb. Customs quite as 
 barbarous as these were common in the Friendly islands and in 
 other places, and often concurrently with practices of a totally 
 opposite nature. The New Zealanders, who regarded their dead 
 with such feelings of reverence, would sometimes eat their own 
 relations who were killed in battle. Children have been known 
 to eat their mother, and fathers their children. We may also add 
 that these same islanders, when one of their chiefs died, after they 
 had piously and ceremoniously moaned over him, would rob and 
 steal everything that he possessed. 
 
 Slaves were often sacrificed upon the tomb of the deceased. 
 A New Zealand mother, whose child had been drowned, insisted 
 that a female slave should be put to death, so that she might 
 accompany and take care of her little one on his voyage to the 
 country beyond the grave — to the Reinga. 
 
232 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 Ill the Marquesas islands they used sometimes to sacrifice 
 two servants, two kikinas, one of whom was charged to carry 
 the belt of the departed and the other the pig's head served at 
 the funeral repast. This precaution was important, for in Nouka- 
 hiva the guardian of the tomb beyond would have mercilessly 
 driven back with a shower of stones any new arrivals if they did 
 not present themselves becomingly according to the prescribed rites. 
 Sometimes the funereal victims, men or women, were carried away 
 by men of a neighbouring tribe who had lain in ambush for them. 
 Human sacrifices were also ordained by law in the Sandwich 
 islands when the deceased had been an important personage, 
 and funereal suicide was also customary. On the death of Tame- 
 hameha several persons who had been warmly attached to 
 him killed themselves, so as to accompany him into the other 
 world, and that was without prejudice to the obligatory victims 
 and to voluntary mutilations. In addition, in after years, on the 
 anniversary of this Hawaian Napoleon, people used to com- 
 memorate the sad event by pulling out an incisor tooth. 
 Nomalianna, the wife of Tamehameha, had caused to be tattooed 
 upon her right arm words which in her language signified 
 '•Our good King Tamehameha died on the 6tli of May, 1819." 
 Going to a still greater extremity, some few of the islanders 
 caused the same operation to be performed upon their tongues. 
 At the funeral banquet of this great prince the number of pigs 
 obliged to be killed was so great that, after the event, pork was 
 a meat scarcely to be met with in the island. Though it may 
 perhaps have been excessive, this admiration of the Hawaians 
 for their conquerors will hardly cause much surprise in Europe 
 except to a few morose-minded persons. 
 
 We will here conclude our, short enumeration of the funereal 
 customs in Polynesia, but before pursuing the subject any further 
 it may be well to remark that these funebrial rites, more or 
 less bloody, rarely take place until after the decease of the men 
 whom it is intended to honour, and that this is also the case 
 among nearly all savage races. On the death of the husbands 
 the wives are often sacrificed, but we do not know of even 
 
Chap. XIII.] FUNEREAL EITES. 233 
 
 a single reciprocal instance. As regards feminine obsequies, the 
 majority of travellers maintain an eloquent silence. We may 
 conclude, therefore, that the woman is nearly everywhere buried 
 without much ceremony. This is another particularity to be 
 added to the already large number of facts showing the disdain 
 in which woman is generally held among all the primitive races 
 of men. 
 
 V. 
 
 Funereal Rites in America, 
 
 As regards funereal rites the vast American continent may be 
 divided into three large districts, northern, central, and southern. 
 These districts will no doubt be divided roughly, they will often 
 notch one into the other, and in each, tribes will be found who 
 have their own special customs. But we may say generally that 
 burial is the custom in South America, and that there the corpse is 
 often set in a seated or in a curled-up position. In the central 
 regions, in Mexico, the dead who when alive were men of distinc- 
 tion, were subjected to cremation — a practice unknown for the most 
 part in Melanesia, in Africa, in Polynesia, and in South America. 
 The !N"orthern American usually neither burns nor buries his dead ; 
 he places them, according to the Polynesian custom, upon a sort 
 of platform, and then afterwards gathers together the bones more 
 or less carefully. The instances which we propose to give will 
 show the general characteristics peculiar to each country. 
 
 The Patagonians, the Araucanians, the Pampas, the Puelches, and 
 the Charruas, all bury their dead generally in a curled-up position ; 
 and they are careful to put by the side of the deceased his clothes, his 
 ornaments, his arms, his arrows, sometimes painted over with red, 
 and some provisions. They will often burn the rest of the objects 
 which may have belonged to him, and kill upon his tomb the 
 domestic animals of which he had made use. The Chiquitos, the 
 Araucanians, and the Patagonians, have still great difficulty in 
 believing in natural death. The death of their chief is often 
 attributed to spiteful ill-will ; hence the cause of vengeance, 
 murder, and interminable wars between the tribes. 
 
231 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 The Charruas and the tribes of the Grand Chaco do not confine 
 themselves in their funereal ceremonies to the sacrifice of domestic 
 animals ; but, as in Polynesia, the relations of the dead man wound 
 themselves upon the arms, upon the sides, and upon the chest; the 
 women break two bones of their finger, and they ought in addition 
 to impose upon themselves severe fasting. We may remark that 
 the funereal amputation of a finger is also a Polynesian custom. 
 
 With the Guaranis the dead man is buried in a sitting position,, 
 but the body has first been put into a large funereal vase. The 
 deceased is sometimes buried in his own house, and every morning 
 for a long time afterwards his family extol his virtues, pouring 
 forth lamentations as they do so. 
 
 Funereal customs very similar in reality were practised by the 
 ancient Peruvians, especially towards the south, in the kingdom of 
 Cusco. The dead man was buried clothed and seated, surrounded 
 by his own familiar objects ; some provisions were also placed by 
 his side. He was buried either in a cavern adjoining the house or 
 else in the public cemetery. Putrefaction was avoided as far as was 
 possible, either by drying the body, like the Polynesians, or else in. 
 using resin, as was the custom Avith the ancient Egyptians. They 
 often drew out the entrails ; this was also a Polynesian custom. 
 Human sacrifices, voluntary or other, were frequent in Peru on the 
 death of the grand personages. Balboa reports that at the death of 
 the. Inca Yupanqui many of the courtiers were sacrificed. At the 
 death of Huayna-Capac more than a thousand persons voluntarily 
 put themselves to death. 
 
 Cremation was practised by the ancient Mexicans; but the custom 
 was far from being general — it was a privilege reserved only 
 to men of distinction. The body, dressed in this or in that 
 manner, according to the divinity which the man had worshipped, 
 was first strewed over with pieces of paper covered with hiero- 
 glyphs serving as protecting talismans. Then, after incineration, 
 the cinders, collected in a vase, were preserved in the house or 
 else buried, either in the- open field or in a consecrated building. 
 The remains of the kings and of the high personages were ordinarily 
 placed in the towers of the temples. The dead who were not burned 
 
Chap, xiii.] PUNEEEAL KITES. 
 
 
 were placed in deep ditches constructed with masonry ; 
 placed on low seats called icpallis, and the people took care to set 
 beside them, the implements belonging to their profession. By the 
 side of a soldier they woidd put a shield and a sword ; by the 
 side of a woman a shuttle and a spindle. There, as in so many 
 other countries, the personages of rank could not go alone into the 
 country beyond the grave, and slaves more or less numerous were 
 sacrificed upon their tombf. In Zacatecas people were persuaded 
 that during a certain number of years the shades of the dead came 
 back to visit their family ; and therefore upon a given day in every 
 year they prepared for them a banquet at which all the relations 
 were present ; but they remained silent, immovable, with downcast 
 eyes, so as not to disturb the repose of the invisible guests. 
 
 In Columbia the funereal rites are now beginning to vary a little. 
 Some people, the Troacas for instance, still pompously bury their 
 dead, laying down their arms beside them, and also taking care 
 to envelop them in a thick bed of banana leaves, so as to pre- 
 vent the contact of the earth ; but the other tribes on the bank, 
 of the Orinoco have very different customs. Their desire is to 
 have the skeleton well prepared as soon as possible, they therefore 
 tie a strong rope round the body and throw it into the river. In 
 one or two days the fish do what is expected of them : they eat off' 
 all the flesh. Then the bones are separated one from the other, 
 they are artistically arranged in a basket suspended from the roof 
 of the house. These are funebrial rites of an aerial kind, much 
 practised in the northern parts of America. Among the Caribs 
 the funeral basket has already become customary. But they do 
 not collect the bones until after the decomposition of the corpse, 
 which at first remains, for a greater or less length of time, stretched 
 in a hammock under the charge of the wives of the deceased; 
 with the exception of one wife, who is often sacrificed if the dead 
 body be that of a chief. 
 
 As we have already remarked, there is no accurately drawn 
 line of demarcation between the diff'erent American .districts 
 where this or that funereal rite is practised. The custom of 
 cremation does not appear to have been adopted upon a large scale. 
 
236 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Bookiii. 
 
 anywhere but in Mexico ; but nowadays the Eocouyennes, Indians 
 of Guiana, often burn their dead after having first painted and 
 decorated them. 
 
 Cremation was also in use here and there in North America, espe- 
 cially towards the south. In many of the mounds in the Southern 
 States we find funereal urns containing beds of wooden charcoal. 
 Quite recently, the Shoshoni used to burn their dead, and used 
 to put with them all the objects that belonged to them. The 
 Indians on the bay of San Francisco used to do the same. In- 
 cineration of the dead is also a custom with the Tahkali; but 
 they proceed after a very ceremonious fashion, in presence of their 
 doctor of medicine, who by his gesticulations and contortions is 
 supposed to make the soul or the shade of the departed pass into 
 the body of one of the assistants, who then becomes the inheritor 
 of the name and of the rank of the deceased. 
 
 In Sitka island, cremation and exposition of the body "svithout 
 burial are combined. The corpses are burnt ; then the ashes collecl^d 
 in boxes are deposited in small funebrial buildings. 
 
 The placing of the corpse upon a scafi'olding, and then exposing 
 it to the open air, is a custom much practised among the Red 
 Skins. The Assineboins and many other tribes expose their dead 
 in the same way, either on the branches of trees or on a funereal 
 scaffolding high enough to keep them out of the reach of four- 
 footed wild beasts. After a stated time, the bones are collected 
 and piled up in a depository specially kept for the purpose ; and 
 in case of emigration the tribe will, as far as possible, carry 
 with them the remains of their dead, or else hide them in a 
 cavern, or bury them in the ground. In the northern part of 
 America, in New Albion, the corpses are deposited, with the 
 bones and broken splinters, in the boats, which are afterwards 
 suspended from the trees at about ten or twelve feet from the 
 ground; the boats are covered over with a large plank of wood. 
 The corpses of children are put into baskets, which are also hung 
 from the trees, and into these baskets are often put little square 
 boxes containing some alimentary substance. As among nearly 
 every primitive race, these people think that in the shade of 
 
Chap, xiii.] FUNEEEAL EITES. 237 
 
 the dead still remain all the wants of the living man. The Ked 
 Skin thinks that the country beyond the grave is altogether 
 similar to his earthly dwelling-place. His imagination leads him 
 to believe it to be a promised land full of buffaloes and fine roe- 
 bucks^ where there are trees and flowers and perpetual spring ; or 
 else it is a deserted icebound region, in which man is in constant 
 suffering from cold, hunger, and want of every kind. For the 
 dreams of man can only be a reflection, either more ■ beautiful or 
 more gloomy, of his actual life ; and, as we shall see, all over the 
 earth and among all races of men, the future life has always been 
 imagined to be an entire imitation of our life here upon earth. 
 
 In the extreme north of America, where large trees will not 
 grow, the people often bury their dead on the tops of the' hills, 
 erecting a little mound of sand on the tomb. This is the custom 
 at Unalaska. Still more to the north, among the real Esquimaux, 
 they place their dead either under stones or else in the snow. 
 Sometimes they collect the skulls to hang them round about their 
 dwelling-houses, together with the heads of the bears and seals. 
 It must be admitted that they do not care more for the one sort of 
 skull than for the other, for the Esquimaux is not a sensitive man, 
 nor is he superstitious. In Sitka island, among the Koluches, two 
 slaves are usually put to death when their master dies, to wait 
 upon him in the other world. 
 
 Our review of the funebrial rites in America is now terminated. 
 We may observe, but without insisting too strongly, that there are 
 certain similarities between the American customs and those in Poly- 
 nesia; and this fact, taken in connection with others, may be urged in 
 support of the theory as to the American origin of the Polynesian 
 islanders. We may also remark that the custom of cremation is 
 very widely spread in Central America. We shall also very fre- 
 quently find this custom upon the Asiatic-European continent, of 
 which we are now going to speak ; we shall also have to question 
 ourselves as to its signification. 
 
238 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Funereal Rites in Asia and in Malay. 
 
 The funereal customs in the Javanese archipelago are of the 
 most various kind. Formerly, the Battas used piously and cere- 
 moniously to eat their old relations, as was also the practice, 
 according to- Marco Polo, of certain people in India, and also of 
 the Derbices of Europe, according to Herodotus. At present, in- 
 humation is the customary mode of burial in the Javanese archi- 
 pelago. The cemeteries are situated on a hill and shaded over 
 with funereal trees (plumeria acutifolia). Formerly the dead 
 were Ibft at the foot of a tree in the forest, or thrown into the 
 water, or burnt, together Avith one or more women, who had been 
 previously slaughtered, sometimes by blows from the kriss. This 
 was plainly an imitation of the Hindoo suttee. Or else the people 
 laid the body upon planks, as is the Polynesian and the American 
 custom. The corpse, laid in a bier, is lifted up on to posts. The 
 natives of Poulo-Nias then arrange around the whole construction 
 creeping plants, which soon form a shroud of green leaves round 
 about the coffin. The Kayans of Borneo do very much the same ; 
 but they first keep the corpse for several days in their houses, 
 offering to it food, and placing lights all round about it, while 
 the women are weeping and mourning. With the dead man they 
 bury everything that he possessed, and also very often the corpse 
 of a slave killed specially for the occasion (0. Beccari), for the 
 shade of the departed must be suitably accompanied into the 
 other world. It is the same spiritualistic idea that urges the 
 Borneo Dyaks to be so eager in their desire for procuring men's 
 heads. The Dyaks firmly believe that each decapitation represents 
 the acquisition of a slave in the life to come. They wear mourn- 
 ing for one of their deceased relatives until they have succeeded in 
 procuring a man's head ; that is to say, sending a slave to the 
 departed. When a father has lost his child, he kills the first man 
 he meets as he goes out of his house ; this is to him an act of 
 duty. No young man can marry until he has brought home a 
 
Chap, xiii.] FUNEEEAL EITES. 239 
 
 head. To lay traps for people, so as to decapitate them, was, and 
 is still, among the Dyaks a national custom which they imagine 
 to be very praiseworthy. Wallace says they are a good sort of 
 people. We do not wish to doubt it ; but we may observe that, 
 with the Dyaks as with other people, the feeling of duty may 
 lead them into atrocious crimes, when that same feeling is not 
 enlightened by humane intelligence. 
 
 Among the Mongolians and the Mongoloid people of continental 
 Asia we find a great uniformity of custom in the funereal rites. It 
 would appear that all the ethnical branches of this large race began 
 by leaving their dead, either letting them lie in the fields, or else 
 throwing them into the sea or into the river. Then they be- 
 thought themselves of burning the people of rank; and at last, as 
 is now the custom in China, cremation has been followed by 
 burial. Here and there we find also, at least in a symbolical form, 
 funereal sacrifices either of persons or of objects. 
 
 Incineration is a long and costly process, Avhich can nowhere be 
 within the means of the common people. Therefore the abandon- 
 ment of their dead is common enough among the poorer classes of 
 the Mongolians and the Mongoloid races. The Siamese common 
 people throw their dead into the water without performing any 
 ceremony. 
 
 The Thibetans in the same way allow their dead to be devoured 
 by the crows and by the vultures. So do the majority of the Mon- 
 golians, consulting their lamas beforehand as to the direction in 
 which the corpse ought to be laid. The dead children are enveloped 
 in sacks of leather with a suitable provision of butter and other 
 food, and then left on the wayside. The notion is that the young 
 shade, prematurely taken from its body, may thus find the chance 
 to reincarnate itself in the breast of one of the women passing 
 along the road. 
 
 It would seem that among the yellow races the abandonment of 
 their dead was followed by cremation. The two customs were 
 sometimes joined together ; for instance, in Siam, before burying a 
 corpse, they would cut oft' the fleshy parts and leave them to the 
 jackals and the vultures. Many Tartars who are ignorant of ere- 
 
240 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir, 
 
 mation cut up the corpses of their dead and hand them over to the 
 dogs. But in Asiatic Mongolia cremation is frequently practised in 
 the case of men of rank or position. In Siam the bodies of the chiefs 
 are burned at a great expense upon a fastuously-arranged funeral 
 pile, erected at great cost both of time and of money, and the corpse 
 is also carefully embalmed beforehand. The people of low con- 
 dition are also occasionally embalmed, but always at a respectful 
 distance from their distinguished superiors. As the poor people 
 cannot always embalm their dead, they cut up into little bits all 
 the soft parts, which they afterwards, following the practice of the 
 Tartars, throw to the dogs and to the vultures. The rich Mongolians 
 hold it to be a point of honour to burn the corpses of their parents 
 in a furnace built for the purpose ; and during the ceremony the 
 paternosters are read by the lamas. The Thibetans also incinerate- 
 their corpses in a handsome bier, music being played as an accom- 
 paniment to the ceremony. The service is conducted by priests, 
 who naturally enough expect to be paid for their work. The 
 Chinese now seem to have given up the practice of cremation ; but 
 it was their custom at the time of Marco Polo's travels, at least in 
 certain parts of the empire. 
 
 Inhumation is also much practised in Mongolian Asia. The- 
 Siamese bury only the children who have died before they have cut 
 their teeth, and women who are big with child ; and these latter, 
 after a few months, are dug up to be burnt. The Burmese some- 
 times cremate and sometimes exhume their bodies. The nomads 
 Mongolians bury the greater part of their corpses which are not left 
 deserted. The Mongolian kings and princes are sometimes buried 
 at a great expense in a large mortuary cavern, and also with a large 
 sacrifice of human life attending their burial. A large building 
 adorned with Buddhist statues is placed in front of the cavern of 
 these great earthly personages ; the royal clothes are spread out; 
 there is also laid there a great display of precious stones, and large 
 sums of money both in gold and in silver. Bound about the dead' 
 body of the great man, placed in the attitude of meditation common 
 among the Buddhists, are the children poisoned specially for the 
 
Chap. XIII.] EUNEEEAL RITES- 241 
 
 occasion, one holding a pipe, another the fan, and others various 
 objects of the deceased. 
 
 We know that the Chinese attach much importance to the 
 ceremonies accompanying a burial, and that the inhabitants of the 
 Celestial Empire have none of the puerile feelings of terror of death 
 which are ordinarily felt by us Europeans. It is a most pleasing 
 thing for an affectionate Chinaman to be able to give a handsome 
 burial to his old parents. And on their side the father and mother 
 are quite delighted with the present; for the majority of the 
 Chinese look upon death with the utmost coolness, and are quite 
 exempt from our sombre creed as to the future life. The Chinese 
 think that the funebrial ceremonies cannot be too magnificent, and 
 families will often seriously cripple themselves in their means to 
 bury a dead man. 
 
 The funereal sacrifices still practised among certain Tartar 
 fam-ilies of high rank have long formed part of the traditions and 
 customs of the Mongolian race. At the time of Marco Polo, when 
 a Tartar nobleman was being carried to his last resting-place, the 
 assistants used to put to death everyone they met on the road as 
 the hearse was going on its way. They said simply : " Go and 
 join your lord in the other world." They used also to kill the 
 best horse of the deceased so that he might in the next life have 
 that animal to ride. 
 
 The imagination of human creatures in their primitive state has 
 nearly everywhere led them to believe that life continued after 
 death in a condition very similar to that of their then actual 
 existence. Nothing then is more natural than the idea of causing 
 the material and ethereal shadow of the departed to be followed by 
 other shadows equally ethereal, by those of whom he had been fond 
 and who had served him during his lifetime, by his domestic 
 animals, his arms, and other things which he had used during his 
 visible existence. This unhappy belief has assuredly cost the life 
 of millions of human beings ; and we still find scattered remains of 
 the same custom in every human society. 
 
 The Chinese, the least religious of all nations, have had, like 
 
 B 
 
242 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 other races, their phase of funereal superstitions. We have seen 
 that in the time of Marco Polo bloody sacrifices were still held in 
 certain provinces of China, but even then they had in other dis- 
 tricts preserved only the symbols. Horses ready saddled, armoury, 
 golden flags, etc., were economically replaced by imitations cut out 
 in parchment, which were burnt together with the corpse. 
 
 At the same time and in the same country, they used occasion- 
 ally to keep the corpse shut up in the bier for six months, and 
 always every day offering to it some food to eat. And even now 
 the Chinese hold their funereal repast, at which the dead man is 
 offered food as though he were alive. This is only a symbolical 
 ceremony, preserved on account of the extreme respect which the 
 Chinese profess for their relations. After the death of their 
 father or their mother they are considered bound to wear mourning 
 for three years. But as during this time of mourning the public 
 functionaries are bound to quit their employment, the prescribed 
 duration of the term has been reduced to twenty-seven months. 
 
 The custom of funereal food is very general all over the earth, 
 and it has evidently sprung from the notion that life has not 
 been interrupted by the slight accident of death. In Bhotan the 
 deceased was kept for three days before being placed on the 
 funeral pile, and during this time the priests offered him food 
 daily. The inhabitants of Eussian Finland have nowadays similar 
 customs. In Siberia the Ostiaks make little figures out of carved. 
 wood to represent the dead bodies of men of distinction, and 
 during their commemorative funeral repasts they conscientiously 
 put some aside for the f unebrial doll. The Ostiak widows also 
 make little figures of the same kind representing the bodies of their 
 deceased husbands ; they take these images to bed with them, and 
 the relations of the deceased offer to them food. 
 
 Elsewhere, in Siam for instance, and in Tartary, people collect 
 the ashes of the burnt corpses and make of them a paste to mould 
 into small Buddhist images or into disks, which they afterwards 
 put on to the top of a pyramid. The corpse thus transformed 
 becomes the lares and penates, and they are carefully kept, evi- 
 dently as the supposed dwelling-place of the shade of the departeds 
 
Chap. XIII.] FUNEREAL EITES. 24S 
 
 VII. 
 
 Funereal Rites among tlie White Races. 
 
 The majority of the funereal rites which we have described have 
 existed, or still continue, among the Indo-European races. 
 
 The custom of allowing the corpses to be devoured by wild 
 beasts, or, in other words, of voluntary abandonment, was also 
 followed by many people in ancient times. In Hyrcania, Cicero 
 says, dogs were kept specially for the purpose of eating the dead. 
 The Bactrianae also had their scavenger dogs, who devoured not 
 only the corpses but also the bodies of people enfeebled by age 
 or sickness. The Hindoos on the banks of the Ganges threw 
 their dead into the sacred river, and allowed the fish to perform the 
 office of the undertakers. The Callatians in ancient India used to 
 eat their deceased parents, and some of them wept loudly when 
 Darius asked them at what price they would consent to burn their 
 dead. The Parsees of Bombay even now leave their corpses to the 
 vultures, but they take much care to spy out which eye will be first 
 extracted, for this particularity enables them to infer whether the 
 shade or the soul of the defunct will be happy or unhappy in the 
 other world. 
 
 Nearly all the Semites of our own times bury their dead. This 
 was also the custom with the ancient Persians, whose present 
 descendants push their love of inhumation to such excess that they 
 do not hesitate to pay large ransoms to the Turkoman plunderers 
 for the body, or even for a portion of the body, of their relations, 
 so as to bury the precious remains not yet polluted by the 
 unfaithful. 
 
 As we have already seen, the Aryan Vedahs bury their dead, 
 recommending them to the care of the earth. In India at the 
 present day the funereal rites of distinguished men are performed by 
 cremation, and that is the custom as far a» !N"epaul. However, it 
 is not very long since that many devout people went to Benares to 
 drown themselves, so as to be more certain of assuring their 
 salvation. 
 
 ' B 2 
 
244 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 We know also that the ancient Germans used often to burn their 
 dead, and prehistoric archaeology teaches us that our ancestors in 
 the stone age used sometimes to bury their dead in caverns or in 
 mounds in the earth, and sometimes they used to burn them. 
 
 Among the white races, as among the others, funereal sacrifices 
 were very largely practised. In spite of the silence of the Menu 
 Code, which does not prescribe human sacrifices at the funerals, 
 the custom to burn widows over the pile of their husbands became 
 very general among the Brahmins, and it has persisted down to 
 our own times. It was more or less the custom with all the 
 people of antiquity, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Eomans, 
 and others, to sacrifice human beings at their funeral rites. The 
 Germans, too, with their dead used to burn the horses of the 
 deceased and his armour, and did not allow their great personages 
 to go into the next life without a suitable escort of slaughtered 
 prisoners. 
 
 As regards these sanguinary customs there is a great analogy of 
 ideas all over the earth. We find nearly everywhere the same 
 infatuation, and the same cruelty, among all races, from the ancient 
 Germans to the inhabitants of Dahomey, who, not satisfied with 
 massacring hundreds of women, eunuchs, singers, soldiers, and 
 others, when their king dies, despatch periodically to the invisible 
 kingdom of Dahomey fresh servants charged to carry messages to 
 the king who has left them. They do this quite naturally and 
 simply, to prove to the deceased the filial affection of his successor. 
 
 The ancient Greeks and Eomans also used to believe firmly, as 
 do now many savage races, that the shades of the dead really par- 
 took of the food off'ered to them by the survivors. Lucian makes 
 a widower relate that his wife came to him to ask for a sandal that 
 she had forgotten to burn with his body and with his other orna- 
 ments. Among the Greeks or Eomans, as among many other 
 people, the spirits of the dead were often looked upon as dangerous 
 and wicked beings. It was especially the spirits of those who were 
 deprived of sepulture, or those who died of a violent death, that 
 were animated with these perverse instincts. The doctrines of 
 Epicurus fortunately relieved the most sensible minded from those 
 
Chap. XIII.] FUNEREAL KITES. 245 
 
 chimerical tortures. There are a certain number of Latin epitaphs 
 which tell us plainly enough that, as regards the personality of 
 the individual, death is the end of all things, that it is everlasting 
 peace. But these too rational doctrines were believed in only by a 
 very small minority; the masses still troubled themselves with 
 their notion of Charon and hell, thus preparing the way for 
 Christianity, which brought to a paroxysm the fear of post-mortem 
 torment. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 From this long enumeration a few general facts may be deduced. 
 Man is so intoxicated with his feverish desire for life, that he can- 
 not bring home to himself any idea of death. Quite at first he does 
 not believe in natural death, but always imagines some malicious 
 act to be the cause of the decease. Also, he generally looks upon 
 death merely as a metamorphosis, and pictures to himself another 
 life based upon that life which is familiar to him. Hence spring 
 all the funereal rites which, in spite of their differences in point of 
 detail, may be classed under a small number of heads. 
 
 At the outset of the social life man thinks no more of his dead 
 than do the majority of animals ; he abandons them without any 
 scruple to the beasts or birds of prey. And sometimes this form, 
 or rather this absence of funereal rites, is seen in societies that are 
 fairly civilised ; but then superstition comes in, ceremonial forms 
 are practised, the pulling to pieces of the corpse is done only by 
 certain animals, or it is held obligatory that the body should be 
 eaten by the fish in certain rivers. In other countries the bodies 
 are exposed on planks upon the trees. But in all these cases, the 
 abandonment of the human corpse is no longer bestial. 
 
 Other people bury their dead, either in grottoes or in tombs, 
 often built after the model of the habitations of the living, or else 
 they bury them in the ground in a fertile mound, from which all 
 animal life, directly or indirectly, feeds itself. Afterwards comes 
 incineration, which, of all funereal customs, seems to be the most 
 luxurious and the most coveted. 
 
 Whatever be the custom adopted, man always furnishes the 
 
246 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 dead body with his arms and necessary food, under the hypothesis 
 of a continuation of life after death. And like the human body, 
 these objects have also their duplicate, their soul, their shade, 
 which is destined to subsist and to serve their purpose in the 
 kingdom of the dead. "No doubt incineration was practised in so 
 many different countries under the idea of emancipating more 
 quickly and more completely these invisible effigies from the dead 
 bodies and also from the inanimate objects. 
 
 In all these customs we may trace a sort of logical sequence of 
 ideas ; the people were loath to see the dead man depart without 
 providing him with means of nourishment and also with weapons 
 of defence, they therefore thought it wise and necessary not 
 to allow him to go alone on the perilous journey beyond the grave. 
 They sacrificed on his tomb, or threw on to his funeral pile, his 
 favourite domestic animals, his slaves, and very often, if the 
 deceased was a man, his wife or some of his wives. Hence were 
 innumerable murders, seas of blood were flowing everywhere all 
 over the earth, during these millenary epochs which our spiritual 
 teachers and our moralists always forget when they speak in the 
 most grand and glorious terms of the all-hallowed notion of the 
 immortality of the soul. We shall now see that many people 
 believe only, not in the immortality of the soul, but in a later 
 mortality, in a temporary continuation of life after death. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RELIGION IN GENERAL. 
 
 For many people, and some even of the best educated, the word 
 " religion " carries with it a sound very different to that of any 
 other word in the language. It is a magic word which instantly 
 awakens a vast region of affective impressionability. Nothing is 
 more natural, for there are connected with it a whole world of 
 memories, a very large collection of ideas which have been 
 
^Chap. XIV.] RELIGION IN GENERAL. 247 
 
 acquired or which, have been born in us hereditarily. There are 
 few of us who, in our infancy or in our early youth, have not 
 undergone more or less — and often more than less — the training of 
 a religious education. How many of the most confused impres- 
 sions of our childhood are not due to the whole scenery of 
 Catholicism, a coarsely-imagined scenery perhaps, but therefore 
 the better adapted to leave its mark upon the mind of the child, so 
 like, in this respect, to the mind of the savage*? During these 
 long early years, in which our moral nature is being formed, for well 
 or for ill, our memory as yet unspotted, our frank and credulous 
 nature has been impregnated, so to say, with sacred stories which 
 have appeared to us as wonderful as fairy tales. And during this 
 period of development, when every day some new notion as to our 
 future personality was taking root in our brain, we were taught to 
 imagine the universe peopled with mythic personages, until we did 
 at last believe in their actual existence. At the same time we 
 were told terrifying tales of the future life, we were made to 
 believe in everlasting flames in which there were horned demons 
 always grinning at us. After awhile, as we grew older, these 
 sensual features in Catholicism, against which our fuller intelli- 
 gence would probably have rebelled, were less strongly urged ; but 
 still taking advantage of our affective nature, our teachers tried to 
 connect indissolubly our highest sentiments, and our most noble 
 aspirations, with these mystical doctrines ; they showed us that 
 religion is the necessary appanage of man, the mainstay of his 
 morality, and that therein lies his glory and his strength. Finally, 
 when it became necessary to appeal to our reason, the metaphysi- 
 cians in office, continuing the work of our spiritual advisers, em- 
 ployed all their scholastic lore to prove to us the dualism of our 
 being, the spirituality of our conscient life, the existence of an 
 immaterial God, reduced to be nothing more than an unfathomable 
 treasury of a certain ideal kind. We may also add that the spirit 
 ■of our ancestors, reappearing in us to a greater or less extent, has 
 been ground into powder in the same way, whence a sort of 
 xeligious instinct remains impressed in the cells of our brain. 
 
 Trom all this it results that there exists in the brain of many 
 
248 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book nr. 
 
 intelligent persons — sometimes the highest natures, from a moral 
 point of view — a special and unconquerable domain containing^ 
 their religionary ideas. To these people the word religion has 
 the effect of enchantment, they are disposed to respect everything 
 which bears the impress of this mark. We think we have shown 
 elsewhere that a separate religionary faculty does not exist in the 
 human brain, though no doubt we may easily discover under this 
 somewhat pompous expression groups of affective and intellectual 
 acts which do not essentially differ from other conscient or cerebral 
 actions. 
 
 We have now to consider the religious beliefs among the 
 different human races. No study is more instructive or better 
 adapted to dispel the halo attaching to the word " religion." A 
 scholarly interpretation of the history of the principal Indo- 
 European religions may still deceive us ; but their formation and 
 development is rendered very much clearer if read with the help 
 of the formation and development of the primitive religions ; and if 
 this examination be made conscientiously, without preconceived 
 ideas, and without blinking our eyes to actual facts, it will carry 
 with it a death-blow to all supernatural ideas. 
 
 In this interesting study we shall have to bo very brief, to 
 confine ourselves to the most typical facts, which indeed are less 
 numerous than might at first appear ; for man's religious concep- 
 tions, more than his worldly thoughts, have nearly everywhere 
 shown a great deal of uniformity. To abridge, as far as possible, 
 and collect together facts of an analogous kind, we will group the 
 so-called religious ideas under three heads : 
 
 I. Future life, and man's different conceptions regarding it. 
 
 II. The Gods. 
 
 III. The forms of worship and the priesthood. 
 
 When this threefold inquiry is completed we shall then have 
 finished the present portion of our work. 
 
Chap, xv.] THE FUTUEE LIFE. 249 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ON THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 The feeble intelligence of the primitive man is generally unable to 
 conceive the idea of absolute death, the annihilation of his own 
 personality. During this stage of mental infancy man does not 
 often believe in a natural death. As we have already remarked, he 
 thinks that the decease of his relatives or of his friends must be 
 attributed to sorcery or to some malicious act. Every death is to 
 him an assassination, and he often thinks it his duty to punish the 
 suspected assassin. But, whatever may be his ideas as regards the 
 causes of death, he absolutely refuses to consider it as the end of 
 individual existence ; he generally regards it as a lengthened sleep, 
 during which the shade, the spirit, etc., quits the body, as it seems 
 to do in a dream, to continue somewhere else an invisible existence, 
 not eternally, but for a greater or less length of time. All man's 
 ideas coming to him from experience, and his imagination being 
 nothing more than memory capriciously broken by his intelligence, 
 his future life, when he believes in it, is invariably planned in 
 imitation of his life here upon earth ; so that given the kind of life 
 he leads here, and the conditions of the ethnical group to which he 
 belongs, one may easily infer what he will believe as to the world 
 beyond. This general view is applicable to all human races, 
 commencing from the Melanesians, with whom we will begin our 
 study. 
 
 I. 
 
 Future Life according to the Melanesians. 
 
 We have just indicated how the belief in a future life is first 
 created ; but this belief, though very common, is not necessary, nor 
 is it always born in man. It is foreign to certain ethnical groups, 
 and especially to many individuals. 
 
 In Tasmania men's minds were much divided on this point. 
 According to the missionary Clark, many Tasmanians, especially 
 
250 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 those in the western part of the island, had not the least idea of a 
 future life. They used to say, "they died like the kangaroos/* 
 Others thought that they were destined after death to go and 
 live in the stars, as in an island, where they would meet their 
 ancestors and be turned into white men. 
 
 According to Davis, this belief in a white reincarnation came 
 directly from anthropophagy ; it was suggested to the islanders by 
 the fact that the Tasmanian flesh when skinned and roasted takes 
 a whitish hue. 
 
 The Australian, who has never been able to bring home to him- 
 self the idea of a natural death, also believes that he will continue 
 to live in the life beyond the grave, and that he will then become 
 a white man, and in this post-mortem existence he will enjoy what 
 he now considers to be his supreme happiness : being able to 
 smoke as much tobacco as he pleases. Such is, at least, the belief 
 of the Australian tribes near Cape York. 
 
 The Papuans believe in a future life, but of different kinds, 
 varying according to the islands and even according to the tribes. 
 Some of the Papuans in New Guinea imagine they will reappear as 
 certain of the animals in their own island. The cassiowary and the 
 emu are the most remarkable animals that they know of; they 
 have lodged in them the shades of their ancestors, and consequently 
 the people abstain from eating them. 
 
 Among the Fijians the mythological imagination is very strongly 
 developed. They often endow man with two spirits; but they do 
 not stop there, for they hold that every object, animate and inani- 
 mate, possesses a shade, a spirit, a soul, an invisible emanation, 
 which will go with the sojourn of the departed into Bolofou. An 
 axe that one breaks, a house that one pulls down, a cocoa-nut that 
 one cracks, have all got their double existence, and their soul will 
 find its place in Bolotou. For man, this double existence may 
 operate during his life, and sometimes in his sleep it happens that 
 the spirit of the Fijian quits the body and goes to torment other 
 persons who are also sleeping. Dreams have everywhere had 
 considerable influence upon the formation of religious ideas, and 
 •especially upon the belief of particular persons. 
 
€hap. XV.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 251 
 
 In Fiji the soul is regarded quite as a material object, subject to 
 the same laws as the living body, and having to struggle hard to 
 gain the paradisaical Bolotou. After death the soul of the Fijian 
 goes first of all to the eastern extremity of Vanna Levou ; and during 
 this voyage it is most important that it should hold in its hand the 
 soul of the tooth of a spermaceti whale, for this tooth ought to grow 
 into a tree, and the soul of the poor human creature climbs up to 
 the top of this tree. When it is perched up there it is obliged to 
 await the arrival of the souls of his wives, who have been religiously 
 strangled to serve as escort to their master. Unless all these and 
 many other precautions are taken, the soul of the deceased Fijian 
 remains mournfully seated upon the fatal bough until the arrival 
 of the god Eavuyalo, who kills him once and for all, and leaves 
 him without means of escape. 
 
 The New Caledonian is not less religious after his manner than 
 the Fijian. For him there is no such thing as hell ; he believes 
 only in a paradise into which all men of his race will go without 
 distinction, without any difference of moral worth. This paradise 
 is in a forest, in some neighbouring island, or perhaps under the 
 sea. It is a place full of delights, of eatable fruits, where there is 
 perpetual feasting and dancing. Man there becomes a superior 
 being, especially if he is a chief. He can then avenge himself 
 upon his enemies ; he can heap wealth upon his friends ; he can 
 fertilise the fields or make them sterile ; he can in battle give as- 
 sistance to one side and weaken the other, or turn the victory which 
 way he pleases. In short, he possesses the faculty for gratifying 
 every desire which was denied to him in this world below. 
 
 In a coarse way the religious ideal of the New Caledonian has a 
 strong hold upon him. The concentration of the thoughts upon 
 this elementary mythology will often put a man into a trance, into 
 a fit of religious delirium, during which the inspired creature has 
 visions, sees the shades of the dead, partakes of all their feasts, etc. 
 If he is a Christian it is the Catholic hell which appears before 
 him ; he is a prey to a sort of demonomania which spreads itself. 
 This happens also sometimes in Europe, merely from the force of 
 -example. 
 
252 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 II. 
 
 Future Life according to the Negroes in Africa. 
 
 As we have seen, there is a certain foundation of religion among 
 the New Caledonians, and the Catholic missionaries may hope to 
 gain a few neophytes. The African negroes, in this respect, are 
 less imaginative, specially in the South of Africa. According to 
 Levaillant, Thompson, and Campbell, the Hottentots have no idea 
 of a future life, nor of a god, nor even of requiting gods. Campbell 
 says, " they think that they die absolutely, just as beasts." 
 
 The Kafirs, far superior to the Hottentots, do believe in a cer- 
 tain survival after death. According to them, man dies leaving 
 after him a sort of smoke, very like the shadow which his living 
 body will always cast before it, a sort of spirit having no corpse of 
 its own. To make a guardian angel after their own idea they will 
 often choose the spirit of a chief or of a friend ; they will invoke 
 his assistance in critical moments, will thank him for services done 
 by offering him a portion of an ox they have killed, or some game, 
 or some corn. They believe this shade to be possessed of every 
 quality, and to have ready at hand all the wants of the man to 
 which it formerly belonged. These people, like other primitive races, 
 scarcely believe in natural death. For them there are only three 
 ways by which death can happen — hunger, violence, or magic. 
 And even the death of an old man is often the cause of murders 
 and massacres, for they always consider themselves bound to 
 avenge it. 
 
 In the middle regions of Africa the belief in a future life is 
 either very small, or is absolutely wanting. The negroes in Gaboon 
 have a horrible fear of death; they cannot bring themselves to 
 believe that it comes naturally. How can a man, they think, die 
 now, who was perfectly well a fortnight ago, unless some sorcerer 
 has had a hand in the matter"? Schwoinfurth reports the same 
 prejudice to exist in the basin of the Upper Nile. The negroes in 
 this region think, as do the Kafirs, that a man cannot die except 
 from hunger, sorcery, or violence. Woe, therefore, to the old 
 
Chap. XV.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 253 
 
 people who, after the decease of a member of the tribe, are found 
 holding in their hands herbs or suspected roots ! Were they the 
 father or the mother of the dead, their death is certain. 
 
 Many of the tribes in Equatorial Africa have no idea of any 
 -survival after death. After the death of a friend or a relation, the 
 Eastern Africans sing plaintively : " Everything is finished, and for 
 evermore ! " In Gaboon, when there was a feast held, the women 
 used to perform very lascivious dances and would sing : " While 
 we are alive and well let us be happy ; let us sing and dance and 
 laugh. Eor after life death comes, the body rots, the worm eats 
 it, and everything is finished." " Everything is finished ! " they 
 all cry in a melancholy tone, when one of their own family dies. 
 Some of them believe that as he dies man leaves a shadow behind 
 him, but only for a short time. The shade or the mind of the 
 deceased remains, they think, close to the grave where the corpse 
 has been buried. This shadow is generally evil minded, and they 
 often fly away from it in changing their place of abode. The 
 manes last as long as they keep their recollection of the departed. 
 There is no need, for instance, for them to trouble themselves 
 about the spirit of their great-grandfather ; he is annihilated. 
 
 Schweinfurth tells us that the Bongos on the Upper Nile have 
 not the smallest notion of any future life, "no more," he says, 
 " than of the existence of the ocean." 
 
 The Bambarrans, the Mandingos, more civilised races, and 
 among whom Islamism has penetrated more or less, believe in a 
 resuiTection after death. The Bambarrans pray for the departed 
 spirits of their ancestors. The Mandingos talk of a future life, 
 they are led to aspire to it when surrounded by troubles and hard- 
 ships ; but they declare that they have no sort of idea as to what 
 it may be. In Congo men's ideas are more strongly formed, for 
 there a son will kill his mother, so that, transformed into a power- 
 ful spirit, she will give him aid and assistance. This is one of the 
 many misfortunes to which belief in a future life has given rise. 
 And these parricides have quite as much show of reason as the 
 human sacrifices intended to assure an escort to the departed. 
 This practice has been common nearly everywhere, provided that 
 
254 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 the dead person was worth the trouble ; for it was not customary 
 to show so much honour to people holding no rank or position, 
 nor to women, or slaves. 
 
 This idea of the necessary survival of important personages is 
 the cause of the celebrated human hecatombs common among the 
 Ashantis. Like the majority of people, the natives of Ashantee 
 believe that the future life is merely a continuation of that life which 
 they see before them. They think that after death their kings 
 and their great dignitaries take their places beside the gods, still 
 keeping up their show of worldly splendour. Therefore they 
 consider it to be their duty to sacrifice a befitting number of 
 individuals of both sexes to attend upon their masters and to 
 contribute to their pleasures. It is the same creed that prompts 
 them to cut into slices the hearts of their principal prisoners, to 
 season these slices with sacred herbs, and then to make those men 
 of their own tribe eat them who have not as yet killed a foe. 
 They think that there is no other means to prevent the spirit of 
 the dead from breaking the force and enervating the courage of 
 their young warriors. If the enemy whom they have captured be a 
 man well known, then his heart is specially reserved for their king 
 and their great dignitaries. All these puerile beliefs, leading to the 
 most atrocious acts, show plainly that in those parts of Africa 
 where the black are predominant, the conception of the soul and 
 of future life are of the coarsest possible kind, and immeasurably 
 far distant from that pure conception of the soul which has been 
 formed by our modern metaphysicians. 
 
 III. 
 
 Future Life according to the Egyptian Mythology. 
 
 We find, nevertheless, that creeds as puerile as those we have 
 been considering are at the foundation of Egyptian metaphysics, 
 the depths of which it is now so much the fashion to admire. 
 
 The ancient Egyptian had several spirits and several souls ; one 
 relatively coarse, a sort of refined body, having the same colour, 
 the same features, the same form as the individual. M. Masp^ra 
 
Chap. XV.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 255- 
 
 calls this corporeal soul a douUe. It was an ethereal facsimile of 
 the body, identical with the departed spirits, the shades of the 
 dead, in which the Africans still continue to believe. This double 
 had all the wants of the living man ; it lay beside the mummy in 
 the same tomb, or in a particular comer of the tomb. To take the 
 place of the mummy, who by degrees became distorted, they gave 
 to the doiLble a certain number of statues, cast in the image of the 
 dead man, and they placed them beside the tomb. They were 
 careful also not to confine this unhappy double too closely; his 
 room communicated with the outside world by means of a small 
 square opening, for the double wanted to breathe the fresh air. He 
 had also many other wants. The prayers of the parents were given 
 to him ; priests were paid to offer up sacrifices to him ; he possessed 
 animals and land which supplied him with provisions. People 
 offered to him bread, oxen, geese, milk, wine, beer, clothing, and 
 perfume — sometimes in reality, but often they only made a pre- 
 tence of doing so. For this double, who at first was thought to con- 
 sume, in fact, the shades, the souls, and the doubles of the provisions 
 offered, ended by being satisfied with hearing them named. There 
 are examples of these pious and economical subtleties elsewhere 
 than in ancient Egypt. In the sixteenth century the sisters in 
 a convent in Florence offered, in this imaginary way, and 
 with an equal show of splendour, a precious casket to the Virgin 
 Mary. They rivalled each other in this offering with promises of 
 diamonds, emeralds, turquoises, etc. The Virgin had good reason 
 to be satisfied ! The Egyptians used to do the same, and an in- 
 scription placed on a funereal stone enjoins those who read it to 
 repeat : " Offering to Ammon, lord of Karnak, praying him to send 
 thousands of loaves, thousands of geese, thousands of dresses, thou- 
 sands of everything that is good and pure, to the double of the 
 prince of Entew." 
 
 But the conceptions of the Egyptians became afterwards 
 more refined. In addition to the double they imagined a soul 
 of a more ethereal nature, serving as a sort of covering for a 
 particle of divine fire or divine intelligence, and which might be 
 divided from it. This soul was born with life, then it tried to be 
 
256 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 "born again after it had travelled about "with the sun for twelve 
 hours in the night, under ground, through the long and sombre 
 passages, where the demons were torturing the souls of the wicked. 
 In this respect their creed was not uniform. Some believed that 
 the soul formed itself as it pleased, came to pay a visit to its body, 
 to its double^ went up to heaven, and came down again to the earth. 
 It would appear, according to M. Maspero, that every individual 
 pictures to himself a future life according to his own fancy, as is 
 the case everywhere with primitive man. 
 
 But with the Egyptians, as with every people who have created 
 for themselves a fairly advanced civilisation, the religious beliefs 
 become associated with ideas upon moral subjects. In the other 
 world the soul gave an account of its life, and it ought to arrive 
 there laden with charitable works. On every mummy was placed 
 a copy of the book of the dead, which said : " I have given bread 
 to the hungry ; I have given water to the thirsty ; I have given 
 clothing to those who were naked. I have not spoken ill of the 
 slave to his master." It was from the purest of souls that the 
 souls of the kings ought to have been chosen. 
 
 This mythology is most interesting ; for we are thus enabled to 
 trace the sequence of ideas from the time when men believed in 
 the rude theory of departed spirits, to the theory of the existing 
 Kafirs who believe in the smoke of their ancestors, and even to 
 the theory of a spiritual soul, similar to the soul professed by the 
 Catholics. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Future Life according to the Polynesians. 
 
 As regards future life, the Polynesians had everywhere very 
 uniform creeds, and it wiU be easy for us to resume them shortly. 
 
 In their opinion man had at least one spirit similar to the anima 
 of the ancient Latins residing also in the breathing organs. At 
 night the Polynesian used to invoke his gods and say : " Oh my 
 God, let mo and my spirit live and repose in peace this night." 
 When this spirit, in spite of the pains taken by the relations of 
 the dying man to close as carefully as they could his nose and his 
 
Chap, xv.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 257 
 
 mouth, had once gone out of the body it remained for some short 
 time, generally for three days, close by the corpse and heard every- 
 thing that was being said. In many islands it was believed that 
 this spirit dwelt mainly in the left eye, and in New Zealand men 
 always ate the left eye of a conquered enemy. At Tahiti, in 
 the human sacrifices the left eye of the victim was always offered 
 to the chief presiding over the ceremony, which, at least when 
 Cook was in the island, it was his custom to refuse. But in New 
 Zealand they were still convinced that in eating the left eye they 
 doubled their own soul by incorporating with it that of the con- 
 quered man. It was thought by some people in the same archi- 
 pelago that a spirit used to dwell in both eyes. The spirit in the 
 left eye, the most choice spirit, would change itself into a star ; the 
 other went into the New Zealand paradise, of which we shall very 
 soon have occasion to speak. 
 
 These spirits did not always dwell in the body after death. In 
 many islands such an occurrence was the privilege only of the 
 chiefs, or of the priests, or of men of note. The common people 
 died once and for all. Such was the general creed at Tonga. The 
 New Zealanders thought that they destroyed, or at any rate 
 absorbed, all the spiritual breath in a man when they ate him. 
 At Noukahiva the spirit of a dead man could not reach the 
 sojourn of his ancestors and of the gods unless the sacred funereal 
 rites were performed over his body. If he was buried with no 
 ceremony, or simply thrown into the sea, the spirit always remained 
 in the body. To avoid such a misfortune people who had no< 
 children of their own adopted those of others, handsomely re- 
 warding the real parents. These spirits were not generally sup- 
 posed to dwell merely in man ; all the utensils, all the inanimate 
 objects, all the animals, were also equally provided. When a 
 Polynesian soul quitted this world below, it was accompanied by 
 the souls of all the objects, all the utensils, etc., which had attended 
 him at his funeral rites. It was ordinarily the custom to Mil 
 these objects by breaking them. 
 
 Everywhere the soul, when it existed, went after death into 
 a sort of paradise, modelled, like every paradise, upon real life 
 
258 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 by those who had imagined it. Sometimes this sojourn of the 
 shades of the dead was placed at the bottom of the sea, sometimes 
 in heaven, sometimes it was merely a distant and mysterious island. 
 If we except minor differences of detail, these puerile thoughts were 
 the same everywhere in the Polynesian islands. Paradise was 
 always the sojourn of the gods, of the eatouas. According to the 
 Tahitian creed, the souls of men went up to the eatouas ^ and were 
 occasionally devoured by them. Eut the privileged souls, those of 
 the chiefs, and especially those of the priests, became eatouas in their 
 turn. In Polynesia, where Herbert Spencer, after many fruitless 
 attempts, endeavours at any cost to place the basis of all religions, 
 ephemerism was generally allowed, but only for the inferior 
 gods, as we shall presently see. Future life here, as everywhere, 
 was an idealised picture of man's actual existence. The Tahitian 
 paradise, the Rohontou noa noa (the perfumed Rohoutou), was 
 placed up in the air above the high mountain of Kaiatea. The priests, 
 the chiefs, and especially the members of the celebrated society of 
 the Areois, went there without any trouble. The friends of the 
 chiefs, and even some individuals, might hope that they could just 
 be able to get there, on the condition that they made handsome 
 offerings to the priests, who had the power to transmigrate the souls 
 from the sojourn of darkness {Po) into the happy Rohoutou. But 
 that was such an expensive luxury that the masses of the people did 
 not flatter themselves of ever being able to enter the empyreal king- 
 dom. As we may expect, the paradise imagined by these sensual 
 Tahitians was to them a place full also of sensual delights. The 
 sun shone brightly, the air was pure and embalmed, flowers there 
 were always fresh, fruit was always ripe, food was savoury and was 
 plentiful. Old age, sickness, and melancholy were unknown. 
 Man's existence was made always delightful to him by songs, 
 dancing, and endless feasting. We may imagine also that they 
 conceived their greatest delight to be in amorous pleasures. They 
 supposed the women to be always young and always beautiful. 
 It was, in a word, the voluptuous life of the Areois, transported 
 into a heaven of their own imagining. Husbands saw their wives 
 again, and the wives again bore children, as upon earth. Enemies 
 
Chap, xy.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 259 
 
 would also meet each other in Rohoutcm, and they could re 
 commence their fighting. In this charming country they ate of- 
 the bread-fruit; they ate also pork, and had not the trouble of 
 cooking it. This comfortable paradise, so well adapted to the 
 manners and customs of the Polynesian islanders, was not given 
 up without a struggle ; for when the Tahitians were christianised 
 at the point of the sword by the English missionaries, the sect of 
 the Mamaia replanned their ancient Rolioutou, according to the 
 ideas they found in the Bible consistent with the tenor of their 
 lives. They pictured to themselves principally the polygamy of 
 Solomon. 
 
 The future life of the Noukahivans was passed also in an island 
 exquisitely provided, and situated in the clouds. The spirit of a 
 man killed in war went up into the island, provided that his body 
 had been taken away by his friends, and that a canoe and provisions 
 had been placed at his disposition. If the corpse remained with 
 the enemy, this spirit could not reach the island of paradise unless 
 his friends had been able to kill a large body of the enemy to direct 
 his canoe through the water. The JSToukahivan heaven was peopled 
 with their gods, their aristocratic families, their warriors who fell 
 on the field of battle, women who died in childbirth, and those who 
 had committed suicide. People there crammed themselves with popoi, 
 with pork, and with fish. Beautiful women were also abundant. 
 
 The souls of the Sandwich islanders, too, went to join the eatouas 
 especially the souls of the chiefs, priests, or of the heroes of war, 
 "We may remark that the Hawaians, like all the Polynesian, 
 islanders, imagined the soul to dwell in the breath. 
 
 In Tonga, the paradise, Bolotou, was a large island a long way 
 off, and of very difficult access. It was also a charming dwelling- 
 place, full of useful plants, which as they were plucked always 
 gained fresh birth. Bolotou was situated to the north-west of the 
 Tonga archipelago. It was specially reserved to the chief, and to 
 persons of distinction, who became the servants of the gods, the 
 intermediaries between them and the men who were alive. The 
 second life of the common people, of the Touas, was always regarded 
 -as very doubtful. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 Three days after death the souls of the New Zealand chiefs went 
 to Reingaf a mountain situated near North Cape, and from thence 
 they went to their future dwelling-place, which sometimes was 
 in heaven, sometimes under the sea. The Coukis, or the common 
 people, died absolutely once and for all. 
 
 Paradise was specially reserved for the great warriors, for the 
 conquerors. Men spent their days in perpetual warfare, interrupted 
 only by great banquets, at which they over-gorged themselves with 
 fish and sweet potato. An old warrior chief hearing a Wesleyan 
 missionary describe the future life of the Christians, protested most 
 energetically, declaring that he did not want that sort of heaven, 
 still less that sort of hell, where there was nothing but fire to eat, 
 and that he meant to go into the New Zealand Po to enjoy himself 
 there with his old friends upon sweet potatoes. 
 
 The spiritual breath which outlived the Polynesian men of rank 
 did not always go into the region of the departed spirits ; but in 
 any case it often came doAvn to mix with those who were actually 
 living. At Tahiti, this spirit, Tii, dwelt frequently in the wooden 
 images placed round about the cemeteries. In Noukahiva, the 
 spirits, who had become inferior eatouas, the shades of men who 
 had been celebrated during their lifetime for their muscular strength, 
 and the shades of priests, used to take a pleasure in tormenting 
 human beings by lying down at night across the roads so as to 
 trip up any traveller who might pass. They -would at once strangle 
 him, for they still kept in the future life the same hatred and the 
 same passions which had animated them in their life upon earth. 
 The New Zealanders, who feared the spirits of the dead, hoped 
 to prevent them from returning among them by sacrificing 
 slaves at their funereal rites, so as to appease them and assuage 
 their cruelty. 
 
 It seems that in Polynesia, as in other places, men began by not 
 believing in natural death ; for many maladies were attributed to 
 envy or to the malice of the spirits. These often returned to their 
 native island, taking the form of animals. In New Zealand, theso 
 animal eatouas would often find their way into the bodies of living 
 beings and gnaw away their bowels. Many mortal diseases were 
 
Ghap. XV.] THE FUTUEE LIFE. 261 
 
 explained in this way. In the Sandwich islands men exorcised 
 these evil spirits. The priests had also the power of putting 
 wicked spirits into the bodies of those whom they wished to 
 punish or to destroy. In this way were explained all delirious 
 and convulsive maladies. A sorcerer, too, was often consulted, 
 and he would sometimes impute the cause of the evil to one of 
 the members of the family, who would instantly go in a terrified 
 state of mind to Moral, and there, with a cord round his neck, he 
 would implore the intervention of the gods. 
 
 Nothing can be more simple minded and less sublime than these 
 primitive beliefs. The soul is conceived to be a material breath, a 
 shadow, which men, animals, and things, all possess equally. The 
 human soul can even pass into the body of beasts. Tor instance, 
 in the Hawaian islands men were sometimes given to the sharks 
 to be devoured. The souls of the victims became incorporated 
 with that of the animal, and he thus became more leniently dis- 
 posed towards the relations of those whom he had devoured. 
 
 These infantine conceptions were in no way connected with 
 any notions of moral duty. They arose spontaneously in the 
 imagination of the people ; they amused the Polynesian islanders, 
 and furnished them with matter for thought ; they often tormented 
 them and drove them into committing atrocious actions ; but they 
 did not exercise the slightest influence upon their moral or their 
 intellectual development. 
 
 Future Life according to American Mythology. 
 
 The ideas of primitive man as to his soul and as to his future 
 life are so uniform that in examining them among the different 
 human races, we are necessarily compelled to frequent repetition. 
 Xearly everywhere man imagines that at his death a material 
 spirit will separate itself from the body, and will in some invisible 
 country lead an existence like that which he had formerly passed 
 upon earth. 
 
 Everywhere, too, he finds it very difficult to admit and to 
 
262 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 understand the notion of a natural death. Many of the aborigines 
 of South America, actually those who are still roaming about in 
 the Pampas, always attribute the death of one of their own tribe 
 to evil devices. After a man's death the people collect together 
 to resolve what could have been the cause of the homicide, for 
 which they will have to show their vengeance. Man has every- 
 where been convinced that his earthly life was continued beyond 
 the grave ; and hence the reason for the offering of arms, of utensils, 
 of provisions, of sacrifices of animals, and of human beings, for 
 which each funereal ceremony used to, and still continues to 
 furnish a pretext. 
 
 Everywhere, also, the future life offered to the deceased th& 
 enjoyments in which he had most delighted here below. There- 
 was not, ordinarily, mixed up with these superstitions any idea of 
 reward or of punishment ; but the pleasures of the future life were 
 generally reserved in preference for the best warrior or for the most 
 skilled huntsman. The Patagonians, the Araucanians, the Ancas, 
 the Chiquitos, the Guarayos, and others, hope after death to lead 
 a life of pleasure in a land where the game to be killed is very 
 abundant. Sometimes the spirits of the dead came back among, 
 the living in an animal form. Por instance, the Abipones used 
 to think that the little ducks who flew about at night wailing, 
 plaintively were the spirits of dead men. 
 
 The soul of certain Columbian Indians wanders about in the 
 same woods that the deceased had frequented during his lifetime ; 
 or it crosses a lake to reach an enchanted land where there is 
 perpetual dancing and perpetual drinking. According to these 
 same Indians, the animals have a soul, just as men have, 
 and as drinking is their supreme pleasure, they pour intoxi- 
 cating liquor down the throats of the animals they have killed. 
 The soul of the animal drinks this divine liquor, and it imparts 
 to other animals of its kind the pleasure that it has enjoyed. The 
 men hope that by this device other animals may in their turn 
 manifest a wish that they also may be killed. 
 
 This belief in a future life was not generally universal in 
 America. Certain Calif ornians expected after their death to go 
 
Chap, xv.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 263 
 
 either into the clouds or into the recesses in the mountains ; but 
 others, living in the Sacramento valley, or in the San Joaquin 
 valley, declared that a future life existed only for the white men. 
 As regards their dead they used to say that when they were burnt 
 they became annihilated. 
 
 The Indian Ked Skins, like so many other people, used to at- 
 tribute most of their maladies to the fate decreed to them by their 
 medicine-men. They used to practise necromancy, as did our 
 ancestors of the Middle Ages. Charlevoix says that they considered 
 their souls as shadows, or as animated images of the body. After 
 death these souls went into a promised land, a vast prairie, where 
 there was perpetual spring, where buffaloes and roebucks were 
 abundant, whose flesh was delicious and very tender, and which 
 they might always kill without any shedding of blood. Everybody 
 was not allowed entrance into this blessed land j the best places in 
 it were reserved for the most adroit sportsman or the most fortunate 
 warrior. Those who possessed no excellence in this life went 
 after death to a northern region covered with snow and ice, and 
 there they suffered the pangs of hunger, thirst, cold, and want. 
 The Osages tried to fasten the scalp of one of their enemies to a 
 pole planted in front of one of the mortuary tombs ; and by that 
 means the spirit of the scalp became the servant of the deceased 
 in the next world. 
 
 Among the Eed Skins there is a tendency to classify the spirits 
 in the future life according to their earthly merits. The Esquimaux 
 have also the same idea. The souls of all good Esquimaux, after 
 death, go into a world below, where the sun is ever shining, where 
 seals, fish, and sea-birds swim about in limpid waters, and com- 
 placently allow themselves to be captured. Many of these good 
 folk are already happy in the thought that they are actually being 
 boiled in hot caldrons. But this Elysium of delight was only 
 reserved for those who, while they were alive had killed a great 
 many seals, or had gone through great dangers, or had been drowned 
 in the sea. Women who died in childbirth also enjoyed the 
 same privilege as of right. The souls of the bad Esquimaux were 
 less favoured ; for they went into a world above, where they are in 
 
264 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 perpetual suffering from cold and hunger. These creeds do not 
 seem common to all the Esquimaux ; for one of them, questioned 
 on the matter by Ross, had no belief at all in a future life. 
 
 The belief in sorceries and sortilegious devices seems general 
 among the Esquimaux. Their sorcerers, the angekokSf have spirits 
 always at their orders. They command the elements, they drive 
 away or attract the seals, they bring sickness and they can also 
 cure it. 
 
 Spiritualism among the Esquimaux is very widely spread, as 
 among most savage people, for it is not confined only to man. 
 All the animals have their spirits, and the spirits of men can 
 enter into the bodies of animals. Every object, too, has its 
 spirit. The spirit of the object calls itself a " possessor," and it 
 governs the object of which it is the image. 
 
 All this spiritualistic mythology is doubtless puerile, and the 
 mythology of the ancient Peruvians and the ancient Mexicans, 
 though it was more complicated, was scarcely more intelligent. It 
 was always a picture of real life imagined to take place beyond 
 the grave. 
 
 The Incas, after death, rejoined the sun, their father. The 
 Peruvian vassals, in the next life, continued to serve their masters 
 as they had done here below. The Peruvians, a very civilised 
 people, had also imagined different dwelling-places for the good 
 and for the bad. The good lived in the other world surrounded 
 by voluptuous ease, they rested themselves from the hard work of 
 this world below ; but the bad spirits had to go through perpetual 
 hard labour. The care taken by the Peruvians in the drying of 
 their dead has given rise to the thought that the ancient Peruvians 
 believed in the resurrection of the body, but this argument is very 
 far from being conclusive proof. 
 
 The Mexicans were somewhat more imaginative than the ancient 
 Peruvians in their dream as to a future life. Their soul might, 
 after death, go into three distinct dwelling-places. The chosen, 
 that is the warriors who had died in battle, or the victims 
 sacrificed to the gods, joined the sun immediately, and accom- 
 panied it on its glorious way across the heavens, dancing and 
 
€hap.xv.] the FUTUEE LIFE. 265' 
 
 singing all the while. Then after a few years of this radiant 
 existence they went to live in gardens rich with sweet-scented 
 flowers, or they were transformed into very beautiful birds, and 
 lived always in the clouds. 
 
 As we see, in America, from Patagonia up to ancient Peru and 
 ancient Mexico, where the people were relatively very far civilised, 
 human imagination has conceived the future life to be merely a 
 prolongation of this early life. "We do not find conceptions of a 
 higher kind which approach more closely to scientific truth until 
 we come to the great Asiatic religions, to Brahminism, and more 
 especially to Buddhism. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Future Life according to the Asiatic Mythologies. 
 
 The vast Asiatic-European continent, with its numerous collec- 
 tion of islands dependent upon it, is the great workshop of 
 humanity, and geographically it is larger than any other. There 
 have been formed the most numerous agglomerations of men, there 
 the most complex languages have been devised, there the most 
 intelligent races have increased and multiplied — the races who 
 have brought art, science, and philosophy to the highest point of 
 perfection. Among these superior races metaphysical religion has, 
 like everything else, attained to a degree of complication and 
 elevation unknown elsewhere. Such are the great results coming 
 from the labour and the thought of the most eminent individuals 
 of the Aryan and Mongolian races. But these two great races did 
 not arrive all at once at the zenith of their development, for 
 amongst themselves the masses are far from being able to 
 keep pace with the too-rapid strides of their leaders. Many 
 instances of inferior people are still to be found in Asia. When 
 we speak of Asia it becomes absolutely necessary to make divisions 
 and subdivisions. No doubt we are now concerned principally 
 with the future life of the great Aryan and Semitic people ; but 
 we cannot pass over in silence the ideas belonging to the other 
 Asiatic races. We shall therefore be obliged to mention the 
 Yedic mythology, from which the Brahmin and the Buddhist 
 
266 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 religions have sprung, and we shall endeavour, therefore, to 
 resume as shortly as possible all these religious and metaphysical 
 speculations. 
 
 Some of them are indeed very rude. In the Ladrone islands 
 the people thought that the spirits of the dead simply went into the 
 , bodies of the fish, and, therefore, to make better use of these 
 precious spirits, they burnt the soft portions of the dead body and 
 swallowed the cinders, which they let float on the top of their 
 cocoa-nut wine. The fish were therefore deprived of receiving the 
 human souls, for which indeed their bodies would seem to be 
 physically so ill adapted. At Sumatra, as in Polynesia, the popular 
 belief is that the future life is the privilege of the rich and the 
 powerful ; the poor people die once and for all. This idea would 
 be sufficient to show that the Brahmin and Mahomedan religions 
 are far from having penetrated deeply into the masses of the 
 Malay population ; for everywhere, great religions possessing com- 
 plex metaphysical notions, are shared only by the minority. 
 
 A most primitive polytheism still prevails among the Mongoloids 
 of !N"orthern Asia, among the Kamtschadales and the Siberians. 
 An endless number of divinities dwell in the mountains, in the 
 forests, in the torrents, etc. ; and the schamans or the sorcerers 
 act as mediums between the gods and the human creatures. The 
 Kamtschadales believe in a resurrection after death. According to 
 them the invisible world is made like the visible world ; the dif- 
 ference is that man works less, he works to better advantage, and 
 he is never hungry. The Siberians in the neighbourhood of 
 Tobolsk are very uneasy in their mind as to their future state, for 
 wicked and diabolical spirits lie in wait for their shade as it leaves 
 their body ; they are therefore very careful to call to the bedside of 
 the dying man the kam (the sorcerer), who beats his magic drum, 
 and negotiates for acceptable conditions with the evil spirits. The 
 Kamtschadales believe so firmly in the happy idleness of a future 
 life that they will often commit suicide, or will make their children 
 strangle them, so that they may get their enjoyment the sooner. 
 
 Many large religions exist in the Japanese archipelago. The 
 principal are Sintoism, Buddhism, and the religion of Confucius. 
 
Chap, xv.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 26V 
 
 The first only is native to the soil^ the others have been imported.. 
 We shall have to speak again of the Sintoic polytheism ; at present 
 "vye need only concern ourselves with the idea of the future life ac> 
 cording to this primitive religion. Among the Japanese, as among 
 the greater part of intelligent races, the belief in a future life has 
 received the mythical sanction of morality. The soul of the Japanese 
 Sintoist outlives the body, and divine judges decide as to its fate 
 after death. The soul of the virtuous goes into a sort of paradise,, 
 ■where it is deified, when it becomes kami ; the soul of the wicked, 
 on the other hand, is hurled into the kingdom of roots. Here we 
 see at least an ethical utilisation of religious beliefs. 
 
 It does not appear that the Vedic Aryans have imagined any- 
 thing at all similar. Their hymns say nothing either of reward 
 or of punishment after death. From a Yedic phrase that we have 
 already quoted, one might think that the Yedic Aryans believed 
 that the corpse itself was not totally deprived of conscience or of 
 sensibility. From another phrase it would seem that they believed 
 in a dividing of the different parts of the body after death : the 
 animation shown in the face went to the sun, the breath went tO' 
 the winds, the members of the body went to the earth ; an im- 
 mortal portion, dedicated to Agni, went to the world where all 
 the good men go. This paradise (Paradega) was situated above- 
 the clouds. Man was there perfectly happy; every wish was 
 instantly gratified. The Yedic soul was not immaterial. It was- 
 an ethereal but corporeal substance, as has been conceived by every 
 primitive race of people. 
 
 And what other conception can we form of the soul, unless one 
 is a professor of official philosophy in France — in other words, con- 
 demned to unnatural absurdity 1 
 
 The materialism of the soul is also admitted by the subtle 
 Brahmin metaphysics, which are evidently grafted upon the Yedic 
 doctrine. According to this great religion, of which the first idea, 
 setting aside all metaphysics, is not irreconcilable with materialistic 
 science, there are two individual souls, emanating from the supreme 
 soul, the soul of the world, as sparks emanate from a brazier. The 
 soul is an elementary form capable always of greater extension. It. 
 
268 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 is shut up in the body, as in a scabbard. During sleep the soul 
 retires, and returns when man awakes. At death it leaves its 
 envelope, and begins to wander. The sinning souls fall into the 
 infernal regions, and endure a thousand torments. The virtuous 
 souls go to the moon, there to receive the reward for their good 
 actions, after which they come down again to the earth to give life 
 to fresh bodies. The wise men only go up higher than the moon ; 
 they go up into the dwelling-place and to the court of Brahma, and 
 there, if their liberation is complete, they enter into the divine 
 essence ; they become mixed up in the soul of the world, as a drop 
 of water is mixed up in the ocean. 
 
 The doctrine of pantheism, of emanation, of incarnations or 
 transfigurations, the absorption in the great whole of the Nirvdnay 
 used to exist therefore in the Brahmin religion, and Buddhism has 
 only brought it out in stronger relief. According to the legend, 
 ^akya-Mouni, the founder of Buddhism, recalled to his mind the 
 recollection of his former incarnations, and he then recognised that 
 the total number of bones to which he had successively given life 
 made a heap materially larger than that of all the planets. He 
 perceived, too, that the blood which he had shed in the numberless 
 decapitations as punishment for his crimes, during his incarnations, 
 was equal in quantity to the total amount of water in the universe. 
 All beings undergo similar transmigrations ; it is only by the force 
 of virtue that they can succeed at last in freeing themselves from 
 this unbearable and interminable cycle of personal existence, and 
 bury themselves in supreme absorption, in the Nii-vdna. But 
 everyone cannot reach this so ardently wished for annihilation ; the 
 inferior natures, those who give way in the struggle towards what 
 is good, are punished by incessant incarnations, of a lower and lower 
 nature, in proportion to their increasing perversity. They can even 
 incorporate themselves into inanimate objects. Buddha himself, in 
 his self-humiliation, leaves behind him emanations, superior men, 
 Buddhisatwas, who complete the work first undertaken by him. 
 The dalai-lamas of Thibet are Buddhisatwas, and there are also 
 many others. Every important brotherhood has its Buddhisatwa. 
 According to the belief of this brotherhood, these living emanations 
 
Chap, xy.] THE FUTUEE LIFE. 269 
 
 of Buddha are immortal, in the sense that they reincarnate them- 
 selves immediately after their death in the body of a child who 
 succeeds them. In speaking of the clergy and the Buddhist form 
 of worship, we shall have to return to curious and fruitful dogma, 
 which the Catholics have been so wrong in not adopting. 
 
 But at what a distance do the Brahmin and the Buddhist meta- 
 physics throw into the shade the puerile mythologies of the Christian 
 and Semitic religions of which we have now to speak] If we 
 exchange words for things, if we put aside all the paraphernalia of 
 clerical subtleties and popular superstitions, if instead of the vague 
 idea of a divine essence we conceive the scientific notion of a 
 material substance, always variable and movable, of a substantial 
 universe ever changing its form, we shall arrive directly at the 
 truth, we shall then come to the great materialistic conception 
 grown out of the depth of science itself, and destined to annihilate 
 every form of religion. 
 
 By the side of Brahminism, of Buddhism, with which it would 
 not be difficult to connect the religion of Zoroaster, the mono- 
 theistical religions of Moses, of Mahomet, and of Christ are but 
 poor creatures of the human fancy. Our opinions as to future 
 life are so well known that it will be sufficient to recall them 
 rapidly. 
 
 The small Hebrew people, the people of God, had much trouble 
 in believing in the notion of the survival of the soul, in the divine 
 breath. But the Jews at a very early date believed in a sub- 
 terraneous dwelling-place, a Scheol, a dark country, inclosed by 
 gates, with valleys in the midst. The witch of Endor evoked 
 Samuel before Saul ; she made him rise from the country under 
 the earth. It would appear that the inhabitants of Scheol lived 
 there in a state of profound torpor. The Jews, unmetaphysical 
 by nature, did not expect punishment or reward except in their 
 earthly life; they did not understand the notion of a survival 
 except in the gross and palpable form of a resurrection of the body. 
 It was not until very late, and after long contact with the unfaithful, 
 that the dualist doctrine penetrated into their mind. We find it 
 clearly expressed nowhere but in Ecclesiastes : " Then, shall the 
 
270 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto 
 God who gave it." 
 
 Nothing can be more material than the soul according to the primi- 
 tive mythology of the Greeks, as it is naively described in the eleventh 
 book of the Odyssey. The shades with whom the prudent Ulysses 
 converses have preserved all the needs and all the passions felt by 
 the different personages during their lifetime. In Hades the shade 
 of Ajax is as hot with anger against Ulysses as the warrior had bee a 
 when actually alive. Orion chases on the lawns of hell the wild 
 beasts which his fearful truncheon had already felled among the 
 mountains in his own country. The waters of the lake in which 
 Tantalus is standing flow away from his thirsty lips : the fruits of 
 the pear trees, of the pomegranate, the oranges, the figs, and the 
 olives are all blown away as he endeavours to snatch them. At 
 last, all the shades with whom Ulysses is conversing become 
 inanimate ; they rush headlong to drink the blood of the victims 
 which the explorer of the sombre Hades has collected in a hole 
 dug with the point of his sword ; Penelope's husband makes them 
 stand aside merely by threatening them with his dagger, and they 
 do not consent, or do not succeed in speaking until they have 
 lapped up some living blood. We may say, at all events, 
 that the dwelling-place beyond the grave, where the Greek souls 
 took their flight when the flame of the funereal pile had consumed 
 their flesh, was not more intelligently conceived than the paradise 
 imagined by the Polynesians. 
 
 In Christianity, an unoriginal doctrine, in which are confusedly 
 mixed up the ancient religions of Central Asia, Judaism, the 
 mythical conceptions of Egypt, the Graeco-Roraan polytheism, and 
 the popular superstitions, the soul was for a long time considered 
 as perfectly material. It was a shadow, a body more refined than 
 the living body, but having the same form. "The soul," says 
 Tertullian, " is material, composed of a substance difi'erent to the 
 body, and particular. It has all the qualities of matter, but it is 
 immortal. It has a figure like the body. It is born at the same 
 time as the flesh, and receives an individuality of character which 
 it never loses." The coarsely-imagined torments of the Christian 
 
Chap. XV.] THE FUTURE LIFE. 271 
 
 hell, the insipid enjoyments of paradise, which may he put as a 
 counterpart, imply in the most absolute manner the belief in the 
 materialism of the soul ; and it was necessary to urge the dreamy 
 wanderings of Plato, and the madness of his followers the Neo- 
 Platonists, to introduce into the Christian theory of metaphysics 
 the unintelligible conception of the immaterialism of the soul. 
 
 More simple, more logical, more impregnated with the common- 
 place good sense of Judaism, Mahomedanism also conceives the 
 soul to be a very concrete substance. According to the Mussulmans 
 two exterminating angels come to examine and even to chastise 
 severely the corpse in the tomb, and the corpse must remain seated 
 and submit to the punishment. We know also well enough that 
 the Koran only promises to the faithful, in the next life pleasures 
 and pains of a very sensual kind. Eivers of milk and wine and 
 honey flow abundantly in paradise. Beautiful virgins, whose 
 skin is of the colour of an ostrich's eggs, fondle the chosen people. 
 The sinners on the other hand are thrown into the fire, they have 
 given them to drink boiling water which burns their entrails. 
 However, like all the great religions of central Asia, like Chris- 
 tianity which has sprung from them, Islamism has imagined the 
 future life to be a moral instrument either of reward or of punish- 
 ment : far superior in that way to the coarse primitive Judaism. 
 
 In terminating this short notice of the different chimeras con- 
 ceived by mankind as to his future life, we will mention our own 
 savage European ancestors. In the Scandinavian Walhalla men 
 cut each other in pieces in the morning to rise up again and drink 
 hydromel poured out into skulls by the Yalkyries. The Gauls, 
 more civilised, had imagined, or had received from Central Asia, 
 a theory of metempsycosis ; but in these infantine religions we 
 find no trace of any new metaphysical thought. The Walhalla 
 closely resembles the paradise imagined by the 'New Zealanders, 
 and the Gallic metaphysics are very poor beside those of Brah- 
 minism and Buddhism. 
 
 This review which we have undertaken would be slight even if 
 expanded into a large volume ; repetition, too, would be abundant 
 if we wished to mention aU the particularities conceived by every 
 
272 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 race of people and every tribe on the subject of the future life. 
 The numerous facts collected here and there which we have thought 
 it our duty to mention, will be amply sufficient to give a general 
 idea of all this mythology, to connect it with the causes from 
 which it has sprung, and also to show to us how unimportant 
 they all are. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Evolution in Ideas of Future Life. 
 
 "With the assistance of ethnography and of history it is easy to 
 trace the genesis and the evolution of ideas in the human race as 
 to a future life. The soddened intellect of the primitive man 
 will not allow him to understand that there should be such a 
 thing as natural death. How can man, unless the victim of some 
 wicked device, pass from all the boiling heat of life into the cold 
 immovableness of death ? But is death really the extinction of 
 life ] In spite of the decomposition of the corpse, the personality 
 of the dead man has not wholly disappeared. The recollection of 
 the dead man still remains in the memory of those living ; and 
 further, they see him, they speak to him, sometimes through 
 hallucination, sometimes in a dream. Death is, therefore, only 
 apparent. It is a simple dissociation of two principles. "When 
 life seems to fade away, it is but only a light body, a shade that 
 separates itself from the invisible body, and wanders about on the 
 rocks, through the forests, over the mountains, still feeling the 
 wants, the desires, the passions which animated it formerly. Such 
 is the first stage of belief in the doctrine of survivance. 
 
 Later, man conceives the idea of reuniting these wandering 
 shades in an invisible dwelling-place — some place beyond — 
 fashioned upon his real life. Henceforward the belief in a future 
 existence acquires a real importance. The dwelling-place of the 
 dead becomes a beautiful image of terrestrial life, a supreme refuge 
 where man enjoys without effort aU the good things which he 
 has vainly struggled for here below. 
 
 When the human mind has once fully conceived this consoling 
 idea it clings to it with most indomitable energy. Man feels it to- 
 
^ 0^ THR 
 
 TN 
 
 Chap. XV.] THE FUTURE LIFE. ^^^Z/jPh "R "^1 
 
 be, in the midst of all the trials of life, a most comforting thoilgiTL; 
 or even much better, it is a sort of intellectual opium which 
 consoles him as it deadens his faculties. 
 
 "When once the moral sense is born, when man has ideas of 
 justice ill requited upon this earth, new and powerful motives 
 come to strengthen his belief in the life beyond. The idea of 
 future life then gives its assent to morality ; after death every one 
 is judged according to his works. For the wicked man an abyss 
 of pain is opened before him ; a voluptuous paradise welcomes and 
 consoles the good. There is no system of religion, however 
 little complex, which does not show itself disposed to lean towards 
 this ethical side of belief as to the future life. In dreaming 
 of the supreme delights awaiting them on the other side of 
 the grave, the unhappy and the wretched grow patient and take 
 courage. " Leave us the best part of this lower world," the happy 
 and the powerful say to them, "you will be well rewarded in the 
 next." 
 
 Everything will turn as man wishes so long as the human 
 understanding is so little developed as to pay itself in this 
 imaginary coin; but in proportion as his intelligence increases, 
 science will establish itself, and in this or in a super-terrestrial 
 universe, the piercing eye of knowledge will no longer find a place 
 to allow of the sojourning of souls. We can no longer refuse to 
 see in the conscient life a function of nervous centres at once 
 unstable and perishable. We have come to consider life as the 
 sound of a harp, of which death will cruelly break the cords. Then, 
 in order that it may subsist, metaphysics are obliged to grow more 
 and more subtle. The soul ceases to be an ethereal image of 
 a real body, a shadow; it becomes the verT^al entity of meta- 
 physicians, a nothing, so impalpable and inconceivable that every 
 strong and free mind refuses to believe in it. The human being 
 then knows that his poor personality is but a passing existence, 
 since it springs only from the ephemeral grouping of inde- 
 structible atoms, which the shock of death will one day disperse. 
 From this moment man is really a man ; the field of his activity 
 becomes brightened and smaller in extent ; he brings his dreams 
 
 T 
 
274 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 of happiness and his aspirations of retributive justice down 
 from heaven on to the earth; he knows in what direction ha 
 ought to aspu-e, and he manfully resigns himself to that which is- 
 inevitable. 
 
 CHAPTEE XYL 
 
 THE GODS. 
 
 Mytliology in General. 
 
 Mythology, which, at a certain period of the social evolution, 
 wears such an imposing aspect and plays such an all-important 
 part in the life of nations, is very humble at that time which we 
 may call its ovular period. It is then nothing more than the 
 reflection of very simple emotions common to man and to superior 
 animals, and it sometimes makes a clumsy attempt to explain the 
 natural phenomena. In both cases man only represents naively 
 the creations of his own imagination, and these creations are of 
 the rudest kind. It is not an easy thing to picture to oneself the 
 mental condition of the primitive man. To assist us in doing 
 so we ought first to go back as far as possible to the years of 
 childhood and observe the manners of children; we ought to 
 analyse dreams, delirium, or other phantom objects. At the outset 
 of his mental evolution man, unskilled as yet in the art of observa- 
 tion, feels, beyond all comparison, much more than he thinks ; he 
 is inexperienced in testing the subjective with the objective 
 phenomena, he is perpetually confounding what is real with what 
 is imaginary. He cannot for an instant doubt the reality of the 
 "beings who appear before him in his dreams. These beiugs may 
 be invisible to others, but he has seen them. There exist, there- 
 fore, spirits who habitually fly away from the eyes of man. 
 Again, the primitive man ill distinguishes the animate from the 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 275 
 
 inanimate objects ; he is inevitably inclined to endow with con- 
 science and force of will, to anthropomorphise, or to zoomorphise, 
 to vivify all the natural agents which serve his purpose, or which 
 are prejudicial to it. He will gladly lend to them emotions and 
 ideas similar to those which they awaken in himself. As regards 
 the animals, he does not consider them as being essentially inferior 
 to himself, but there are many of which he thinks very highly, 
 which he fears, which he venerates, which he even looks upon as 
 more powerful than himself; for as yet he is but a weak and 
 ill-armed creature, and therefore often feels his powerless condition 
 when he sees in front of him their claws, their teeth, or their 
 venomous poison. 
 
 It is not until very late, after many efiforts and much experience, 
 that man, regulating and controlling somewhat his conscient life, 
 feels that he is gradually becoming less credulous, and that his 
 mythology is also gradually diminishing. His gods gradually 
 appear to him to become more powerful and less numerous, more 
 spiritualised, less real. As he has gained ground in his battle 
 against the animal world he begins to disdain his half-conquered 
 rivals; his gods are then to him anthropomorphous, and they 
 always tend to diminish in number. The bright glare of mythology 
 grows pale and becomes confused ; philosophy gradually intervenes, 
 and ends at last by looking upon all forms of religion as dreams of 
 childhood, and as the mere cradle of humanity. 
 
 If we could read the brain of the superior animals we should 
 undoubtedly find there a rudimentary mythology. Many mammalia, 
 dogs for instance, have, like man, dreams and hallucinations ; they 
 can connect certain facts with their real or their imaginary causes. 
 We do not want more evidence than this to arrive at the puerile 
 conceptions of primitive mythology. There is no essential differ- 
 ence in a mental point of view between the African negro who 
 worships the crocodile, and who will probably eat him afterwards, 
 and the dog fawning at the foot of his master and licking the hand 
 that has beaten him. 
 
 It is a matter of course that religion so understood should exist 
 more or less not in all men, but among the majority of the ethnical 
 
 T 2 
 
276 AFrECTIVE LIFE. [Book m. 
 
 groups. Nevertheless certain people, certain tribes are very poorly 
 endowed in this respect : we have enumerated them elsewhere. 
 
 In spite of the vulgar prejudice, it is certain that belief in 
 imaginary beings worthy of the name of " gods " is far from uni- 
 versal. There are two principal causes which keep certain tribes 
 or races outside of or above these errors : either a brain so ill- 
 developed that it is incapable of any speculation, or else our own 
 clear practical sense, or an innate common sense too strongly born. 
 Sometimes among the Kafir Makololos, or among the Basutos, a 
 vague belief in the departed spirits of their ancestors will com- 
 prise all their mythical creed ; sometimes, also, at the other end of 
 the metaphysical ladder, the Buddhist thinkers make of their 
 religion a vast mythological system resting upon an atheistical 
 metempsycosis. 
 
 It is nevertheless beyond doubt that man more or less peoples 
 the cosmical life, in the middle of which he lives surrounded, 
 with fictitious creatures of his own imagination. We should fill 
 volumes if we were to go through all the dreams of mythical specu- 
 lation ; but in mentioning only the most typical facts, in comparing 
 them together, the work becomes very much shorter. For the 
 differences are rather matters of detail, as to the colour, the form, 
 and the number of the myths, of which the genesis and the 
 evolution are everywhere more or less very similar. 
 
 All this collection of mythical creations may be classified and 
 subdivided in many ways. The gradation most commonly adopted 
 goes from feticism to polytheism, and from that to monotheism ; 
 but we must also add pantheism, which will include aU the great 
 Asiatic religions. This classification is convenient, but open to 
 criticism, for all these mythologies result from one mental process, 
 which Mr. Tylor has called animism. This is nothing more than 
 placing a me similar to the human me in the breasts of certain 
 beings of the outside world. For the primitive man finds difficulty 
 in allowing that there should be movement and action without will 
 and without knowledge. He imagines that everything is animated 
 by nature ; the field of this imaginary life, at first indefinite, then 
 gradually contracts before him in proportion as he observes and 
 
Chap, xvl] THE GODS. 277 
 
 reasons to better advantage. This general conclusion will clearly 
 show itself in the short mythological review which is now before us. 
 
 II. 
 
 Myths in Melanesia, 
 
 The Tasmanians, who in the scale of human races held one of 
 the lowest positions, were also at the bottom of the ladder as regards 
 any mythological imagination. The Eev. Mr. Bonwick says that 
 " they had no idea of the divinity." That means probably that 
 they did not believe in anything analogous to the God of the 
 Anglican church, for Dr. Milligan reports that they had peopled with 
 spirits the crevasses, the rocks, and the mountains. These spirits, 
 created by an unhappy race, who were ever painfully struggling for 
 their existence, were generally evil minded, and the people rendered 
 to them no sort of worship. The Australians, also, who were so 
 similar to the Tasmanians, had no other religion then a vague fear 
 of evil spirits, whom they did not even dream of worshipping. 
 During a storm they would curse these wicked beings, they would 
 call them by hard names, and spit upwards towards the heavens as 
 though they were spitting at them. The Australian gods were 
 generally anthropomorphous — sometimes also they took an animal 
 form. Certain tribes believed in the existence of a mythical serpent, 
 who hid himself in the pools and in the rivers, and tried to catch hold 
 of those who came to quench their thirst. The idea of these evil 
 spirits is very simple. The Australian does not ordinarily doubt as 
 to the reality of his dreams. He supposes that the beings w^ho may 
 be invisible to others, but which visit him during his sleep, actually 
 do exist, and with them he peoples the forests, the rocks, the 
 grottoes, etc. This same notion has been all over the earth one of 
 the most fruitful sources of mythology. 
 
 In Australia we find ourselves, so to say, at the creation 
 of mythology ; but in Eiji we see a mythology already made, more 
 rich, more complex, but yet not essentially different from the 
 other. There is a whole world of Fijian gods. Many of them are 
 merely the incarnation of the passions, of the instincts of their 
 
278 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 worshippers — the adulterer, the night-ravisher of rich women, the 
 quarreller, the bully, the murderer, the man coming out of a 
 slaughter-house, etc. These personages are classed according to a 
 divine hierarchy, similar to the Fijian hierarchy. A master-god, 
 Dengei, concerns himself more or less with all the acts of human 
 life ; immediately below him are his two sons, who make known 
 to their august father the wishes of the Fijian people. And below 
 them are the plebeian divinities — the gods of the fishermen, the 
 gods of the carpenters, the gods of war, the national gods, the gods 
 of certain districts, and the family gods. Each chief has his own 
 familiar god, whom he consults upon important occasions. Each 
 one of these gods has an earthly dwelling-place in the Fijian 
 archipelago. The great Dengei dwells in a serpent. The other 
 gods live, some in a plant, some in a bird, some in a shark, in an 
 eel, in a hen, etc. Each one has his faithful followers — the 
 worshippers of the eel god never allow themselves to eat of that 
 fish, the peculiar property of their own god. Certain gods dwell 
 in the uplifted stones, similar to our druidical stones, and to whom 
 animals are occasionally ofi'ered up as sacrifice, for even the gods 
 want their food. In this rich pantheon there is room enough for 
 deified men, as they have in their lifetime excited the imagination 
 of their fellow countrymen. As it is natural, these last especially 
 are animated with all the human passions, those which they felt 
 when they were struggling for their own existence. 
 
 The Fijian mythology is most interesting because of its extreme 
 simplicity. All these coarsely-imagined gods, these deified crimes, 
 are manifestly the exterior and personified images of the desires, 
 the emotions, the fears of the islanders who worship them. Such 
 is, and such always has been, the process of mythical creation ; but 
 it has not always been so simple and so self-evident. We have 
 often to read the signification hidden under the layer of ornamen- 
 tation, of accessory matter, of transformations of a more or less 
 subtle kind. 
 
 This is not yet the case with the New Caledonians, so nearly 
 allied by race to the Fijians, and so susceptible to religious emo- 
 tions that they are subject to visions, to a sort of ecstasy. Like 
 
<:!hap. XVI.] THE GODS. 279 
 
 the rijians they have also a great number of invisible gods, who 
 govern the elements ; and like them they deify the departed spirits 
 of their ancestors, especially those of their chiefs. There exists 
 also a certain hierarchy among these i^ew Caledonian divinities, 
 and some of their hordes have given a supreme chief to the tribe 
 of the gods. This Melanesian Jupiter is a spirit of the earth, 
 having the supreme command over the elements. 
 
 Under other names, and with differences of detail, we shall find 
 almost everywhere this same primitive mythology. 
 
 III. 
 African Religions. 
 
 Putting aside the religious ideas that have been introduced into 
 the country, we may say that the African negro has not got beyond 
 the lowest stage of animism — that which has been called feticism 
 — to which in certain regions we associate the belief in departed 
 spirits and in the shades of the dead. The majority of the negroes 
 believe in the existence of an invisible spirit, of a conscient me, 
 similar to their own, and lodged in different portable objects, very 
 capriciously chosen, and which the Europeans call phantom or 
 fetich. In the same manner they vivify different objects which 
 they see daily round about them, such as trees, rivers, animals, etc. 
 In considering, from a general point of view, all these attempts in 
 the African mythology, we may follow one long gradation of ideas 
 which goes from almost a total absence of religion to the old 
 religion of the ancient Egyptians. We will mention the principal 
 characteristics. 
 
 In the southern parts of Africa, among the Hottentots and the 
 Kafirs, the religious feeling is very small indeed. If we may 
 believe Levaillant, the Hottentots are completely devoid of any 
 such feeling. Some of them, it is true, believe that the dead 
 leave behind them spirits which are generally very ill disposed. 
 A Bushman, after he had killed a sorceress, broke her head, buried 
 it, and then lit a large fire over the spot to prevent her shade from 
 afterwards coming out and tormenting him. This belief in the 
 
280 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book 112. 
 
 survival, for a greater or less length of time, of the departed spirits 
 of the deceased appears to be the only mythical idea among th© 
 Kaffrarian tribes, and it is not at all fully established that even 
 this is to be found everywhere. These shades will wander about 
 in a calm and silent way ; they may be good, or they may be evil, 
 and they will sometimes interest themselves in the fate of their 
 descendants. The people curse them and call them by bad names 
 when they are hurtful; they deceive them whenever they 
 can. The Basutos, when they are going to steal their neighbours' 
 cattle, whistle gently, as though they were conducting their own 
 flocks, so as to deceive the moHmos of the tribe whom they are 
 going to rob: None of these tribes have any idol or form ol 
 worship. Their religion is reduced to the lowest possible condition. 
 But among some of them, for instance the Bechuanas, there are 
 traces of zoolatry, for they call themselves after the names of the 
 animals : there are the crocodile tribes, buffalo tribes, monkey 
 tribes, elephant tribes, lion tribes, and others of the same kind. 
 And the Bechuanas refrain from eating the flesh, or from clothing 
 themselves with the skin, of that animal who is the patron saint of 
 their tribe. 
 
 The negroes of Eastern Africa, near neighbours to the Kafirs, 
 believe in the existence of evil spirits, but spirits who are mortal, 
 and who may be killed. When Burton spoke to them of God, 
 they asked him where was this god, that they might go and kill 
 him. " It is he," they said, " who devastates our houses, who kills 
 our wives and our cattle." 
 
 In Equatorial Africa, the mythic malady is very much more 
 intense. This is the classical country of feticism. Here th© 
 people worship the serpents, birds, rocks, peaks of mountains, 
 feathers, teeth, etc. One sees hideous idols, and the chief of 
 every family has his idol in Gaboon. These inferior gods live 
 exactly as men do; they walk, and drink, and eat; the people 
 paint them and adorn them. Eor certain wandering spirits houses 
 are built that they may repose themselves. Here we see the most 
 primitive notion of a church. These nomad gods are sometimes 
 very ill disposed. There are some who squat all day in their 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 2&1 
 
 caverns, and go out at night to seize and devour travellers. 
 They sometimes enter the body of a man or of a woman, and da 
 a thousand bad things, beating and knocking down everyone they 
 may chance to meet. Sometimes a man may struggle against them 
 and even kill them ; but then he must be very careful to bum 
 their body and to leave nothing remaining, for they will come ta 
 life again if the smallest bone is spared. The negroes of this 
 region surround the objects they have imagined with the most 
 childlike fancies. They will give life to, or make a divinity out 
 of everything. Du Chaillu's clock was to them an all-powerful 
 spirit carefully watching over the traveller. They did not at all 
 dispute the existence of a Biblical God, of whom Du Chaillu 
 spoke to them ; but they did not care to trouble themselves about 
 the matter. "He was the god of th6 white men who had sent 
 them many good things ; but he had nothing to do with the 
 black men, who had fetiches and idols of their own." "When the 
 tribes possess sorcerers, properly so called — the primitive priests 
 — they make these important personages hallow and bless their 
 phantoms and their talismans ; so do also the anthropophagous 
 tribes of the Fantis. 
 
 The Ashantis, who are more civilised, have not got beyond 
 this first degree of mythology. They have their fetiches and 
 their numberless idols; they deify their kings, their chiefs, and 
 the dignitaries of the kingdom, whom they will not allow to go 
 into the next world without a large accompaniment of victims 
 sacrificed for them ; they worship animals, serpents, and vultures. 
 Each family has its domestic fetiches, its own household gods. 
 They never drink without offering a libation to the fetich, throw- 
 ing some of their liquor on to the ground. They have even fetich 
 houses, men-fetiches living in the sacred house, that is, in their 
 temple, they have priests : they are altogether a most pious-minded 
 people. 
 
 We find similar creeds of belief, neither more nor less exalted, 
 in all the jaiddle part of Africa, where the Mahomedan religion 
 does not yet prevail : in Senegambia, in Guinea, in Soudan, and as 
 far as Abyssinia. Facts are abundant, and they generally repeat 
 
282 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 themselves. We will choose a few, and so make a short fetich 
 anthology. 
 
 In Guinea on the Gold Coast, the people worship vultures, croco- 
 diles, etc. In Yarriba (basin of the Niger) they have fetich trees, 
 and a quantity of phantom spirits, fruits, calabashes, feathers, egg- 
 shells, bones of animals, etc. Any object, no matter how capriciously 
 chosen, may serve as a dwelling-place for a spirit, or rather may 
 become a spirit. The people venerate the fetich trees ; they do not 
 fasten animals to them, but they hang up rags, and tatters, and 
 bandages. The rivers are often deified or feticised. A guide given 
 to K. Lander by the king of Kiama begged him not to mention 
 the name of any river in the presence of the river Mossa, who was a 
 woman married to Niger, and jealous of her husband, who was 
 disputed to her by other rivers. She would incessantly reproach 
 her husband river on account of the familiarities he took with other 
 rivers, her rivals; and at the confluence of the waters there 
 was always a violent and very brawling conjugal dispute between 
 them. The king of Boussa, before he let R. and J. Lander embark 
 upon the Niger, consulted the river, and obtained a promise "to 
 conduct the travellers safe and sound all the way down to its 
 opening into the sea." The conductor of a canoe who went down 
 the Niger with these same travellers shrieked loudly at each bend 
 in the river, and whenever he heard an echo respond to liis cry he 
 poured into the water half a glass of rum, and also threw in a piece 
 of yam and a bit of fish. He said this was to feed the fetich, who 
 otherwise might prove dangerous to them. 
 
 The fetiches are not pure spirits ; they have all the wants of 
 men. R^and J. Lander were advised to roast a bull that they had 
 killed, under the nose of a fetich who dwelt in a small temple covered 
 over with thatch, so that the god might inhale the smell of the roast 
 meat and eat a little of it if he was so minded. Through all this 
 region sacred edifices are coarsely constructed; the people make 
 sacrifices to the fetiches, they even practise the art of divination. 
 
 The temple is of the most rudimentary kind. It is a hut, a 
 dwelling-place devoted to the fetich, and containing very often 
 several coarse wooden carvings, representing men, alligators, boars, 
 
€hap. XVI.] THE GODS. 283 
 
 tortoises, etc. The people worship the fetiches in prostrating 
 themselves ; they sometimes offer them cowries, small white shells, 
 representing the current money of the country. The worshippers 
 pray the fetiches not to desert them in the time of need, to assist 
 them in their enterprises, and even in their acts of vengeance. 
 Laing one day heard a negro in a fetich hut make an imprecation 
 in all respects similar to the formula of the Catholic excommunica- 
 tion. The devout man was praying for the death of one who had 
 violated the tomb of his father, and he had beforehand offered up 
 a fowl and a little palm wine as sacrifice. The negro was heard to 
 say : " If he eats may his pork suffocate him ; if he walks may the 
 brambles tear him to pieces ; if he bathes may the alligators swallow 
 him ; if he goes in a canoe may he tumble into the water." The 
 offering of the sacrifice of a fowl is very common. This is the 
 practice of the Bambarrans when they want to draw an augury from 
 the gods. They cut the neck of the animal half through, and then 
 throw him into the fetich hut. They consult the god by a Yes or by 
 a N^o. If the hen as she dies throws her head backwards a Yes 
 is signified ; a ]S'o is meant if her head falls in a forward direction. 
 
 Sometimes they beat the fetich when he has not granted the 
 prayers asked of him. 
 
 They do not always confine themselves to sacrificing hens, cows, 
 and sheep to the fetich. In Yarriba, the fetich-man, or primitive 
 priest, will sometimes declare that a human sacrifice is necessary. 
 
 By degrees feticism becomes complicated and organises itself into 
 a system. It is at first animism in its basest form : the attribu- 
 tion of superior powers to any object* or to any animal; after- 
 wards the people build a house for the god or for his emblem ; at 
 last they appoint a fetich-man as keeper of the consecrated house. 
 Priesthood is thus constituted. There are appointed sorcerers, 
 divine men, causing the fetich to speak, men who know better than 
 anyone else his desires and his intentions; these are the parasite 
 mediators between the gods and the devout people. 
 
 On the Upper Nile, among the Niam-Niams and the Bongos, 
 Schweinfurth found similar creeds of belief. The negroes in this 
 country believe in the existence of spirits, always evil minded^ and 
 
284 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 inimical to mankind. These spirits are hidden in the depths of 
 the woods, and their language is interpreted by the rustling of th& 
 leaves. Thanks to some magic roots, the people can guarantee 
 themselves against these dangerous phantoms ; they even make 
 use of the roots to hunt the evil spirits. They consult their 
 conjurors before going to battle, to discover a guilty person, and 
 for many other reasons. 
 
 The same primitive mythology is seen in the valley of the 
 Upper Nile, as far as the banks of the lake Albert jSTyanza, but 
 with local differences. In the vast monarchy of the king of M'tesa, 
 in the Uganda, near the Nyanza lake, talismans and magic horns 
 were common, also fetiches, sorcerers, and sorceresses. The people 
 believed in the spirits of the lakes and the forests communicating 
 with man through the medium of the clergy — a body of men 
 handsomely paid out of the mortmain funds. In Ounyoro the 
 people believe very strongly in magic, in auguries drawn from the 
 peristaltic movements of the intestines of embowelled hens. The 
 Obbos, more to the north, have very little faith in anything except 
 in magic whistling, compelling the clouds to answer them by sending 
 rain. A total want of religious feeling, an absolute atheism seems 
 to exist everywhere among the Latoukas, according to the interest- 
 ing conversation that Sir S. Baker held with the king of this 
 country. We have already quoted this dialogue elsewhere. 
 
 We may say that feticism prevails generally all over this vast 
 region of Africa, which we have now been considering. But upon 
 its northern frontier Islamism has made itself felt. The Arabs 
 have been the Islam missionaries, and the Fulah negroes have 
 been mqst ardent neophytes. It is somewhat curious to study the 
 contrast between the dry and simple monotheism of the Maho- 
 medans and the multiform feticism of the negroes. The examina- 
 tion will give us another proof of the fact that the conversion of 
 an inferior race to the religion of a superior people is only ap- 
 parent. Like every great intellectual and moral manifestation, the 
 religious feeling in any race is the expression of the mental con- 
 dition peculiar to this race — resulting from its degree of develop- 
 ment, from its normal changes, from the habitual tenor of its 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 285 
 
 life, through all of which it has ever carried on its battle for 
 existence. 
 
 The Jb'ellatahs repeat, in Arabic, their formulas and their prayers, 
 but the majority of them do not understand a word of what they 
 are saying. They say their prayers five times a-day, and are firmly 
 convinced that the goods, the wives, and the children of the un- 
 faithful belong to them ; that it is perfectly lawful to rob or to kill 
 an unbeliever. But still, of all the people of whom we have been 
 speaking, the Fellatahs are the most thoroughly converted. IS"early 
 everywhere else the people worship Allah, and they worship their 
 fetich also ; Allah is for them only an additional fetich. The Bam- 
 barrans call the god ISTallah. And in addition we find aboriginal gods 
 to whom bears are sacrificed, and to whom cooked millet is ofi'ered. 
 
 At Kiama, on the banks of the Nile, the people call themselves 
 Mahomedans, but they, nevertheless, place fetiches at the doors of 
 their houses for protection. 
 
 It is impossible for them to live without their phantom spirit. 
 The Bambarrans adore phantoms in every imaginable form, either 
 roots, egg-shells, horns, stones, teeth, pieces of dried leather, and 
 especially a fragment of umbilical cord ; they will tie on to this a 
 few verses of the Koran written by the Almoravides. These last 
 phantom spirits are the dearest and are the most highly valued. 
 And the Nubians of Senaar, who are nearer to the great strong- 
 hold of Islamism, worship the moon, trees, and stones. The 
 Abyssinians, in spite of their Christianity, worship raised stones 
 similar to our druidical stones, and they cover them with amulets, 
 ofi'erings of butter, votive threads, and the peritoneums of animals. 
 They worship the serpents, they pray to them, they consult them 
 in their important affairs. They respect the Blue Nile and abstain 
 from bathing or even washing their clothes in it. 
 
 In Madagascar we find pure f eticism without any admixture. The 
 people there believe in wicked spirits, they have idols to whom they 
 offer up sacrifices of animals, to whom they pray, but only when 
 they have any service to ask of them. Some of these idols have an 
 official existence^, they have houses, priests, and appanages of their 
 own. Madagascar is very African from a mythological point of view. 
 
286 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 From this short review it would seem to be clearly proved that ^ 
 feticism, or animism of the poorest kind, is everywhere at the 
 "bottom of the African mythology. The black races in this vast 
 continent have not, of their own accord, yet got beyond this first 
 phase of religious evolution. The worship of the ancient 
 Egyptians cannot be urged as an exception, modified as it was by 
 the introduction of certain Asiatic myths supporting a whole 
 theory of metaphysics and polytheism divided into geometrical 
 sections. 
 
 In this singular country, the cradle of so many arts and sciences, 
 animal worship has gone to greater lengths of extravagance than in 
 any other. Like many contemporary negro tribes, each locality 
 ia ancient Egypt had its sacred animals. The inhabitants of 
 Mendes worshipped their goats and ate their sheep; those of 
 Thebes honoured their sheep and ate their goats. Near to the 
 lake of Moeris crocodiles were venerated; at Elephantine they 
 exterminated them. The murderer, however involuntarily, of a 
 sacred animal, was tortured and pulled to pieces by the people. 
 They fed in the most delicate way a certain number of these 
 divine animals in parks specially kept for the purpose, they 
 adorned them with jewellery, and they scented them with per- 
 fumes. Large revenues were set aside for their maintenance. 
 Personages of high rank took care of them and endeavoured to 
 make their life pleasant to them. In the case of fire the father of 
 the family would first endeavour to save his cat, he would then 
 try to quench the fire. The dynasty of the oxen of Apis is well 
 known. 
 
 Anthropomorphism became afterwards mixed up with these 
 primitive forms of worship, but it was always more or less zoola- 
 trous. Horns carried the head of his sacred falcon, Athor possessed 
 a cow's head, and Typhon the body of a hippopotamus. Astrolatry 
 was joined to all this ; then the adoration of the chief generators : 
 a custom so widely spread in the East and in all classical antiquity. 
 Eirst it was Isis, magna mater, the mother of Horus ; then Osiris, 
 the fruitful chief, mortal god, commanded by his wife Isis, who 
 was immortal, and queen of all the earth. Language, music, writing, 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 287" 
 
 architecture, had been taught to the ancestors hy the god Thoth. At 
 last, under Ammon Ka, their supreme god, the Egyptians, who be- 
 lieved in every form of worship, ended by inclining to monotheism ; 
 but as they were a most conservative people they kept both their 
 ancient and their new gods, the sacred animals worshipped by their 
 ancient ancestors, as well as the simplified and subtle gods who 
 sprang from the sacerdotal system of metaphysics. They after- 
 wards attempted to introduce some more systematic kind of 
 worship into their incongruous pantheon, by dividing the gods 
 into triads, in strict hierarchical order, connecting them one with, 
 another, and making them ascend in rank so that the most 
 important in each division should be placed nearest to their 
 special chief Isis, Osiris, or Horus. 
 
 In all this motley religion, among all these various divinities, 
 zoolatrous, astrolatrous, anthropomorphical, and metaphysical, each 
 Egyptian had no trouble in finding a god suitable for his own 
 peculiar fancy. Everything had been religiously preserved. The 
 Egyptian mythology, therefore, somewhat resembles a vast necro- 
 polis of embalmed creeds. But f eticism may be seen at the bottom 
 of it all, a f eticism conceived on a larger scale than has elsewhere 
 been known, and in this respect the Egyptian forms of worship do 
 not differ from the others all over the African continent. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Religions in South America. 
 
 In our endeavour to form a schedule of the various systems of 
 mythology imagined by mankind, we are often obliged to repeat 
 ourselves; for in every corner of the globe religious speculation 
 among the primitive races has been very unfruitful and very 
 monotonous. Man has everywhere worshipped animals; he has 
 everywhere peopled the forests with spirits, either of an anthro- 
 pomorphous or zoomorphous kind, and these spirits have generally 
 been evil-minded; he has often deified the stars, the rivers, and 
 the high mountains. Primitive man has everywhere willed that his- 
 
288 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book hi. 
 
 desires, his passions, and his emotions should be seen outwardly j 
 he has endowed nature with his own personal sentiments. 
 
 Taking this as a general rule, we may be brief in sketching the 
 religious condition of the human race in America. Darwin has 
 seen in Patagonia a sacred tree which the people honoured by 
 shouting at it. The Patagonians, the Araucanians, the Puelches, 
 the Charruas, and others, believe in the existence of evil spirits 
 who are hostile to man ; and also that there are other spirits, better 
 natured, who take pleasure in assisting poor humanity. But these 
 people do not abase themselves to pray to either one set of spirits 
 or the other. The Moxos had their gods of harvest, of fishing, 
 and of hunting ; they also deified thunder. In this the Yurucares 
 and the greater part of the aborigines of Brazil imitated them. 
 We can easily imagine that they should have made a god of what 
 was to them such a noisy and such a startling phenomenon. The 
 Yurucares had also a god of war, a ravisher god, who laid in wait 
 for them as they were wandering through the woods. 
 
 But one of the forms of worship the most widely spread in South 
 America was the jaguar worship (felix onca). This god was un- 
 happily too real, for he had with his claws driven a religious fear 
 for his person into the hearts of the Indians. The terror inspired 
 by this divinity was so great that the Moxos first began to worship 
 him to appease his anger. They built altars to him, they made 
 him offerings ; they fasted rigorously to obtain the priesthood — a 
 favour given in preference to those men who had fallen into his 
 power and had been fortunate enough to escape. 
 
 Many other animals in America were deified, notably the toad. 
 The Indians on the banks of the Orinoco attribute to him the 
 power of sending rain ; and they beat him when he does not grant 
 their request. 
 
 The Guarayos were anthropomorphous. They worshipped Tamoi, 
 the grandfather, the old god in heaven. He was their first ancestor, 
 and he had taught them agriculture. They built temples to him 
 in an octagonal form, and they went there to ask him to send them 
 rain, good harvests, and other things. 
 
 In many tribes the people worshipped the stars; and this 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. ' 289 
 
 astrolatry became the more common as one got nearer to Peru, 
 where the religion was firmly established. 
 
 The Chiquitos ufeed to call the sun their mother, and at every 
 eclipse of the sun they would shoot their arrows so as to wound 
 it; they would let loose their dogs, who they thought went 
 instantly to devour the moon. In Columbia the Indians used to 
 worship the sun. The inhabitants of Bogota worshipped both the 
 sun and the moon ; but as their civilisation was already well 
 advanced, their animism was of a perfected kind. They had 
 temples, altars, priests, religious ceremonies, and they used also 
 to offer up human sacrifices. We find all over the earth that 
 gods of every shape and form have ever been greedy for human 
 blood. 
 
 Religions in Central and in Northern America. 
 
 "We have seen that the mythical conceptions of the people all 
 over South America, from Patagonia to Central America, take their 
 rise in the multiform feticism common to all primitive races, then 
 simplify themselves but without changing their essential character, 
 until at Bogota they form a system of astrolatry in a comparatively 
 learned form. In North America we find the same gradations, 
 starting from the Arctic regions, and going down southwards as 
 far as Mexico. Many hypotheses, devoid of any serious foundation, 
 have been made, attempting to connect the religions of ancient 
 Mexico with those of the old continent. Writers have laboured 
 to show that the biblical Eden must have been the cradle of the 
 human kind. But as we shall presently see, the Yucatan, the 
 Peruvian, and the Mexican mythologies do not in reality differ from 
 fetich animism. They were simply forms of zoolatry, of naturalism 
 and belief in spirits, all of a more or less coarse kind. 
 
 In North America, as in South America, we find the foundation 
 of ail these creeds, in a form all the more rudimentary as the 
 particular race of people is less civilised, and as they are more 
 remote from the great empires of equatorial America. 
 . The Greenlander and the Esquimaux had similar religious beliefs : 
 
 u 
 
290 AFFECTIVE LIFE, [Book in. 
 
 faith in invisible spirits was always their predominant charac- 
 teristic. Their most powerful spirit was Torngarsuk ; he governed 
 a world of inferior spirits, and used sometimes to impart some of 
 their power to the sorcerers, or the angkoks — the intermediary beings 
 between mankind and himself. They had also wonderful fetiches 
 and amulets, which gave to their proprietor the faculty of taking 
 the form of the animal with the skin of which they themselves 
 were made. The people could even create for themselves magic 
 animals. For instance : cut out of a bear's skin the form of a bear, 
 and then enjoin this fetich to go and kill an enemy. 
 
 More to the south, among the Red Skins, the worship of 
 animals was very common. They venerated the bear, the bison, 
 the hare. The Mandans used to adore serpents. The Selishes 
 and the Sahaptins deified the wolves on their prairies. When- 
 ever the Red Skins reach the banks of a large lake or a large 
 river they make an offering to the spirit of the waters. I^early 
 everywhere we find spirits clothed in the human form. A chief of 
 the Red Skins, frightened by a violent storm, offered some tobacco 
 to the thunder, beseeching him not to make any more noise. The 
 more-civilised tribes believed in a spirit more powerful than the 
 others — a grand spirit — of human form, like the majority of his 
 subordinates. Besides these invisible gods they had fetiches, 
 manitous, of whom they used to ask for help in critical moments. 
 In the south, astrology prevailed, and it became the stronger in 
 going southward towards Mexico. The Cumanches of Texas 
 worshipped the sun, the moon, and the earth. The Natchez vene- 
 rated especially the sun; they kept up a perpetual fire in his 
 honour ; they built temples to him, in which priests used to per- 
 form the services. And we shall see also that astrology was 
 predominant in the large empires of ancient Central America. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ancient Religions in Central America, 
 
 The religions of the ancient states of Central America — of 
 Yucatan, of Peru, and the neighbouring republics — differed in 
 
•Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 291 
 
 reality but little from that of the primitive tribes of the Americans. 
 The Mexican pantheon was very vast, inasmuch as the gods of 
 the neighbouring people were everywhere gladly received. 
 
 iSIan worshipped serpents, the jaguar, the puma lion, etc. ; images 
 of these animals were to be seen in the temples. Syphilis, 
 even, was deified; this fearful malady was called the god Na- 
 nahuatl. Great fetes were held in honour of the god Tlaloc, the 
 genius of the waters. Each month, and in the Mexican calendar 
 there were eighteen in the year, was under the patronage of a 
 special divinity ; the tenth month was consecrated to the god of 
 fire, the thirteenth to the genius of the mountains, the fourteenth 
 to the god of the chase, another god to wine and drunkenness, in 
 whose honour they made large libations of pulque and other 
 liquors. 
 
 In addition to all these gods and many more they worshipped 
 the sun, the moon, the stars ; but the favourite god, the grand god 
 of the Mexicans, was the god of war, the ferocious Huitzilopotchtli. 
 Nearly all the religious Mexican festivals exacted human sacrifices. 
 Eeligious madness has never been more bloody than in this 
 country. Those were only ordinary victims who had their chests 
 cut open with volcanic glass, and who were thrown into the fire. 
 
 At the accession of each sovereign slaves were killed until there 
 was a sufficient quantity of human blood flowing to make a lake 
 large and deep enough to float a boat. 
 
 But the god of war, the terrible Huitzilopotchtli, was more thirsty 
 for blood than any other god. On the occasion of the dedication 
 of the grand temple of this divinity in Mexico not less than 80,000 
 human victims were sacrificed. It has been reckoned that at least 
 20,000 victims were annually sacrificed in the Mexican district 
 Anahuac. The faithful were convinced that those who were 
 sacrificed went directly to their gods, and they often charged the 
 victims to bear to the gods their vows and their prayers. 
 
 In spite of the fairly-advanced stage of the Mexican civilisation, 
 of the ingenious organisation of its fearful religion, of its numerous 
 clergy, of the immense and numerous pyramidical teocallis built in 
 Iionour of the gods, and daily stained with human blood ; in spite 
 
 u 2 
 
292 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book hi. 
 
 of certain similarities "between the Mexican and the Catholic forms 
 of worship, baptism and the confessional for instance ; in all these 
 we do not see anything of a higher and better nature than the 
 confined naturalism common to all primitive people ; we do not see 
 anything which authorises us to believe that Asiatic or European 
 civilisation was, as has been supposed, sent providentially into 
 Central America. Traditions of this kind, which were common in 
 Mexico at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, are not difi'erent 
 from other legends of the same nature to be found in every country 
 of the world. The Mexican religion and the Mexican civilisation 
 appear to us to be native born. At the utmost we might perhaps 
 connect them with the more ancient societies of which we find 
 many traces in the valleys of the Ohio, of the Mississippi, and of 
 other rivers. These Americans are of much older date than the 
 ancient Mexicans. They had already raised immense hillocks; 
 some funereal, others religious; at one time circular shaped, at 
 another elliptical, and sometimes pyramidical. It is notable that 
 they worshipped animals, as their enormous hillocks, upon which, 
 were figures of alligators and of serpents, would seem to show. 
 Like the Mexicans, they had their weapons, made of volcanic glass 
 or of copper. It is probable enough that from this ancient centre 
 (supposing it to have existed) the Mexican civilisation spread itself 
 into Yucatan and into Peru. 
 
 The great mass of the ancient Mexican people did not rise above 
 the coarse naturalism we have just described, and the monotheism 
 of Nezalmalcoyotl, the king of Tezcuco, who built a temple " to the 
 unknown god, to the cause of causes," was only an individual 
 instance. 
 
 The same " unknown god " has been looked for in the Yucatan 
 mythology, richly peopled as it is with naturalist divinities : gods 
 of the air, of the seas, of the rivers, of the forests ; from which 
 sprang also abstract gods — the god of death, of life, of love, and 
 others. The natives of Yucatan also put into their pantheon the gods 
 of their sovereigns, of whom they were very fond, or else whom 
 they feared very much ; especially the great Zamna, their legendary 
 civilisor. They also had their temples, their priests, their vestals. 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 293 
 
 They used to make large human sacrifices ; their victims, after they 
 had been enjoined to. take commissions to the gods, were thrown 
 by hundreds into the holy pit of Chichen. 
 
 There is surely nothing in this that need excite our admiration, 
 and the Peruvian mythology is exactly similar. 
 
 In Peru, as in Mexico, the gods were very numerous, but they 
 had not all the same rank in the mythological hierarchy. It was 
 customary in Peru to place among the secondary order of divinities 
 the gods of a conquered people. Here, as everywhere, the people 
 were fetich ; they worshipped trees, animals, mountains, rivers, and 
 the sources of rivers. Under the name of Mama-Cocha, the sea 
 was the principal divinity of the Chinchas ; but astrolatry was the 
 official religion of the people. The sun was to them the god of 
 gods. He was evidently imagined to be an anthropomorphous 
 creature, for the Incas derived their genealogy from him ; and at 
 the time of his grand festival, during the summer solstice, when 
 everyone went in great state to watch for his rising, the Inca offered 
 him, in a large gold vase, some maguey, a fermented liquor made 
 from maize. If the god-sun was the father of the Incas, the goddess- 
 moon, his sister, was the mother ; if gold was the metal consecrated 
 to the effigies and decorations in the temple of the sun, silver was 
 used for the same purpose in the temple of the moon. After these 
 sovereign stars came the retinue of the smaller stars, to whom also 
 a human form was attributed. The planet Venus, called Chasca, 
 or " the youth with the long and curling locks," was worshipped as 
 the page of the sun. The rainbow had also his form of worship ; 
 and so also had thunder and lightning, the ministers of vengeance 
 of the star-king. 
 
 All these gods were worshipped in many different temples, some 
 of which were adorned with great splendour, notably the celebrated 
 temple of the sun at Cuzco. A whole army of priests performed 
 the rites of worship ; they presented the offerings ; they sacrificed 
 the lamas at the grand festival in the summer solstice, and they 
 drew omens after inspecting their entrails. 
 
 The fetich gods and astrolatry were not the only objects of worship 
 in the Peruvian pantheon. In the kingdom of Quito temples were 
 
294 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Bookiiu 
 
 built to the god of health. And a great spirit, Pachacamac, who- 
 was represented in figure, had a temple in the south of Peru. The 
 expounders of the monotheistical mania have endeavoured to seek 
 the personification of their fixed idea in the god Pachacamac, who- 
 is only a secondary divinity in Peru, and probably the remains of a 
 very ancient form of worship much anterior to the times of the 
 Incas. It is to this antique god, according to the legendary story 
 of Balboa, that Yupangui, an Inca, attributed the government of 
 the world. It was he that Yupangui proclaimed in council as being 
 the first original cause. We ought to view with some distrust all 
 the Catholic similarities that the Spanish "writers at the time of tha 
 conquest have been so anxious to find between their religion and 
 those of Mexico and Peru. From the abundance of information 
 collected as to the forms of religion in these two countries, we may 
 certainly conclude that the worship did not go beyond an anthro- 
 pomorphic astrolatry. It was simply the extension of primitive 
 animism that we find everywhere, all over the world, at the com- 
 mencement of any stage of civilisation. "We shall have to mention 
 many other examples before we have terminated our little journey 
 over the mythology of the human kind. The old animism of 
 Central America is far from being extinct, in spite of the efforts 
 and the cruelties of Spanish orthodoxy. Dr. Bell has seen a 
 sacred source in New Mexico. Colonel Macleod has seen sacred 
 fire still burning in some of the valleys of Southern Mexico. 
 Bullock has heard, in the town of Mexico, an old man of Indian 
 extraction regret the ancient gods, in spite of "the three good 
 Spanish gods;" and it is only by means of imposing ceremonies that 
 the Catholic priests have been able, apparently, to convert to 
 Catholicism the Peruvians, the Chiquitos, the Moxos, the Guaranis, 
 and others. We cannot repeat too often that the mental condition 
 of a race does not become seriously altered until after a long period 
 of a healthy form of culture. 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 295 
 
 VII. 
 
 Tlie Polynesian Gods. 
 
 Though in Polynesia every island, every district, every tribe, 
 sometimes every chief, has a different god, the foundation of the 
 mythology is so homogeneous through all this vast and widely 
 spread archipelago, that it is not difficult for us to describe, gene- 
 rally, the principal characteristics of the religious condition of 
 the people. This same homogeneousness is assuredly one of the 
 principal arguments that may be adduced in favour of their common 
 origin. 
 
 Every degree of animism may be found in the Polynesian myth- 
 ology, from the coarsest form of feticism to a small number of 
 cosmical anthropomorphous and invisible gods. 
 
 At Tonga, anything that excited a feeling of fear, of wonder, etc., 
 was worshipped ; animals, and especially the sharks, were deified. 
 In other places reptiles were preferred. When an islander had once 
 chosen his animal-god he confided to him his fears, he consulted 
 him as to all his projects, and asked him for help. Portative fetiches 
 were very common ; sometimes they were red feathers, at another time 
 a collection of wooden statuettes, a sort of divine toy, that Porter saw 
 a Noukahivan chief arrange in front of him, singing and clapping 
 his hands as he did so for whole hours together. In the Pomotou 
 islands the fetich was a piece of wood ornamented with some plaiting 
 made of human hair. As often as possible they would have in 
 place of this piece of wood the thigh bone of an enemy or of a dead 
 relation. To these gods they addressed their prayers, and they 
 made no difficulty about changing their gods when the gods did 
 not answer promptly the prayers that were addressed to them. The 
 ISToukahivans also wore, suspended to their necks, small gods cut 
 out of human bones. 
 
 In New Zealand the people often changed the substance of which 
 their gods were made; the men not unfrequently wore on the chest 
 a little grinning idol cut out of a green stone. 
 
 If zoolatry is common in the world, anthropolatry, at least the 
 
296 AFFECTI\^E LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 deification of a living man, is less common. But it was practised 
 in Pol^mesia. Cook saw at Bolabola an important old man who 
 was the god of the country. These men-gods were not very rare 
 in the different archipelagoes. It is but a coarse form of divine 
 anthropomorphism. Why should they not deify men when they 
 imagine their ancestral, naturalist, and cosmical gods, in the form 
 of invisible spirits, having a human form ? 
 
 Now, the invisible gods of the Polynesians generally had a 
 human form. That was the reason why the Hawaians did not 
 hesitate to worship Cook and to decree to him divine honours. 
 Even the death of the celebrated navigator did not undeceive the 
 islanders. His bones were religiously collected and borne in great 
 state; and the worship of them every year served as a pretext 
 for collecting taxes for the god Eono. We know, too, with what 
 facility the Polynesians deified, after their death, their chiefs and 
 their men of distinction. A chief of Somosomo said to Hunt : 
 " If you die before me, I will take you for my god." 
 
 They attributed a human form to many inferior divinities of a 
 second order, with which they had peopled the universe. These 
 gods dwelt in the water, in the woods, at the bottom of precipices, 
 and at the tops of the mountains. Every condition and every 
 part of man's labour had its tutelary divinity. One watched the 
 growing of the plants; another the ripening of the fruits; they 
 brought rain, wind, cold, and heat. These familiar gods, generally 
 called Tiis, were often represented by coarse statues, more often 
 cut out of wood, but sometimes out of stone, which they placed 
 either on the banks of the morals, of which they preserved the 
 enclosure, or on the rocks, or along the shore, so as to maintain a 
 pleasant harmony between the earth and the sea. 
 
 Like the Icelanders, like the Guanches in Teneriffe island, the 
 Polynesians who lived in volcanic islands deified the volcano. 
 At Tonga a god inhabited the volcano Tofoua. He was sup- 
 posed to be uncomfortable at the bottom of his crater ; and every 
 time he turned round he caused a fresh earthquake. The powerful 
 goddess Pele, who lived in the great volcano at Hawai, is cele- 
 brated. Less than half a century ago she had her priestesses in 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 297 
 
 the Sandwich islands; she often came up from her crater to 
 possess or inspire these priestesses, who henceforward were gifted 
 with the power of curing maladies, etc. 
 
 The inferior mythology of the Polynesians was never stationary ; 
 new gods were always being created, and the old ones were for- 
 gotten. The people readily adopted the gods of a victorious tribe, 
 often those of the chief. There were male gods and female gods. At 
 the time of Cook it was a goddess who governed, at Tonga, the 
 thunder, the winds, the rain, etc. ; if she was annoyed she destroyed 
 the harvest. 
 
 There was a god, too, for each malady, nearly one for each organ 
 of the human body. In New Zealand there was the god of head- 
 aches, of heartaches, a lizard-god, causing diseases of the chest, a 
 god of phthisis, a god of the stomach, a god of the feet, and ever 
 so many more. 
 
 There were the household gods, generally benevolent and peaceful 
 minded, who as far as they were able maintained order and quiet 
 in the different families, punishing the quarrelsome by visiting them 
 with sickness. In certain islands the people deified the vices that 
 Europeans think to be the most abominable : they had a special 
 god who presided over unnatural love. Men made their offerings 
 to Hiro, the god of thieves, whenever they wished to commit any 
 act of theft. 
 
 Astrolatry, which predominated in the mythology of Central 
 America, held only a secondary position in Polynesia. But in 
 Tahiti the sun was deified; the people had placed there a very 
 handsome anthropomorphous divinity, whose hair came down to 
 his feet. But these were the cosmical myths which give a special 
 character to the religious creeds of the Polynesians. 
 
 The god Kii had separated the earth from the heavens, which he 
 had spread above as though they were curtains. The god Mahoui 
 had drawn the earth from the bottom of the waters ; he had, in regu- 
 lating the course of the sun, created night and day, which was the 
 delight of all men, for before they were living in darkness. Rou, 
 the god of the east wind, had caused the sea to swell and had 
 broken up the earth into numerous islands, etc. These legends, 
 
298 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book nu 
 
 which formed the stock of Polynesian mythology, differed in each 
 archipelago ; but they all related the deeds of valour of the anthro- 
 pomorphous gods; they told the way in which they had disen- 
 tangled chaos, fished up the islands from the bottom of the ocean 
 with mother-of-pearl fish-hooks, and performed other wonderful 
 exploits. The most curious and complicated of these legends 
 are to be found in New Zealand, and one of them bears some 
 resemblance to the Aryan myth of Ouranos. 
 
 These superior cosmogonical gods lived ordinarily in the heavens, 
 each one in his own place, according to hierarchical order; and 
 Moerenhout says that in Tahiti they were all subjects to a sovereign, 
 god, " a great spirit," called Taaroa, to whom the universe was only 
 his shell. 
 
 Admitting, to a certain extent, the belief in a future life, of 
 which we have already spoken, the Polynesians did not attach to 
 it any idea of recompense or of punishment. Their gods did not 
 trouble themselves with human morality or immorality; they 
 punished only, and always during men's earthly life, any want of 
 proper reverence shown to them personally. The fear of offending 
 them was ever present to the mind of the poor Polynesians. Every 
 action of his life was connected with his worship, and was manifested 
 by some ceremonial form. A man dared not cut a tree in Tahiti 
 without having first gone to the morai, with the axe in his hand, 
 to give warning to the god, and before bringing to him the first 
 piece of the tree that had been cut. They dared not take a boat 
 out of the timber-yard until they had said their prayers to the 
 morai, and in the presence of a priest, accompanying the procession, 
 who launched the boat into the sea, being very careful that it 
 should not beforehand touch the ground. They could not receive 
 a stranger without the consent of the gods ; they would not give 
 lodging to a friend without offering to the gods the first morsels of 
 the meal. 
 
 The whole life of the Polynesians was impregnated with mytho- 
 logy, and mythology also entered very strongly into all their 
 religious Avorship. The people constructed morais, or temples, 
 where they were obliged to bring frequent offerings, for all the 
 
k 
 
 Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 29^ 
 
 gods ate very largely. Sometimes they tried to deceive them by 
 infantine tricks of cunning. They brought to their gods green 
 fruits, promising them better the next time if they would ripen 
 their bread-fruit trees. 
 
 The Polynesians had got beyond the primitive worship of a. 
 purely individual kind. They had a numerous and powerful clergy, 
 in which the priesthood was hereditary; and its members had 
 the power to taboo, to render everything inviolable, and also in 
 many archipelagoes to designate human victims as offerings to be^ 
 sacrificed to the gods. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Asiatic Religions. 
 
 In order that we may make a ready and tolerably easy classi- 
 fication of different religions in Asia, we should first recall to 
 mind the distribution of the human races over the vast Asiatic 
 continent and its dependencies. There is a race of black men, 
 with curly hair, of small stature, whose facial features are more 
 delicately and finely cut, and who belong more fully to the large 
 Aryan race, than the negroes of Melanesia or of Africa, and who, 
 it would appear, at first inhabited the Malay archipelago, the 
 Malay peninsula, Ceylon, and all the southern and eastern portions 
 of India. We even now find the remains of them in all these 
 countries, specially among the Yeddahs of Ceylon. 
 
 Two great races, the Mongolian and the Aryan, the first in the 
 human species, came by different roads into contact with the black 
 aborigines. The 'first of these, the Mongolians, who are now pre- 
 dominant over three-fourths of the Asiatic continent, probably 
 formed the sub-Mongoloid races of Malay, Siam, and Cochin- 
 China, as they mixed themselves with the primitive races. In 
 Mongolia, in Thibet, in China, and in Japan, they have preserved 
 more fully their own special features. In Burmah, and in the 
 eastern portion of India, they have in them a mixture of the Aryan 
 element. In Siberia and in Kamtschatka they may be found still 
 in a savage state. 
 
 The other great race, the white Aryan race, occupies hardly 
 
500 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 more than the south-western quarter of Asia; and if this race was 
 once predominant in India, it is only in the north-west portion of 
 this country through which it first made its way, along the valley 
 of the Indus, that it has kept itself uncontaminated from admixture 
 with foreign blood. 
 
 We have, therefore, now to consider these three great ethnical 
 creations from a mythological point of view. 
 
 '(A) The Mythology of the jjrimitive Malay Races and those of 
 
 India. 
 
 The contemporary remains of these ahorigines, and certain 
 mongrel races, the offspring of their admixture with foreign 
 emigrants, have not yet got beyond the rudimentary phase of 
 mythological evolution : the worship of animals, of trees, of stones, 
 a belief in the departed spirits of their ancestors, or, at the utmost, 
 a belief in the genii personifying this or that portion of the life 
 which daily surrounds them. 
 
 The poor Yeddahs of Ceylon still continue to offer honey, roots, 
 the flesh of monkeys to the spirits of the dead in order to con- 
 •ciliate them. The inhabitants of the Mariana islands preserve in 
 their huts the bones of their forefathers. According to Alvar de 
 Mindana they used to incinerate the flesh and swallow the ashes 
 floating on the top of their cocoa-nut wine. The Tikopians used to 
 worship the sea-eel. In Sumbawa island the Orang-Dangos attri- 
 bute a magical power to the sun, to the moon, to the trees, to the 
 stones, which they identify with their own genii. Some of the 
 Dyak tribes appoint coarse wooden idols to guard over the paths 
 leading to their habitations, placing beside the idols a basketful 
 of betel nuts to repay them for their trouble. Among other tribes 
 of the same race, certainly mongrel tribes, it is forbidden to cut 
 certain trees which are inhabited by the spirits. Some of the 
 Siamese, in the same way, offer cakes and rice to the trees before 
 cutting them down ; the Kariens in Burmah will pray to the spirit 
 of the tree before they begin to cut the tree down. 
 
 In the PhiliiDpine islands the aborigines, when they saw an 
 
qHAP. XVI.] THE GODS. 301 
 
 alligator, would throw into the water everything they had in their 
 canoe, to appease the ferocity of the animal, and they would at the 
 same time pray to him not to hurt them. The natives of Sumatra 
 call tigers their " ancestors ; " they always speak of them respect- 
 fully and make their excuses to them j and all the while they are 
 laying traps to catch them. 
 
 The Dyaks also have their genii : Tapa is the creator and pro- 
 tector of man ; Jirony presides over his birth and watches over him 
 when he is dying. 
 
 The Khonds of India have many local gods, and they are often 
 represented by uplifted stones. These divinities belong to a 
 hierarchical order, under the control of a divine aristocracy, consti- 
 tuted in the first place by the divinised spirits of the ancestors, who 
 also have a few sovereign gods above them : the god of rain, the 
 god of the chase, the god of generation, the god of war, the goddess 
 of the first fruits, and others. And still higher than all these are 
 the god-sun, and his wife the goddess of the earth. It was to Tari- 
 Pennou, the goddess of the earth, that the Khonds not very long 
 since used to ofi'er up human victims, women for the most part, 
 the Meriahs, who were pulled in pieces alive, and whose bones and 
 membranes so dragged to pieces were afterwards thrown into the 
 fields. 
 
 The Kariens of Burmah build in their fields a small house, and 
 place there for the goddess of the harvest their presents, and also 
 two pieces of string, so that she may strangle, as he comes in, any 
 evil-minded spirit. They then give to the goddess the instructions 
 that they conceive to be the most fitting. " Grandmother, watch 
 over my field," etc. " Eind together all strangers with this piece 
 of cord.'' "When they thrash their rice they address the same 
 divinity. "Stir yourself, grandmother; stir yourself, that my 
 crop of rice be as big as a hill, or as a mountain." Again, in 
 Burmah the demon of fever dwells in the jungles, and the attacks 
 of fever are the misdeeds performed by the other evil spirits. 
 
 All these facts, and it would be very easy to prolong the 
 enumeration, show clearly enough that all these people of whom 
 we are now speaking have not yet passed the most primitive form 
 
302 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 of animism. "We shall find, again, similar beliefs among some 
 poorly-developed individuals, and even among some portions of the 
 ^eat Mongolian race. 
 
 (B) Mythology of the Mongolian and the Mongoloid Races. 
 
 The Kamtschadales believed in a multitude of genii of the forests, 
 of the mountains, of the torrents, above whom was placed a more 
 powerful god, Koutka, or Koutkou. This, however, did not prevent 
 them from worshipping whales, bears, and wolves. Like the Ainos 
 of Japan, the Yakuts of Siberia worship the bear, and before the 
 Eussian tribunals the Ostiaks will swear by the head of this 
 animal. They will drive posts into the ground upon the mountains, 
 and they will adorn these posts with rags and then worship them. 
 The Samoyedes pay their homage to certain stones ; and also, like 
 a great number of Tartar tribes, the Tungusians, the Ostiaks, the 
 Yoguls, and others, they have deified the sun, though they have 
 numerous small fetiches of their own, and though they believe in 
 the spirits of the forest, of the rivers, of the sun, and of the moon. 
 
 In the time of Marco Polo, the Tartars had their household gods, 
 who were the guardians of their families, their animals, and their 
 property. They represented them by idols made of felt and calico, 
 simulating the god, his wife, and his children. They never ate 
 before first rubbing the mouths of these protecting divinities with 
 the fat of their meat. Timkowski has seen among the Mongolians 
 the same idols and the same forms of worship of which ^Marco Polo 
 speaks. Gmelin has seen Tartars in Tobolsk turn themselves round 
 towards the sun every morning and say to him : " Do not kill me!" 
 Other jpeople in this same region have divinised and worshipped 
 fire (Tylor). 
 
 In Thibet, in the midst of the Buddhist country, the mountaineers 
 have their gods consecrated to brigandage. 
 
 The Tartars of Altai have gods represented under the form of 
 bearded old men, dressed as Russian dragoon officers. We see that 
 in the mind of the poorly-developed man any strong emotion may, 
 fio to say, create a god. 
 
■Chap, xvi.] THE GODS. 303 
 
 A distinguishing feature in the primitive religions of the Mon- 
 golians is the important part played by the sorcerers, often called 
 chamans. They serve as mediators between men and the spirits whom 
 they evoke, usually by means of a magic drum, as they feel or feign 
 a. sort of ecstatic rapture. It has been argued that these practices 
 have some special signification, and the Mongolian animism has 
 been designated under the name of chamanism. But there is in it 
 no characteristic feature except the habitual practice of sacred con- 
 vulsions or falling into fits of ecstasy. All over the world, and 
 in all races of men, the primitive creeds first gave rise to sorcerers, 
 who, in after time, with the progress of civilisation, became trans- 
 formed into the priesthood. 
 
 The boorish forms of mythology which we have just described 
 -are again seen in the large Chinese and Japanese empires ; they 
 were more ingeniously organised in the latter country, where by 
 degrees they grew into Sintoism. 
 
 In China, a belief in the spirits of nature is very widely spread. 
 Every chain of mountains has its divinity. The people set up idols 
 to the god of spring, whom they imagine in the form of a young 
 man. They believe in various nightmare demons, whom they try 
 to drive away by the noise of gongs and of crackers. They have 
 libations of wine to the demi-god Chinnoung, who first taught 
 men the art of cookery. The religion of Tao-sse, or the " doctors 
 of reason," proclaiming, as it does, the belief in primordial reason, 
 •according to the rules laid down by the famous Lao-tze, a con- 
 temporary of Confucius, admits also the existence of innumerable 
 .genii. The priests and priestesses practise magic, astrology, necro- 
 mancy, etc. 
 
 The ancient naturalistic worship, evidently imported from Mon- 
 golia, is the official religion of the emperor and of educated 
 men. The son of heaven, and he only in Pekin, worships in 
 different temples, the heavens, the earth, the sun, and the moon, 
 .aU of which are holy objects, and to which everyone else is for- 
 bidden to address his prayers. Personages of a lower station 
 must confine themselves to offering their sacrifices to the spirits of 
 the wind, of the ram, of the thunder, of the dragon, etc. If we put 
 
304 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 above all this mythological world, the "Heaven," or Tz'tfw, the 
 only divinity vaguely preserved by Confucius, we shall then, 
 see with tolerable accuracy the religion of the Samoyedes, the 
 Tungusians, and of many Tartar tribes, who consider the heaven 
 as an omnipresent god, and who has delegated the government 
 of the world to inferior gods : to the sun, the moon, the earth, the 
 fire, etc. 
 
 To these naturalist creeds, scrupulously observed in China, may 
 be added the worship of their ancestors, which seems to have taken 
 a more serious hold upon the people. This also is a Mongolian 
 relic. The Mongolians deified and worshipped Gengis Khan and 
 his family. In the same way, when the Mantshu-Tartar dynasty 
 ascended the throne it apotheosised Kouang-ti, the famous warrior, 
 the Mongolian Mars, and made choice of him as tutelary spirit 
 over the dynasty. It was ordered that he should appear in the 
 official forms of worship; the public officers, and specially the 
 Mandarin soldiers were compelled to worship him. The Chinese 
 are also bound to offer sacrifices to the departed spirit of Con- 
 fucius ; to certain wise men, or celebrated warriors, to whom the 
 emperor built temples ; to the patrons of the towns chosen by the 
 emperor from among the celebrated personages. This is the wor- 
 ship of great men inculcated again in our own day by Auguste 
 Comte and his followers. The worship of departed spirits, pro- 
 perly so called, is taken more seriously by the Chinese sceptics. 
 The rich families have in their houses a little sanctuary, in which 
 are placed the tablets of their ancestors. The Chinese, or many 
 of them, believe that one of these spirits in man comes after his 
 death, to live in the tablets of their ancestors, to join together the 
 prayers of the survivors ; another spirit rests by the body, which, 
 for this reason, they keep as long as possible in a coffin of gilt 
 gum-lac, near to which the people pray. 
 
 In China, as elsewhere, the spirits of inferior divinities, and 
 those of the dead, are often animated with the most wicked 
 intentions. They often dwell in the bodies of men to injure 
 them, or to make them fall ill. Special mediums, often of the 
 feminine sex, have the power of driving away these demons by 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 305 
 
 practices very similar to those of the Siberian chamans. The two 
 ideas probably come from the same origin. 
 
 We have now perhaps said enough to show that all the Mon- 
 golian mythology is still preserved in China, and that this introduc- 
 tion of Buddhism has only introduced new elements into the forms 
 of worship. In speaking of the Aryan religions we shall have to 
 mention the great religion of f akya-mouni. But the Buddhist 
 doctrine, of which the primordial idea is so scientific, has become 
 much altered in China from its contact with the old Mongolian 
 creeds. In spite of the prescribed limits of this book, which pre- 
 vent us from describing these alterations at length, we would wish, 
 however, to mention one fact which does honour to the humanising 
 spirit of the Chinese. In the Celestial Empire there is a numerous 
 sect who worship the goddess Pity, in the form of a woman holding 
 a child in her arms. This deification of one of the noblest of 
 human sentiments constitutes a religion apart, counting numerous 
 votaries who have their temples and even their female convents, 
 and whose duty is to give aid to the faithful souls, and to visit the 
 poor and the rich. These Chinese nuns take the Vow not only of 
 abnegation but also of virgini^. They are called "the annihi- 
 lated," "the absorbed," because, according to the doctrine of 
 Buddha, they hope by reason of their sacrifices to deserve absorp- 
 tion and annihilation after death. The analogy between them and 
 the Catholic sisters of charity is striking ; but the Chinese doctrine 
 is more noble, and the devotedness is more disinterested. 
 
 We have depicted the religious condition of the Chinese, we 
 must now say a few words as to their irreligious condition. In 
 the opinion of all travellers, missionaries and others, there is not a 
 country in the world in which a total indifference on religious 
 subjects is so widely spread as in China. 'No doubt a man taken 
 from the great mass of the people is often loaded with the grossest 
 superstition ; he has idols whom he beats, or whom he worships, as 
 they grant or refuse his prayers; but the various categories of 
 educated people, "the governing classes," are generally either 
 indifferent, or they are impious. They follow the official forms of 
 worship, but without believing in them ; and their official worship 
 
306 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 is only a civil code. The obsequious politeness of the Chinese 
 makes it a duty to say, if they are asked, that they believe in their 
 religion, whatever it may be. The whole matter is perfectly in- 
 different to them. Chinese law even inflicts a sort of civil death 
 upon the bonzes (the priests) and the tao-sse (those who worship 
 the Supreme Being). It forbids them from offering sacrifices to 
 their ancestors, and forbids, also, under the penalty of a hundred 
 strokes with a bamboo cane, from wearing mourning for their dead 
 relations. 
 
 A short time before his accession to the throne, an emperor, Tao 
 Kouang, addressed a proclamation to the people, in which, after he 
 had made examination of all the religions in the empire, Christianity 
 included, he concluded that they were all false, and that man would 
 do well to despise them all alike. This fact, surely unique of its 
 kind, shows the extent of public impiety in China. It is this abso- 
 lute impiety which has made such an impression upon every 
 traveller, and which paralyses all the efforts of the Catholic 
 missionaries and causes them to despair of hope. 
 
 We are compelled, however, to praise a kind of impiety practised 
 by the Chinese and stigmatised ii]j. their code with a precision that 
 reflects honour upon this country so different from our own Europe. 
 ** Impiety," it is said in the code, " is the want of respect and of 
 care for those to whom we owe our existence, to whom we owe our 
 education, and by whom we are protected. It is impious to bring 
 an action against any one of our near relations, to insult them, not ta 
 wear mourning for them, and not to hold their memory in respect." 
 In spite of the progress of Buddhism, the old form of wor- 
 ship practised in Cochin-China is still found in Japan. In this 
 country the ancient national religion of Sin-Tou is ofl&cially recog- 
 nised; we find traces of it in every hut and in every palace. 
 It is animism of a coarse kind, to which is joined worship for their 
 ancestors, the hamis promoted to the grade of benevolent genii, 
 always recruiting itself from humanity ; for the departed spirits 
 of the virtuous men go to swell the number of the glorious kamis, 
 to whom morning and evening the people address their prayers in 
 their chapels. 
 
Chap, xvi.] THE GODS. 307 
 
 The people have also divinised animals and natural phenomena. 
 Following the example of the Ainos, who worship the bear, the 
 Japanese have erected temples to the fox, and they consult him 
 upon any intricate matter. Earthquakes are attributed to a large 
 whale burrowing and dragging himself along under ground; the 
 waterspouts are the flying dragons, etc. Sintoism comprises also 
 the adoration of the celestial bodies. The goddess-sun has her 
 temples, and she is represented quite in an anthropomorphite 
 manner. Before praying to her, they put a clock into motion, so 
 as to attract her attention. The origin of this worship comes, no 
 doubt, as the Japanese say, from their ancestors, from the kamis, 
 to whom they rightly attribute the fabrication of the relics in the 
 Japan age of stone. It is altogether a collection of infantine 
 conceptions, such as we find nearly everywhere in primitive 
 societies among men of every race and of every colour. 
 
 Mythology of the White Races, 
 
 {A) 
 
 The great religions and the most complicated forms of 
 mythology have been born among the white races; but if, as 
 regards religious speculation, and also as regards every other 
 form of intellectual development, the people in this human 
 type have shown themselves to be more intelligent and more 
 inventive than others, they assuredly have the same puerile 
 creeds of faith. N"o doubt but that the animism in these races 
 has grown to be more advanced ; but they, like other races, have 
 practised, and still continue to practise, the grossest form of 
 feticism. And among them, as also among the others, it is 
 very easy to discover the phases of animism. 
 
 The worship of animals may be seen nearly everywhere in the 
 Aryan and Semitic nations. The serpent has been worshipped 
 in India, in Phoenicia, in Eabylon, in Greece, in Italy, among the 
 Lithuanians, in Persia, and in other places. Hammam, the 
 monkey-god, had his temples and his idols in India. Ganesa had 
 an elephant's head. The cow is still in India a sacred animal; 
 according to the religion of Zoroaster, the dog was the creature 
 
 X 2 
 
308 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book ul 
 
 worshipped. The Lombards adored a golden viper until Barbarossa 
 took possession of it; the ancient Prussians used to place food- 
 offerings before serpents. 
 
 In European India there is still existing a whole mythology of 
 trees. In the course of his innumerable transmigrations Buddha 
 has been held to be the genius of a tree forty-three different times. 
 The Graeco-Roman polytheism had its dryads and its hamadryads. 
 According to Cato, the woodcutter before he began to cut trees in a 
 sacred wood was bound to sacrifice a hog to the gods and goddesses of 
 the wood. Every Hindoo village has its sacred tree {jicus religiosa). 
 The ancient Slavs consulted their old oaks, and the veneration of 
 the Celts for the same trees is well known. Holy sources are still 
 very numerous in Europe, not counting that at Lourdes. 
 
 The worship of stones is also very widely spread in India. No 
 doubt in many stones a divinity or a spirit is frequently lodged ; 
 for instance, Shashty, Siva, and the five Pandous. But we may 
 believe that the early adorers had a le'ss subtle form of worship. 
 The Greeks had their sacred stones which they would anoint with 
 oil, and to which they would pray with earnest devotion. 
 
 The adoration of rivers is less rare. The Hindoo has always 
 considered the Ganges to be a sacred river, and we read in Homer 
 that the river Scamander was deified. 
 
 The divinised winds, the Vedic Marouts, drive the angry clouds 
 over the sea. In the Hiad, Achilles offers libations to Boreas and 
 to Zephyrus if they will blow upon the funereal pile of Patroclus. 
 
 Even now the Carinthian peasant will place upon a tree in front 
 of his house a wooden vase holding meat, so that the wind may 
 eat and appease his anger. 
 
 The worship of the earth, of the stars, of the sun, of the heavens, 
 had quite another signification. That is the second phase of 
 animism, in which man begins to look higher and farther; he 
 begins to show his contempt for the smaller local gods, though he 
 has not yet altogether abandoned them. 
 
 The earth-mother, prithivi-mdtar, is deified in the Eig-Yeda. 
 The Romans also had their earth-mother, terra mater ; and Tacitus 
 found this divinity among the Germans. Hesiod relates that every 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 309 
 
 niglit tlie heaven, Uranus, used to come down upon the earth, to 
 water it, until Chronos, or Saturn, the god of time, who waited for 
 a favourable opportunity, emasculated him with his scythe. A 
 pleasing and ingenious fable, no doubt, and we may therefore take 
 it for what it is worth. 
 
 The earth, as deified by the difi'erent Aryan mythologies, is not 
 at all the astronomical globe rolling in space ; it is a fertile country 
 clothed with trees, corn, and harvest produce. At the same time, 
 also, the people used' to worship the sea. Cleomenes, as he directed 
 his course towards Thyrea, sacrificed a bull to the sea before allowing 
 his army to embark. The sea, the Poseidon of Homer, the Neptune 
 of the Latins^ was the god who shook the earth. 
 
 The sun, the moon, and the stars have been divinised nearly 
 everywhere. We read in the Bible that these forms of worship 
 were forbidden to the chosen people of God. The silver star Selene, 
 Diana, was much respected both in Greece and in Kome. 
 
 The Yedic singers used" to celebrate the great SHrya, who knows 
 everything and sees everything, before whom the stars would fly 
 as though they were thieves. " The eye of the sun," they say, " is 
 supreme benefaction." It is the Helios of the Greeks, the Persian 
 Mithra^ the Tyrian Baal, the Latin Apollo, of which the Christmas 
 festival also unconsciously celebrates every year the revival. The 
 great religion of Zoroaster, based on the struggle between light 
 and darkness, personifying the good and the evil in the forms of 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman, is the most celebrated of all the solar religions. 
 Though we may put on one side with becoming irreverence the 
 solar myths of every sort devised by the ingenious spirit working 
 in the numerous difi'erent mythologies, we may still find a great 
 many of these same solar myths in all the antique Aryan religions, 
 even in those of the Germans and the Celts. 
 
 By a greater effort of generalisation our Aryan ancestors divinised 
 the whole heaven. At first they worshipped the bright sky Dyu 
 (Dyaus), in the midst of which were placed the clouds. Then the 
 Vedic singers, speculating after their own fashion, imagined the 
 heaven — that is the heaven-father — to be the husband of the earth- 
 mother. Then it was the starry heaven, Yarouna with a hundred 
 
310 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 eyes, etc., which we find again as an all-powerful divinity, as a 
 master of the gods, in the Greek Zeus and in the Latin Jupiter. 
 Secondary divinities accompanied the great god — for instance, the 
 Indian Indra, the god of thunder, and others. 
 
 The powerful Odin of the Scandinavians seems also to be 
 identified with the heaven, which, as we have seen, is still the 
 principal divinity of the great Mongolian race. 
 
 The heaven conceived as an animated living creature is certainly 
 the myth which realises more fully than any other the idea of 
 omnipresence. Man cannot escape from him. He is everywhere, 
 like the subtle god imagined by the Christian metaphysics, which 
 has probably borrowed this. quality from him. 
 
 All these examples, which we might multiply tenfold, prove 
 beyond doubt that in his mythology the primitive white man did 
 not rise to higher ideas than men of lower races ; and we know 
 also that, like them, when he wished to represent his naturalist 
 divinities, he conceived them to be anthropomorphous. Nor has 
 he shown himself superior to the other human types in his con- 
 ception of the nature of the manes of their ancestors, of genii 
 or wandering spirits. 
 
 (B) 
 
 According to the Vedic mythology the departed spirits, the 
 souls of the dead, go either to impound themselves with the spirits 
 of the wind, forming part of the cortege of the god Indra, or else 
 they join the gods in celestial space and partake of their existence, 
 the amplified image of human existence upon earth. The departed 
 spirits of the Hindoos exact, like the spirits of so many other 
 people, that one of their descendants should bring peace-offerings. 
 On the thirteenth day of the moon, rice boiled in milk and honey 
 should be ofi'ered to them. For they are corporeal beings, having 
 more or less all the wants of the living man. They have also all 
 jhis passions. Like the aborigines in the Marquesas islands, and 
 many other primitive people, the Romans used to think that the 
 spirits of the wicked, the larva3 or lemures, used to torment men by 
 their apparitions. Both the Greeks and the Romans used to think 
 
€hap. xti.] the gods. 311 
 
 ihat the manes of men who died a violent death, or those who 
 were not buried, would pursue and ruthlessly destroy the 
 innocent. To charm away the evil intentions of the manes, who 
 often drew their own near relations to them, the people used to 
 offer to them sacrifices. We read upon one epitaph that a husband 
 begs his well-beloved departed wife to spa^e him for many years, so 
 that he may continue to offer to her sacrifices, to bring her crowns, 
 and to fill her sepulchral lamp, with perfumed oil. We know, too, 
 how much the apparition of the dead is thought of in the Christian 
 mythology. The dead are often animated with very bad intentions, 
 if we may trust to the popular opinion now current in Brittany. 
 There are places in Brittany where there is hardly a woman who 
 has not seen an apparition, or where the boldest man would not 
 cross a cemetery at night without some inward fear of danger. 
 
 The belief in demons and in genii is also very common. In the 
 south of India men do not dare to go out after sundown for fear of 
 the spirits, or at least they provide themselves with a firebrand to 
 drive them away. Even in the daytime people will light their 
 lamps to drive away the demons. The Greeks and the Eomans 
 also believed in men being possessed of devils. The sick people in 
 Homer were tortured by a horrible demon. Pythagoras thought 
 demons were floating about in the air, and that they were the 
 cause of sickness. The mad people, and especially the epileptic, 
 were the creatures who were possessed. Plutarch admits the 
 ■existence of a demoniacal hierarchy. According to him the manes 
 of the best of men may become heroes, the heroes may become 
 demons ; and these demons are sometimes promoted to the rank of 
 gods. The ^ew Testament is full of demoniacal stories, and all 
 the fathers of the Christian Church describe minutely the pos- 
 session and the practices of exorcism. All the Middle Ages in 
 Europe were, so to say, a sort of demoniacal monomania. The 
 orthodox funereal piles have during many centuries devoured 
 sorcerers by the thousand ; our ancestors have been tormented by 
 all sorts of nightmare dreams, they have fancied their blood being 
 sucked out of them by vampires. 
 
 Like many savages, the Aryan people have sometimes meta- 
 
312 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 morphosed various maladies into evil genii. The Persians have 
 seen scarlet fever in a human form. They have said to one 
 another: "Do you know All She has the look of a blushing 
 young girl with pink cheeks and hair like flaming curls." The 
 Jews thought that the pest was an exterminating angel; the 
 Komans used to worship the god of fever. 
 
 The genii of antiquity, the guardian angels, and, in general, the 
 angels of Zoroaster and of Christianity, have also very primitive 
 conceptions. The demon of Socrates is well known in history. 
 Menander believed in a serving demon, in a guardian angel, be- 
 longing to each man from the time of his birth. Augustus had a. 
 guardian angel to whom he used to make offerings, and by whom 
 he would swear. According to Maximus Tyrius, a whole legion 
 of these genii used to serve as mediators between men and the 
 superior divinities. The characters of these genii were as various 
 as those of men, and also there were among them many of the 
 shadows of men. They used to cure maladies, give counsel, and 
 sometimes offer their protection to certain well-favoured indi- 
 viduals. There are some, like .^sculapius, who continued to 
 interest themselves in the same pursuits that they followed here 
 in this life below. There were some who were extremely spiteful. 
 The deification of the Eoman emperors, alive or dead, belongs to 
 the same order of ideas, to which is also connected the Christian 
 hagiography : all this, as a matter of fact, comes from the early 
 primitive superstition of man's adoration of his ancestors. 
 
 The idol worship in the Aryan races is not one bit more exalted 
 than the coarsest rites of many of the savage tribes. Nothing can. 
 be baser, or more fetich in its nature, than the worshipping of 
 idols ; and by idol worship we mean the actual images of divinities^ 
 whatever they may be. In this way the majority of the great. 
 Aryan races fall below the level of the African feticism. It is-, 
 plausibly argued that the adorer pays his homage to the spirits, 
 themselves, whom these images are intended only to represent;, 
 but the greater part of the devout people in every religion are 
 not so clear and distinct in their metaphysical ideas. We may- 
 advance with full certainty that it was the god, the saint in wood 
 
Chap, xvi.] THE GODS. 313 
 
 in plaster, or in marble, that they worshipped. In Eome the 
 bigots who came to pray in the temples nsed to treat with the 
 officiating ministers to be placed as near as possible to the ear of 
 the idol, so that they might be better heard. The Tyrians used to 
 chain up the statue of the sun, to prevent it from quitting the 
 town. Augustus punished the ITeptune in effigy because he had 
 behaved badly. The ancient Arcadians used to beat their god 
 Pan if they came back from the chase empty-handed. On the day 
 of the death of Germanicus all the idols in Kome were broken. 
 
 When the missionary Dietrich overthrew the idols of the 
 Esthonians, the people were very much astonished not to see blood 
 flowing from the figures. "We know that the Catholics venerate 
 this or that statue of a saint, or of the Virgin, in preference to the 
 others. The following prayer of a Finnish Russian will give 
 a very good general notion of the coarse idea that the poorly 
 enlightened Europeans have of their divine personage and of 
 their idols : " Tell me, God Mcolas, did my neighbour little 
 Michael whisper to you evil things of me, or do you think 
 he will do so ? If he does, don't believe him. I have done 
 him no wrong, nor do I wish him harm. He is a terribly 
 conceited fellow, and he is a chatterbox into the bargain. He 
 is only a hypocrite, for he does not really respect you. I honour 
 you from the bottom of my heart j and, look here ! I will burn a 
 taper for you." 
 
 We may feel tolerably sure that the African negro converses with 
 his gods much in the same way ; and if we call to mind the fact that 
 the veneration for spirits is still common in a so-called superior re- 
 ligion, we may conclude that in a large portion of his mythology the 
 white man is not dififerent from men of inferior races. However, 
 in one direction the mythology of the white races does raise itself 
 above that of primitive men, and this we now propose to consider. 
 
 (C) TIte Great Aryan and Semitic Religions, 
 
 The principal dogmas of the great Aryan religions are so well 
 known that it is unnecessary to repeat them here ; our endeavour 
 is principally to show the higher qualities of these mythologies. 
 
S14 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in. 
 
 It is beyond all doubt that in the majority of instances where 
 sentiment and intelligence are strongly shown, the white races have 
 surpassed the others ; but it is necessary, also, to see this superiority 
 in a true light. If we look around us we shall see that the mean 
 level of the majority of individuals in the Aryan races is hardly 
 higher than that of the African negro. The privileged races only, 
 those of whom we are now speaking, have furnished a very small 
 number of chosen people, sometimes better and sometimes more 
 intelligent than the rest of their kind. These intruders, naturally 
 reformers, have been nearly always scoffed at, persecuted, and often 
 put to death ; they have by degrees enlarged in every sense the 
 horizon of the human mind ; and, thanks to their conquests, the 
 common herd of men have ever led a more and more humane life. 
 
 It is in this way that religion, like everything else, has slowly 
 become perfected. In the Aryan parts of Asia, and in Europe its 
 dependency, the natives have followed, and do still follow, the 
 rudest form of animism. When the Hindoos first saw a railway 
 train they divinised " the vapour " and ofi'ered up to it garlands 
 And melted butter. They had also many years previously deified 
 smallpox, which became the goddess Matadjie. This unintelligent 
 credulity is not peculiar to the Hindoos. Burton heard an old 
 Arab woman of the tribe of the Eesa cry out in a fit of neuralgia : 
 " Oh Allah ! May your teeth hurt you as much as mine are now 
 hurting me." To find examples of this savage form of religion the 
 European has only to leave his own country. 
 
 All this is incontestable, and yet the religious speculations of 
 the Aryan races have grown to very considerable proportions. We 
 know from the Vedahs that the ancient white tribes of Central 
 Asia at first adored fire with complete fetich worship, thereby 
 not differing from many primitive people who used either to 
 worship fire or the sun; but by slow efforts of thought the 
 descendants of these fetich Yedahs have ennobled their worship? 
 And have recognised in the god Agni the physical fires, the vital 
 warmth, and the thinking principle. Their progress did not stop 
 there, for by dint of simplifying and bringing their polytheism 
 into a synthetical form they have ended by deducing from it the 
 
*Chap. XVI.] -THE GODS. 315 
 
 quasi-scientific trinity of Bralima, Vichnu, and Siva — production, 
 conservation, dissolution, or return to the pantheism of Brahma, 
 from whom every creature springs, and where they finally go after 
 •a series of incarnations more or less long. 
 
 In the same way the god Agni, of whom we have spoken, 
 after being for a long time fed upon melted butter and the 
 alcoholic liquor from the acid asclepias, the sacred Soma, first 
 became a glorious child, then a metaphysical divinity, a mediator 
 living in the fathers and living again in the sons. A long 
 mythical story has sprung from Agni, in which has been imagined, 
 and with a great appearance of probability, all the legend of 
 Christ. 
 
 The Parsees also, whose dogmas have penetrated so widely into 
 •Christianity, first considered fire as an anthropomorphous god, 
 giving to men happiness and good health on condition that they 
 kept him well supplied with wood, with perfumes, and with fat. 
 They have now become more intelligent, they address their 
 prayers only to the invisible spirit of the fire. This religion of 
 the Parsees, or rather the antique religion of Zoroaster, is different 
 from the inferior form of worship by the great simplicity of its 
 divine personages, reduced almost to the god of light and the god 
 of darkness, to Ormuzd and Ahriman. And also it has further 
 advanced by suppressing all idol worship, to which the Hindoos so 
 strongly cling. 
 
 Every superior religion, Brahminism, Mazdeism, and above all 
 Buddhism, have in a very large measure brought moral ideas to 
 bear upon their mythology. Buddhism has attempted quite a 
 social revolution. It has undertaken to break the social chain of 
 caste, and to inaugurate into the world a desire for humanity and 
 peace. Now, though this religion be mainly professed by the 
 Mongolian races, it is in reality of Aryan origin. The Dalai-Lama 
 of Lassa and all the Chaberons of Thibet and Mongolia, who 
 expound so cleverly the doctrine of transmigration and of revela- 
 tion, live now under the Buddhist religion, but they would 
 never have invented it. 
 
 This absorption of morality by religion characterises the great 
 
316 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book in, 
 
 mythologies of which we are speaking. The creatures of these 
 rehgious metaphysical systems have not been satisfied, as were the 
 Vedic tribes, as were and still are all primitive races of men, to 
 imagine their myths in a simple and credulous way, simply to 
 invest their emotions with a human form, or to explain coarsely 
 the phenomena of the outside world. They have had some ideas 
 of social life; they have interested their gods in the ways of 
 men, and made their religion be governed and bound by their 
 morality. 
 
 In the same way, also, the Greek and Roman polytheisms 
 originated, though at a later date and with much less complete- 
 ness. These religions sprang evidently from the ancient creeds of 
 Central Asia, where we now find another kind of thought; the 
 divinisation of certain ideas, of certain superior faculties in the 
 human brain, for instance, the deification of Time — Saturn, of 
 Eeason — Minerva, etc. 
 
 The great Semitic religions, Judaism and Islamism, inferior in 
 so many ways to the mythological syntheses of Aryan Asia, have 
 also narrowly joined together their moral ideas and their dogmas, 
 banishing as completely as they could all fetiches and all idols. 
 But their anthropomorphous god, a cruel, violent, capricious, true 
 Oriental despot, is very far below the Brahmin and Buddhist 
 notion of pantheism, which, as IMoleschott says, expresses mytho- 
 logically the great formula of all the universe : the circulation of 
 life. 
 
 In spite of its being so barren in metaphysical qualities, 
 Christianity, a hybrid religion, a confused mixture of Vedism, of 
 Mazdeism, of Brahminism, of Buddhism, of Judaism, never- 
 theless deserves some of the praises which we have given to the 
 great Asiatic religions. Like them, it has deeply concerned itself 
 with moral duties, though it has borrowed from them the greater 
 part of its lessons. But the Christian metaphysics, poor and 
 without logical sequence of thought, distinguishes itself from the 
 others only by the adoption of an insane idea, borrowed from 
 Philon and the Alexandrine dreamers : the idea of creation ex 
 niliilo. 
 
Chap. XVI.] THE GODS. 317 
 
 Christianity has also lowered itself by taking note of all the 
 coarse manifestations of the primitive religions : fetiches, idols, the 
 •worship of one's ancestors, the adoration of genii, etc. Its rites 
 for the most part servilely imitated from the Buddhist rites, are 
 wholly devoid of originality. Finally, and this is a much more 
 serious matter, Brahminism and Buddhism are not incompatible 
 with science ; Christianity is diametrically opposed to it. Scientific 
 thought has grown and made its way in spite of Christianity, and 
 by means of scientific thought Christianity is one day destined to 
 perish. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Tlie Evolution of Mythology, 
 
 The mythological gradation of ideas, now generally admitted, 
 starting first from feticism, passing through polytheism, and ending 
 at last in monotheism and in pantheism, is convenient for the ex- 
 position of facts ; and, also, it corresponds tolerably well with the 
 principal phases in the evolution of religious ideas. We must not, 
 however, attach to it any definite or absolute value, and especially'" 
 we must guard ourselves from thinking that between the different 
 shades of error there are lines of demarcation clearly marked. All 
 these degrees confound themselves together into one illusion, which 
 Mr. Tylor has called animism.'^ 
 
 During the long periods of its infancy and of its youth, the 
 human mind has frequently wandered out of its own province. It 
 endows liberally with conscient faculties similar to its own every- 
 thing that falls within its reach : trees, mountains, stones, animals, 
 rivers, etc. There is, however, in this animism a gradation which 
 ^corresponds to the progress of intelligence and of experience. 
 
 Yast as is the universe man's will is very much restricted by the 
 shortness of his own sight. The savage, whose eyes are hardly 
 opened, knows of nothing beyond the small district in which he 
 contrives to live by fighting for his daily existence. His animism 
 is as closely confined as he is himself. It is only to the objects 
 
 * See A. Lef^vre, " Dialogue between A and B on Survival and Animism," 
 in the " Kevue Internationale des Sciences," March, 1879. 
 
318 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iiu 
 
 and beings round about him that primitive man can lend a conscient 
 life similar to his own — it is that which we call feticism. 
 
 Then, by degrees, as the intellectual vision becomes more and 
 more distinct, the animal horizon grows larger ; man anthropo- 
 morphises the great phenomena of nature. At the same time the 
 crowd of smaller gods fall more and more into discredit. The 
 divinities grow less in number and increase in importance — this is 
 polytheism if we wish so to call it. 
 
 But even this divine aristocracy, following the general course of 
 ideas, will not, any more than the anterior democracy, be proof 
 against the progress of the human understanding ; and, by degrees, 
 suppressing first one and then another of these imaginary personages^ 
 we come either to monotheism or to pantheism. Finally these 
 great and last mythical conceptions in their turn undergo the 
 tragic destiny of the gods who lived before them. They fall under 
 the blows of the battering-ram of science, in spite of the desperate 
 attempts made by metaphysics to clothe man with a divine idea. 
 
 We have now run rapidly round the whole of the mythological 
 cycle. Man now sees truly and clearly his position in the universe. 
 The "nature of things," according to Lucretius, or, in more 
 modern language, the understanding enlightened by science, says 
 to man : " Poor creature, so humble and so sublime. You must 
 now recognise that you are but the first of earthly animals. Your 
 extraction is very small, you have sprung from very low, but by a 
 slow series of efforts you have raised yourself above your inferior 
 brethren. You see and understand that which they could neither 
 see nor understand ; and this same fulness gradually acquired by 
 your conscient life has made of you a most singular being. You 
 know your origin, but you cannot see the goal to which you are 
 tending. Persevere and work on. The road over which you still 
 have to travel is much longer than that left behind. Before 
 heaven's light, Apollo, as he was called in former days, is extin- 
 guished. Generations innumerable have yet to struggle, to suffer, 
 and to live." 
 
 But not to wander needlessly, future humanity must know that 
 the exterior world which binds him is blind and pitiless, that to 
 
Chap, xvii.] WOESHIP AND PEIESTHOOD. 319- 
 
 get the upper hand over it he must first overrule its laws. It is 
 all-important for him not to forget that for each individual the 
 conscient life is strictly confined between his earliest bleating 
 sound and his last and latest breath. It is only in the future 
 destinies of humanity that we can place the care of the life 
 beyond. To improve one's own self, to work for the general 
 welfare, ought to be the effort of every human being. Menu said : 
 " We must pay the debts of our ancestors ; " in other words, 
 bequeath to our descendants, in a happier condition than our own, 
 the patrimony we have received from preceding generations. That 
 is man's great duty in life ; it carries with it its own reward. 
 We must Kve usefully, and die without lamenting our fate. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WOKSHIP AND PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 Thb mental evolution from which worship and priesthood have 
 sprung has been so much alike aU over the world, that the subject 
 matter of this chapter may be comprised in a few pages. 
 
 The very inferior races, the Fuegians, the Tasmanians, the 
 Australians, the Hottentots, and others, have neither temples, nor 
 priests, nor rites. In this primitive phase of human development, 
 man's religion does not, at the most, go beyond believing in the 
 existence of anthropomorphous or zoomorphous spirits, who haunt 
 the rocks, the grottoes, and the trees; the idea of communi- 
 cating with these beings, supposed generally to be evil minded, 
 does not occur to anybody. 
 
 At a somewhat later stage, when man has become more thought- 
 ful, when he has begun to use his reasoning faculties, he naturally 
 imagines that by presents and genuflexions, etc., he will influence 
 the decisions of the gods, made after his own image. Then the 
 temple is built and the priest appears. At first the temple is 
 very humble. It is a mere hut, like any other habitation. The 
 gods are conceived to be wandering creatures very similar to men i 
 
520 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iii. 
 
 they have, therefore, an asylum oflfered to them, or a house in 
 ■which they may rest themselves. The images of his gods are 
 put in this dwelling-place, and they are often confounded with the 
 gods themselves before man has learnt how to abstract the spirit 
 from the idol which it is intended to represent. Nothing can be 
 more common than these primitive temples in Equatorial Africa, 
 in the valley of the Niger, in Ashantee, and in other places. Nothing 
 also is more natural than that when the people should have formed 
 a convenient lodging for their idol they should offer him food, fruit, 
 and animals to eat. In principle, the sacrifices and the offerings 
 have no other object but to supply the god with nourishment. 
 It is for that reason that the African negro kills his fowls in the 
 hut of the fetich ; it is for that reason that the Polynesians allow 
 their pigs to become putrid in their Morais. 
 
 With the temple, or often before the temple is built, the priest 
 mil appear. He is not yet the majestic and official personage of 
 more advanced civilisations. He is simply a member of the tribe, 
 who, with more or less good faith, pretends to be endowed with the 
 privilege of communicating with the spirits, to serve as a medium 
 between them and men, to cure the maladies so often caused by 
 the ill-wnll or anger of the invisible powers. This chosen man is 
 as yet no more than a modest-minded sorcerer. "We find him gifted 
 with very inferior powers among the Kafir tribes ; for there his 
 only superiority is in being able to send rain. 
 
 But when the house for the spirit has been built, the sorcerer 
 then very readily develops into the man-fetich, the guardian, the 
 servant of God. This is not, however, always the case. Li this 
 early period the forms of worship are often performed by the head 
 of the family; for each family has very frequently its own peculiar 
 gods. Among the Vedic Aryans it was the head of the family who 
 offered up the sacrifice to Agni. The same practice prevails also in 
 many districts in Equatorial Africa. But when there are gods 
 belonging to each tribe, the care of communicating with them is 
 borne by the chiefs or by special sorcerers, by priests, who, pos- 
 sessing the ear of the divinities, know what they ought to do to 
 conciliate them j and these men are paid by the public for their 
 
Chap. XVII.] WOESHIP AND PEIESTHOOD. 
 
 UNI7BRSI 
 
 services. By degrees, these priests, among whom the priesthood 
 was at first merely a personal matter, ended by forming among 
 many people an hereditary caste. We find this to be the case in the 
 majority of the Polynesian archipelagoes, at Tahiti, in the Mar- 
 quesas islands, at Tonga, and in others. These important per- 
 sonages henceforward concern themselves with all the acts of social 
 life. Their important business is to present to the gods their 
 offerings, to sacrifice both the animal and the human victims ; and 
 sometimes, as in Polynesia, to designate the human beings. Por 
 nearly everywhere the primitive gods have been large eaters \ they 
 have been very fond of blood, and often of human blood. 
 
 Once constituted into a caste apart, or even a well-defined class 
 of men, the priests have nearly everywhere been disposed to set 
 themselves up as civil governors, and they would have succeeded if 
 in the primitive societies the perpetual state of war did not neces- 
 sarily engender a class of military chiefs. But sometimes, as in 
 that part of India where the Menu Code is in vogue, the warlike 
 aristocracy itself submits, more or less docilely, to these divine men, 
 who were ordinarily held to be the guardians of morality. Some- 
 times, also, an alliance, more or less intimate, was formed between 
 the kings, the nobles, and the priests, between the men of the 
 sword and those of the altar : the spiritual and the temporal powers 
 mutually protect their own interests in the best way they can. 
 
 It may happen, also, that theocracy will get the upper hand ; but 
 it can hardly do so imless the country is more or less completely 
 free from warlike invasions. The Tibetan theocracy ofi'ers to us 
 the most remarkable instance of the absolute triumph of the religious 
 power. There we find a whole people of lamas maintained by the 
 laborious part of the nation, and inhabiting some thousands of 
 convents, from which they govern the country. This clergy,'hier- 
 archically organised, has its koutoukous, whom we may compare 
 with the Catholic cardinals, and its Dalai-Lama, the grand lama of 
 Lassa, a pope three times holy, and having over his colleague in 
 the Vatican the inestimable advantage of being immortal — a privi- 
 lege enjoyed by all the great dignitaries of the lamaic church. None 
 of these holy personages ever die. Prom time to time they trans- 
 
 Y 
 
322 AFFECTIVE LIFE. [Book iir. 
 
 migrate, leaving a worn-out body to be born again in a miraculoua 
 child, who has kept the recollections of his former existence, as he 
 is able to prove by interrogatories that are put to him. Occasionally, 
 the lamaic dignitaries before changing their body will designate the 
 place of their future regeneration. Many simple lamas also enjoy 
 this faculty of revival, and in certain convents in Bhotan the share 
 of temporal wealth assigned to each father is made proportionate 
 according to the number of his transmigrations. 
 
 "Wherever priesthood has taken a firm hold, the ritual, gradually 
 growing more perfect, becomes at last a science; and also the dwelling- 
 places of the gods, which were at first so humble, become changed 
 into sumptuous buildings. But, in short, the ceremonial forms are 
 always reduced to certain obsequious practices destined either to 
 appease the divinities or to bring them into a good humour. The 
 worship is nothing more than knowing how to ask favours of the 
 divine personages. This act will vary very much, according to the 
 race of people and the degree of their civilisation ; but the founda- 
 tion of it is always the offering, the spontaneous gift of presents 
 supposed to be agreeable to the gods. At the outset these presents 
 were very coarse. They consisted of food, drink, and perfumes, 
 and often of animal or human sacrifices ; for anthropophagy exists 
 or has existed in every country. The gods are everywhere very 
 like the men who made them. 
 
 In the most primitive phase men thought only of giving to the 
 gods food to eat ; then in order to please them more they invented 
 self-privations, they imposed upon themselves suff'erings, and they 
 allowed themselves to be sacrificed as victims. Facts of this kind 
 are over-abundant in the annals of humanity. When he was 
 losing a battle, the king of the Moabites promised to bum his son 
 under the walls of the town. The sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter 
 is well known. In honour of their god Moloch the Phoenicianf 
 used to burn the children of their noblest families. 
 
 But as the intelligence in any race of people increased, theii 
 religious fervour has grown more timid and more parsimonious. 
 Prayer and genuflexions have gradually replaced the burdensome 
 peace-ofi'erings and the bloody sacrifices. Sometimes, as in China, 
 
€hap. XVII.] WORSHIP AND PEIESTHOOD. 323 
 
 ofFerings are made only in effigy ; paper images are substituted for 
 the real objects, and are burned in tbeir place. The primitive 
 man, urged by some need or by some emotion, prays coarsely but 
 sincerely. " Come and pray," a missionary said to an islander in 
 Madagascar. "Pray for what? I am not in want of anything 
 now," was the answer. After awhile prayer becomes a formula 
 read mechanically at stated times ; rites and ceremonies are per- 
 formed without warmth, without earnestness, simply from habit. 
 This change seems to indicate that the age of faith will give way 
 to the age of examination, that the age of ignorance will have to 
 yield to the age of knowledge. 
 
 T 2 
 
BOOK lY. 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 I. 
 
 Union of the Sexes among Animals, 
 
 It may not perhaps be amiss, if on the subject of marriage, as well 
 as on the majority of psychological and sociological questions, we 
 begin by noting shortly some of the habits common in the animal 
 kingdom. 
 
 As reproduction is the most imperative condition for the dura- 
 tion of any organic kind, all animals of different sex, especially 
 those for whom coupling is necessary, seek each other and draw 
 near together at different seasons of the year for the purpose of 
 multiplying their own kind. Were we now concerned with 
 psychology we should ask, whence comes and how is born in us 
 the amorous instinct — a providential condition for the duration of 
 any species — this tyrannical instinct, the cause of sympathy for 
 others, and also of intense egoism % It is not our business now, in 
 a sociological point of view, to do more than state the fact, and to 
 enumerate the different customs. 
 
 These customs are multiple. The most inferior, and one of the 
 commonest, is promiscuity. Many animals copulate together as the 
 wish prompts them. They are not careful in their choice, nor do 
 they think of inconstancy. We know, however, that among many 
 kinds, specially among certain kinds of birds, the male courts the 
 female, and tries to please her. They will sometimes leave each 
 
328 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 other as soon as their desire has been satisfied, or they may remain 
 together until the young ones are fledged. 
 
 If promiscuity is frequent among animals, polygamy also is not 
 uncommon. In that case, the male will appropriate to himself 
 a certain number of females, and will drive away all rivals. The 
 ham-door cock is a type of a polygamous and jealous animal Eut 
 polygamy is far from being the rule among animals. In point 
 of fact, it is hardly possible but among the sociable animals, among 
 those who flock together, and also where the number of the females 
 is very much larger than that of the males. It becomes a matter 
 of necessity in hymenopteral societies, where there are only a few 
 males among a very large population of females. 
 
 Animal polyandry is very rare, for among all the superior kinds, 
 the female, because of her relative weakness, is obliged to receive 
 the caresses of the male, and she cannot form for herself and 
 maintain a masculine seraglio. In many kinds the female seems to 
 have a decided predilection for the stronger creature, and when the 
 male rivals fight together as to which shall own her, she waits 
 quietly until the conqueror declares himself, and then gives herself 
 up to him. We should have to shut our eyes very closely not to 
 recognise that, in the human kind, amorous selection is made in 
 the same way, perhaps in more disguised and more various forms. 
 
 Monogamy is not very rare among animals. It has been adopted 
 by some of the superior races of men, among men, too, of difi'erent 
 temperaments : our moralists are pleased to regard it as the form 
 par excellence of human marriage. Monogamy is compulsory among 
 creatures who are scattered apart very widely, who can hardly live 
 together except in couples, either because their means of subsistence 
 is scarce, or because they are naturally of an imsociable kind. 
 These conditions, however, are not absolutely necessary. The 
 macacus silenus of India has only one female, and he is 
 faithful to her up to his death. In the guinea-fowl kind the 
 male confines himself to one female, no matter how large be the 
 number of hens. The mode of intercourse will sometimes change 
 with the kind of life. The wild duck, for instance, ordinarily a 
 monogamous bird, becomes polygamous when he is tamed. It may 
 
*Chap. I.] MAEEIAGE. 329 
 
 he that the monogamous social animals, as the guinea-fowl, come 
 from ancestors who have for a long time lived together in isolated 
 ^couples. 
 
 We know that there are animals among whom a real and moral 
 .monogamy exists, to a greater extent even than our notion of 
 -human monogamy. In our kind the death of a husband or of a 
 wife does not leave the other inconsolable. With the Illinois parrot 
 Ipsitfacus pertinax), widowhood and death are ordinarily synony- 
 mous ; and a similar case has been observed in an ouistiti {hapale 
 j'acchus) in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. In man, as in animals, 
 the strength of the affective sentiments is not always proportionate 
 to the degree of intelligence. 
 
 We will conclude by mentioning certain kinds of an eminently 
 sociable nature — ^bees and ants — among whom the desire for the 
 public prosperity has overruled their own personal instincts to such 
 •an extent that with them reproduction has become, through the 
 divisioning of labour, a work set apart for particular individuals. 
 -So much self-denial has not yet been observed in any group of 
 men; for it would seem that the celibacy of the lamas, of the 
 Tibetans, and others, has quite other ends in view than working 
 for the joint interests of all the members. 
 
 But among animals there are no laws or codes decreeing or pre- 
 ecribing the union of the sexes. Why then are the modes of this 
 union so various 1 It is only in the competition for life, in the 
 necessities brought about by the struggle for existence, that we can 
 find the reason. The dispersion or the congregation of individuals, 
 the proportion of the sexes in each kind, play certainly the principal 
 part in production coming from promiscuity, from monogamy, 
 or from polygamy. The conjugal form, which is the most sure 
 method for the reproduction of the species, which has best adapted 
 itself to the ways of household life, and for guarding against rivalry ; 
 — for these and other reasons the conjugal form has been necessarily 
 adopted, it has become customary, first from habit, and afterwards 
 by force of instinct. There can be no doubt that an unswerving 
 monogamy, of which we have given instances, has for certain kinds, 
 under given circumstances, a considerable advantage; it enables 
 
320 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 them to protect their young and also to preserve of them a greater 
 number. 
 
 The same law, the same necessities, have led dififerent human 
 societies into this or into that connubial system. And to say the 
 truth, man, intelligent as he may be in this respect, has not shown 
 himself to be much more inventive than the animal. He has been 
 less so, for, unlike bees and ants, he has not attempted to set 
 apart a caste uniquely for the purpose of reproduction. Man has- 
 sometimes, though not always, better determined the form of sexual 
 unions. It is mainly in the human societies that marriage exists — 
 that is to say, a sexual union governed by social conventions — but 
 these conventions are far from having everywhere and always any 
 strict system of laws. 
 
 II. 
 
 On Human Marriage. 
 
 "We shall see that in many primitive human societies the sexual 
 unions are altogether of an animal kind, without law, and without- 
 restraint. Are we to suppose, then, as some sociologists would 
 have us believe, that this bestial condition is in man a first step, 
 from which marriage has evolved by passing through weU-known 
 phases of existence, everywhere the same 1 By no means. Like 
 animals, men have to obey the severe laws of necessity, and necessity 
 makes her wants felt in very various ways. And also, like animals, 
 primitive men satisfy their gross desires as far as it may be in their 
 power to do so. In one race of men, or even in one tribe, we may 
 find different forms of sexual union, for among most savages there 
 are no laws upholding morality, or ofi'ering protection to the weak. 
 We have already seen how, in primitive societies, the lives of 
 children were left merely to the caprice of their parents. The lives 
 of women are not protected more surely, and their liberty of action 
 is very much less certain. But, as in the long run the prosperity 
 of any social group will depend upon the individual acts of each 
 of its members, this or that code of manners will at last be the 
 means of bringing about the extinction or the survival of a 
 tribe, struggling for existence against its rivals. Under the 
 
Chap. I.] MARRIAGE. 331 
 
 influence of outside circumstances, customs that are socially useful 
 will end by implanting themselves in the ethnical groups. Habit& 
 and manners are formed, and to depart from these is found to be 
 prejudicial to man ; but these manners will vary because the con- 
 ditions of the battle for life are not everywhere the same. That 
 is why the form of sexual unions — of marriage if we wish — is also 
 variable. Promiscuity, polygamy, polyandry, partial marriages — 
 obliging those joined together for a portion only of the week or of 
 the month, and permitting simultaneously a dozen or twenty unions 
 — monogamy, exogamic marriage, and endogamic marriage, all 
 these will be found to exist capriciously in the different human 
 societies. For instance, a never failing monogamy, which all our 
 moralists extol as as the type par excellence of conjugal life, is 
 practised by the Veddahs in Ceylon ; and here we find a people not 
 much superior to certain animals. Many of the Veddahs, like many 
 animals, live in couples, being very much scattered and dispersed, 
 and, consequently, polygamy as well as polyandry is impossible to 
 them. The noblest forms of connubial life are not, in our opinion, 
 always the sign of a high intellectual development. The facts 
 which we shall adduce will show that marriage, like everything 
 else, is governed by the necessities of existence. 
 
 III. 
 
 Marriage in Melanesia. 
 
 There used to be in Tasmania a custom, which still exists in 
 Australia, and in the greater part of the Melanesian islands, allow- 
 ing exogamic marriage, or marriage by capture. Such is, among 
 these people, the legal form of sexual union. Later on we shall have 
 to describe it. It is the amorous form of sexual union j for exo- 
 gamic marriage has no other object in Australia than the possession 
 of a slave, of a beast of burden, to carry wood and water, etc. In 
 the heart of the tribe, girls from the age of ten years and upwards, 
 and boys from the age of thirteen or fourteen, will cohabit together 
 freely. The people hold certain festivals intended as the signal to- 
 the young people to begin their intercourse. It is also the duty of 
 
332 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 young girls to go at night and offer themselves to the guests made 
 welcome by the tribe. Parents, too, will often unite with their 
 -children. 
 
 In point of fact, marriage in Australia does not exist ; and if 
 we look at the matter a little closely, we might dispense altogether 
 with any theory as to exogamic marriages. That which travellers 
 have wrongly called marriage is no more than the capture of a 
 slave, who, no doubt, may be used by the master for his amorous 
 pleasures, if he so pleases. She is his domestic animal, his thing, 
 his creature, whom he has the right to beat, to hurt, to kill, or 
 even, in case of need, to eat. We may understand that this unen- 
 viable position has been reserved to women violently taken away 
 ironi rival tribes, and that the men have not the right to inflict 
 such punishment upon those women who bear their name, or 
 even upon any woman belonging to their own tribe. Eyre, in his 
 " Discoveries in Central Australia," has given us a description of 
 -one of these so-called marriages. The man begins by stunning 
 with his douah the woman whom he finds a long way from his own 
 people; then he drags her along by her hair. He waits awhile 
 'Until she has partially recovered her senses, and then obliges her to 
 follow him into his tribe. He violates her, of course, if he chooses 
 to do so. This form of rape is considered in Australia as a praise- 
 worthy action, and children will practise it in their games. This 
 is the most brutal form of sexual union, and assuredly it does not 
 deserve the name of marriage. A milder form of rape, which is 
 .sometimes practised, may be called marriage with a smaller inver- 
 sion of truth ; for, according to the Rev. Mr. Bonwick, the woman 
 in Tasmania was occasionally forewarned, and the rape was therefore 
 only fictitious. This was a rare occurrence ; but when the woman 
 had been taken an arrangement was entered into with the people 
 of the tribe to whom she belonged. On a certain day, in presence 
 of the two tribes collected together, the ravisher had to stand as a 
 butt to the adverse tribe, while they threw at him a certain number 
 of darts. He was allowed to make use of his little shield as a 
 weapon of defence. As a general rule no blood was shed; tlie 
 leconciliation was effected by love-feasting on both sides. Or 
 
Chap. I.] MAREIAGE. 33& 
 
 sometimes the people celebrated the marriage by tying the couple 
 to the same tree, and by breaking in each of them one of their 
 incisor teeth. From this moment the woman carried off belongs to^ 
 the man; he has the right to treat her as he pleases, and also to 
 lend her, or to hire her to any customer. As regards the womanr 
 possessed, an unauthorised infidelity on her part is forbidden to her. 
 She is often punished for it most brutally, for the captured woman 
 is held to be the property of her master. 
 
 As it was not always easy to arrange this pretended exogamic- 
 marriage many of the Australians remain unmarried, and the 
 majority of them rarely try the experiment before they are- 
 thirty years of age. "We can understand that polygamy is not 
 forbidden to them. Those who do not possess wives of their own' 
 resort to endogamic promiscuity, when they do not for a few 
 presents hire the wives of their friends. 
 
 These customs, taken together with the infanticide of girls, keep- 
 the population upon a level with the means of subsistence to be 
 found in the country. In many tribes the women are less 
 numerous than the men ; hence the necessity for promiscuity and 
 a natural tendency towards exogamy. 
 
 The custom of capturing women exists also in a certain number 
 of the Melanesian islands. At Bali, an island between Java and 
 New Guinea, the carrying away of women is practised exactly as 
 in Australia; violation follows immediately afterwards. The 
 ravisher then pays to the parent the price of the woman ravished, 
 and she becomes his slave. In Fiji, too, rape, real or feigned, was 
 a common practice. As regards the woman, either she ran to 
 some one to implore protection, or she accepted the ravisher for her 
 husband, and a feast given to her parents legalised the whole 
 transaction. In Fiji, as in Australia, women are the property 
 of their husbands ; the chiefs sometimes possess several hundred, 
 among whom some few are considered legitimate, and their 
 children can inherit. The others are concubines, slaves, domestic 
 animals, whom the master keeps for his warriors so as to encourage 
 their fidelity. Even the lawful wives of the Fijian chiefs have 
 very singular duties to perform. At the time of their marriage 
 
334 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 they choose from among the people a very young girl, whom they 
 brmg up carefully until she has reached the nubile age ; then upon 
 a given day, after having carefully washed, perfumed, and decked 
 with flowers the hair of this girl, the wife leads her naked to her 
 master and retires in silence. 
 
 It does not appear that the marriage by means of capture is 
 very frequent in JS'ew Caledonia. Children are betrothed to each 
 other when very young ; but this is a matter of no consequence 
 whatever. Here, as elsewhere in Melanesia, polygamy is lawful to 
 all those who can practise it ; it replaces domesticity, a thing quite 
 unknown to the New Caledonians. 
 
 Marriages between close relations on the mother's side do not 
 take place in New Caledonia, and this probably indicates a former 
 epoch when promiscuity was common and it became difficult to 
 recognise the father. The New Caledonian married woman is con- 
 sidered to be the property of her husband; he may put her to 
 death in case of adultery, but he often contents himself with 
 punishing her by driving her out, after he has made her undergo 
 -some process of scalping. In New Caledonia the sexual relations 
 are curious by reason of their very brutality. They rarely take 
 place at night, for the men and women sleep in separate huts. It is 
 ordinarily in the daytime, in a thicket, that the man and the 
 woman come together, like animals, more canino, as the theo- 
 logians say. (E. Foley, " Bull. Soc. d' Anthropologic.") According to 
 0. Beccari, similar practices exist also among the Papuans of New 
 Guinea. 
 
 We may add that the New Caledonian customs oblige every 
 man, married or not, to marry immediately his brother's widow ; 
 this custom is very common, and it was in vogue even among the 
 Jews. 
 
 From what has been said, we see that the union of the two sexes 
 in New Caledonia does not deserve the name of marriage. But the 
 institution is just beginning, for a friendly convention takes place 
 between the parents, establishing the right of property in the 
 woman ; and oven in certain tribes, notably at Kanala, there is a 
 kind of legal control over conjugal affairs. In this last-named tribe 
 
■Chap, i.] MARRIAGE. 335 
 
 every individual taken in adultery is judged by a council of old 
 men, over whom the chief presides, and the culprit is generally 
 put to death upon the spot. This infraction upon the husband's 
 rights is held to be a serious violation of property. 
 
 By the side of the marriage, or the so-called marriage of the New 
 Caledonians, we may consider the promiscuity of the Andamanites. 
 It is altogether primitive and animal. Their women belong to all 
 the members of the tribe ; resistance is held to be a grave offence, 
 and is very severely punished. When the woman becomes big 
 with child, a sort of temporary union sometimes subsists between 
 her and the man ; but that ceases as soon as the child is weaned. 
 
 These Melanesian customs show us how the people originally 
 regarded the marriage ceremony. At first there was absolute pro- 
 miscuity, which still exists more or less among the different 
 ethnical groups; then the scarcity of women and the need of 
 beasts of burden inclined them to have recourse, as far as they 
 were able, to exogamic rapture, which they began by practising 
 with excessive violence, as though they were beasts of prey. 
 Then by degrees the tribes who were interested, after examination 
 and bargaining on both sides, ratified the treaty. Later on, the 
 rapture of women became more and more an affair of ceremony, 
 a sort of predestined comedy. But polygamy has always been 
 lawful ; the woman has always been the property of the master ; 
 infidelity on her part was not allowed unless he ordered it ; she 
 never had the right to be jealous of her husband, and she was 
 exposed to every kind of bad treatment which he chose to inflict 
 .upon her. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Marriage in Africa, 
 
 It is not impossible that promiscuity may have been general 
 amongst every horde of primitive men, but we do not now find it 
 among the Hottentots, nor do we find the exogamic rape. Of 
 this latter phase of conjugal existence, M. Lennan would make a 
 phase apart, as though it either does now, or has at one time, 
 
336 y SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it.. 
 
 everywhere existed. The Hottentot girl belongs to her parents,, 
 who, in a friendly way, barter her for an ox or for a cow. The 
 Hottentot w^omen age very rapidly, and the men, whether married 
 or not, for polygamy is not forbidden to them, generally besj)eak 
 in advance little girls, six or seven years of age, to replace their 
 wives when they have grown too old. The Hottentot girls are 
 nubile at the age of twelve or thirteen, and with them old age is 
 as precocious as their nubility. The Hottentot marriage is purely 
 commercial. It is in no way binding, and may always be cancelled 
 at will. The Hottentot women are more numerous than the men,. 
 polygamy may therefore be considered necessary ; and in agricul^ 
 tural districts founded by the missionaries, the introduction of a 
 Christian form of marriage was met with the strongest objections 
 by the people of both sexes. We find among them nothing which, 
 even in the slightest way, resembles the form of marriage, as it is 
 understood by our European moralists and our legislators. The 
 Bushmen, whom we may consider as the least civilised of the 
 Hottentot tribes, have in their language no expression to distinguish 
 a girl from an unmarried woman. 
 
 As regards the sexual union, the manners of the Kafirs are very 
 like those of the Hottentots. Lichtenstein tells us that love has 
 absolutely no voice or persuasion in the matter ; and the opinion 
 of many other explorers fully bears out this assertion. The chiefs 
 and the rich men have always several wives, and therefore women 
 are relatively rare in the marriage market. The custom is to buy 
 them from their parents when they are young children. With the 
 Makololos the price paid to the father of the future wife buys also 
 the right which the father-in-law would otherwise have over his 
 daughter's children. When once duly bought the Kafir woman 
 is, in the full meaning of the word, the property of her husband. 
 The master of the woman may use her or abuse her; he has 
 the right to kill her if she dares to lift up her hand against 
 him. He may beat her as he pleases ; he may let her out 
 for hire to the first white man who asks for her. The Kafir 
 women, too, appear not to know what the feeling of jealousy 
 is ; they are very anxious that their masters should buy wives 
 
Chap, i.] MAERIAGE. 337 
 
 younger than they are themselves. Their authority thus becomes 
 increased and their labour lessened. Exogamy does not seem to 
 exist as a rule among the Kafirs, unless we rigorously examine the 
 system of rape practised by the Dammaras upon the Namaqua 
 Hottentots, or the repugnance of the Bakalaharis to marry a woman 
 who has been chosen for them. 
 
 In Gaboon the habits are very similar. Girls are bespoken, 
 bought, and betrothed — if we wish so to call it — when they are 
 three or four years old ; they are mothers at thirteen or fourteen ; 
 they age very rapidly, and they often die young and childless. The 
 buyer takes possession of the creature bought when she is eight or 
 nine years old. Polygamy exists everywhere. The women are 
 mere beasts of burden, who cultivate the earth ; they are obliged 
 to furnish their master with food, who remains idle, and who 
 lacerates them at his pleasure with his fearful cutting whip. As 
 the woman is only an article of property, her adulteries, to which 
 she is very liable, are severely punished, both upon her and upon 
 her accomplice, especially if she be the principal wife, who is 
 ordinarily the one first married. The paramour of this first wife 
 is at least sold as a slave. After any man's death his heir has the 
 right to take possession of all his wives, and to distribute them if 
 he pleases among his relations. 
 
 Among the Ashantis, a people relatively civilised, we find the 
 same system of polygamy, and the same custom of early betrothals. 
 The rights of the husband are alway s excessive. Every act of 
 privacy taken with the young girl betrothed is punished with a 
 fine, of which the affianced husband has the advantage. Later on, 
 in the case of adultery, the master may either kill his wife, or slit 
 her nose and marry her to a slave. He has also the right to cut her 
 upper lip if she betrays one of his secrets, or to cut her ear if he 
 catches her eavesdropping. If the husband disappears for three 
 years his wife may marry again, but should the first husband return 
 all the children of the second marriage will belong to him. The 
 daughters of the king are the only girls allowed to choose their 
 lover or their husband ; he is literally their slave, and he is bound 
 to kill himself if his wife dies before him. In this particular case 
 
 Vz 
 
338 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 the masculine pre-eminence has to lower his flag before the prestige 
 of monarchy. 
 
 In the basin of the Niger, in Soudan, among the Fulahs, the 
 lolofs, the Mandingos, the Bambarrans, and others, where Islamism 
 exercises more or less influence, marriage is performed after a some- 
 what less inhuman fashion. The woman is not so fearfully ill- 
 treated. Her wish is even sometimes consulted. If the husband 
 is a rich man, he gives a dowry to his wife, and to his slave-wives- 
 he gives difi'erent articles for toilet use, or he gives them stones and 
 mortar to grind their com. Here and there, too, certain rights are- 
 granted to women : for instance, at "Wow and at Boussa no woman 
 can marry but with the consent of her grandmother as long as the^ 
 gi'andmother be alive. 
 
 With the Soulimas the woman may leave her husband to marry 
 another man, on condition that she gives back the money paid for 
 her at her former marriage. The Fanti women on the Guinea coast 
 have a similar custom j but beyond this repayment of money they 
 have to discharge a certain debt for each of the children that their 
 husband has been good enough to give them. "VVe must add that 
 in this country the husbands turn polygamy to their profit, for they 
 make a certain yearly income by bartering their children. 
 
 In many districts of Soudan the union between the two sexes is 
 contracted after a manner quite as brutal as among the most inferior 
 class of negroes. The Timmani girl is not consulted in any possible 
 way. A man buys her for so many earthenware jars of palm wine, 
 or for stufis, etc. The Mandingos have the same customs ; when 
 the treaty is concluded, the husband and his friends will carry the 
 girl away with them. It is simply marriage by capture. In Yarriba 
 the natives choose their wiyes with the utmost indifierence, just as 
 they would *^ pick a handful of corn." In Kouranko the young 
 girls are first bought by rich old men, and when their old husbands 
 die they are free, and consequently take their revenge by choosing 
 for themselves a young man whom they like. In Yarriba the son 
 inherits his father's widows. Elsewhere the women are sold on the 
 death of their husband, if they have born no child. In certain districts 
 of Senegambia the people have invented a rather fantastic form of 
 
Chap, i.] MAEKIAGE. 339 
 
 administering justice. The Mumbo-Jumbo appears in the evening, 
 dressed in a peculiar and strange costume, before all the assembled 
 population, and he there and then chastises all the women of bad 
 reputation. 
 
 If the African negro woman is nearly everywhere treated as a 
 beast of burden, it would seem also, from the opinion of most 
 travellers, that her manners are very dissolute. According to 
 Du Chaillu and Schweinfurth, this is the case from Gaboon as far as 
 the basin of the Upper Mle. There, too, polygamy prevails ; the 
 woman is bought for so many iron utensils, which, among the 
 Eongos, the father is bound to return, or at least some of them, in 
 case of divorce. If the husband keeps the children the restitution 
 must be complete. 
 
 The property in the woman is inviolable in law, and adultery is 
 punished with immediate death. 
 
 In nearly every district of Africa peopled by negroes the woman 
 is the thing of her husband ; he has the right to make use of her as 
 though she were a beast of burden, and he does in reality make 
 her work as if she were one of his oxen. " 1 bought her," said a 
 Kafir, one day, speaking of his wife, " and therefore she ought to 
 work." Among the Mussulman negroes the marabout blesses the 
 marriage ; but everywhere else marriage is merely a civil and com- 
 mercial contract, into which religion in any form does not enter. 
 Polygamy is everywhere the rule ; the man may also divorce his 
 wife by paying some necessary compensation. In Madagascar the 
 marriage ceremony is performed before a magistrate after the pay- 
 ment of a certain fee ; but even then the husband may, on paying 
 the fee a second time, repudiate his wife. She then is free, 
 unless before the expiration of twelve days the husband thinks 
 well to change his mind. 
 
 The woman's virginity is neither thought about or cared for 
 except in the Mussulman countries where the Moorish race has 
 more or less penetrated. At Kaarta the women of the country 
 come together the morning after the marriage and carefully examine 
 the nuptial bed, and unless the woman's innocence be shown the 
 marriage may be considered as void. But with the Sakkalaves of 
 
 z 2 
 
340 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 Madagascar it is quite otherwise. There the young girls unflower 
 themselves before marriage, unless their parents have already taken 
 the same necessary precautions. 
 
 In those parts of Africa inhabited by the Arabs, the Berbers, 
 the iNTubians, the Abyssinians, the connubial customs will vary 
 considerably, for in them people are of different races, some of 
 them of Asiatic origin. The Egyptian, the Arabian, and the 
 Byzantine civilisations and religions have left deep traces over 
 all the northern regions of the African continent. The ancient 
 Egyptians were monogamists ; they gave a dowry to their 
 daughters, and they punished adultery by inflicting on the man a 
 thousand cuts with the rod, and by slitting the nose of the woman. 
 None of these customs have come down to our times, but it is 
 perhaps owing to the traditions of Egyptian manners that the 
 Berber women now enjoy their great liberty : they are absolute 
 mistresses over their property, their own actions, and their children 
 who bear their name. In certain of the Sahara tribes, Berbers to 
 aU appearance, repudiation is considered as an honour for women. 
 They say to each other : " You are a woman, from no one knows 
 where .... men have disdained you, and yet one man wished 
 to have you as his own." 
 
 Among the Hassiniyeh Arabs of Nubia we find a very strange 
 custom — that of three-quarter marriages — which allows the woman 
 to dispose of her person one day out of every four. Among other 
 Juarick and Saharah tribes, it is thought that a girl before she is 
 married ought to gain as much by prostitution as she has hitherto 
 cost to bring up ; and she who has had the greatest success is the 
 most eagerly sought after in marriage. The spirit of initiative 
 movement and of conjugal liberty in conjugal life appears to be a 
 characteristic trait among the Berbers, for the Guanches, who, it 
 would seem once belonged to this race, had systematised polyandry 
 in some of the Canary islands. 
 
 Marriages between brothers and sisters — which were held legal 
 and honourable in ancient Egypt, where the queens used to boast 
 of being both "sisters and wives of the king" — are now also 
 customary in Darfur. In this country, where the liberty of 
 
Chap, i.] MARRIAGE. 341 
 
 manners is very great, the danghters of the sultan are the absolute 
 mistresses of the man. They admit them to their bed, though 
 polygamy, the most unrestrained concubinage, and the servitude 
 of women are the usual habits of the country. 
 
 We have mentioned the three-quarter marriages among certain 
 of the Nubian tribes. At the other extremity of the north of 
 Africa, among the Jews in Morocco, we hear of temporary marriages, 
 marriages blessed by the rabbis for three months, or for six months; 
 the man makes a donation, and binds himself to recognise the 
 child should a child be born during that time. At Haiti and 
 in Abyssinia, even now free marriage is common ; at the time of 
 Herodotus certain of the Ethiopian tribes did not know what mar- 
 riage meant. We know that in Abyssinia, in spite of the Christian 
 religion — or what passes for such — people come together and leave 
 each other as they please. Bruce saw an Abyssinian woman sur- 
 rounded by seven former husbands. At Haiti, in addition to the 
 legal monogamic marriage, there are free unions, implying no sort 
 of dishonour. These are the unions of those who are already 
 placed. People in the most respectable families contract these free 
 unions. Children thus born enjoy all the rights of lawful born 
 children, and separations are more rare among the placed people 
 than divorces among those who are married. 
 
 From what we have already seen, it would be very difficult as 
 yet to deduce any general theory as to the origin and the evolution . 
 of marriage ; but we are far from having terminated our inquiry. 
 Let us see if America, Polynesia, Asia, and Europe will furnish us 
 with any new materials. 
 
 V. 
 
 Marriage in America, 
 
 Among the belated Euegians, as soon as a young man has acquired 
 a sufficient proficiency in the chase, as soon as he has learnt how 
 to build or to steal one of the coarsely made canoes of bark used by 
 the people of his race, he has then the right to possess a wife. He 
 generally kidnaps her. But, according to Captain Eitzroy, it would 
 
342 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 seem that he confines his choice to women of his own tribe; 
 consequently the kidnapping is not exogamic. 
 
 Endogamic kidnapping is practised also among the Araucanians. 
 These women will always protect the girl as far as they can with 
 sticks and stones, and if the parents make any opposition, the 
 future spouse blows his horn, thus giving the signal to his friends 
 to make a raid and so carry off the girl of his choice. This endo- 
 gamic kidnapping does not at all prevent the exogamic rape. 
 The men endeavour to keep up a harem of female prisoners, and 
 in the midst of the tribe, the kidnapping, real or feigned, does not 
 dispense them from paying for the woman more or less dearly. 
 Among the Charruas polygamy prevails, as, indeed, is common 
 among all primitive races; they also maintain the usual custom 
 of allowing the first wife to have the upper hand over the 
 others. 
 
 With the Indians, as with the greater part of the aborigines of 
 South America, the union of the two sexes was purely a civil and 
 commercial affair, which might be made to cease according to the 
 man's caprice. He had a despotic right over his wife ; the Moxos 
 could put their wives to death in the case of abortion. 
 
 Among the Guaranis, too, we also find polygamy, and the same 
 system of kidnapping; woman is with them reduced to the 
 same state of servitude, she is compelled to perform all the agri- 
 cultural labour. This is the reason of the greater part of their 
 wars and of their migrations. These rapes are made simply 
 from the desire to possess many women ; love has nothing to do 
 with the matter. On the other hand, in unions that are made 
 from free will on both sides, endogamy and even marriage between 
 relations is common enough among the majority of the tribes in 
 South America. 
 
 This latter custom was frequent with the Caribs. These 
 men would marry any one of their female relatives, with the ex- 
 ception of their sisters. In this respect the customs will vary in 
 particular districts. The Indians of Guiana are exogamic. They 
 are not allowed to marry any one in their family who bears their 
 name; the child belongs to the mother's side and takes the 
 
Chap, i.] MAERIAGE. 343 
 
 maternal name. According to Thevet, the Brazilians had very 
 ■different notions ; with them the father in each generation played 
 the principal part, the mother the second. Martins tells us that 
 the Brazilians were very irregular in their matrimonial habits, that 
 they act merely upon the necessity of the moment. In the 
 small isolated tribes the nearest relations will marry each other ; 
 but in the populous districts exogamy becomes the law. It is the 
 •same all over the world. " N"ecessity has no law," says the old 
 proverb. And though polygamy is general in South America, we 
 must make an exception in favour of the Ottomacas, and these 
 are a very unintelligent people. 
 
 We may also remark that among the aborigines of South 
 America, the chastity of the girls is held to be of no consider- 
 ation. They are neither cared for nor thought of until they come 
 io be the property of the man. Then, adultery is very severely 
 fpunished, sometimes with death, if the proprietor so wills it. 
 Thevet says that the punishment falls only on the woman ; the 
 man is spared, for fear of vengeance. 
 
 In ITorth America marriage customs are not more uniform. 
 Among the Indians of California there is almost total promis- 
 cuity. People come together without any sort or kind of formality; 
 there is no word in their language signifying marriage. The women 
 seem to belong to all the men of their tribe, and the man's jealousy 
 is not aroused until the woman chooses a lover in another horde. 
 On the other hand, many tribes on the banks of the Gilo, in 
 Colorado, and in New Mexico are monogamous, and with them 
 adultery is very rare and is very strongly condemned. 
 
 Polygamy is nearly everywhere allowed to any man who is rich 
 enough to buy several wives by purchase or otherwise. Among the 
 Ped Skins the marriages are generally exogamic. Those sociologists 
 who, following the example of M. Lennan (" Primitive Marriage "), 
 wish to make of this mode of conjugal union a general phase 
 common to all humanity, have drawn some of their most con- 
 vincing arguments from the inhabitants of N'orth America. 
 
 The tribes of the Ked Skins are ordinarily divided into several 
 <clans, each having their animal coat-of-arms, their totem, and 
 
844 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 marriage is usually forbidden between people having the same 
 totem. This custom, already noted by Charlevoix, has since been 
 mentioned by many travellers. It is with them a question of 
 an analytical and consequential form of exogamy, producing a line 
 of maternal descendants, for the children take the totem of their 
 mother and belong to her clan. 
 
 With many tribes, the Shyennes, the loways, the Kaus, the 
 Osages, the Blackfoots, the Crees, the Minetaris, the Crows, and 
 others, exogamy complicates itself with consanguineous polygamy ; 
 for a man has the right to marry his wife's younger sisters, and each 
 of them considers herself the mother of the children of the eldest 
 sister. Are we to suppose that this pacific form of exogamy has 
 followed exogamy by means of kidnapping 'i It is quite possible, 
 at least in certain regions; in Canada, for instance, where the 
 husband, if his marriage has been blessed by the chief, carries his 
 wife to his hut amid the acclamations of the spectators. We may 
 remark, in passing, that here marriage is not considered as an indi- 
 vidual act ; it is a social performance which must be sanctioned by 
 the chief of the tribe. 
 
 But this marriage is not any the less merely a commercial enter- 
 prise. The husband buys his wife, and if he is a poor man he is 
 obliged to work to gain her. He binds himself for a stated time to 
 the girl's parents, for whose benefit he hunts, he digs, he scoops 
 out the canoes. In some tribes a certain period of servitude was 
 always customary. The husband was obliged to subtract a tenth 
 part of the game that he killed for the father and mother of his 
 wife, and he was not exonerated until a girl was born to him, who 
 became the property, or perhaps, occasionally, in after years, the 
 wife of his maternal uncle. 
 
 The exogamic law, to which the majority of Red Skins are 
 bound to conform, proves that in this race marriage is tending to 
 become a social institution. But this tendency is as yet very weak. 
 Among most tribes a marriage is contracted without witnesses, 
 before no magistrate, and in presence of no priest. It is always an 
 individual act, and is often merely a coupling together. The Tinn6 
 Indians possess no word signifying " dear," or " well beloved ; " the 
 
Chap, i.] MAEKIAGE. 34& 
 
 Algonkin idiom did not know the verb "to love." The dialects 
 of the American tribes differ very much one from the other, and as 
 marriage among the Eed Skins is ordinarily exogamic, the husband 
 and wife often speak different languages. They content themselves 
 by making signs to each other. This moral intimacy between them 
 is so slight that they will constantly live together for many years 
 without being able to understand each other's language. Man is 
 everywhere a polygamous animal when such a condition is possible 
 to him. 
 
 Among the Apaches the greater number of wives a man has the 
 more is he respected ; and with them religious ideas are considered. 
 The Chippewyans say that polygamy is agreeable to the Great 
 Spirit. The Eed Skin, like the Hottentot, women are bespoken 
 a very long time in advance, at the age of ten or twelve years ; the 
 conjugal union lasts just so long as the master chooses. He has always 
 the right to send away his wife for the slightest reason, or for no 
 reason at all. Chastity is imposed only upon those married women 
 who are kept as slaves and possessed by a master. The J^atchez, 
 one of the most civilised of these tribes, would readily lend their 
 wives to their friends; and, according to Hearne, two Algonkin 
 friends would often be glad to exchange wives for a night. Among 
 the ;N"adowessioux a free woman does herself honour by giving her- 
 self after a feast to all the principal warriors of the tribe ; and an 
 exploit such as this- assures to her a husband of high rank. 
 
 A Red Skin, because he buys his wife, is not therefore always 
 her lawful master. In many districts the husband ought to be con- 
 stantly ready to refund his feminine property. Up in the far north 
 the man has to fight for the possession of his wife, and unless he 
 be known as a most skilful huntsman the weak man is rarely allowed 
 ' to keep his wife if a stronger man than he wishes to take her. These 
 facts will show clearly enough that in spite of exogamy, marriage is 
 as yet far from being a soundly-established institution amongst the 
 Eed Skins. And also, to this exogamy there are many exceptions. 
 The Chippewyans will often marry their sisters, or their daughters ; 
 they will cohabit with their mothers. The same Indians compel 
 a man to marry his brother's widow, whether the marriage be 
 
•346 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 exogamic or not. This is the famous custom of the Icvirat, common 
 among many tribes and many races of men, as well as among the 
 Jews. 
 
 This levirat custom, incestuous according to our European notion 
 of morality, is almost necessary in the primitive phases of civilisa- 
 tion, where abandonment of the woman is equivalent to causing her 
 death. From this we may gather an instructive fact : that in their 
 most essential senses our creeds of morality are prompted by 
 necessity, and also in savage tribes the period of fecundity in the 
 woman is usually short and limited ; therefore the levirat law must 
 have been favourable to the primitive human groups in their 
 struggle for existence. 
 
 The Esquimaux, whose manners are curious in many ways, would 
 seem to have at one time practised exogamy more or less, if, as is 
 probable, marriage by means of kidnapping may be considered as 
 •coming from this custom. The Esquimau of Cape York, and also 
 the Greenlander, first makes his treaty for the marriage with the 
 parents; then he affects a feigned rape of the girl, and she, on 
 her part, also makes a sort of simulated resistance. The same 
 ■customs prevail among the Kamtschadales, a people who are 
 very similar in their manners to the American Esquimaux. 
 
 Nothing, however, can be more loose than the manners of 
 Esquimaux in their sexual unions. The chiefs of the !N"ootka- 
 Columbians used to exchange their wives. The same process 
 was thought by the Greenlanders to be a noble action, 
 showing a dignity of character. The loan of a wife, among the 
 Esquimaux, is usual sometimes for several months. It is a mark 
 of most particular affection shown by the lender to his friend. But 
 the friend ought to give back the wife or wives lent, punctually at 
 the appointed time, if he wishes to be considered a gentleman. 
 Polygamy and polyandry are practised simultaneously by the 
 Esquimaux. Eoss has seen certain tribes in which polygamic 
 marriages were held to be allowable, but only in the case of 
 •sterility. With the Esquimaux, children are considered as a source 
 of wealth ; they begin to make themselves useful at eiglit years of 
 Age, and they support their parents when they have grown old. A 
 
Ohap. I.] MARRIAGE. 347 
 
 widow will re-marry all the more easily in proportion as slie has a 
 large number of children. 
 
 From the foregoing facts we may conclude that among the savage 
 tribes in America there is no prescribed form of union between the 
 two sexes ; and throughout all these vast regions there is nothing 
 which deserves the name of marriage. It is only in civilised 
 societies that marriage is legalised, and is regarded as an institu- 
 tion. It was so considered even among the ancient Mexicans and 
 Peruvians, and of them we now propose to speak. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Marriage in Mexico and Peru. 
 
 In the great empires of Central America, whose social structures 
 were of a very complicated kind, sexual unions were not considered 
 as purely individual transactions. In Peru, where the whole popu- 
 lation belonged in some way to the Inca, where men were parcelled 
 out into so many appointed divisions and made to work as beasts 
 of burden, marriage was purely an administrative act. In the 
 kingdom of Cuzco, all the individuals of both sexes who were old 
 enough to be married were brought together into a public or open 
 space in the towns and villages once in every year. In the town of 
 Cuzco the Inca himself used to marry those of his own family in 
 the public place, by joining together the hands of the different 
 couples. The chiefs of the districts^ or the curacas, in their own 
 divisions used to perform the same functions with regard to people 
 of their own rank, or even of a lower rank than their own. It is 
 said that the consent of the parents was necessary ; but that of the 
 contracting parties was not called in question. The law prescribed 
 the marriageable age to be from twenty-four to twenty-six for men, 
 and from eighteen to twenty for women. Monogamy was im- 
 posed upon the masses; polygamy was a luxury allowed only to 
 the nobles and to the Inca. The Inca made very liberal use of 
 liis privilege ; for Montezuma, the last Inca, had three thousand 
 wives, or concubines. Contrary to the exogamic habits of the 
 JN'orth Americans, endogamy was strongly enforced in Peru. It was 
 
348 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 strictly forbidden to anyone to marry outside his own admini- 
 strative division, consequently, nearly all marriages were between 
 relatives. The Inca alone married his sister, provided, however, 
 that she was not born of the same mother. By degrees this 
 incestuous habit became allowed to all the nobles of the empire. 
 
 This interference of the State in the Peruvian marriages was 
 not without certain advantages. A habitation was prepared for 
 the newly-manied couple at the expense of the State; and a 
 certain portion of land, with clearly defined boundaries, was as- 
 signed to them for their maintenance. Authoritative communism 
 was thus rigorously carried out; and we may be sure that this 
 plan served as the model for the organisations of the Jesuit 
 missions in Paraguay, and also in other parts of America. The 
 Jesuits, however, went further than the Incas, for in the provinces 
 of Moxos and Chiquito they used to take care that the husband 
 and wife were awakened an hour before the time for mass, but 
 without obliging them to get up; a curious application of the 
 biblical precept : " Increase and multiply." 
 
 When the curaca sanctioned the marriage, he made the newly- 
 married couple both take an oath of fidelity to each other, and 
 this oath, according to P. Pizarro was generally kept ; for the 
 law regarded adultery as a capital crime. At Quito, the law 
 did not intervene as between the two sexes, and the husband and 
 wife might separate by mutual consent ; but the woman taken in 
 adultery was usually buried alive, together with her paramour. It 
 would appear, however, that at Quito, as well as at Cuzco, the law 
 regarded principally the conduct of married women ; for in both 
 kingdoms prostitution was tolerated. 
 
 In Mexico also monogamy was the rule. The nobles had, 
 no doubt, more than one wife, but one only was legitiinate ; her 
 children inherited their father's title and his wealth, to the exclu- 
 sion of all the others. The levirat was lawful, even when the 
 brother of the late husband was already married. 
 
 Marriage in Mexico was conducted with much ceremony ; it was 
 arranged amicably between the parents, and the civil law of the 
 country did not interfere. In Mexico we find no trace of exogamy ; 
 
Chap, i.] MARRIAGE. 349 
 
 there was no kidnapping, even of a simulated kind. On tlie other 
 hand, the betrothed girl was led in great pomp to the dwelling- 
 place of her future husband, and he then left the habitation with 
 his family, the girl and her friends following behind. When the 
 pair met they scented each other with perfumes and incense. 
 They then sat down upon a mat, and a priest married them by 
 tying a strip of the girl's dress to the end of the man's cloak. 
 Henceforward the woman belonged to her husband's family. 
 
 We may add that the marriage was not consummated until 
 after much divination and consulting of the augurs. Strictly 
 speaking, it was not consummated until after four days of nuptial 
 feasting, in which the married couple took no part. In principle, 
 the conjugal union was for life, but divorce was admitted, and 
 there was even a tribunal specially set apart to hear and decide 
 upon all matters relating to dissolution of the marriage. After a 
 minute examination of all the facts, and after the parties had each 
 appeared three times before the court, if they both persisted in 
 their determination they were sent away without judgment being 
 pronounced. They were therefore considered as free and for ever 
 separated. But the law would not explicitly decree a divorce ; it 
 was content to tolerate it. 
 
 In our very short study on the subject of marriage in America 
 we have endeavoured to mention only the most interesting and the 
 most typical facts. What we have said is no doubt very insuffi- 
 cient. For the ethnical groups of men in America have no real 
 history ; it is at most only a legendary history, incomplete and 
 silent as to bygone times. We may, however, be sure that in 
 America the institution of marriage has not evolved itself regularly, 
 following any clearly-defined system. Each tribe, each ethnical 
 group, has consulted only its own wants, its own wishes ; and the 
 larger nations of Peru and Mexico, possessing nearly the same 
 degree of civilisation, regulated their own marriage institutions, 
 each according to their own fancy, both following a very different 
 type of legal procedure. These and many other facts seem to 
 show that it is at least premature to formulate sociological laws, 
 precise and exact in their nature as the laws of science. For our 
 
850 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 part we cannot conscientiously do more than collect various facts, 
 class them together, and so endeavour to form some general 
 theories, far from absolute, but which, we know, must always be 
 subject to revision. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Marriage in Polynesia. 
 
 After what we have already said of the unbridled desires of the 
 Polynesians in their amorous passions and of their naive shameless- 
 ness, of the society of the Areois founded upon the idea of pro- 
 miscuity and infanticide, we need not expect to find among them 
 a code of marriage laws very rigorously enforced. 
 
 Nearly everywhere in Polynesia girls and unmarried women were 
 free to give themselves to whomsoever they pleased, and from 
 their earliest years they began to take advantage of their liberty. 
 In the Marquesas islands, for instance, girls used to begin to 
 debauch themselves when they were twelve years old. Owing to 
 this kind of life, fecundity among women was not common ; and a 
 woman pregnant soon found twenty men who were willing to 
 marry her. In some few islands however — notably at Rotouma — 
 the virginity of girls was very highly esteemed ; its absence might 
 justify repudiation; and those who had kept themselves uncon- 
 taminated made it known by powdering their forehead with white 
 coral, and painting their cheeks red. 
 
 It is somewhat strange that in Polynesia, where religious rites 
 showed themselves in nearly all the acts of daily life, marriage, or 
 rather the union of the sexes, was not attended by any form or 
 ceremony. It was purely an individual act concluded between the 
 man and the girl's parents, to whom he offered pigs or stuff in 
 exchange for his purchase. The union was effected at once, in a 
 house belonging to either family, and was followed by a banquet at 
 which a pig was served as the plat de resistance. "When once 
 married, the woman, who had hitherto been so frail, was not allowed 
 to be unfaithful to her husband unless she received his consent or 
 his command, which, however, was easily bought. This free 
 
Chap. I.] MAEHIAGE. SSI- 
 
 marriage might be cancelled at pleasure, sometimes at the will of 
 either party ; it was not unfrequently cancelled, especially if no 
 children were horn. When separation did take place, the children 
 (if there were any) went with the father or the mother, as agreed 
 upon beforehand. The woman who proved unfaithful without her 
 husband's consent was chastised by him, or sometimes put to death, 
 for she was his property. In I^bmv Zealand the father or the brother, 
 in giving his daughter or his sister to a man, said to him : " If you 
 are displeased with her, sell her, kill her, eat her." An unequal 
 marriage was condemned by public opinion, more strongly even 
 than adultery. It was regarded as a capital crime for a man to 
 have intimate communication with a woman of a rank superior to 
 his own ; the woman, too, if she belonged to the aristocracy, was 
 tabooed as a plebeian — she was forbidden to marry him. 
 
 After a woman had been given to a man she still belonged to 
 her father, and he sometimes took her back if he was not satisfied 
 with the presents he received for her ; and of course he afterwards 
 sold her again upon better terms. 
 
 Polygamy was everywhere permitted, especially to the rich, with- 
 out prejudice to the numerous concubines. At Samoa, especially, 
 the chiefs used to make for themselves harems which they would 
 renew constantly, guided merely by their own personal pleasures. 
 Very often these mistresses, when the nobles had grown tired of 
 them, were attached to the service of the caravanserai. Travellers 
 were here gratuitously lodged, food was given to them, and the 
 women were free. The levirat was lawful in these islands, as in so 
 many other countries. 
 
 Some of the women in the Marquesas islands were polyandrous, 
 for the Polynesians had very few prejudices as regards sexual 
 unions. Ellis speaks of the polyandry of certain women who were 
 married to the chiefs. In the Hawaian archipelago there were 
 constitutional husbands who reigned but did not govern; they 
 merely legitimised the children of their wives, and the wives kept 
 their own personal property. Marriage between brothers and sisters, 
 rare enough in most of the islands, except with nobility, to avoid 
 an unequal union, was, however, common in the Hawaian archi- 
 
862 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 pelago. Often also in these islands, the brothers on one side and 
 the wives on the other used to live in common. 
 
 The great conjugal liberty of the Polynesians co-existed in New 
 Zealand with the practice of endogamy. It was strictly forbidden 
 to the 'New Zealander to marry, or rather, to buy a wife belonging 
 to another tribe, and leave could not be granted unless some strong 
 political argument might be furthered by the marriage. But the 
 New Zealand form of endogamy was followed by kidnapping and 
 a simulated quarrel ; in fact, by all the ceremony of marriage by 
 capture. We may consider this as an instructive fact, destroying 
 the theories hastily put forth as to the natural evolution of marriage. 
 We do not agree with M. Lennan in thinking that the form of 
 marriage by capture is necessarily a sign or a remnant of exogamy ; 
 and we are also obliged to differ from Mr. Herbert Spencer, who 
 maintains that endogamy is peculiar to peaceful races of men, for 
 no tribes can be more warlike than the New Zealanders. 
 
 The prudence of the serpent is a virtue which we ought not to 
 grow tired of recommending to our present sociologists, who seem 
 to be commissioned to found, or rather to sketch out, a theory of 
 social science. 
 
 vm. 
 
 Marriage in the Malay Archipelago, 
 
 We will not do more than mention some of the matrimonial 
 customs in the Mongoloid archipelagoes of the Pacific ocean. 
 Polygamy there is the rule; women are generally bought from 
 their parents. Adultery is blamed and punished as an outrage 
 upon property. In the Caroline islands the aggrieved husband 
 may be appeased by a present suitable to his rank, nor will he 
 make any difficulty about lending his wife or his wives to strangers. 
 In the majority of these islands, and especially in the Pelew islands, 
 polygamy, as in Polynesia, is purely an individual transaction. 
 
 The Akitas in the Philippine islands have still preserved the 
 form of marriage by capture. The lover has to look for and find 
 his future wife in the woods; she has an hour's start given 
 
Chap, i.] MAERIAGE. 353 
 
 to her, but the intended husband must bring her home before 
 sundown. 
 
 In Malay the modes of marriage are more various and are more 
 interesting. In Sumatra we find that different matrimonial cus- 
 toms were in vogue. Firstly, the woman might buy the man, who 
 became henceforward the property of the family of his wife, and 
 this family was responsible for the faults of the husband bought ; 
 the man was bound to work for the woman, he held no property 
 of his own, and he might at any time be dismissed. Secondly, 
 the woman and the man might marry upon equal terms. Thirdly, 
 the man also might buy his wife, or his wives. In these marriages, 
 or in one of them, for the details are wanting, the ceremonial form 
 of capture was preserved. 
 
 We cannot form any general knowledge as to endogamy or 
 exogamy in the Malay territory; but we may conjecture that in 
 the larger and thickly peopled islands, the customs were, and still 
 are, very various. The Kalangs of Java were endogamous ; and 
 with them, before obtaining a girl in marriage, the man had to 
 prove that he belonged to his own family. In the Malay archi- 
 pelago, marriage, like everything else, is quite the reverse of 
 uniform ; for here we find several races of men and several orders 
 of civilisation mixed up together. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Marriage among the Natives of India. 
 
 In India, the Aryan invasion, relatively of a recent date, did not 
 destroy the inferior races, for the most part negroid, who before 
 occupied the country. The people were only driven farther back 
 into the country, up into the mountains, from whence comes their 
 denomination Paharias (or mountaineers), often contracted into 
 Parias. But these ethnical helots, though their debased position, 
 from the Bramah point of view, has kept them beyond the pale 
 of the civilisation of their conquerors, have in a great measure 
 still preserved their ancient manners; and their matrimonial 
 customs are exceedingly curious. 
 
 2 A 
 
854 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 We have already spoken of the monogamy of the Veddahs in 
 Ceylon, which must, no doubt, be attributed to the extreme 
 intellectual inferiority which obliges them to live in couples apart. 
 It follows, naturally, that these poor people are endogamous, but 
 with certain restrictions. According to Bailey, they will readily 
 marry a younger sister, though never an elder sister, nor an 
 aunt. 
 
 From Ceylon as far north as Tibet a considerable number of 
 the ethnical helots, the worn-out remains of the old races, practise 
 polyandry, which in many cases would seem to be a diminished 
 and legalised ^orm of primitive promiscuity. This latter custom is 
 still common in certain tribes, notably among the Sontals, among 
 whom, as was the practice in ancient Peru, all the marriages are 
 performed at the same time, once in every year ; and !they are 
 always preceded by six days of promiscuous living. Besides this 
 custom, we may mention the trial marriages in Ceylon, temporarj^ 
 unions lasting only for a fortnight, and which may afterwards be 
 annulled or confirmed at pleasure. 
 
 Among the tribes living in the communes of Chittagong marriage 
 is no more than an animal union ; it is also, for the man, a con- 
 venient way of getting his dinner cooked, for it obliges the woman 
 to labour. 
 
 Among the Keddies in India a girl from sixteen to twenty years 
 of age is married to a boy of five or six. The wife then becomes the 
 real wife of the boy's uncle or cousin, or of the father of the reputed 
 husband. But the latter is considered to be the legal father of the 
 children of his pretended wife. And when this constitutional 
 husband has grown up, his lawful wife is already aged ; and he, in 
 return for the trick that was played upon him, does as was formerly 
 done by him. 
 
 Among the Nairs of Malabar, among the Todas on the Neilgherry 
 hills, among the Yerkalas of Southern India, among the Cingalese 
 of Ceylon, we find dififerent forms of polyandry in vogue ; they arc 
 very difi'erent, but we may consider them as only so many f onus of 
 promiscuity. 
 
 The black women who belong to the superior casto of the natives 
 
€hap. I.] MAEEIAGE. 355 
 
 of Malabar have usually five or six husbands, but they are entitled 
 to marry ten or twelve. It is sometimes allowed to them to cohabit 
 with any number of men, certain restrictions being made only as to 
 tribe and caste. "When the number of husbands is limited, the 
 woman will cohabit with them all, each in their turn, for ten or 
 twelve days. In these singular households a good understanding 
 is generally preserved. It is also lawful for each man to belong to 
 several matrimonial associations. This kind of conjugal intercourse 
 is no doubt a sort of marriage, but it is marriage in its simplest 
 form. With the Todas a girl, when married to a man, becomes 
 the wife of all the younger brothers of the husband as they in 
 turn reach the virile age ; and reciprocally, they become the hus- 
 bands of all the younger sisters of the first married wife as soon 
 as they become nubile. The first child of these unions, incestuous 
 as they appear to be to us, is attributed to the elder brother, the 
 second to the second brother, and so on. A similar custom prevails 
 among the Yerkalas ; with them the maternal uncle may claim as 
 wives for his sons the two elder daughters of his sister. 
 
 Polyandry is frequent among the Cingalese in Ceylon, especially 
 with people whose meana are sufficient, and the common husbands 
 are nearly always brothers. The family, not the individual, is 
 married, and to them the children belong as joint tenants or tenants 
 in common. With the Totyars in India the women are possessed 
 in common by the brothers, the uncles, and the nephews. 
 
 This polyandry in the old Indian races co-exists sometimes 
 together with exogamy and endogamy. The Todas have five social 
 classes, and marriage between the classes is forbidden. In many 
 tribes a man may not marry a girl of his own colour. On the 
 other hand, among the Kurds and among certain tribes in Central 
 India, the form of marriage is a feigned capture. 
 
 We also find polyandry in the north of India, among the 
 Mongolian mountaineers of the Himalaya, of Tibet, and also 
 among the ancient European races, who are probably of Asiatic 
 origin. The curious verses in the Menu Bramah Code authorising 
 the brother to make fruitful his sister-in-law, if she be childless, 
 may be considered as the remains of a primitive form of polyandry. 
 
 2 A 2 
 
^56 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 In terminating this ethnograpliical study on marriage we shall 
 have to consider if polyandry has everywhere and always been tlier- 
 
 successor to promiscuity. 
 
 Marriage in Indo-China, in Burmah, and in Tibet. 
 
 Among the Mongoloid Cochin-Chinese, the Cambogians, and 
 the Burmese, the manners are very loose, and marriage can barely 
 be said to exist. 
 
 In Burmah the nuptial ceremony consists simply in an exchange 
 of promises, which become sanctioned by tasting a leaf of the tea- 
 plant steeped in oil. People will leave each other upon the most 
 frivolous pretext, and in the most careless manner. The husband 
 has also the right to buy as many concubines as he pleases. 
 
 At the time of Marco Polo, no woman in Cochin-China might 
 marry unless the king had first seen her and exercised his right of 
 prelibation if he chose to do so ; but in this case he was supposed 
 to give her a marriage dowry. At the time of which we are 
 speaking the reigning monarch had three hundred and eighty-six 
 children. 
 
 In the thirteenth century, according to a narrative related by 
 A. Kemusat, the king of Cambogia had five lawful wives, of 
 which one was the chief wife; he also had several thousand 
 concubines. The people, timidly subservient to the despotic will, 
 considered it to be their duty to send their daughters in to the 
 service of the palace, if they were in any way good-looking. And 
 as is even now the custom in Japan, girls in Cambogia frequently 
 did not marry until they had for a certain time led a licentious 
 life, and they were in nowise considered to bo dishonoured by it. 
 
 Neither the Cambogian husband or wife prided themselves in 
 the least upon conjugal fidelity. According to a Chinese traveller 
 who furnishes us with these particulars, the women would not 
 consent to sleep alone for more than ten consecutive nights. The 
 husbands were free to buy as many concubines as they chose. 
 
 In this licentious country girls were married as it was found 
 practicable, when they were from seven to nine years old. The 
 
€hap. I.] MAREIAGE. 357 
 
 poor people only waited until their daughters had reached the age 
 of eleven, on account of the singular custom of Tchin-than, or the 
 legal and religious defloration, as to which we must say a few 
 words. This strange ceremony was performed once in every year. 
 The day was appointed by a public functionary, and parents 
 who had children to marry were bound to make known the fact. 
 They were then entitled to claim the services of a priest of Fo 
 {a Buddhist) or of a Tao-sse priest. The holy man would ordin- 
 arily accept presents that were offered to him in return. The 
 poor parents were naturally served the last, and sometimes their 
 daughters were obliged to wait a few years longer than the rich 
 girls, unless some pious-minded person paid for them the expense 
 of the ceremony. On the appointed day the priest was led into the 
 house in the evening in great pomp, amid feasting and rejoicing ; 
 he was again led out on the following morning, accompanied by 
 men with palanquins, parasols, and drums and music. When the 
 ceremony was concluded presents were again offered to the priest 
 to buy back the girl, who otherwise would not have been allowed 
 to marry ; she would have been held to belong to the bonze who 
 had condescended to deflower her. 
 
 On the Tibet side of the Himalaya girls may, before marriage, 
 •dispose of themselves as they please, and their reputation is in no 
 way tarnished. Polygamy is not forbidden, but polyandry chiefly 
 predominates. It is curious that in the very centre of Buddhism, 
 in a country where religion touches the people deeply, where the 
 pracliices of worship are joined to all the acts of their daily life, 
 that marriage should be nothing more than a purely civil contract, 
 as to which the priests have nothing to do. The whole ceremony 
 consists of a mutual engagement taken before witnesses. Divorce, 
 too, is optional if the husband and wife desire it. 
 
 In the opinion of the lamas, who, because of their profes- 
 sion avoid all communication with women, in the opinion of 
 functionaries of high rank, and even of many Tibetans, marriage 
 is considered to be odious and shameful. St. Paul, too, as we 
 know, shared almost the same opinion. In Tibet only the poor 
 people lower themselves by coming together for the purpose of 
 
358 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 reproducing their kind, and they co-operate amongst themselves^ 
 to try and diminish the burden. The associates are generally 
 brothers, and the eldest chooses one wife for them alL The 
 children coming from these polyandrous marriages will sometimes 
 call the eldest brother their " father," sometimes they wiU all 
 share in bearing the title. Fraternal polygamy may also exist 
 concurrently with polyandry ; a young man who marries an old 
 woman is therefore at the same time the husband also of the 
 youngest sister. 
 
 The associate husbands usually live together in the house of their 
 common wife, for it is she who possesses, and from her that the 
 property descends to the children, and they, too, are held to be her 
 property. In spite of her polyandry, the Tibetan woman is not 
 immoral after her own manner of life. She is very hardworking ; 
 she spins, she digs, and she endeavours to earn for herself the title 
 of companion by pleasing all her husbands equally. All travellers 
 agree in saying that these joint households are usually very peaceful^ 
 and in nowise troubled by jealousies. The people did not even 
 understand V. Jacquemont when he asked if the preference of the 
 wife for one of the husbands did not give rise to conjugal quarrels. 
 Adultery is sometimes common, and sometimes rare, and it is but 
 lightly punished; we may conclude therefore that morality caa 
 hardly be judged by any determined standard. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Marriage among the Mongolians and the Mongoloids of Northern- 
 Asia. 
 
 The Tibetans and the Bhots of the Himalaya are already & 
 civilised people, and their polyandry, very different to our ideas 
 of legal marriage, is a regular and established form of union 
 between the sexes. Manners far more barbarous exist among the 
 Mongoloids in the north of Asia, for these people are still savages. 
 In Kamtschatka, the man who wishes to gain a woman's hand must 
 begin by making himself the servant of her parents, and this 
 service will often last for a considerable time. When he is accepted 
 
Chap, l] MAREIAGE. 359 
 
 lie is bound to make an attack upon the modesty of his future wife. 
 This is a sort of public ceremony. She wears her nightdress, her 
 drawers, and bandages, and she is also protected by other women of 
 the iourte. The man rushes upon her, the girlis father saying to 
 him : " Touch her if you can." But she is strongly guarded, and 
 several assaults are usually necessary. The man's victory is not 
 proclaimed until after an intimate touching, which the woman 
 herself recognises by crying out " Ni, ni!" This trial is imperative ; 
 but the parents may disallow it, and then the pretender finds that 
 he has served all his time in vain. 
 
 The marriage customs of the Kamtschadales and the Tungusians 
 are certainly very singular, even in the form of marriage by capture. 
 With them monogamy and polygamy are both customary, according 
 to individual tastes. Marriage, too, may be cancelled at pleasure, 
 and may be contracted between any relatives except between father 
 and daughter, or between mother and son. 
 
 This brutal and fragile form of union, more or less softened, may 
 be found among nearly all the Mongolian races in Asia. 
 
 These races, who have all at one time lived in a nomad state — 
 some of them still continue to do so — and who formerly were 
 so warlike, have all a preference for marriage by capture. The 
 Tungusians and the Turkomans still practise it in reality; the 
 former kidnap the wives of their neighbours, the latter ravish the 
 girls belonging to their own tribes, not including prisoners taken 
 in war. Excepting in this latter case, the act of violence is com- 
 pensated by a payment made in camels, or horses, etc. These 
 ancient manners are however falling into disuse ; and the regular 
 form of marriage is by purchase, though the husband and wife, 
 when they are young, are not consulted. They both belong to their 
 parents, who marry them as early as they can; and after much 
 haggling the contract is concluded for so many oxen, or sheep, or 
 for so much linen, butter, flour, or brandy, that the future husband 
 is considered bound to pay. In the time of Marco Polo the 
 Mongolians used fictitiously to marry their children who had died 
 when infants. They immediately burned the marriage document, 
 to send it off into the next world to the deceased husband and 
 
360 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 wife, and the two families then considered themselves related one 
 to the other. 
 
 When the marriage contract was arranged the ceremony was per- 
 formed by a simulated capture. Among the Turkomans the girl, 
 in her bridal dress, flies away upon an impetuous horse, carrying 
 with her on the pommel of the saddle a kid or a lamb that has 
 just been killed; her betrothed and the young people who were 
 present at the wedding gallop after her. Among the Mongolians, 
 those properly so called, it is necessary only to break open the 
 door of the newly-married woman, and to seat her upon horseback, 
 in spite of the feigned resistance of the parents, of her friends, 
 and especially of the women. 
 
 The Mongolians have but one lawful wife ; it is she who rules 
 over the household, and her children only have the right of in- 
 heritance. But the husband may, if he pleases, buy a great many 
 " little wives," who, however, must be submissive to the first wife. 
 This disguised form of polygamy can only be within the means of 
 the rich, for in Mongolia the men are much more numerous than the 
 women. We may find here a strong reason for the celibacy of the 
 lamas. 
 
 It is said that the women will make up for their deficiency in 
 numbers by great freedom in their manners, both before and after 
 marriage. Adultery, however, is legally punished. The man pays 
 in cattle ; the penalty is exacted by the princes, as the crime is 
 regarded as a social offence. The woman is severely chastised 
 by her husband, he may even put her to death. But so much 
 severity is probably rare, for Prejevolsky tells us that the women 
 hardly take the trouble to conceal their illicit passions. 
 
 Nothing can be more fragile than the conjugal tie in ^Mongolia. 
 Divorce is optional, and, like marriage, it is purely an individual 
 action ; no civil or religious authority interferes in the matter. If 
 a husband wishes to repudiate his wife, he is not bound to allege 
 any reason ; he simply loses the price he has paid. The marriage 
 was only a commercial contract, and he cancels it. If the woman 
 of her own accord returns to her parents, they are bound to send 
 her back as often as three times to her husband ; but if she returns 
 
Chap, i.] MAEEIAGE. 361 
 
 a fourth time the divorce is held to be obligatory, and the parents 
 are obliged to return some of the cattle that had been paid by the 
 purchaser. 
 
 In the same way that the ^Mongolian marriage is but an at- 
 tenuation of the Kamtschadalian marriage, marriage in China is 
 also, in its turn, no more than a milder form of marriage in 
 Mongolia. 
 
 xir. 
 
 Marriage in Chiria and in Japan. 
 
 As the evolution in the majority of the races whom we have 
 been lately considering is but little, if at all, known, we have not 
 been able to point out the changes which have taken place in the 
 connubial rites in each ethnical group ; but we hope to do so more 
 fully in speaking of the great civilised nations in Asia and in 
 Europe. If we may believe their traditions, it would appear that 
 promiscuity was originally the rule in China, and that they owe 
 the institution of marriage to Fo-Hi, their first sovereign. Judging 
 from the custom, common in China as well as with other people, 
 of running away with the betrothed girl the first time that she 
 crosses the threshold of her future spouse, we may be inclined 
 to think that marriage by capture was once customary with the 
 Chinese. The Chinese also were probably at one time a poly- 
 gamous people, for with them, as well as with the Mongolians, 
 legal monogamy coexists with the practice of buying "little 
 wives," who are bound to be submissive to the first wife. In these 
 families, half lawful and half unlawful, the "chief wife" is the 
 reputed mother of all the children, they give her this title during 
 her lifetime, and after her death they wear mourning for her, though 
 not for their real mother. And here, as elsewhere, j)olygamy can 
 only be practised by the nobles. Public opinion condemns the 
 purchase of " little wives " in the middle classes, except when the 
 lawful wife has been childless for ten or twelve years. The Chinese 
 look upon sterility with opprobium ; it may even furnish just 
 excuse for repudiation. Manners such as these show clearly 
 enough that in the Celestial Empire the woman holds a very 
 
362 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv.. 
 
 humble position. Her subjection is excessive ; as a daughter she 
 is a slave to her parents, as a wife to her husband, as a widow 
 to her sons. The young Chinese girl has no idea that she may 
 be consulted as to the choice of her husband. The matrimonial 
 negotiations are often concluded by their fathers and mothers, 
 or, in default, by their grand-parents, or by their nearest 
 relatives, during the infancy of both children, sometimes even 
 before they are born, if it happen afterwards that they are of 
 different sex. Here, as in Mongolia, the girl is bought, and a portion 
 of the price is paid when the contract is signed. If the betrothed 
 husband dies before the marriage, public opinion will compel the 
 girl to pledge herself to celibacy. When they are married, women 
 in easy circumstances live as recluses, shut up in their own apart- 
 ments. In case of the woman's adultery the husband has the 
 right to seU her, or to cause her to be sold judicially. If she is 
 seen flagrante delicto, the husband may kill the two guilty persons. 
 This ferocious custom seems to be usual nearly all over the world, 
 and in this respect the Europeans, who affect to look down upon 
 the Chinese, have in fact no need to envy them. On the other 
 hand, the Chinese wife ought to worship her husband; and her 
 suicide, if she be left a widow, is considered as a most praise- 
 worthy action, engraven upon the tablets of honour, and accom- 
 plished sometimes before thousands of spectators. 
 
 In China divorce is allowed when mutually agreed upon ; but 
 the husband may also claim it if his wife be sterile, if she be im- 
 moral, if she is disrespectful to his father or mother, if she is 
 inclined to slander, or to theft, if she be jealous by nature, or 
 habitually indisposed. 
 
 We shall have mentioned the principal features in the Chinese 
 system of marriage if we add that it is exogamic. There are 
 scarcely a hundred family names throughout all China, and 
 marriage between persons of the same name is not allowed. We 
 may therefore reasonably argue that in this custom there is 
 still remaining a traditional vestige of the ancient form of 
 marriage by capture, for it would seem that here at least we 
 find an instance in a direct line of a connubial type, from ita- 
 
Chap, i.] MARKIAGE. 363^ 
 
 first and primitive form down to its legal institution regulated 
 in all its details. And in fact over all this vast region we may 
 perceive that marriage by capture is gradually tending towards 
 monogamy, which, though fictitious in Mongolia and in China, 
 is real in the Loo-Choo islands ; and here the people speak with 
 horror of the Chinese polygamy, though they still keep their own 
 wives in a state of slavery. 
 
 Ancient Japan, which received from China all its civilisation, 
 maintained, until the end of the feudal times, the Chinese system 
 of marriage, which was despotically ordered by the parents, and 
 which might also be cancelled by them. By degrees, however, the 
 woman's subjection grew less strong : a Japanese girl has now a 
 voice in the matter of choosing for herself a husband. The woman's 
 adultery always gives to the husband the right to kill her together 
 with her accomplice ; but he may not kill one without killing 
 the other. We may easily understand, that in Japan as in every 
 other country in the world, there are two weights and two measures. 
 In the case of divorce the Japanese wife goes back to her own 
 family, but she is not allowed to have her children. 
 
 On the other hand, monogamy is not more firmly established in 
 Japan than in China. It is not very rigorously imposed upon the 
 man, on account of the liberty of manners allowed to the girls of 
 the lower orders before their marriage. We know that in Japan 
 poor parents will gladly hire out their daughters in large towns for a 
 service of prostitution, lasting for several years. And some of these 
 girls, who are so instructed in the art of pleasing, are very highly 
 honoured j they appear in the religious processions, and, after their 
 deaths, statues are erected to them in the temples. In a sort of way we 
 may compare them to the celebrated Greek iralpat, the companions 
 or the concubines of men in Greece. The profession of a prostitute 
 was not at all looked down upon in Japan, nor did it in any way 
 prevent women from marrying at the expiration of the term for 
 which they had been hired. In Japan, as in China, the husband 
 might bring into his house an almost unlimited number of concu- 
 bines ; but this, however, was a polygamic luxury only within the-, 
 means of rich men. 
 
364. SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 If we. go back as far as records exist to establish facts, the great 
 Mongolian race, taken in its entirety, will show us a real evolution 
 in marriage customs. We find nearly every form of marriage, 
 from the brutal rape, still practised by the Kamtschadales, the 
 Tungusians, and the Samoyedes, down to the very relaxed mono- 
 gamy of the Chinese and Japanese. In the interval we may 
 notice the polygamy of the nomad tribes. During all these ages, 
 the condition of the woman was always gradually improving. At 
 first, she was captured as a beast snatches his prey; she is now 
 bought and sold. She was originally bound to be absolutely sub- 
 missive to her parents, she was a part of the family property ; but 
 by degrees her liberty increased, and she is now treated as a human 
 being. 
 
 The curious organisation of prostitution in Japan may perhaps 
 authorise us to think that, in far bygone times, there was a 
 period of hetairism antecedent to marriage. This evolution 
 is certainly a most important sociological fact, for the Mon- 
 golian race alone represents numerically at least one-third of 
 the human species. "We must not, however, suppose this idea to 
 be a law common to the human kind, for humanity is a very 
 homogeneous medley; and in past ages the different ethnical 
 groups have moulded themselves in many ways according to the 
 exigences of the struggle for life. For in trying to formulate 
 sociological laws, rigorous and precise as the laws of physics and 
 of chemistry, we are perhaps only indulging in fanciful notions 
 which we may find at last to have been no more than a pleasant 
 dream. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Marriage among the White Races in Asia. 
 
 Pictet and several other distinguished Indian scholars have 
 thought, after careful examination of the Yedic texts, that they 
 could extract from them accurate knowledge as to the primitive 
 Aryan marriages. We shall not follow them in their tentative 
 adventures, for accurate knowledge on the subject is what we most 
 want, and also that in which we are most deficient. 
 
Chap, i.] MARRIAGE. 365 
 
 We are furnished with more precise ideas from the poem of 
 the Mahabharata, which speaks of promiscuity as a very ancient 
 custom, and in itself unhlamable. Some remains of these 
 primitive manners seem to have subsisted in India for very 
 many years. In Goa, in Pondicherry, and in certain of the 
 valleys of the Ganges, girls were obliged to present themselves in 
 the Juggernaut temples, and vestiges of similar customs have 
 been preserved even down to modern times. At Malabar, when 
 the king was married the first three nights belonged to the 
 high-priest, who received also fifty gold pieces in exchange for 
 service given. This strange custom is probably no other than the 
 Cambogian Tchin-tlian, of which we have already spoken. Every 
 woman, too, who was tired of her husband, every widow v/eary of 
 her widowhood, were free to dispose of their person at pleasure, 
 provided that they offered up a sacrifice in one of the temples at 
 Tulava. And even nowadays troops of courtesans are attached to> 
 the different large Hindoo temples, for the pecuniary benefit of 
 which they carry on their profession, and they are in no way 
 stigmatised in public repute. Until quite recent times they were 
 the only women in India to whom any education was given. In 
 the days of Buddha the grand-mistress of the courtesans was very 
 highly respected in the town of Yesali, and even f aky-mouni, that 
 divine incarnation, did not disdain to take up his abode in her 
 house. If these facts are not sufficient to prove the existence of 
 promiscuity at some ancient period, they will show at least that 
 there was a great looseness in the moral life. 
 
 The Menu Code does in fact prescribe a marriage, apparently 
 monogamic. This marriage is indissoluble, and the husband and 
 wife owe to each other mutual fidelity. In case of widowhood the 
 man may remarry; but it would be very reprehensible for the 
 widow to do so. Men may always marry a woman in a caste lower 
 than their own, but it is strictly forbidden to them to marry a 
 woman in a superior caste. 
 
 The law enacts frightful penalties against adultery. The king 
 ought to cause the body of the unfaithful Brahmin woman to be 
 devoured by dogs in the middle of a public place ] and her accom- 
 
^66 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 plice, if he is not a Bralimin man, ought to be stretched upon a bed 
 of iron heated over fire. As regards the Brahmin husband, his 
 digressions are punished very lightly ; God, they say, protects his 
 own people. 
 
 The Hindoo marriage is exogamic. A man may not marry 
 a woman having the same name as his own ; nor may he marry a 
 relation nearer than the sixth degree. 
 
 As it very frequently happens, this exogamy coexists with 
 extreme subjection on the part of the woman. The husband ought 
 to treat his companion as a child ; he ought to make her obedient 
 to his will. He may allow her a few innocent pleasures ; but she 
 ought to obey him implicitly. Outside the marriage state the 
 woman lives under the authority of her male relations. A woman 
 may be cast-off if she is ill-tempered by nature, if she is a drunkard, 
 if she has been childless for eight years, or has not for eleven years 
 given to her husband a male child. The husband may once, or 
 even twice, make his wife fruitful by his brother or by a relation; 
 and widows may be treated in the same way, for they must " pay 
 the debts of their ancestor." 
 
 The Code makes no mention of the suttee, a custom apparently 
 due to more modern refinement; but it considers woman as a 
 dangerous and malevolent creature. " It is in the nature of the 
 feminine sex to endeavour to corrupt men. A man ought not to 
 remain in a lonely place with his sister, with his mother, with his 
 daughter, etc." * 
 
 Even in our own time, free will has no place in the Indian 
 marriages ; families of young people marry the husband and wife 
 together just as it may best suit their own purpose. Polygamy is 
 tolerated among people of high position. 
 
 The widowers remarry as soon as possible, for in India an un- 
 married man is partially excluded from society. As marriages are 
 contracted without consulting the girl, and her parents think more 
 about the material advantages than about any other consideration, 
 one may often see Brahmin sexogenarians marry, or rather buy, a 
 child of six or seven years old. Speaking generally, the Hindoo 
 * "Code de Menu," liv. ii. 245. 
 
Ohap. I.] MAERIAGE. 367 
 
 woman is an honest slave, who has not the right to eat with her 
 husband. 
 
 In the north of India, the marriage customs are more primitive, 
 more brutal. The Kasias of the district of Almorah — who by the 
 way are very rigid Hindoos — still maintain the savage exogamy, 
 the real form of capture. The woman so kidnapped is considered 
 as a property which the man may knock about as he pleases. He 
 may make her labour as though she were a mule. 
 
 In the region of the Himalaya, near to the sources of the Jumna, 
 in Nepaul, the Aryan Hindoos have adopted the Tibetan form of 
 polyandry. Women are there considered as merchandise, and are 
 bought and sold as such. Fraser tells us that a countrywoman 
 would cost from ten to twelve rupees : a sum pleasant enough to 
 receive, but often painful to be obliged to pay. Girls are sold 
 readily enough ; the brothers in a family would hire a common 
 wife, and they would make no difficulty about letting her out to 
 strangers. There, as in every country where polyandry is customary, 
 the women are in nowise scandalised, nor can it be said that this 
 custom is always prejudicial to the general morality. For instance, 
 among the polyandrous people at the sources of the Jumna river 
 an innocent form of falsehood is held in horror; and the polyandrous 
 people of i^epaul are the best cultivators in the country. There 
 is no discussion as to the issue of their marriages ; the firstborn 
 is the property of the elder brother, and so on down the list. 
 
 In Afghanistan also the condition of the women is very low 
 indeed. The Afghans are Mahomedans, and therefore polygamous ; 
 they buy their wives, whom they have the right to cast off and to 
 hire to their guests. 
 
 For them the levirat is held to be a duty. The widow continues 
 to be a thing possessed, as she was during the lifetime of her hus- 
 band; and in case of second marriage the relations of the new 
 husband pay the value of the wife to the relations of the first one. 
 
 Among the other branches of the white Asiatic race, among the 
 Persians and the Semites, the sexual unions are still far from the 
 ideal form of monogamy. In the last century the Persians used to 
 contract temporary marriages. A conjugal lease was entered into 
 
368 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 for a certain stated time, at the end of whicli the contracting parties 
 were again free. If it so happened that the woman was pregnant 
 at the time, the temporary husband was hound to provide her with 
 maintenance for twelve months. The child, when bom, belonged to 
 the father or to the mother, according to the sex. Chardin tells us 
 that in his time there was great liberty as regards sexual intercourse. 
 Marriage was polygamous, as in all Mahomedan countries, and was 
 contracted without the consent of the parents; all the children 
 were considered legitimate, whether their mother was wife, con- 
 cubine, or slave. 
 
 Among the populations of Asia Minor, where the Iron, 
 Semitic, and Caucasian races are all more or less mixed together, 
 we may also notice characteristics of very singular manners, 
 especially in the manners of bygone ages. It would appear that 
 promiscuity was formerly practised more or less in these countries. 
 Strabo speaks of the Parthians, who considered that a woman should 
 change her husband when she had given him two or three children. 
 In Babylon there existed a law founded upon an oracle, that every 
 woman should at least once in her life come into the temple of 
 the goddess Mylitta and prostitute herself to strangers for hire, no 
 matter how small the payment might be. Afterwards, but only for 
 a short time, they would live chastely. In the same way at Cyprus, 
 young girls were bound on certain days to go on the seashore, and 
 by prostituting themselves offer up their virginity to Venus. In 
 the Balearic islands, primitively peopled to all appearance by the 
 Phoenician colonists, the newly-married women, the first night after 
 their marriage, belonged to all the priests who were present. 
 
 In Lydia and in Armenia the priestesses were by special privilego 
 allowed to be polyandrous ; and in certain cantons of Media it was 
 honourable for a woman to have at least five husbands. 
 
 Among the Semites, properly so called, a people so much given 
 up to pleasures and sensual excess, as may bo seen from their 
 religion and their history, we hear of polygamy existing after the 
 most primitive fashion. Solomon had seven hundred wives and 
 three hundred concubines ; and the majority of the Hebrew people 
 imitated his example as far as it was possible for them to do so. 
 
Chap. I.] MARRIAGE. 369 
 
 The AraLs, too, used to imitate their Israelitish cousins, both before 
 and after the introduction of Islamism. But they differed from 
 the Babylonians, inasmuch as they regarded the virginity of their 
 wives as a very important consideration. Among the Jews, every 
 woman accused by her husband of marrying him without being a 
 virgin was liable to be stoned, unless her parents could prove 
 to the elders the falseness of the accusation. 
 
 And nowadays in Arabia the same fault may be followed by 
 immediate repudiation; and in Yemen the husband may kill 
 his guilty wife. But tliis does not at all prevent the rich men 
 in the holy city of Mecca from maintaining by the side of their 
 lawful wives concubines, who are generally Abyssinian women. 
 
 There are other Arabs, who it is true do not inhabit their own 
 country, who are utterly careless as to the fidelity of their wives. 
 These are the Hassanyeh Arabs of the White Nile. Here the man 
 will buy his wife for certain stated days in the week, and will pay 
 for her so many head of cattle in proportion to the number of days 
 of his purchase. During the days not included in the contract the 
 wife may dispose of her person as she pleases. 
 
 "We have now said more than enough to show that as regards 
 conjugal manners among the white races in Asia, not only is there 
 no innate nobility of thought^ but these customs are very closely 
 allied in many points to the inferior races of humanity. In 
 Europe only do we find that man has succeeded in introducing 
 more dignity of manner into his marriage ceremony and married 
 life, and also to raise woman from the low state of subjection into 
 which she is thrown in every other part of the earth. But this 
 task, as yet very far from complete, was not accomplished in a 
 single day. ^ 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Tlie Gi'CBCo-Roman Marriage. 
 
 The Greek civilisation, which we may regard as the leavening 
 of the human intellect, has been, like every other civilisation, 
 grafted on to a state of primitive savagery. Tradition asserts that 
 before Cecrops (about the 17th century before Jesus Christ) the 
 
 2 b 
 
370 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv.. 
 
 Greeks used to live promiscuously. Children used to know only 
 their mother, and they used to take her name. Such is the 
 legend, but we find it confirmed by other traces which have been 
 perpetuated into historical times. 
 
 Lycurgus authorised husbands to lend their wives to those men 
 whom they thought worthy of the honour, so that they might bear 
 children. The aged husband, according to the same legislator, did 
 a praiseworthy action in looking out for a good and virtuous man 
 for his young wife. In the full bloom of the Athenian civilisa- 
 tion Plato blamed Minos and Lycurgus for not having authorised 
 women to be common; and in his "Eepublic" he maintains that 
 women ought to pass on from hand to hand. Socrates, following 
 the advice of his master, lent his wife Xantippe to Alcibiades; 
 and we know the high degree of consideration that was paid to 
 certain courtesans in Athens. 
 
 At first the Hellenic marriage was coarse ; the girl was bought 
 either by presents or by services rendered to the father. From an 
 early date the marriages were monogamic, but concubiues were 
 tolerated. It was not a disgrace to be the son of a concubine, for 
 such, we know, was the case with Ulysses ; but these illegitimate 
 children could not inherit from their father. In Greece, as in 
 Eome, the primitive form of marriage was not enough to establish 
 a line of descent; that was based uniquely upon the declaration 
 made in each case by the father. 
 
 Traces of an ancient form of marriage by capture subsisted for 
 a long time in Sparta. The young man was held bound to run 
 away with his betrothed, "who must not be little or weak, but 
 a big girl, strong, and already able to bear children."* And for 
 a certain time the newly-married man was not allowed to see his 
 wife, except by stealth. 
 
 By degrees, instead of selling their daughters, fathers used to 
 give them a dowry, and girls without some marriage portion were 
 slighted ; but in more remote ages, in Greece and in Rome, it was- 
 allowablo to the young girl to earn her dowry by trafficking witli 
 her person. The dowry paid by the parents was determined at 
 * Plutarch, " Life of Lycurgus," 
 
Chap, i.] MARRIAGE. 371 
 
 first by wages as a guarantee given in the presence of witnesses, 
 then by a public act; it was hypothecated upon the husband's 
 property. 
 
 In spite of her dowry the Greek woman was considered only as 
 a thing. Her father might marry her without consulting her 
 wishes. When she inherited, in default of male heir, she was 
 considered as part of the inheritance, and was bound to marry the 
 nearest male relative, or the oldest of the relations, who would 
 otherwise have received the legacy. If at the time of her in- 
 heritance she was already lawfully married, her anterior marriage 
 was annulled. The father might bequeath his daughter with the 
 inheritance ; and the husband had the right to bequeath his wife 
 to a friend : this indeed did happen to Demosthenes. 
 
 The married woman, taken in the act of adultery, might 
 be put to death by her husband — but after deliberation before 
 witnesses. 
 
 The connubial customs of the Latins were very similar to those 
 of the Greeks. Among the Samnites the nobles used every year 
 to call together the young men, class them by order of merit, and 
 then allow them to choose a young girl, one after the other, and in 
 their hierarchical order. Traces of marriage by capture existed in 
 Eome at the time of the emperors ; they might be seen themselves 
 in the custom of lifting the girl from the ground and in placing a 
 dagger in her hair. The young girl was not allowed to marry 
 herself. She was made the subject of a contract, very often in her 
 childhood, but she did not become a lawful wife until she was 
 thirteen years old. The father, who had the right to marry his 
 daughter without her consent, had also the right to annul her 
 marriage, and this exorbitant right was not attenuated until the 
 time of Antoninus. In the early ages of Eome, the woman was 
 not considered as part of the man's household, except as his slave ; 
 this, too, was the case with his children, for the emancipated son 
 did not inherit. She was at first owned as a thing ; the virtuous 
 Cato lent his wife Marcia to his friend Hortensius, and took her 
 back when Hortensius died. The Eoman husband had the right 
 to beat his wife ; for, according to the expression of Monica, the 
 
372 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 mother of St. Augustine, the Roman marriage was only a contract 
 for slavery. 
 
 For a long period the woman continued to be bought, and 
 marriage ^er coemptionem always subsisted. If the betrothed girl 
 belonged to a patrician family the sale was disguised by the cere- 
 mony of confarreation, which consisted of partaking with her 
 future husband, before the witnesses, a cake given by the pontiff 
 of Jupiter. For in Rome the marriage ceremony, the justes noces, 
 was long considered as a privilege belonging only to the patricians, 
 and a religious consecration was held to be imperative. But once 
 married, by coemption or by confarreation, the woman, her body, 
 and her property, belonged to her husband ; she was " in his hand." 
 
 The custom of dowry, however, modified this barbarous form of 
 marriage. It assured to women an independence, which they very 
 often abused. 
 
 In the dotal marriage the girl remained in the paternal family ; 
 she inherited her father's property, and she herself had the manage- 
 ment of it. Generally she used to confide this charge either to the 
 care of a special slave — the dotal slave — or to an agent, who 
 became her confidant. This " free marriage " became the esta- 
 blished form in the upper classes under the Empire; and the 
 Latin writers were not sparing in their harsh criticism upon the 
 arrogance and the misconduct of the women so married. These free 
 and libertine manners were certainly very different from the savage 
 customs practised in the early days of primitive Rome ; the adul- 
 terous woman was then brought before the domestic tribunal, and 
 executed by the parents themselves as they thought fit : " cognati 
 necanfo uti volent" says the law of the Twelve Tables. 
 
 From this rapid glance over the days of classical antiquity, it 
 would appear that marriage became very slowly established as an 
 institution ; that its first form was barbarous ; but that by degrees 
 the customs grew to be more humane ; and that woman, at first a 
 slave, and liable to be bought and sold, to be bequeathed or to be 
 lent, gradually acquired a considerable independence. "We may 
 add that from a very early period the Grneco-Roman marriage was 
 monogamic, but concubines were not forbidden to men. Concu- 
 
Chap, i.j MAERIAGE. 373 
 
 bines in Eome tiad a legal status, and Commodus publicly kept a 
 harem, in which three hundred women were maintained. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Eurojpean Marriage outside Greece and Rome. 
 
 Manners similar to those in the very early days of Greece and 
 Eome might have been seen in the other Aryan races in Europe. 
 These other nations were equally coarse, and did not in reality 
 become civilised until Eoman civilisation had become widely spread. 
 We may therefore allow ourselves to smile at the fantastic schemes 
 of those theorists who, in applying a sort of linguistic alchemy 
 to the Yedic texts, would demonstrate the existence, according to 
 the Aryan hypothesis, of a pure, noble, and monogamic marriage. 
 
 Marriage by capture was practised by the primitive Slavs. It 
 was also for a long time customary in Eussia, in Lithuania, in 
 Poland, and in certain parts of Prussia. Young men would carry 
 olf their lovers, and afterwards enter into treaty for them with their 
 parents. Quite recently, too, in "Wales, a sort of sham fight was 
 performed whenever a marriage took place. Among the Slavs, the 
 Scandinavians, the Pranks, and the Germans, marriage was no 
 more than a sale of the young girl. The husband was bound to 
 pay the mundium, that is to say, to buy the right of property from 
 the father. By degrees, in place of this simple form of sale, the 
 Germans substituted a dowry, to be paid to the woman in 
 perpetuo, to the value of the husband's property. The bride- 
 groom paid first the osculum, the price of the first kiss, then 
 the " morning gift," the morgengabe. How many words have been 
 wasted in vainly endeavouring to poetise these wild customs, 
 which consisted simply in paying to the girl herself the value of 
 her own property ! But the custom of betrothal, also German, is 
 more rational, and indicates a certain nobility of moral feeling. 
 Prom a very early period the betrothal was taken to signify a real 
 engagement between the parties, which could not be broken off 
 without very serious reasons. But it was not all at once that these 
 difl'erent peoples arrived at the sacramental form of monogamy. 
 
374 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 Csesar gives us instances of polyandry among the ancient Bretons. 
 The primitive Slavs were for a long time polygamous ; and one of 
 their kings, Vladimir, before he was baptised, kept no less than 
 eight hundred concubines in three different places. And even 
 nowadays, in the Eussian Mir, a peculiar form of incestuous con- 
 cubinage will often be found to exist. The head of the family, the 
 paterfamilias, will marry boys of eight or ten years old to girls of 
 twenty- five or thirty, and will constitute himself the paramour 
 of his daughter-in-law until the legal husband shall have arrived 
 at the age of puberty. 
 
 In every barbarous European society woman has been considered, 
 as elsewhere, a thing possessed. With the Saxons, the Bur- 
 gundians, the Germans, and others, the widow, as soon as her 
 eldest son had passed his fifteenth birthday, was placed under his 
 care ; without his consent she could not remarry, nor enter a 
 convent under penalty of losing all her property. Under the 
 feudal system, every female vassal of a royal feoff was obliged, 
 before marrying, to obtain the triple consent of her father, of her 
 lord, and of the king. The lord could even sometimes compel her 
 to marry the husband that he selected, as soon as she had reached 
 the age of twelve. As Du Cange and Boetius have shown, the 
 young girl in a way owed the use of her body to the lord, from 
 whence came the ignoble right of marquette, which in later times 
 was commuted into a fine. 
 
 After she was married the woman was the slave of her husband. 
 " Every husband may beat his wife if she will not obey his orders, 
 or if she curses him, or when she gives him the lie, provided that 
 he beat her moderately, so that death does not ensue." * 
 
 Among the Scandinavians, with whom the German laws were 
 preserved longer than with any other people, divorce was optional 
 for the husband ; he might repudiate his wife at pleasure. 
 
 Adultery on the part of the woman was everywhere severely 
 
 punished. The Germans used to make the guilty woman walk 
 
 naked through the village. In some of the Celtic tribes the 
 
 husband used to test the legitimacy of his newborn child by 
 
 * Beaumanoir, Titre 57. 
 
•Chap, i.] MARRIAGE. 375 
 
 letting him float on a river upon a shield. If the baby was 
 drowned, the signification drawn was that the woman had broken 
 the conjugal pact, and that she ought to be put to death. As 
 late as the Middle Ages, the adulterous woman was shut up in 
 a convent for the rest of her life ; and in case of flagrant crime, 
 the husband might put her to death, claiming, too, if necessary, 
 his son's assistance. Such was the canon law ; the makers of the 
 code, it would appear, did not even dream of punishing adultery 
 on the part of the husband. And still we hear of the woman's 
 emancipation being eff'ected by Christianity ! 
 
 Among the Circassians, who have certainly preserved many of 
 the ancient European customs, marriage was, until the days of 
 Klaproth, permitted only between people of the same class : noble 
 with noble, rustic with rustic. The husband might repudiate his 
 new wife if she was not a virgin ; in that case she went back to 
 her parents, whose property she was, and they either sold her or 
 put her to death. The adulterous wife was treated in the same 
 way ; but before casting her off the outraged husband shaved her 
 •hair and slit her ears. The right of divorce always rested with 
 the husband. 
 
 We may see, therefore, that the white race, which now occupies 
 the foremost position in the progressive advancement of civilisa- 
 tion, had, like the other races, a very humble origin from a moral 
 point of view. We know, too, that no ethnical group of the 
 white race is now living in a state of absolute savagery; but 
 during thousands and thousands of years our primitive ancestors 
 did not rise to a higher moral and social level than is now actually 
 the case among the present existing inferior races. We may be 
 permitted, therefore, not to despair of the one class of men, and 
 we are also not justified in glorifying the other too highly. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Evolution of Marriage, 
 
 % 
 
 We have now come to the end of our long enumeration; The 
 ideas that we may have learnt are very incoherent ; they are espe- 
 
376 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 cially insufficient. "VVe may, nevertheless, glean from them some 
 general notions which we will now endeavour to summarise very 
 briefly. 
 
 In the inferior degrees of civilisation, among the most primitive 
 hordes, there has not as yet been invented any ceremony which 
 deserves the name of mari'iage. Union, or rather intercourse 
 between the sexes, takes place merely as desire prompts the 
 people. One law only is known, the weaker has to give way to 
 the stronger. In these human flocks man does not pride himself 
 upon chastity, upon the sense of shame, nor upon humanity. 
 Woman is possessed as though she were a head of cattle, and is 
 kept in constant drudgery. Promiscuity will be found to exist 
 more or less, but it is not the only custom. Very often the 
 strongest man will arrogate to himself the property of one or 
 more wives, either in capturing them from the neighbouring tribes, 
 or in buying captured women from his companions, or in taking 
 women out of his own tribe, merely because he chooses to consider 
 himself the lion. The woman so possessed, being an object of 
 booty, belongs absolutely to him who has captured her. She is 
 his, as though she were his dog or his armour. He has the right 
 to dispose of her, to lend her, to sell her, to beat her, to kill her, 
 to make use of her, and to abuse her. She is his wife according to 
 the fullest meaning that the possessive adjective can convey; to 
 touch her without his authorisation is to commit treason against 
 him, it is making an assault upon his property. This possession 
 of a wife by capture may exist with endogamic promiscuity, and 
 we are not at all entitled to consider it a necessary and general 
 phase in the evolution of marriage. 
 
 When a woman is considered as an object, as a property, she is 
 divided between difi'erent men, and the idea is not repugnant to 
 them. If this form of sexual union is found to be convenient and 
 advantageous, if in a sterile country where subsistence is scarce it 
 prevents an over-increase of the population, as is the case in Thibet, 
 the custom is continued without any scruples of conscience. It 
 has at any rate the moral efi"ect of restricting animal promiscuity. 
 The idea of possessing captured women was very tempting. 
 
Chap, i.] MAERIAGE. 377 
 
 These poor creatures were deprived of all support from the tribe to 
 which their master belonged, for he might abuse his captives as he 
 pleased, and do with them what he liked ; but the tribe from whom 
 the woman was stolen would often reclaim their property ; they 
 would show their vengeance by exacting reprisals. From a very 
 early period, therefore, the exogamic rape was legalised, the pro- 
 prietors were indemnified by endogamic rape. To give effect to 
 this, kidnapping was legitimised, and it became a sort of friendly 
 transaction. Kape gradually became more and more an esta- 
 blished ceremony, carrying with it the captor's right. The deed 
 was proclaimed lawful after it had been done; the treaty was signed 
 when the war was over. There was no law regulating the habits 
 observed in their marriages. Each little ethnical group proceeded 
 after its own fashion. In one group marriage was exogamic, in 
 another it was endogamic; but from the time when these con- 
 ventional customs were established the marriage ceremony may be 
 said to have existed. The unions were more often polygamous, 
 sometimes polyandrous, rarely monogamous. 
 
 What gave rise to the custom of monogamy ] First, in a general 
 way, it came from necessity ; for wherever the number of women 
 was not in excess of the men, the possession of several could only 
 be enjoyed by the rich or the powerful. Other causes also aided : 
 rivalry ; the conflicts between covetous desires, for every man 
 exacted his rights ; and when the constitution of the family was 
 established according to a more settled form, the line of descent 
 became more regular, it naturally fell in more with, and gradually 
 more and more conformed to, the system of monogamic marriage. 
 Eut man did not comply readily. For a long time the husband 
 considered monogamy as a legal fiction, ISTearly everywhere he 
 was allowed to maintain by the side of his lawful wife, concubines, 
 "little wives," often slaves. During the inferior phases of civilisa- 
 tion, jealousy was forbidden to women. As time went on, mono- 
 gamic marriages were more rigorously observed, especially in the 
 As^Si%4:aee ; but the infractions of the connubial tie were always 
 lightly considered on the husband's side, and from this we may 
 conclude that our unswerving monogamy is still distasteful to the 
 
378 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 greater part of the human race, especially to those of the male sex. 
 But this form of marriage has been adopted in America, in Asia, in 
 Europe, among the most civilised ethnical groups in each race, and 
 we may now look upon it as superior to any other form of mar- 
 riage as yet known. But we need not consider it as the Ultimo 
 Thule in the evolution of connubial ceremonies. 
 
 As monogamy becomes more generally established, the lot of the 
 woman gradually improves ; from being a thing possessed she rises 
 to the rank of an individual person. During a very long period 
 she is married, without her choice being at all consulted, and some- 
 times when she is still but a child. Her family, her own parents, 
 contract for her; first they barter her for a few presents, or for 
 money, as soon as money can be said to exist. Very slowly she 
 acquires a certain independence. Sometimes her future husband 
 will pay to her what he considers to be her value — this will con- 
 stitute her dowry ; sometimes her parents settle a dowry upon her, 
 and this remains her own property. Once raised to the dignity 
 of proprietor, the woman is much more respected, though her sub- 
 missive condition be still more or less hard. For a very long time she 
 might be repudiated at will, and for the slightest possible reasons. 
 Adultery on her part, and on her part only, was severely punished. 
 In our European marriage, the barbarous and feudal customs, the 
 legal traditions of ancient Rome, and the Christian ideas have 
 succeeded in effecting a lame compromise, and woman is now 
 neither slave nor servant. She is simply a minor. The law makes 
 of the conjugal union, at least in Catholic countries, an association 
 that death alone can sever. 
 
 Will this for ever so continue 1 Evidently not. In the evolution 
 of societies the last stage is never reached. Already we see that 
 divorce, admitted, or on the five of being admitted, in many 
 countries in Europe, has shaken the fiction of an indissoluble 
 monogamic tie. 
 
 As we have already seen, no form of marriage is absolutely 
 necessary ; mankind has had experience of a good many kinds. 
 New innovations will surely bo made. But in what direction 1 We 
 can only answer that it will assuredly be in that direction which, 
 
Chap, i.] MAERIAGE. 379 
 
 socially, is the most useful. Utility no doubt changes with the 
 constitution of societies, and societies themselves are so very dif- 
 ferent. Wherever the State will refuse to interest itself in the^ 
 bringing up of children, a more rigorous form of monogamy will 
 be necessary. The family must there be soundly constituted ; for it 
 is then only close to its own hearth, using its own resources, that 
 fresh generations can find shelter, protection, and education. 
 
 On the other hand, wherever individual interests will go on 
 gradually establishing themselves upon a sounder basis, the State 
 will also gradually tend to leave to the family the care of bringing 
 up its future subjects. By degrees society will trouble itself less 
 with regulating the laws of marriage, and will think more of forming 
 new generations. The care of childhood will become one of all- 
 important interest ; sexual unions themselves will tend to be more 
 and more considered as acts of private life. The Stats will seek 
 to bring up children, to instruct them well and thoroughly ; and 
 will ever consider itself more and more responsible for the per- 
 formance of this important task. There will then be no reason 
 why a much larger latitude should not be allowed in connubial 
 contracts. Those interested will be allowed to come together 
 as they please, to form these contracts as they would form others, 
 maintaining only those few very general rules which experience 
 has established. 
 
 We need not attempt to glorify " the sanctuary of the family." 
 A man must do his best to blind himself, if he does not wish to 
 see what sort of sanctuary this is in most families, how the child 
 is tortured both in body and soul. We are justified in believing, 
 contrary to the opinion of Mr. Herbert Spencer, that, in certain 
 societies at least, the part which the family now holds in every- 
 day life will ever gradually tend to diminish. We cannot predict 
 how this great transformation will be effected in our social organism. 
 On matters so deep rooted we cannot argue upon a jpriori principles. 
 Sociological evolutions operate very slowly. In the first place, 
 individual property must in a great measure become a usufruct, in 
 order to give the State the means of disposing of such resources 
 ^s would be necessary to defray the new expenses which would 
 
380 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 crowd upon her, in the hypothesis that we are now considering. 
 But before such a condition can be effected, altruism must alto- 
 gether gain the upper hand over egoism, thg^ m or al -gtaiTdard must 
 be very considerably raised. This will not assuredly be the work 
 of a single day. Progress, however, is fatal; for every society 
 is an organism in evolution, which ethnical competition is always, 
 urging on towards a more perfect state. 
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 THE FAMILY. 
 I. 
 
 The Animal Family. 
 
 If we wish to study at all seriously the subject of family life, 
 we must first begin by forgetting all the commonplaces that have 
 been both said and written about it. There is perhaps no question 
 on which a verbiage of rhetoric has flowed more largely. The 
 family is a social fact like any other. We may investigate its rise 
 and its development, indicate its good and its bad qualities, look 
 for its origin ^n the animal kingdom ; we may point out the reason 
 for its existence, and even show that it is not absolutely necessary 
 for the preservation of societies of men. Let us first study it in 
 the animal kingdom. 
 
 In order that an animal kind of any sort should maintain its 
 existence, it is above all things imperative that it should engender 
 young ones, and that a sufficient number of these young should 
 live. This indispensable condition may be obtained in many 
 ways. As a general rule, the seed or offspring is more numerous 
 in proportion as the animal is inferior, is less intelligent, and 
 also in proportion as the adults think less of their descendants. 
 We know that among many kinds of fish the female lays her eggs 
 by hundreds of thousands, and that she then does not trouble 
 herself about them. Of this seed so left to chance the greater 
 part will perish, but a sufficient quantity will always remain to 
 
Chap, ii.] THE FAMILY. 381 
 
 insure reproduction. The family here does not yet exist even in 
 the most rudimentary state. We see its early commencements in 
 some few reptiles. Certain female crocodiles will show a sort of 
 solicitude for their eggs ; they try to hide them ; they will sometimes 
 carry their young hatched ones to the water. The female crocodile 
 in the Guayaquil river will hide her eggs in the sand, will come 
 back at hatching-time, she will carefully break the eggs, and 
 take her young ones upon her back down to the water. The male 
 will follow her, but he is actuated by a very different care : those 
 of his little ones that fall on to the ground during the journey he 
 devours. For in the majority of animal kinds, solicitude for the 
 young is first awakened in the female. 
 
 Among many kinds of birds, however, the male partakes of this 
 tenderness with his female, especially in the monogamic kinds, 
 where a temporary family may be said to exist. For ordinarily 
 among animals the affection of the parents, even that of the 
 mother, entirely vanishes as soon as the young are able to shift 
 for themselves. 
 
 Among the mammalia, where a certain time is always necessary 
 for the bringing up of the young, the female undertakes the charge ; 
 sometimes she is obliged even to protect her little ones against the 
 ferocity of her male. Among the greater part of the vertebrae 
 parental love is rare, or it is Aveak. As regards filial love, it is quite 
 an exceptional thing ; but instances of it have been observed in 
 some of the most intelligent of the mammalia, for instance in the 
 elephant. A young elephant has been seen caressing and protecting 
 its mother, who succumbed at last to the arrows of her pursuers. 
 
 The large monkeys, notably the chimpanzees, live also after a 
 rudimentary family manner. Progenitors and offspring are asso- 
 ciates for a greater or less length of time ; and ordinarily the troop 
 will obey their adult male leader. He will keep the power in his 
 hands as long as he is the strongest, and as long also as the 
 younger ones do not think of affranchising themselves from his 
 authority, either by forsaking him or by killing him. 
 
 It most frequently happens among mammalia that the female is 
 iihe centre in the animal family, and that the younger ones will 
 
382 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 collect themselves around her. When the male remains in the 
 association, it is much more out of attachment to the female than 
 to the little ones. The " matriarcat " — where the mother is con- 
 sidered as the head of the family — that we find so frequently 
 among the inferior human races, is also, in germ, in the animal 
 kingdom. 
 
 But the family is far from being indispensable to animal 
 societies. The bringing up and the education is with them the 
 principal object, and this may be effected in different ways. In 
 the most complex of all animal societies, in that of ants, so 
 superior to many human societies, the family is suppressed. The 
 care of reproducing the species is left to a special caste, and 
 the progenitors have neither care nor thought with regard to their 
 offspring. 
 
 In the human kind the institution of the family seems to indicate 
 a phase of social development. Sometimes it nearly fails altogether, 
 at another time it hardly rises above the family of certain superior 
 mammalia. In the more or less civilised of the ethnical groups, 
 the family is constituted in very different ways, as we shall see in 
 our short review of the human species. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Family in Melanesia. 
 
 The family of the chimpanzee seems to exist still in all its wild- 
 ness among certain savages wandering about in the forests in the 
 interior of Borneo ; these creatures are no doubt the remains of the 
 negroid population, who primitively used to occupy the Malay 
 archipelagoes. These aborigines prowl about the woods like wild 
 beasts. The male will run away with the female, and they will 
 couple themselves together in the thickets. As soon as the 
 children are capable of finding their food for themselves, their 
 parents let them go their own way. The family, if we may so caU 
 it, passes the night under a large tree. The children are hung on to 
 the branches in a sort of net, and a large fire is lit near to the tree 
 to keep away the wild beasts. The clothing of these people is 
 
Chap, ii.] THE FAMILY. 38?^ 
 
 confined to a strip of "bark. And in the same way, in the 
 Andaman islands, the man and the woman separate as soon as the 
 infant is weaned ; and henceforward, the father, who, by the way, 
 is not always very readily ascertained, takes no further heed of" 
 the mother. We know that among savage people the weaning of 
 the child does not take place until comparatively late ; but even 
 then, the accoupling of men and women is very similar to that of ' 
 animals. 
 
 Jn Australia the family^ in the_ European sense of the word, 
 does not exist j we hardly find it even in the most rudimentary 
 state. Parentage on the mother's side does exist, but the family 
 knows no father, and the parental authority will very often be 
 exerxjised by the imcle. As the marriage is exogamic, and the 
 children are recognised to belong to their mother's tribe, they are, 
 in case of war, obliged to follow her and to fight against their 
 father, who, in public opinion, is not considered as their parent. 
 It is true that here and there a tie between the father and the son 
 is beginning to be formed. Sometimes, when the eldest son of a 
 man has received a name, his father will adopt the same name.; 
 sometimes the son will succeed to the father's when the father has 
 been a celebrated chieftain. 
 
 A similar system of relationship is also in vogue in Fiji. There 
 the father and son are not considered as relations, but the nephew 
 has the right to take as much as he pleases of his uncle's property. 
 For among the Fijians, as among many other people, the terms 
 " parents, children, brothers, and sisters " indicate the sequence 
 of generations, the classes, together with the relative positions 
 of the tribes, much more fully than they indicate the degree of 
 consanguinity. 
 
 This shapeless family cannot be considered as a primordial in- 
 stitution, as "the cell" of societies. For between the structure 
 of societies and that of animal organism there is no real similitude. 
 The comparison between the histological elements of an animal 
 and those of individuals or families constituting a human society 
 is only an artifice of rhetoric. It may furnish a few metaphors or 
 oratorical developments, but it cannot do more. 
 
384 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 III. 
 Tlie Family in Africa. 
 
 Filiation, through -women, that which sociologists have called 
 the " matriarcat," is manifestly the most inferior and the most 
 animal form of relationship, and therefore it is very common in aU 
 primitive societies. It is general in Africa wherever negroes are 
 predominant, but we must except the Bushmen, for they have no 
 word to distinguished a girl from a married woman ; with them 
 neither family ties nor any sort of relationship is as yet known. 
 
 Nearly everywhere else the matriarcat prevails ; the sons generally 
 inherit only their mother's property ; very often they are no man's 
 sons, but a man's nephews, the sons of his sister, who succeed her 
 or inherit from her. Among the Bechuana Kafirs, the power of the 
 chief passes at his death to his brother, and in default to his 
 maternal nephew. 
 
 Among the Kimbundas the children belong to the maternal 
 uncle, and he has the right to sell them. The husband has 
 no authority over them, and only considers as his sons the 
 children of his wife-slaves. The relationship descending through 
 women is in vogue also in Senegal, in Loango, and in Congo. On 
 the Guinea coast the children strictly follow their mother's con- 
 dition ; if she is a slave they also are slaves, even though their 
 father be the king. With the Cumbri the filiation and the in- 
 heritance descend through the mother : the son of a Cumbri man 
 and of a strange woman is not a Cumbri. Cailli^ says, that in 
 Central Africa the sovereignty is not transmitted to the son ; it is 
 ordinarily the son of the sister who succeeds. 
 
 Even with the Tuaricks the infant is the child only of his 
 mother ; he inherits her social position, and, like her, is noble or 
 slave. Also, the collected property acquired by all the members of 
 the family go to the eldest son of the eldest sister ; the children 
 inherit only those articles of strictly individual property which 
 have been acquired by the father. Inheritance from the male is 
 however gradually establishing itself, or is tending in that direction, 
 
Chap. II.] THE FAMILY. 385 
 
 among the African negroes wherever they have succeeded in forming 
 themselves into any sort of complex society. Such has been the 
 case in the kingdom of Dahomey. ISTevertheless in Madagascar the 
 matriarcat is still customary. " It is the womb that colours the 
 child." 
 
 In the north and north-east countries of Africa, where Islamism 
 or Christianity has penetrated the most fully, the patriarcat is by 
 degrees supplanting the matriarcat; but with the JN'ubians the 
 power of the chief still descends to his nephew. 
 
 Among the ancient Egyptians the patriarcat was in sway without 
 any admixture. All the children of a man were equal, whether 
 their mothers were slaves or free, whether they were lawful wives 
 or not. Such is also now the case in Abyssinia, where, as we have 
 already seen, the connubial union is so fragile that eviration, an 
 accident frequent in the Abyssinian wars, breaks it, and makes the 
 wife of the mutilated man pass over into the bed of his brother- 
 in-law. 
 
 In short,_in^ Africa, the family, iiL the European sense of the 
 wordj A^?*^* y®^ constituted^ at least not among the real negro 
 races. The interests of the family are nearly everywhere sub- 
 ordinate to those of the tribe. Sons and nephews are confounded; 
 the latter will generally gain the advantage over the former. 
 Under such a system the affection of the father for his children is 
 naturally very slight. Sometimes the husband will submit to the 
 ceremony of the coverture to strengthen his ties of relationship 
 towards the children of his wife. Adoption is everywhere easy ; 
 the real son and the adopted son are scarcely distinguishable. 
 Adoption is considered as a true relationship if, as is the case in 
 Madagascar, the father and son are sprinkled with each other's 
 blood, and also if they each drink a few drops; or if, according 
 to a custom in Abyssinia, still more significant, the son touches 
 his father's breast with his own lips, and binds himself by oath 
 to conduct himself as though he were a son. 
 
 2 
 
386 SOCIAL LIFE. . [Book iv. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Family in America. 
 
 All over South America paternity hardly exists, or if at all, 
 maternal filiation is everywhere predominant. Exoganiy is general, 
 and it follows the rule of feminine genealogy. Such is the custom 
 among the Arawaks, among the Indians of Guiana, and in other 
 places. In many tribes coverture is practised, and from this it would 
 seem that an effort was being made in favour of paternal filiation. 
 The Cayuvavas abstain from all work during the menstruation 
 of their wives. The Guaranis will fast when their daughters 
 become nubile, and when their wives are pregnant, and especially 
 during the accouchement. And while their wives are pregnant 
 they do not risk their lives in hunting wild beasts. Among the 
 Chiriguanos, a tribe of the Guaranis, the woman continues her 
 ordinary occupations immediately after the birth of the child ; but 
 her husband lies down for several days in his hammock; he 
 fasts, he avoids every change of air, and becomes the object of 
 tender solicitude. Coverture is observed also among the Abipones. 
 This custom, so widely spread among the primitive races all over 
 the earth, is equal to adoption. In this way a man establishes his 
 paternity; he tries to institute paternal filiation in place of maternal 
 filiation, formerly adopted, and still so prevalent, that^ among the 
 Indians of Brazil the man was nearly altogether wanting in affection 
 for his own children. 
 
 Exogamy and uterine filiation are still the rule in North America. 
 It is the mother who gives the name ; it is from her that property 
 descends, and the rights of consanguinity are determined. The 
 children belong always to their mother's tribe. The terms em- 
 ployed by the Indians of North America to designate the degrees of 
 parentage, would seem to indicate a primitive state ; for there the 
 brothers and sisters lived together in promiscuity, and consequently 
 a man's children and his nephews were not distinguishable. Then 
 as the brothers and sisters could not marry each other, the brothers 
 took to themselves wives in common, whereas all the sisters belonged 
 
€hap.ii.] the family. 387 
 
 to the same man. The -women consequently called the sons of 
 their brothers by the name of "nephews," and inversely, they 
 called the sons of their sisters by the name of " sons." The 
 relationship among the Micmacs of North America is also still 
 governed in this manner. Among some few tribes, after many 
 restrictions, the maternal name is given to the children ; but this is 
 the privilege only of the chief, and of the rich people ; the poorer 
 classes still belong always to their mother's family, and the 
 children continue to take her name exclusively. This is the 
 practice among the Tlinkithes, in Eussian America. 
 
 Here and there, too, we find the custom of coverture in JSTorth 
 America, notably among the Choctahs. 
 
 As we have just remarked, the terms used by the Ked Skins to 
 designate the different degrees of relationship appear to indicate a 
 restricted and familiar promiscuity ; but we should perhaps do well 
 to make allowance for the confusion inherent in the minds and in 
 the. language of savages, and to distrust inductions hastily drawn. 
 For instance, the Esquimau will call his father-in-law, or his 
 fathers-in-law, by the name of father, even when there is no differ- 
 ence of age between them. The mind of the primitive man, like 
 that of a child, notices things only when they are startling, when 
 they are on a large scale. 
 
 Our knowledge is very incomplete as to the constitution of the 
 family in the large states of Central America before the time of the 
 Spanish conquest, but it appears that these ancient institutions 
 were native born in the country. In spite of many legends that 
 have been invented, we may consider that they originally grew 
 from the stock itself of the American races, of which they represent 
 the highest state of culture. As filiation from the woman's side 
 is the rule over all the American continent, we may expect to 
 find traces of it in ancient Central America. In fact, in Peru the 
 matriarcat was general, and the patriarcat was only just beginning 
 to show itself. It was instituted among the Incas, whose male 
 descendants alone had the right of showing their origin, and whose 
 sons inherited ; but according to Gomara, among the mass of the 
 people the inheritance descended to the nephew^, not to the sons. 
 
 2 2 
 
388 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 We must of course understand by this the inheritance of certaia 
 movable objects, for among the Peruvians land was considered as- 
 common property. 
 
 - In M exico the evolution of the family was in a more advanced 
 state ; the patriarcat was established. In fact it is always the 
 paternal personality that predominates ; it is the father who dictates 
 to his children the rules which govern their conduct, it is he who- 
 establishes the moral precepts which have been handed down 
 to us. The mothers warn their daughters that they ought to be 
 submissive to their husbands, that they ought to obey them and 
 endeavour to please them. 
 
 In America, therefore, we may watch the gradual formation of 
 the family. Among people of an inferior stage promiscuity still 
 exists, but it is gradually becoming less frequent. By degrees the- 
 uterine family was established, to give way, in process of time, to 
 the paternal family. We shall again find this remarkable evolution 
 in other parts of the globe. 
 
 v. 
 The Family in Polynesia. 
 
 It appears now to be beyond all doubt that many primitive- 
 societies used originally to live promiscuously, and that the family 
 became constituted only in a very gradual manner. We might 
 naturally expect to find traces of this coarse state among the 
 voluptuous Polynesian islanders, with whom marriage was so 
 fragile, and among whom an idea of shame was unknown. We 
 may add that all things being equal, promiscuity has more chance- 
 of establishing itself in these islands, where life is necessarily 
 much restricted, where it is impossible for the individual to isolate 
 himself, and consequently where erotic temptations spring up at 
 every moment. The Polynesians scarcely try to restrain them- 
 selves. On the contrary, in the Society islands, twenty married 
 persons might be seen living in common in the same house, and all 
 lying down upon the same mat. The family did not exist, except 
 perhaps in its most elementary condition. The Sandwich Islanders, 
 who had special words to express an adopted son, the parents of a 
 
€hap. II.] THE FAMILY. 389 
 
 son-in-law, etc., had no word signifying " cousin, uncle or aunt, 
 nephew or niece, son or daughter, father or mother." In the 
 Hawaian family nomenclature the relations were classed into five 
 sections : grand-parents, parents, brothers and sisters, children, and 
 •grandchildren. All the members of one of these sections were, 
 between themselves, considered as brothers and sisters. The child 
 would call his mother, or the sisters of his mother, by the name of 
 " female parent," and " male parent " applied equally to the father, 
 to the uncles, and even to distant relations. The word used to 
 signify "child" meant, in reality, a little one. The Hawaian 
 father was not the parent of his child. Adoption was rendered 
 extremely easy ; a man would give himself a father or sons almost 
 ad infinitum. But in the last century this primitive promiscuity 
 began to diminish. Brothers would generally own their wives in 
 common, sisters had also their joint husbands, but their husbands 
 could not also be their brothers. In Cook's days the uterine 
 family was beginning to establish itself for the chiefs ; their rank 
 and dignities were transmitted through the female line. 
 
 In Tonga island maternal filiation was well established. The 
 father was not considered as parent of his own son ; the rank was 
 transmitted through the woman, and she sometimes would reign. 
 But in these last few years the masculine filiation has begun to take 
 the place of the feminine. 
 
 In the Society islands the masculine filiation was adopted for 
 the chiefs, and even with some exaggeration ; for as a matter of law 
 the firstborn son succeeded from the moment of his birth, and his 
 father henceforward was reduced to performing the functions of the 
 regent, and was considered bound to pay homage to his son, and 
 could not stay in his presence without^ uncovering himself as far 
 down as the waist. 
 
 We have said how easily adoption was practised in the Sandwich 
 islands. It was a general custom, and even by its abuse it shows 
 how little importance was attached to the idea of filiation. In the 
 Marquesas islands it was not uncommon to see elderly persons being 
 adopted by children. Animals even were adopted. A chief adopted 
 a dog, to whom he offered ten pigs and some precious ornaments. 
 
390 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iy. 
 
 The dog was carried about by a IciMno, and at every meal he had 
 his stated place beside his adopted father. In the Tonga islands 
 no distinction was made between a real mother and an adopted 
 mother. 
 
 !From what has been said, we see that in Polynesia the family is 
 still in embryo. And in many other races we find the same social 
 conditions to be rery similar. 
 
 VL 
 
 Tlie Family in the Mongolian Race. 
 
 In the Mariana islands there is no relationship between th& 
 father and the son. In many localities in Sumatra the father took 
 the name of his firstborn, and in the district of Batta the title of 
 chief was transmitted to his sister's son. We have already seen 
 that, according to an ancient custom of Malay marriage, the father 
 was considered as the property of his wife's family and might be 
 driven out at pleasure. The establishment of a masculine filiation 
 is necessarily incompatible with customs such as these. 
 
 In Burmah there is no word to distinguish between father and 
 uncle, mother and aunt, son and nephew. 
 
 The Cambogians were more advanced even in the seventeenth 
 century, for, according to a Chinese author, they had different 
 denominations to designate the father and the uncle. 
 
 A great confusion still prevails in the family nomenclature among 
 the rude Kariens scattered over the Tenasserim, Burmah, and the 
 kingdom of Siam. In their language the children of cousins are 
 called nephews, the children of nephews are regarded as grand- 
 children, and the brothers and sisters of a grandfather call them- 
 selves respectively grandfather and grandmother. And by a 
 singularity which we can attribute only to the likeness between 
 the mental and social development, the family nomenclature of the 
 Kariens and the Esquimaux is almost identical. 
 
 We find remains of promiscuity among nearly all the pure 
 Mongolian groups. In Bhotan, in Tibet, where polyandry is still 
 practised — that is to say promiscuity in a restricted form — it is 
 more often than not impossible to determine the paternity of a. 
 
Chap. II.] THE FAMILY. 391 
 
 child ; the matriarcat therefore prevails. Among the ancient Mon- 
 golians, the family must have been constituted after a most confused 
 system, for Baber, the founder of the Mongolian empire in Delhi, 
 in his Memoirs, speaks of one of his lieutenants having a whole 
 tribe of maternal uncles. 
 
 Masculine filiation has been known in China for a long time ; 
 but the language still shows traces of the ancient social state in 
 which brothers possessed their wives in common. A Chinaman 
 still calls by the name of " son " the sons of his brother, but he 
 speaks of his sister's sons as his " nephews." 
 
 In Japan, filiation is subordinate to the indivisibility and the 
 inalienability of the patrimony. The inheritance passes to the 
 firstborn, boy or girl. The eldest child is forbidden to go away 
 from the property, and the spouse must take the name of the heir 
 or of the heiress. The filiation is therefore sometimes masculine, 
 and sometimes feminine. But the maternal uncle still bears the 
 name of " second little father ; " the paternal aunt will call herself 
 " little mother ; " the paternal uncle is a " little father ; " the 
 maternal aunt is a " little mother," and so forth. 
 
 As we have already observed, it does not follow that the imper- 
 fection in the family nomenclature should necessarily imply con- 
 fusion between the members of the family. "We know that this 
 confusion does exist, and has existed everywhere ; and we know 
 that the Japanese are too intelligent to be suspected of not being 
 able to distinguish by means of language that which they distin- 
 guish amongst themselves in their everyday life. 
 
 "We may consider as certain that, among the Mongolians or the 
 Mongoloids, the family has constituted itself, or is constituting itself 
 very slowly ; that a more or less restricted form of promiscuity has 
 existed among the greater part of their ethnical groups, and that 
 there are traces of polyandry still remaining ; and finally, that in 
 the heart of these races, filiation has established itself sometimes in 
 the female line, but more often in the masculine. 
 
892 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Family among the Aborigines of India. 
 
 In many of the aboriginal tribes in India the family is hardly 
 yot formed ; it is as yet only in process of formation. Among the 
 Nairs, who, as we have seen, still live in a state of restricted and 
 regulated promiscuity, there is no relationship existing between 
 the father and the son, for the very simple reason that the son 
 cannot recognise who his father is. The Nairs look upon their 
 uterine nephews as their children, and to them their property 
 descends. But we must except funded property ; that is trans- 
 mitted through the women, and never goes out of the maternal 
 clan. 
 
 Also among the Cingalese of Ceylon there is no parentage be- 
 tween the father and son. The tribe is expected to marry its own 
 members ; children belong to it as does the land, which remains 
 always indivisible. These are the Malay customs, and this fact 
 may assist us in determining the origin of the Cingalese people. 
 
 A similar system prevails with the Kasias, with the Kochs, 
 where there is also no relationship between the father and the son. 
 
 A tribe in the south of India, named Macua, have instituted 
 two sorts of marriage : one which cannot be dissolved without in- 
 fidelity on the part of the woman ; the other is a sort of free 
 marriage, according to which the children ought to follow their 
 mother in case of separation. 
 
 ^ The fact is that, among most primitive people, children are 
 looked upon simply as property, lucrative or onerous as the case 
 may be. It is after this unpleasant idea that filiation is regulated 
 in the law of polyandrous marriages. Certain polyandrous women 
 in Nepaul assign their property in the firstborn son to the eldest 
 of their husbands, who generally are brothers ; the second child 
 will go to the second brother, and so on in proportion. Again, in 
 other polyandrous and Buddhist tribes inhabiting that part of 
 Turkestan between the Oxus and the Hindoo-Ko, all the children 
 belonged to the eldest of the mothers. This is a most curioife 
 
Chap. II.] THE FAMILY. 393 
 
 instance ; it is a case of male filiation, based altogether upon social 
 conventions without the smallest care as to consanguinity, which 
 all over the world man always thinks the less about in proportion 
 as he is in a lower state of civilisation. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Family in the White Asiatic Races. 
 
 Unless we wish to run contrary to all common sense we must 
 fput aside many sociological lucubrations which have been labo- 
 a-iously extracted, with the aid of the forceps, from the linguistic 
 interpretation of the Vedic texts. The white race, as little as any 
 other, has risen up from nothing, already civilised, clothed in its 
 most noble and intellectual attributes. Like the other human 
 types, the white man has come from a very low state, and his 
 evolution, like theirs, has been very gradual. For him, as well as 
 for his fathers of different colours, it has not been a slight task to 
 sketch out, to make perfect, to draw with accurate precision his 
 many family relationships. 
 
 The race which once composed the Veddahs, whose origin is 
 totally unknown to us, had already, it would seem, devised the 
 patriarcat system. But with them the father was not only con- 
 sidered to be the generator, he was regarded as the proprietor, 
 (pitd-ganita, pater-genitor) and this had no doubt been his position 
 originally. The Yedic Aryans also had their denominations to 
 designate " the brother of the father," and the " son of the brother 
 of the father." They have other words to signify " the father, the 
 mother, the brother, the sister of the wife, the sisters and the 
 brothers of the wife, the wives of these brothers." From all this 
 we may conclude that the Yedic family were tolerably well con- 
 stituted. But it had not been so always, for in the Menu Code 
 we find remains of a coarser and more remote family state. 
 
 According to the Menu legislator, the infant of the girl-mother 
 who has been clandestinely delivered of a child belongs to the man 
 whom this girl marries; the child of the pregnant woman who 
 marries without declaring her pregnancy belongs to the husband. 
 
S94. SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 All the brothers of the father and the mother are considered the 
 fathers of the son of either of them ; all the wives of that one same 
 husband are considered to be the mothers of the male child of any 
 one wife. When a man has no child of his own, he may engage 
 his brother or his relatives to make his wife fruitful. The lawfully 
 born son, the son engendered by the authorised relation, the son 
 adopted, or the son given, the son born clandestinely whose father 
 is unknown, the son rejected by his natural parents, are all six 
 relations and heirs of the family. The Menu Code is formed 
 altogether upon the patriarcat system, and the filiation is wholly 
 masculine. *^The woman," it says, "is considered by the law as a 
 field, and the man as the seed,(^ Of however low extraction the 
 woman be, if she is lawfully married she acquires the same status 
 as her husband ; it is the same also with the son. The right of 
 priority by birth exists only in the male line. The eldest son takes 
 the greatest part of the inheritance ; the girls do not inherit, but 
 the brothers ought to give them the quarter of their share. 
 
 An antique period of promiscuity is more clearly proved to have 
 existed in Babylon, in Asia Minor, and in other places, as we may 
 see from the worship of Mylitta, Anaitis, and Aphrodite. We 
 have already seen that in order to obtain the right to marry — that 
 is to belong only to one man — the women were bound first to 
 ^declare themselves heterai, in order to indemnify the community. 
 
 Among the ancient nomad people of Cyrene^ and certain of the 
 Arab tribes of whom Strabo speaks, women were assignated to all 
 the members of the same family ; then as moral progress gradually 
 gave birth to social progress, the family by degrees came to be 
 established. It is certain that among some nations in ancient 
 Asia, filiation through the women — the matriarcat — was anterior to 
 the patriarcat. The Lycians, Herodotus tells us, took their 
 mother's name ; they derived their genealogy through their mothers 
 and their maternal ancestors; the children of a woman of noble 
 birth and of a slave-father were considered as nobles. 
 
 We may suppose, but it is difficult to determine accurately, 
 that there was among the Arabs a period of promiscuity followed 
 by the matriarcat. In the Koran, which describes the manners. 
 
Chap. II.] THE FAMILY. 39S 
 
 of the Arabs at the time of Maliomet, male filiation is clearly 
 established. "Women," says the holy book, "are the field of 
 man." The husband ought to assign a dowry to his wives. 
 After the death of the father, a son inherits the portion of two 
 girls. The father's name is borne by the sons. We find that 
 coarse manners were customary, because of the injunctions enacted 
 against them. The Koran forbids sons to marry women who have 
 been their father's wives; but it is specially said that the law 
 should not be retroactive. 
 
 The degrees of relationship are clearly established in the Koran : 
 it is forbidden to a man to marry his mother, his daughters, his 
 sisters, his paternal or his maternal aunts, or his foster-sisters ; for it 
 was thought that in being nursed from the same breasts a relation- 
 ship was formed. We find the same notion in Scotland and in 
 other countries. 
 
 These manners, more or less altered by local customs of a more 
 ancient date, have been introduced into Semitic and other nations 
 where Islamism has taken root. 
 
 We may say that on the whole the patriarcat has now become 
 customary with the white races in Asia, after they have gone 
 through a phase, probably a very long one, in which the family 
 relationships were terribly confused. And in the same way the 
 so-called Aryan European nations have passed through a similar 
 evolution, as may be seen by the numerous documents of which 
 we have already spoken when treating on the subject of marriage. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Tlie Family in Europe in Barbarous Ages. 
 
 The community of women has doubtless held its sway in many 
 tribes or hordes at one time stationed in Europe. Diodorus Siculus 
 relates that, almost in his times, it was considered in the Balearic 
 islands that a newly-married woman should first belong to the 
 parents and the friends of the husband. 
 
 Promiscuity necessarily determines that filiation shall be upoQ 
 the mother's side ; the man afterwards begins to take thought of 
 
396 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 his genealogical line, and endeavours to constitute his family. We 
 can discover signs and traces showing this ancient social custom to 
 have been at one time prevalent in Europe. 
 
 The coverture, which, according to Strabo, used to exist among 
 the Iberians, is still in vogue in some of the Biscay and Guipuzcoa 
 valleys ; for the manners of the Iberians have been partially pre- 
 served among the contemporary Basque people, their descendants. 
 They considered that the family domain should remain indivisible 
 and inalienable, under the care of the firstborn child ; when it 
 happened that the firstborn was a girl, her husband came to live 
 with her and took her name, which was transmitted to the children, 
 exactly as in Japan. 
 
 Among the Zaporogue Cossacks the relationship and genealogy 
 was established through the female line. 
 
 ' Tacitus tells us that, among the Germans, the maternal uncles 
 have as much affection for their nephews as the fathers have for 
 their own children, and often more. It is probable that more or 
 less confusion in the family relationships has existed in every 
 country and during every period, when the land was regarded as 
 common property, cultivated by all the people in the clan, who 
 often all lived together under the same roof. Such was the case in 
 ancient Germany ; such, too, is still the case in the family com- 
 munities in Croatia, on the confines of Austria, and in those of 
 Lombardy. 
 
 There are so many small republics, in which family feeling runs 
 very high, because it rests upon the keenest and closest interests. 
 Nestor, the ancient Slav historian, glorifies the strength of this 
 sentiment among his own people. He says that a Slav would 
 violate the holiest of nature's laws were he to emancipate himself 
 from the family ties. "When everything is held in common, 
 egoism is thought to be a crime. We should for the most part 
 look in vain for anything similar in our family as it is now con- 
 stituted. Our family seems to be the result of the crumbling up 
 of the ancient communities, of which we must now endeavour to 
 discover the early traces. 
 
Chap. II.] THE FAMILY. 397 
 
 The Family m Greece and Rome. 
 
 If we may believe in Greek traditions, marriage was unknown 
 among the Hellenes before the time of Cecrops; from which we 
 may infer that it was preceded by a period of promiscuity and 
 confusion as to family relationships. Matriarcat was the result, 
 as may be seen from a passage in Yarro, quoted by St. Augustine ; 
 and according to which, in the very early days of Athens, children 
 used to take their name from their mother. Male filiation did not 
 become established until afterwards : it was already an ancient 
 custom in the Homeric age. Sons used then to take their father's 
 name; girls did not inherit except in default of a male child, and 
 they were considered as a property, of which the father had a right 
 to dispose (see the preceding chapter on marriage). The Greeks 
 pushed the theory of male filiation to an absurd extent. In the 
 third part of his "Orestes," in " The Euries," ^schylus shows us at 
 full length this strange conception of consanguinity. According 
 to this theory the mother is but the repository — it is the father 
 who gives life. And at last Orestes is absolved from matricide, 
 because he was no relation to his mother. 
 
 In Eome also the family was constituted very slowly after a long / 
 period of confusion. But in Eome from the earliest times, mascu- 
 line filiation, agnatic relationship, was established among the rudest 
 clans. These people grouped themselves together, and so founded 
 the nucleus of the great Roman nation. But at first there were few 
 patricians who were able to say who their father was ; the mass of 
 the people did not go through the solemn marriage ceremony, the 
 justes noces. This mass was composed of plebeians, who lived in a. 
 quasi-promiscuous state, more ferarum, and knew of no legal 
 paternity. The family of patricians was established upon a basis 
 much more social in its nature than consanguinity — that of pro- 
 perty ; for the word familia was held to mean the collective body 
 of slaves of the owner. Marriage alone was not sufhcient to 
 establish agnation, a masculine affiliation ; a declaration, and the 
 
398 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 recognition of the child by his father were considered necessary. 
 Children by the same father but by different mothers were agnate ; 
 but no legal relationship existed between children of the same 
 mother and of different fathers. Until the time of Nerva adoption 
 was symbolised by a feigned confinement ; and no difference was 
 made between the adopted and the consanguineous son. The latter 
 even ceased to be regarded as part of the family, and therefore 
 could not inherit, as soon as he was emancipated; that is to say 
 he ceased to be his father's slave. In the earliest days of Rome 
 everything was based on property ; the soil belonged to the family, 
 and the father had not the right to dispose of it by will. To be a 
 member of the family community was the first and most important 
 right ; that constituted a quality which might be lost or acquired. 
 
 It was only slowly, and very gradually, that the idea of filiation, 
 of consanguinity, came to overrule that of co-proprietorship, but 
 the two were always closely connected ; and nowadays, in our codes 
 of law which have been based upon the Roman codes — that is in 
 countries where the Roman law has been more or less adopted — 
 the degree of relationship confers a strict and proportionate right 
 of inheritance. 
 
 -^ 
 
 Evolution of the Family. 
 
 After the facts enumerated in the foregoing pages we may now 
 follow the evolution of the family from its origin down to our own 
 time, and we may even hazard a few conjectures as to its future. 
 
 In the most distant ages, when man began to recognise that he 
 was different from the animals round about him, a sort of simian 
 family must have existed everywhere in the human kind. Our 
 primitive ancestors used to wander about through the forests in 
 small groups, in which there would be the father, or rather the 
 male, his wife or wives, and the children, forming collectively a 
 temporary association under the paternal authority. The Ved- 
 dahs, in the jungles of Ceylon, still continue to live in this way. 
 As the intelligence of our crass human progenitors began by degrees 
 to develop itself, and also the instincts towards sociability to make 
 
€iiAP. II.] THE FAMILY. 399 
 
 themselves felt, people came together in hordes, composed of several 
 families : for everywhere union is strength. In these rudimentary- 
 societies, made up of very unintelligent beings, totally devoid of all 
 moral delicacy, promiscuity naturally became the rule. All the 
 women belonged to all the men, but especially to men of a certain 
 age, to those gifted with experience and with strength. And now, 
 in many Australian tribes, the elderly men have a possessive right 
 over the women of their own group. In societies so established it 
 is impossible that children should have a father ; they belong to 
 the community. 
 
 The family gradually emerged from this state of promiscuity; it is 
 probable that this was mainly the woman's work. For it is a law, 
 common among all mammalia, that the female should have for her 
 young stronger affectionate instincts than is possible in the male 
 kind. In the horde, the children had no fathers, but they had 
 mothers, who for several years nursed them and gave them suck, 
 and then afterwards, and by degrees, allowed them to go their own 
 way. Feminine filiation, too, began to establish itself, and to 
 become customary. Children inherited movable property from their 
 mother ; man's inheritance went to his uterine nephews, to the 
 children of the paternal aunt. 
 
 Asl the maral and intellectual strength of our ancestors developed 
 their genesic instincts became less animal. In their heart there 
 was also some feeling of love ; they came to attach themselves to 
 one female rather' than to another. Hence arose a certain pre- 
 dilection for the children of the favourite wife. They also began 
 to think of their genealogy and of their descendants. They 
 wished to possess for themselves one or more wives, generally 
 bought, or else captured after a brutal fashion. They considered 
 their wives, and the children of their wives, as their own absolute 
 property. A great liberty of sexual intercourse was still common 
 amongst all people in the tribe ; but the women belonging to a 
 man, as though they were movable objects or domestic animals, 
 were still more or less respected. These women might designate 
 the father of their children, who continued for a long time to bear 
 their mothers' names, and were after considered as belonging to 
 
400 SOCIAL LIFE. ' [Book it. 
 
 the tribe. At last, male filiation succeeded in establishing itself^ 
 but only in those ethnical groups where there was a somewhat 
 complex civilisation, where marriage had become recognised as an 
 institution, serving as the basis on which the family, clearly 
 defined, was at last founded. 
 
 Such appears to have been the evolution of the family, inde- 
 pendently of race, in all the ethnical groups which have succeeded:, 
 in emancipating themselves from primitive savagery. 
 / At the same time that filiation, first feminine and afterwards 
 masculine, was establishing itself, man was thinking about his 
 collateral relations; he was noting the diflferent degrees of con- 
 sanguinity, and applying to them different denominations, which 
 he was able to determine with greater precision in proportion to 
 the intelligence of his race and the richness of his language. The 
 divisioning .of property at last followed the degrees of consan- 
 guinity, man began to divide the capital that was once possessed 
 by the tribe ; and the family community was substituted in the 
 place of the ethnical group. 
 
 Small consanguineous societies then grew up ; clans arose ; people 
 having the same interests came to live together under the same 
 roof. In these clans family sentiments ran high, and finally over- 
 came the more general interests of the tribe or of the nation. In 
 this social phase man's shelter, his .place of refuge, was in his 
 family ; everything was made subordinate to its welfare, and family 
 egoism was held to be a high virtue. It could not indeed be 
 otherwise, for there the large community, the state, the nation, 
 took little heed of the individual, who lived and maintained himself 
 as best he might. 
 
 But in humanity the moral and intellectual evolution is never 
 idle. The work of fusion, of consolidation, followed the fractioning 
 into classes and families. Simultaneously with family interests, 
 the general interests made themselves felt ; the State put do-\vn her 
 hand; and under the laws which she established individuals 
 claimed for themselves more personal liberty. In process of time 
 these legal trammels were no longer necessary for the common 
 welfare, and their observance became gradually less rigorously 
 exacted. / 
 
Chap. II.] THE FAMILY. 401 
 
 Such is the condition now in Europe, and in other countries which 
 have civilised themselves after our mode. The family still exists, 
 and inheritance is always divided according to consanguineous 
 relations ; but, on the other hand, the general interests impersonated 
 in the state demand to be ever more and more respected. JSTo doubt 
 that the state is always endeavouring to direct the education of 
 children to better advantage. It is ever trying to put restrictions 
 upon individual property. Succession duties and deeds of sale are 
 continually increasing in price. The public expenditure has to be 
 provided for, and is every day becoming more onerous. 
 
 In a word, the family tie, morally and legally, is growing more 
 slack. The authority of parents over their children is lessening ; 
 it moves in inverse ratio to the obligations, always augmenting, 
 that the great social community imposes upon the individual. 
 
 If this movement continues, what will become of the family 1 
 
 But here we must draw a line of distinction. As knowledge 
 extends in human societies, consanguinity, both direct and colla- 
 teral, will be more and more important ; in proportion as we 
 become more familiar with the hereditary laws, the vocabulary of 
 our relationships will also increase. There is a strong social 
 interest in knowing as far as possible the genealogy of an indi- 
 vidual, for each man, in his virtues and in his failings, represents a 
 whole line of ancestors. That is the scientific side of the family ; 
 but the sentimental side will evolve in the opposite direction. 
 Family feeling will ever grow less and less. It will, by degrees, 
 give way to the widest form of altruism, to the increasing care of 
 the general interest. Who can deny that in the great majority of 
 ■cases, family life is not for most children a deplorable schooling ? 
 It emaciates the body, it perverts the heart, and it warps the mind. 
 
 As social progress slowly advances, the state will gradually tend 
 -to substitute its authority for the blind and unwholesome family 
 influence. It is impossible for us to say how this change may be 
 brought about, or how far it may go. It may be effected in various 
 ways. Here, as everywhere, or perhaps here more than everywhere, 
 we must trust to shrewd observation, and to most prudent experience. 
 The skein of sociological facts is infinitely complex ; and not until 
 after many trials and much groping can we hope to unravel it. 
 
 2 D 
 
402 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv» 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PROPERTY. 
 
 TJie Origin of PropeHy. 
 
 As soon as any creature, animal or man, is capable of feeling pleasure 
 or pain, as soon as he can recollect the value of impressions and is 
 more or less capable of foresight, he endeavours to put on one side 
 that which is displeasing to him, to possess that which he likes ; he 
 has in him then the desire for ownership. Nothing is more ego- 
 istical; but nothing is more natural, or more necessary in the 
 struggle for existence. 
 
 Ants consider as joint property the galleries which they have 
 constructed, the avenues leading into these galleries, the plant-lice 
 which they milk, and for whom they have built stables; they 
 claim even the possession of all the surrounding territory. Certain 
 flesh-eating animals have also their hunting-grounds, which, in 
 case of need, they will protect against fresh intruders. Our 
 domestic dogs have the feeling of personal property to a very great 
 extent, and they show it in a hundred different ways. Our children,, 
 who begin by being inferior animals, acquire very early a strong 
 desire for ownership ; the naive egoism with which this shows itself 
 was observed and noted by Pascal. 
 
 The desire for ownership is universal ; we find it in every human 
 society. It has been, it is, and will always be clothed in very 
 many different forms, and some of these we now propose to examine. 
 How many hollow declamations would never have come to light if 
 the theorists of the rights of property had begun by studying its 
 rise and its evolution ! Property in itself has nothing of an 
 execrable, nor of a sacred character. Like every large sociological 
 fact, there is, and always has been, a reason for its existence ; like 
 them, it is destined to become changeable in proportion as the 
 hearts and minds of human beings grow larger, in proportion as the 
 
Chap, iii.] PKOPEETY. 403 
 
 feeling of justice becomes more delicate, and social joint respon- 
 sibility grows narrower. Now, under penalty of death, ethnical com- 
 petition imposes upon every group of men the obligation to progress 
 indefinitely, to make better and better use of their talents ; that is 
 to say, to create for themselves an organisation upon a larger and 
 more equitable basis. Past ages have given birth to the present, 
 and from the present, in their turn, future ages will be born. Con- 
 sequently, to enable us to form sound ideas and probable conjectures 
 as to the rights of property, our most profitable study will be to 
 retrace the different customs among the various human races. 
 
 n. 
 
 Pro;perty in Melanesia. 
 
 Among the Melanesians, property — that is, of course, territorial 
 or landed property — is common in some ethnical groups, and 
 individual in others. 
 
 Each tribe or horde of the Tasmanians used to possess their own 
 hunting-ground, clearly marked out, and no one was allowed to 
 trespass upon it under penalty of death. They considered the 
 infraction of their right as a mortal injury done to them, for it 
 was taking away from them their means of subsistence. The 
 property belonged to all the members of the community, without 
 distinction; the idea of landed property, held individually, was 
 unknown to them. 
 
 With the Australians it was different. In certain tribes, individual 
 property was customary ; and poaching was everywhere considered a 
 capital misdemeanour. Each male possessed a small limited portion 
 of the land belonging to the tribe ; he had the right to sell it, to 
 exchange it, or even to subdivide it during his lifetime among his 
 sons. It is curious to find among one of the most inferior races of 
 humanity the idea of individual and alienable property; that is 
 to say, property as it exists amongst the most civilised nations. ' 
 And we need not suspect that agriculture has any influence, for iii 
 Australia it was not even known. 
 
 The scarcity of. large animals in Australia may perhaps have 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 "been one of the influences tending to promote the condition of 
 individual landed property. The kangaroo and the emu were 
 almost the only animals who gave long chase. Kep tiles, the small 
 opossum, the larvae of insects, roots, gum, fish from the rivers, 
 shell-fish on the seashore, used to constitute the ordinary daily 
 fare. There was therefore no reason against stationing each in- 
 dividual man upon a large strip of the vast territory belonging to 
 the tribe; though the tribe always reserved to themselves the 
 supreme command over the property. For instance, the owners 
 of property were not allowed to pick the eatable gum from the 
 trees during harvest time; certain restrictions were placed upon 
 the hunting; children were not allowed to eat the flesh of the 
 emu. 
 
 Individual property exists also in ^NTew Caledonia. There every 
 man, noble or plebeian, holds a strip, more or less large, of culti- 
 vated fields; and this property is respected even by the chiefs. 
 The conditions of life in New Caledonia, the total absence of all 
 large mammalia, the practice of agriculture, all lent themselves, 
 better than in Australia, to the parcelling out of property. 
 r These facts are instructive. They prove to us that individual 
 
 / landed property is not in any way the stamp and the seal of a very 
 
 v_advanced state of civilisation. 
 
 We find individual property also in Fiji, but it is held after a 
 much less democratic fashion ; for there the chiefs, always liable to 
 be deposed by their nephews, are the only proprietors, and they 
 profit by the labour of their slaves. We see, therefore, that the 
 majority of the Melanesian people seem to have a precocious taste 
 for the right of individual property. 
 
 III. 
 Prop&rty in Africa, 
 
 -In Africa landed property is rarely held individually, except in 
 Abyssinia and in those northern countries where the ^lussulman 
 form of worship is practised ; and oven here, as we shall see, it is 
 held subject to many restrictions. But all over negro Africa 
 
Chap, hi.] PEOPERTY. 405 
 
 landed property, when it has been instituted, belongs in principle 
 to the community, or to the chief who represents it. 
 
 Among the Hottentots, a nomad and pastoral people, cattle are 
 the real source of riches ; property in land exists only for 
 grazing purposes or for hunting, and the limits are nowhere clearly 
 defined. 
 
 Among the Kafirs, an agricultural race, the arable land belongs 
 to the tribe, but it is not held in common. 
 
 Every year the chief parcels out the land already cultivated, or 
 that which is in process of cultivation, among the members of 
 the tribe. Each family, once in possession of its own bit of 
 ground, establishes itself there, isolates itself, and lives mainly 
 upon the grain that it has sown, and which it afterwards grinds 
 between two stones. Similar customs, according to M. Eleuriot de 
 Langle, prevail on the Gorea coast among the loloffs, where each 
 year the chief of the village, assisted by a council of the elders, 
 divides out the land to be cultivated, partitioning the lots accord- 
 ing to the needs of each family. In Saccatoo no man is allowed 
 to enclose or cultivate land until he has first obtained leave of the 
 governor. 
 
 In the regions of Equatorial Africa visited by Du Chaillu, 
 where savagery is even greater, it appears that anyone may culti- 
 vate the ground if he so pleases. Villages never remain standing 
 for a long time ; as soon as anyone dies of sickness, the habitations 
 are set on fire, and the people go away to establish themselves else- 
 where. Men have at their disposition much more arable ground 
 than they know how to dispose of. Riches with them consists 
 in having a great number of wives and slaves, whom they can 
 compel to work as they please. A few privileged persons arrogate 
 to themselves the produce of the arable land, making use of men 
 and women as though they were domestic animals. 
 
 In societies that are more stable and better organised the daily 
 usufruct becomes an inalienable property ; the powerful associate 
 together, to form one or more castes, dividing amongst themselves 
 the produce of the ground, which is cultivated for them by the 
 slaves. This was the agrarian system in ancient Egypt. The 
 
406 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 common man, the fellah of those days, used to cultivate the soil 
 on the banks of the Nile, sometimes harnessing himself to the 
 yoke, for the benefit of the royal family, for the priests, or for 
 the warriors. A fifth part of the harvest so gathered was taken to 
 fill the store-rooms, for the man attached to the glebe had also to 
 be fed. The sacerdotal caste alone were exonerated from this 
 impost ; they received charity, but they gave nothing away. 
 
 According to Mussulman ideas, the soil belongs to the sovereign. 
 That is the principle, but the practice is not always scrupulously 
 observed. In modern Egypt the greater part of the land is 
 mirieh ; the proprietors enjoy only the produce of it, and cannot 
 leave their landed property by will without authorisation from the 
 chief of the state. A portion of the land, however, is moulk, and 
 the owners may dispose of it as they please. 
 
 In Mussulman Algeria there are various agrarian systems. The 
 Arabs, properly so called, recognise four kinds of properties : that 
 belonging to the state, that belonging to the religious corporations, 
 that belonging to communities or to tribes, and that belonging to 
 individuals. In point of fact it is the tribe who takes care of the 
 property. The part belonging to each family remains undivided 
 to those who have the right to it ; they cultivate it in common and 
 divide the produce among themselves. Each co-proprietor may 
 sell his share, but the other members of the family have the right 
 of bringing the property back again into its original line of descent ; 
 they may recover the portion sold in repaying the money. 
 
 In Kabylie, essentially an agricultural country, individual pro- 
 perty has become instituted after the European manner. The 
 fields, small enough, are often enclosed, each property has its title- 
 deeds, mentioning even the number of the trees, and in which the 
 ownership is fully established. 
 
 In the same way, too, in the different oases, covered with palm 
 trees, each tree is considered as an individual piece of property. 
 
 The family organisation of landed property is customary also in 
 Christian Abyssinia, and we shall find it nearly everywhere in 
 spite of the difference between the religion of the people and their 
 civilisation. The Abyssinians have carefully marked out their 
 

 €hap. III.] ^ PROPERTY. 407 
 
 family estates, they seldom alienate them out of the family ; and 
 the women, who on their marriage might place a stranger in the 
 enjoyment of the common property, do not inherit until default of 
 male heirs to the sixth or the seventh degree. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, the alienation and the individual hold- 
 ing of property in Africa is only exceptional. We shall see that 
 nearly all over the world this method of appropriating the soil is 
 the least usual, and the custom that has most lately come into 
 practice. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Property in, America. 
 
 Community is or has been the rule nearly everywhere among the 
 American aborigines. In Terra del Fuego the idea of landed 
 property has not yet been received. The sea is the principal 
 store-cupboard from which people take their food ; no Fuegian 
 owns anything beyond his canoe and his few utensils. 
 
 Among those savage tribes of South America who regard agri- 
 culture merely as an accessory — for instance, the people who live on 
 the banks of the Orinoco — the districts set apart for hunting and 
 fishing are owned in common by each tribe ; but any bit of land 
 put into a rough state of cultivation becomes the personal property 
 of those who have more or less cleared away the ground. The 
 territory is so vast that the tribes have not yet thought of repressing 
 these insignificant attempts at personal or family appropriation. 
 
 In Columbia the majority of the Indians are quite ignorant of 
 the notion of landed property held individually, but they have got 
 a very keen perception of the rights of property possessed by the 
 tribe at large over their hunting-grounds. They watch over their 
 game with a jealous eye ; the crime of poaching may terminate in a 
 bloody conflict. 
 
 It is just the same among the Red Skins in I^orth America. 
 The vast hunting or fishing grounds of each tribe are the undivided 
 property of all the members of the association ; their frontiers are 
 more or less clearly marked, and trespass is a crime that will often 
 result in war. The property inside the enclosure belongs to the 
 
408 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 triloe, it is its own little country ; the right of hunting and shoot- 
 ing belongs to all the members of the association, and each on& 
 may possess as his own the game and the fish that he has taken. 
 The clearing away of a strip of land will confer the right of indi- 
 vidual property over the products of the soil ; but this is only a 
 usufructuary title, for the Indians do not allow land to be trans- 
 mitted from one individual to another. Some of the Red Skins 
 on the north-western shore attached such importance to their 
 property that they demanded payment of Cook's sailors for wood 
 and water. 
 
 The rules that govern property among the Esquimaux are more 
 numerous, and they are also more singular. Nowhere does the 
 community proclaim its right over property more strongly ; for with 
 them this right is exercised over movable objects which nearly 
 everywhere else are the uncontested right of the individual, of him 
 who has fashioned them. 
 
 The Esquimaux form so many small associations among them- 
 selves, they often live all under the same roof, and they carefully 
 determine the limits of a small district that shall be used by them 
 in common. Their laws in this respect are very curious. 
 
 Whales, walruses, bears, all the large animals, no matter how 
 they have been captured, are regarded as common property ; for 
 except in very rare instances, they do not consider that one indi- 
 vidual, unaided, can capture one of these big creatures. 
 
 Of every seal that is taken in a winter station small parts of 
 meat and of fat are distributed among the associates of the same 
 group. 
 
 If the borrower of any utensil or any instrument lose or damage 
 the thing lent, the lender is not entitled to claim damages ; for a 
 man does not lend that of which he is in actual need. 
 
 An Esquimau has not the right to own more than two kayaks. 
 If he has a third he is bound to lend it to an associate of his com- 
 mune ; for that which is not being used ia regarded as having no- 
 possessor. 
 
 Individual property, therefore, is by these rules limited to a few 
 arms and utensils, and these only in a very small number. 
 
Chap, hi.] PKOPERTY. 409 
 
 But those who prefer their own individual proprietorship may- 
 leave the district inhabited by the association, and outside the 
 frontiers build for themselves a hut which is their own personal 
 property. In this way they may hunt and fish as they please, but 
 they do so at their own risk and peril. 
 
 Also, everyone in the community has the right to appropriate tO' 
 himself any piece of floating wood on condition that he is strong 
 enough to draw it alone on to the bank, quite clear of the water. 
 A stone placed upon it is then held sufficient to guarantee the 
 proprietorship. 
 
 It is not without some astonishment that we find in a race so ill 
 developed in every other respect a system of association at once so 
 ingenious and so equitable, and in which there is such a strong 
 sentiment of joint human responsibility, with which is also con- 
 nected a regard for individual independence. The majority of 
 Europeans, so proud of their arts, of their science, and, in a word, 
 of their civilisation, are surely, as regards their social aptitudes-, 
 very much inferior to the Esquimaux. 
 
 V. 
 
 Property in Peru and in Mexico. 
 
 Like the Esquimaux, of whom we have just spoken, the ancient 
 Peruvians took the idea of communism for the basis of their- 
 society. But their communism was not republican and equalising ; 
 it was rather patriarchal and authoritative, leaving the labour to 
 the common people, whom the governing classes directed as they 
 thought most proper. This is the largest attempt at a centralised 
 and despotic communism that has ever yet been realised. It may 
 be worth while to describe it with some detail. 
 
 The territory of the Peruvian empire was divided into three 
 parts : one for the sun, that is, the sacerdotal caste; another for the 
 Inca ; the third for the people. 
 
 The lands belonging to the sun produced an income devoted to 
 the maintenance of the temples, to tlie celebration of sumptuous 
 ceremonies, and to provide for the wants of a numerous clergy. 
 
410 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 The luxury of the court and the large household attaching to it, 
 the immense family of the Inca, absorbed all the revenues of the 
 royal domains. 
 
 The rest of the land was divided among the people, and the 
 partitioning of the lots used to take place once in each year. 
 !N"othing was left to individual caprice. Every Peruvian male was 
 bound to marry at a certain age, and the district to which he 
 belonged furnished him with a habitation and a strip of land suf- 
 ficient for himself and his wife. At the birth of each child an 
 additional small piece of land was added to that originally granted, 
 and the whole would increase or diminish each year in proportion 
 to the number existing in the family. 
 
 The curacas, or men in government employment, received a lot, 
 of which the value was made proportionate to the importance of 
 their office. 
 
 On the other hand, the people worked for everybody. The 
 three kinds of property were cultivated by them, and after a 
 certain established order. The land of the sun was first looked 
 after; God and his ministers naturally had precedence given to 
 them. Then came — and this is curious in a despotic state — the 
 lands of the incapable, and those who had become maimed through 
 injuries received in the public service, those of old men, of the sick, 
 of widows, of orphans, of soldiers in active service. Then everyone 
 was free to work for himself, but under the general obligation to 
 give assistance to his neighbours. At last, in the third place, 
 people took care of the lands belonging to the Inca. This last 
 work was undertaken as though it were a public rejoicing; the 
 population used to sing as they tilled the royal lands, and they 
 were clothed always in gala costume. 
 
 All their undertakings were performed in the same way; to 
 work the mines, to graze and look after the numerous flocks of 
 lamas, to shear them, to weave the stuff's of wool or of cotton, to 
 make the roads, etc. But each Peruvian owed to the state only 
 a certain stated portion of his time. As soon as his task was 
 finished, he was replaced by another man ; he was also maintained 
 by the state as long as the state hai need of him 
 
€hap. III.] PROPERTY. 411 
 
 The greater portion of the harvest of the wool taken from the 
 lamas, etc. was stored away in repositories and divided into three 
 categories, corresponding to the three great social divisions ; but the 
 stores belonging to the sun were obliged in case of need to supply the 
 deficits of the Inca ; and when his repository was overflowing, the 
 surplus went to the sick and the infirm. The stufi's were fabricated 
 by the women, who understood perfectly well the art of spinning 
 and weaving. With these stuffs the families used first to clothe 
 themselves, and the over abundant matter was put into the stores 
 of the Inca. Men were employed to watch over the distribution of 
 the goods, and also over the execution of the work. 
 
 Everything was done as it was wanted; the different employ- 
 ments usually passed on from father to son. 
 
 Thanks to this system, famine was unknown in Peru. There 
 was no mendicity, nor was there any private charity. No one had 
 to fear abandonment; the community, as far as it was possible, 
 provided for every case of need : old age, sickness, infirmity, 
 accidents, etc. 
 
 In the Peruvian system we find realised, point by point, certain 
 modern ideal plans, usually considered as impracticable Utopias. 
 We may add that for centuries this system gave to Peru every 
 kind of prosperity compatible with a poorly-developed civilisation. 
 But would it necessarily exclude all progress, as has been imagined 1 
 What would have ultimately resulted from it 1 The savage Spanish 
 conquest barred the way to any decision of these questions ; but 
 it is an important sociological fact that the system was in 
 a very large measure successful. The device, "Everyone for 
 himself and God for all," upon which we act in our European 
 societies, has its good sides; it stimulates personal activity; it 
 excites us all to work and to invent ; but how many sacrifices does 
 it exact? And how many times in the inexorable struggle for 
 life must not the better man succumb before the worse, honesty 
 before meanness 1 How many times has an honourable and 
 laborious life ended in abandonment and unhappy old age 1 In a 
 well-organised society we ought to succeed in conciliating the 
 joint responsibility of all the members with their own individual 
 
412 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book ir, 
 
 t 
 independence. The problem may be difficult, but perhaps it is not 
 
 insolvable. 
 
 We do not find anything existing in Mexico at all comparable 
 to the systematic authoritative communism in Peru. But we do- 
 find a social organisation, having the welfare of the community 
 for its basis, to have existed at the time of the foundation of the 
 Aztec empire; and we may still discover traces in the present 
 j)ueblos of iN'ew Mexico, evidently constructed after the plan of 
 those casas grandes of five, six, and seven stories, which caused 
 much astonishment to the conquerors. In the anthropological 
 section of the Exhibition of 1878, there were models of these 
 curious pyramidical constructions, in which each story was less wide 
 and less deep than the story below. The whole edifice is divided into 
 rooms, into cells, into which one descends by a hole bored through 
 the ceiling. There is no staircase ; the communication from one 
 story to the other is by means of outside ladders. Each building 
 forms a village in itself, of difficult access, governed by a chief 
 elected yearly. Everyone agrees in bestowing eulogy upon the 
 Indians who live in these pueblos. They are peaceful, hospitable, 
 industrious, and intelligent ; and, in spite of their common life^ 
 they seem to practise monogamy with comparative strictness. 
 
 The general organisation in ancient Mexico was very different ; 
 the emperor nearly always maintained a sovereign right over all 
 property. It was a sort of feudal system, in which the emperor, as 
 principal proprietor of all the soil, used to grant the feoffs, but of 
 which the investiture had to be confirmed at each new accession. 
 In return, those who held the land were bound to appear frequently 
 at court to uphold him in case of need with their armed vassals^ 
 and to pay him an annual tribute. But personal property did 
 exist over certain estates conquered or given as recompense for 
 public services. The owners were forbidden to dispose of their 
 property in favour of a plebeian. Certain of these possessions were 
 transmissible only to the eldest sons, and, in default of heirs, they 
 reverted to the Crown. 
 
 Wo find, therefore, in America, that the idea of landed pro- 
 perty is unknown to the Euegians, and among other native tribes 
 it takes the form of hunting or fishing preserves, held in common ; 
 
€hap. III.] PROPERTY. 413 
 
 but it is sometimes permitted to individuals to appropriate to 
 themselves small strips of land, if they will be at the trouble 
 of clearing it. In Central America landed property is better 
 organised ; in Peru it is Used for the benefit of the community ; 
 in Mexico it is held individually. In this latter country we 
 may say that the establishment of landed property was preceded 
 by a superior civilisation. Both the Mexican and the Peruvian 
 societies were about on a par of intellectual development, but in 
 moral development the Peruvian was very far in advance. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Property in Polynesia. 
 
 In Polynesia property was and is still held mainly in three dif- 
 ferent ways : by the tribe, for the benefit of the community ; by the 
 community, for the benefit of the family ; and individual property. 
 
 In certain districts of New Zealand there are small societies 
 living in a state of absolute communism, even with promiscuity. 
 The stuffs and woven materials are all common. To cultivate the 
 ground, to manufacture the cloth, to watch birds, to go fishing in 
 their canoes, is man's division of the labour. The women collect 
 the fern roots, they pick up the shell-fish and other crustaceous 
 animals on the seashore, they prepare the food, and they make 
 Tip the articles of clothing. A portion of the ground is allotted 
 to the use of each family, and this portion is again subdivided 
 into individual parts on the birth of each child. 
 
 In Easter island there used to be large houses like the Mexican 
 pueblos, in which there was room for a hundred persons. Similar 
 buildings also were seen in Ulietea. In the Marquesas islands, 
 every native on a journey has the right to enter any hut, to thrust 
 his hand into the popoi trough, to eat as much as he wants, and 
 may then go away without being compelled to offer a word of 
 thanks. In these same islands theft is considered as a venial 
 .offence, and it is rarely punished. 
 
 Elsewhere the notion of individual property was instituted, 
 sometimes in all its fulness. At .Tongatabou the houses of the 
 chief, and the cabins of his servants or of his slaves, were 
 
414 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv, 
 
 constructed in the middle of a plantation enclosed by hedges. In 
 the Sandwich islands a feudal organisation existed, based upon the 
 right of conquest. The conquering chief divided the conquered 
 district among his great vassals, and they subdivided their part 
 between their sub- vassals, who were taxed at will by their master. 
 A similar practice was common in Tahiti. The lords of the district 
 conceded portions of land to their vassals, who enforced the common 
 people, the tatous, to do all the hard labour. Individual property 
 was thus constituted in all its severity. Each strip of land had its 
 own particular proprietor. These people had even imagined the 
 system which in French Brittany is called ^*le domaine congeable;" 
 sometimes the trees would belong to one individual and the ground 
 to another. By means of a singularity which we have already 
 noticed, the bare property itself passed from the father to the soa 
 immediately upon the birth of the latter. 
 
 In Tahiti people had arrived at the extreme right of individual 
 property ; the dying man had a right to leave it by will ; he 
 dictated to his relations and friends his last wishes, and these were 
 always held as sacred. 
 
 Amid such an organisation of property, theft was not tolerated 
 as in the Marquesas islands ; the guilty exposed themselves at 
 least to a bastinado, and sometimes to death. 
 
 In Tahiti, as in many other countries, the institution of individual 
 property, almost Koman in its form, coincided with a social state 
 that was but very slightly advanced. But in Polynesia these 
 general conditions hastened the evolution of the right of ownership. 
 In the smaller islands, where the chase after the larger kinds of 
 game is unknown, because none of the large mammalia are to be 
 found there, man must depend for his food mainly upon the 
 vegetable kingdom, or, in order to get animal food, he must catch 
 fish, or resort to the domestic animals. We may therefore, without 
 doing harm to anyone, restrict the right of landed possessions, and 
 when man has arrived at the stage of agriculture, individual property 
 is then soon established. The chief, however, always exercises the 
 main right, and the principle of primitive community is not 
 abolished. 
 
Chap, hi.] PEOPERTY. 415. 
 
 VII. 
 Property in Malay, etc. 
 
 In the Pelew islands the organisation of property runs contrary 
 to the effect naturally produced by the mode of liying in the islands. 
 The different races of people do not all obey the same causes in the 
 same way; everything therefore is in a state of change and evolution. 
 
 The individual here owns as his own property only his house, his 
 furniture, and his canoe ; the king is the general proprietor of all 
 the land, and he allows certain people to enjoy the usufruct. 
 When the usufructuary ceases to enjoy this privilege, the strip of 
 land from which his produce came reverts to the king, and every 
 year there is a new partitioning of liberated lands. 
 
 In the Caroline islands, also, a relative community exists. Each 
 district possesses a large public house, in which people meet, where 
 they keep their boats, their weaving spindles, and other instruments 
 useful to the community at large. 
 
 But more especially in Java we find an agrarian community 
 practised in perfect fulness ; the system in many provinces may be 
 compared to the Eussian mir. 
 
 The Javanese think that all the soil belongs to the Creator, to 
 God, and therefore to God's representative on earth — the sovereign. 
 The sovereign allows the enjoyment of the property either to his 
 commune or to the individual who has made it valuable. The 
 recipient and his descendants enjoy all the benefits of ownership as 
 long as he fulfils all the conditions that have been prescribed by 
 custom. The soil, consequently, is inalienable ; the majority even 
 in the commune cannot lay their fingers on it. 
 
 The Dutch colonial government can only impose the taxes and 
 customs duties upon the village communities. The cultivation of 
 rice, the cereal par excellence in the island, is very favourable to 
 the formation and to the maintenance of the different communes. 
 For the successful cultivation of rice in Java it is almost always 
 necessary to create a system of irrigation, and for the proper execu- 
 tion of this plan association is indispensable. The ground that has 
 been fertilised by the common labour becomes naturally the 
 
416 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 undivided property of the labourers. The fields that have "been 
 watered are divided out among the families interested, sometimes 
 every year, sometimes every two, three, or five years ; but in order 
 to obtain a share in this association, a man must first possess a yoke, 
 that is, a pair of bufi'aloes or of oxen. There are therefore poor 
 people who have no share in the allotment. 
 
 The Javanese community (dessa) is governed by a chief elected 
 annually ; and to him is allotted a share more or less large in nearly 
 every community. The houses and the gardens attaching are the 
 only landed private property. 
 
 But here and there individual property is beginning to be 
 established. In certain provinces, the woods and the waste lands 
 are common ; and in clearing a portion of this common waste land 
 the individual may become proprietor, sometimes for several years, 
 or sometimes for an indefinite time. The land so cultivated may 
 be transmitted to the descendants of the first proprietor, and these 
 descendants may enjoy the property so long as they continue to 
 cultivate it. The sale of shares in this common land is forbidden 
 to any stranger. 
 
 This system seems to be favourable to the growth of the popula- 
 tion. In fact, it renders quite useless that which Malthus calls 
 moral restraint. From time to time a family swarm will leave the 
 community, and go to found a new village elsewhere. The popula- 
 tion of Java in 1780 was 2,029,500 inhabitants, in 1808 it was 
 3,730,000, in 1826 it was 5,400,000, in 1863 it was 13,649,680, 
 in 1872 it was 17,298,200. 
 
 These facts may recommend themselves to the attention of those 
 statesmen who are entrusted with the legislation of certain countries 
 in Europe, where the system of individual property seems to 
 diminish rather than to increase the numbers of the human species. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Property among the Mongolian Races. 
 
 Among the nomad and pastoral Mongolians, property is valued 
 by the number of heads of cattle, and these are always more or less 
 
Chap, hi.] PEOPERTY. 417 
 
 held in common. Even when these flocks are possessed by one 
 large proprietor, every individual belonging to a group of tents is 
 in a certain measure interested in the profit accruing from these 
 animals ; he has a right to a minimum, determined according to his 
 position. 
 
 In the hereditary transmission of property, the Tartars have 
 invented the right of seniority. As a man's sons arrive at the age 
 of majority, they leave the paternal tent with the cattle that 
 their father is good enough to give them. After this deduction 
 has been made, the paternal goods go to the youngest son. This 
 custom, as human and as rational as the right of seniority is want- 
 ing in humanity and rationality, exists also in certain districts of 
 India ; it has also existed in certain English counties, in Cornwall 
 and in Wales, therefore in a Celtic country. The same practice 
 was once in vogue in French America, where it was called le droit 
 du juveigneur. 
 
 The communistic habits in Tartary have caused the feeling of 
 joint responsibility to rise to such a point, that the inhabitants in a 
 group of tents are bound to go out and look for animals lost by 
 travellers who have camped in their neighbourhood, and even to 
 replace them if the animals cannot be found. The character of 
 people is everywhere gradually tending to model itself upon social 
 institutions. 
 
 The long duration of the Chinese empire may furnish us with a 
 very instructive picture of the right of property. According to the 
 ancient chronicles, about 2205 years before Jesus Christ, China 
 was already an agricultural country ; it was divided into communes 
 governing themselves, electing their own chiefs, and to whom was 
 apportioned a suitable piece of land. The remainder of the soil 
 was partitioned out among those who would cultivate it, to men 
 from the age of twenty up to sixty. Then, as has everywhere hap- 
 pened, the shepherds encroached upon the flocks, the chiefs of 
 provinces usurped the hereditary right, sovereigns began to concede 
 feoff's, etc. However, until 254 years before Christ, the cultivating 
 families divided the arable land proportionately according to the 
 number of men working upon it. One lot in every nine was culti- 
 
 2 B 
 
418 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 vated for the profit of the state. Then, by degrees, the rich men 
 took possession of the land, and let it out in small farms to the 
 cultivators whom they had ousted, taking for themselves the larger 
 share in the division of the profits. But still, the emperor is in 
 principle the proprietor of the soil all over the empire. The 
 treasury still treats with the automatons communes who elect their 
 own chiefs ; but in fact, the imperial right confines itself to 
 expropriating for non-payment of the imposts, and to confiscation 
 for all crimes against the state. In return, the government assists 
 and protects the vast system of irrigation which first began in the 
 northern provinces of China 600 years before the Christian era. 
 Landed property has, therefore, become individualised in China by 
 means of a long and steady reign of violence and usurpation. 
 
 In Japan the origin of individual property is also very brutal ; it 
 rests only upon the right of conquest. It was in this way that the 
 first Mongolian occupants of Japan established their feudal system. 
 The chiefs conceded lands to their companions, the possession of 
 which ennobled them and their descendants, to whom the privilege 
 was also transmitted. As these feoffs were considerable, the titular 
 holders divided the property with their liegemen, who consti- 
 tuted a second order of nobility, and they, for payment, sub-let the 
 ground, which they were entitled to do, to the peasants, by the 
 sweat of whose brow everyone was clothed and fed. 
 
 But the family community may also be seen at the basis of all 
 this feudal structure. The first-born, of whatever sex, inherits the 
 property, and has not the right to quit it. The qualification of 
 heir overcomes every other; and the heiress, when she marries, 
 gives her name to her husband. These are evidently the last 
 remains of primitive communism. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Property in non-Mongolian Asia. 
 
 The system of community was, or perhaps is still practised by 
 many of the aboriginal tribes of India. Among the Nairs, landed 
 property is transmitted through the woman's side, and it never 
 
Chap, hi.] PKOPERTY. 419 
 
 goes out of the maternal clan. With the Cingalese, in Ceylon, 
 it is the duty of the family to marry people^ the children are 
 considered as children of the family ; and the land is never divided 
 among individuals. The Teehurs in Oude live together in large 
 establishments ; they partake of everything in common, and the 
 marriage tie is merely nominal. 
 
 In treating of property, of the imposts, etc., the Menu Code 
 speaks only of the villages, which are still in India so many politic 
 and economic unities. 
 
 Before the English conquest the right of property did not imply 
 that of alienation. The natives could not understand that lands 
 might be seized and sold for the payment of a private debt. They 
 did not know nor had they any idea of what was meant by testa- 
 mentary disposition. They neither sold, nor let, nor bequeathed 
 their lands by will. By degrees, in certain districts, they began to 
 alienate their property ; but the consent of their relations, their 
 neighbours, and their joint proprietors was first necessary. 
 
 The ancient Hindoo village was an agricultural community, used 
 in common by those who had the right to participate. At the end 
 of the year the fruits and the harvest produce was divided, as we 
 find reported by Alexander's lieutenant Nearchus. 
 
 In the Punjaub, the village is still an association of free men, 
 who have, or who think they have, one common ancestor. During 
 the last fifty years certain villages in the Madras presidency have 
 submitted only in appearance to the individual imposts ; but in 
 reality they pay it in one lump sum^ and then divide it out 
 amongst the different members of the community. The village 
 owns the forests and the uncultivated lands; the arable land is 
 allotted between the different families and belongs to them. A 
 lot of ground is granted to the currier, to the shoemaker, to the 
 priest, to the secretary and treasurer. Each family obeys a patri- 
 arch, who enjoys a despotic power. The village recognises a chief, 
 either elected or hereditary. The idea of individual property is, 
 however, beginning to take root. In certain districts, by the. mere 
 fact of his birth, a son has a right to a portion of the paternal 
 wealth. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
420 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it.. 
 
 Among the Afghans the system of community is better pre- 
 served. After each cinquennial or decennial period, according to 
 the local custom, a new equal re-allotment of land is made among 
 the families. The estates may be exchanged, but only among 
 members of the tribe. 
 
 The Ehots, a polyandrous people, have already established the 
 system of individual property. With them the fortunes of the 
 different husbands are all joined together in the wife ; her children- 
 inherit conjointly, and even generally by heirship, in advance. 
 The parents usually, at the time of their marriage, leave their 
 property to their children in equal parts, keeping for themselves 
 only that which is absolutely necessary. 
 
 In speaking of the system of property in Mussulman Africa, we 
 have said that there were properties common among all the 
 members of a tribe, of a community, of a family. This seems to 
 have been a very ancient custom among the Semites, for Diodorus 
 (ch. xxxiv.) tells us of its existence along the coast of Arabia Felix. 
 In the island of Panchaia, agricultural communities used to reward 
 their members, each according to his work, giving to the best 
 cultivator the largest share in the harvest produce. We may note 
 as an exceptional case this desire for just equity, which is rare 
 among primitive communities. 
 
 Among the ancient Hebrews the land was owned collectively by 
 the families. There were rich families and poor families. But 
 every fifty years there came a restoring jubilee; the sales of 
 alienated lands were then annulled, property was equalised, and 
 the Jewish slaves regained their liberty. It was like a great wave 
 washing over all the land, and drowning the strips of individual 
 private property. This periodical annihilation of the right of pro- 
 perty would seem to show that the idea of property held in common 
 preceded that of property owned by the different families. 
 
 X. 
 
 Property in Greece and Rome. 
 
 In the classic antiquity of Greece and Kome property held in 
 common was also the first established. 
 
4:hap. III.] PEOPERTY. 421 
 
 Sparta owned a vast communal domain of forests and moun- 
 tains, and the revenue coming therefrom served to defray the 
 expenses of the public feasts. Sparta being a conquered country, 
 cultivated by the ancient owners (the Helotes) reduced to a state 
 of slavery^ Lycurgus soon succeeded in re-distributing it into equal 
 portions. He established also the practice of common repasts, a 
 custom also in use in Crete and in many parts of Greece. 
 
 Portions of the Lacedaemonian soil might be granted even to 
 strangers, provided that they conformed to the laws of the country; 
 but it was forbidden to anyone to alienate land when it was 
 once possessed. Other usages much more communistic were also 
 in vogue ; it was permitted to the Lacedsemonians to make use of 
 the horses, the dogs, and the utensils of their neighbours, if the 
 articles were not in actual use. 
 
 The prohibition to sell land, to bequeath it by will, for a long 
 time maintained equality among the Spartans. The use of testa- 
 mentary power was not introduced into the republic until after the 
 Peloponnesian war. The right of testamentary disposition, and the 
 faculty of inheritance allowed to women, gradually engendered 
 opulence and the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small 
 number of individuals. "Women also received considerable sums 
 of money as their dower portions. The father, or in his default 
 the guardian, used to marry as they pleased the daughter heiress 
 and her property. In process of time two-fifths of the Laconian 
 territory became female property. With these inequalities of for- 
 tune violent enmities and social dissensions arose between the rich 
 and the poor : the ordinary corollary under similar circumstances. 
 
 Similar causes produced the same effects in Athens, where the 
 laws of Solon had individualised property much more fully. Landed 
 property belonging to private persons was parcelled out with great 
 care ; the proper distance to be observed between one man's trees 
 ^nd those of his neighbours was rigidly observed. Finally, and 
 this is a graver matter, the right of bequeathing property by will 
 was allowed to anyone who had no male heir, and landed property 
 could by marriage be transmitted to heiresses. 
 
 JN'evertheless, Solon and his successors placed very heavy restric- 
 tions upon individual property ; these were probably the remains 
 
422 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it, 
 
 of a more early state of communism. According to Solon's laws, 
 the sale of a property entailed with it on the part of the seller the 
 loss of his right of citizenship ; an increased scale of charges was 
 also placed upon landed property. The rich were obliged to fulfil 
 certain very costly duties, and mutation charges of a hundredth, 
 part of the value was placed upon the sale of every immovable 
 kind of property. 
 
 Besides the right of individual property, customs absolutely 
 communist in their nature had been preserved ; the public treasury 
 gave dower portions to poor girls ; com was sold at very low prices,, 
 or was given away gratuitously to the indigent ; every day there- 
 were theatrical representations, at which every citizen might be 
 present without ever untying his purse. 
 
 The dogma of individual property had a very unstable founda- 
 tion in the Athenian legislation. At this time the state was not 
 what it afterwards became — an abstract personage, troubling itself 
 little about individuals, except to punish their offences or to impose- 
 taxes upon them. 
 
 In Rome, as in <jrreece, the idea of individual property rose very 
 slowly from the older theory of common property. 
 
 In the early times the right of property applied only to slaves,, 
 to cattle, to movable objects, to everything that might be tangibly 
 taken away (mancipatio). 
 
 Landed property in Rome arose first from the village com- 
 munities ; this community afterwards divided itself into family 
 community, into gentes. The family and the gens were continued 
 upon the male side. The family, strictly speaking, was constituted 
 by the group of agnati ; that is, a genealogical series in which 
 the degrees are known, and may all be counted. 
 
 The gentiles also came from a common but a legendary ancestor ; 
 the rings on the ancestral chain which united everyone to their 
 common progenitor could not be counted, they were lost in. 
 numbers. 
 
 The agnail enjoyed a reciprocal hereditary right, because they 
 had the same domestic worship, and their ancestors lay in the 
 same tomb. 
 
Chap, hi.] PEOPERTY. 423 
 
 The gentiles did not inherit until default of the sons of the 
 agnati, according to the law of the Twelve Tables. 
 
 In the family associations everything belonged to everybody ; 
 the Eoman family was a community comprising men and things. 
 The members were maintained by adoption as well as by con- 
 sanguinity. The father was before all things the chief, the 
 general administrator. He was called father even when he had 
 no son ; paternity was a question of law, not one of persons. The 
 heir is no more than the continuing line of the deceased person ; 
 he was heir in spite of himself, for the honour of the defunct, for 
 the lares, the hearth, the manes, and the hereditary sepulchre. 
 
 The patrimony was immovable, as was the hearth and the tomb, 
 to which it was attached. The man merely passes ; generations 
 succeed each other, who in their turn all play the same parts, they 
 maintain the same worship, they take care of the property. The 
 heir inherited of his own right ; he was heres suus. 
 
 The emancipated son is excluded from the inheritance; the 
 adopted son inherits only from the adopting family ; a son can 
 never arrive at the age of majority in his father's lifetime. 
 
 Dating from the law of the Twelve Tables, individual property 
 was established because the right of sale or the right of testa- 
 mentary disposition were both allowed. 
 
 But the sale of property was still surrounded by religious for- 
 malities ; the presence of a priest was considered necessary. 
 
 The power of exchanging property lay in the right of bequest 
 and in the right of sale. Eut the right of inheriting what was 
 one's own was always extant unless there was an express disin- 
 heritance. Now disinheritance was a sort of excommunication 
 precluding the disinherited person from the domestic sacerdotal 
 performances, and from the hereditary sepulchre, which ever 
 continued to be inalienable. 
 
 But some laws which came into vogue at a later date limited 
 the right of bequest, and ill eifects coming from the restriction 
 soon made themselves felt. The Voconian law forbade leaving 
 to anyone a greater share of the property than was left to the 
 natural heirs; the Falcidian law insured to the natural heirs a 
 
424 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 quarter of the inheritance ; the Glician law compelled the testator 
 to allege valid reasons for disinheriting his children ; the Voconian 
 law prevented more than a quarter of the patrimony being left to 
 women. 
 
 Then, the right of conquest, which in the days of antiquity did 
 not consider property, whether the claims were family or indi- 
 vidual claims, for a long time constituted in 'Romeanagerpuhlicits, 
 distinct from the heredia. 
 
 At last the religious and moral idea, which in primitive Eome 
 presided over the law of property, died out by slow degrees. All 
 feeling of joint responsibility became extinguished. The right of 
 bequest, the right of sale, the right of inheritance granted to women, 
 together with that of possessing a dowry, the inventory benefice, 
 etc., ended at last by making property a perfectly movable object, 
 which might become accumulated in large quantities in the hands 
 of one individual. The effects upon the manners of the people 
 were soon felt ; social position was tested more by a man's money 
 than by his merit ; avarice grew apace ; the foxes outran the 
 lions. Secret influence became a source of fruitful industry, and 
 was one of the means most employed; riches were acquired ^er 
 fas et nefas, and Pliny was well entitled to write : Latifundia 
 perdidere Italiam. Large properties swallowed up small ones. 
 In some provinces all the ager publictcs was owned by certain 
 families ; half of Eoman Africa belonged to six proprietors when 
 JN^ero put them to death. 
 
 The same crumbling away of the primitive community, the same 
 transformation of the right of property took place, as we shall now 
 see, over all the rest of Europe, 
 
 XL 
 
 European Property outside Greece and Home. 
 
 Before the Eoman conquest the system of community existed 
 more or less all over Europe. Diodorus Siculus says that the 
 members of the Celtiberian tribe of the Yaccaei divided their land 
 every year for the purpose of cultivation; but the harvest was 
 
'Chap, hi.] PROPERTY. 425 
 
 common and everyone received his quotient part. The penalty of 
 death was even enacted against anyone who should disobey these 
 injunctions. And in his commentaries Julius C^sar speaks of the 
 family community which he found existing among the Aquitanians. 
 According to Strabo, the Dalmatians, every eight years, used to 
 make a new allotment of their ground. 
 
 Horace says that the Getse, on the banks of the Danube, used to 
 divide the lands among them every twelve months. In the time of 
 Caesar, the Germans, who were then very little given to agriculture, 
 used never to sow the same field two years in succession ; each year 
 the magistrates assigned to the families their difi'erent parts. In 
 Gaul the communal domains were considerable at the time of the 
 Eoman empire, and the present existing communal property still 
 shows traces of the old system. 
 
 In ancient Germany bequest by will was unknown. The eldest 
 son inherited ; but only the house and the enclosure adjoining. 
 Sometimes inside this enclosure habitations were constructed for 
 the younger brothers when they married; for this little lot of 
 ground was the salic land, transmissible by inheritance to the male 
 children and to the male next of kin, women being always excluded. 
 A strong hedge was put round this private property ; but all the 
 rest of the territory belonged to the clan, of which the members 
 maintained that they all came from the same ancestor. There were 
 allotments ; lots of arable ground were formed, each member chose 
 his lot by chance, fate determining the site. All these lots, except 
 that belonging to the chief, were equal in size. 
 
 The allodial ground, or the special family domain, was owned 
 by the father and son in co-proprietorship. 
 
 The territory common among the German clan was called marlCy 
 or allmend ; it comprised the arable land, the woods and rivers ; 
 each family enjoyed only the right of usufruct. In Gaul, Caesar 
 founded a similar organisation. 
 
 The mark was considered as a little country; it had its own 
 altars and its own tribunal. 
 
 It was by means of agriculture that the idea of individual pro- 
 perty seems to have implanted itself in ancient Germany. Among 
 
42G SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv^ 
 
 tribes still barbarous in their manners, dispersed over a vast ter^ 
 ritory thick with forest land, agriculture is far from having the 
 same importance that it acquires in more civilised societies. As the 
 clearing of the land imposed a considerable amount of labour, each 
 strip of land in Germany that was put under culture became heredi- 
 tary property. Hence arose the inequalities of fortune. Then the 
 right of bequest, which the Eoman legislation introduced into the 
 country, dealt another severe blow to community. 
 
 And at last the feudal system established itself over the greater 
 part of Europe in the primitive clans, who were a barbarous people, 
 but still more or less republican. 
 
 Feudality, existing nearly everywhere on the right of conquest,, 
 thought little of the rights previously acquired by the conquered 
 communities. Still, at the basis of the feudal right we may 
 discover the principle of community. The conqueror, the lord 
 maintains his sway over the whole property ; he concedes the 
 feoff, the benefice, but only the usufructuary enjoyment or retri- 
 bution for past and »for future services. The benefice was at first 
 only a life interest, and it entailed the performance of certain 
 functions, most of which were military. 
 
 By degrees the life interest extended itself into an hereditary 
 right, and to this was joined also the right of bequest. Large 
 domains then grew up, specially apportioned to the service of the- 
 church. These were called lands in mortmain. They were different 
 from the common property inasmuch as they were free from all 
 taxes j and these lands increased to such an extent that already in 
 the ninth century one-third part of Gaul belonged to the clergy. 
 On the other hand the feudal nobility encroached incessantly upon 
 the communal territory, simply on the principle of might is right. 
 They first invaded the forests, then the cultivated lands. William 
 the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, desolated twenty-six parishes in 
 his duchy to make a forest covering thirty leagues of land. The 
 Nantaise forest, stretching from Nantes to Clisson, and from 
 Machecoul to Rince, grew upon the ruins of numerous villages 
 destroyed in order that the Due do Ketz might hunt on horseback 
 from one of his castles to the other. 
 
Chap, hi.] PEOPEETY. 427" 
 
 In England, where, by virtue of the ISTorman conquest, the- 
 sovereign was, and is still in principle, considered as proprietor of 
 all the lands in the kingdom, the feudal concessions made at first 
 for certain services rendered became actually so many independent 
 properties, and the larger property has at last ended by completely 
 expropriating the communal property, and by swallowing up the 
 small property. This absorption was at first usurpation, but it con- 
 tinues now under the name of purchase ; for in England the legal 
 expenses of examination of title-deeds are so heavy that the large 
 capitalists only are rich enough to buy the smaller properties. In 
 a word, the combined efi'ect of past and present abuses in England 
 have had the result of allowing all the land in certain counties to 
 pass into the hands of five or six persons. One half of England 
 belongs to a hundred and fifty individuals, and the half of Scotland 
 to ten or twelve proprietors. 
 
 In spite of these changes, the moral side of which we shall soon 
 have to examine, the ancient system of village and family com- 
 munities is far from having altogether disappeared from Europe. 
 
 In Lombardy there are still agricultural associations, of four or five 
 households together, living in common in large farm buildings,^ 
 under the direction of an elected chief, the reggitore, and of a woman 
 manager, the massaia. 
 
 In Spain, the right of enclosure abolishing the right of com- 
 monage was granted only quite recently, and it gave rise to more 
 than one rebellion among the people. 
 
 In England there are still existing co-operative agricultural 
 associations, of which no member may sell his share but with 
 the consent of the community and of the proprietor. In the 
 middle ages, associations of the same kind between the serfs or 
 the peasants were common enough. They were persons having 
 civil rights, or they were allowed to hold their property free from 
 molestation. 
 
 In Ireland, village communities with annual drawing of lots, and 
 sometimes labour in common, lasted until the reign of James I. 
 Sir Walter Scott found similar associations in the Orkney and the 
 Shetland islands. The small Breton islands, Haedic and Ilouat^ 
 
428 SOCIAL LIFE. [Bookiv. 
 
 are still possessed and cultivated in common under the direction 
 of the minister, assisted by a council of twelve old men. 
 
 It was not until 1793 that the division of the greater part of 
 •communal property was made in France by virtue of a decree of 
 the convention. But in spite of decrees and of the legal code, the 
 family community still exists in the French Basque provinces 
 according to the ancient plan. The law has been eluded, and the 
 family property is always transmitted to the eldest child — boy or 
 girl. The family takes its name from the property, and according 
 to custom the heiress gives her name to her husband. The pro- 
 duce coming from the property, the reputed inalienable property 
 of the heir or of the heiress, is given up to the general interest of 
 the family, to the education of the children, to marrying, and to 
 the establishing of young people outside the immediate family 
 circle. 
 
 And, also, the Germanic mark has not altogether disappeared, 
 in spite of the incessant encroachments of individual property. 
 It still prevails in the sandy region of JSTeerlande, where the 
 common field still undergoes the triennial rotation, and is divided 
 into three parts, in which is sown the winter rye, the summer rye, 
 .and buckwheat. It is only after the full deliberation of the 
 parties interested that the times for cultivation, for sowing, and 
 for reaping are allowed to take place. 
 
 In Switzerland the marks or allmenden are still numerous in the 
 cantons of Schwytz, of St. Gall, of Glarus, and others. In these 
 communities the right of usage or of usufruct belongs hereditarily 
 to the descendants of families who have held this right from time 
 immemorial. The allmenden comprise the arable lands, the forests, 
 .and pasturages. The arable lands situated near the villages are 
 divided into strips; and for these people draw lots every ten, 
 fifteen, or twenty years. Sometimes the right is a life interest. 
 The widow and the heirs inherit the right of use until a new allot- 
 ment is made. The shareholders usually come together once in the 
 year to hear the statement of the accounts, and to arrange any 
 current undertakings. The assembly elects its own president, their 
 own officers, and no one can refuse to perform a function imposed 
 
Chap, hi.] PKOPEETY. 429* 
 
 upon him. A council of a few elected members regulates the 
 cutting of the woods and the allotment of the land ; it orders the 
 execution of the smaller works, it determines the payment of fines, 
 of compensation moneys ; it represents the corporation in judicial 
 cases, etc. The dllmenden are everywhere admirably cultivated^ 
 though it is not individual property; and everywhere the usu- 
 fructuaries are kept from extreme poverty. A portion of the 
 common property is set aside for public services, for schools, for the 
 church, and for the administration of charity. 
 
 But it is more especially in the Slav countries, in Croatia, in 
 Slavonia, in the military Austrian empire, especially, too, beyond, 
 the Dnieper, in Eussia, that the village community has been pre- 
 served in all its integrity. The Eussian mir is the type of this 
 system, and it now exists amongst thirty or thirty-five millions of. 
 Slav inhabitants. 
 
 Formerly, in the Slav communes, the work of cultivation was 
 performed in common, and the produce was divided out among 
 those who had the right to it. This plan still exists in a few dis- 
 tricts in Servia, in Croatia, in Austrian Slavonia, and among a few 
 groups of the Easkolniks. In Eussia, the arable land of the com- 
 mune submitted to the practice of triennial rotation is generally 
 divided into three concentric zones, starting from the village ; then 
 each zone is subdivided into narrow strips, five or ten metres in 
 width, and from two hundred to three hundred metres in length. 
 
 It used to be the custom to draw lots annually for these divisions ; 
 now the partitioning takes place at different intervals, from three' 
 to fifteen years. The prairie also undergoes an annual allotment ; 
 but the periodical redistribution never touches the house and 
 garden possessed by each family in the village, for these are- 
 considered as hereditary property. 
 
 It is the commune who pays the imposts ; it is, indeed, perfectly 
 self-governing, it names itself its own starosta. The mir assembled 
 all together determine upon the time for the haymaking, and what 
 is to be done with the waste lands ; they admit the new members, 
 they give or refuse permission to anyone to change their domicile,, 
 to absent themselves permanently on payment of a fine. The 
 
430 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 assembly, against whose decision there is no appeal, is composed of 
 all the chiefs of the family, even of women, in the case of widow- 
 hood or their husbands' absence. 
 
 In principle, every male inhabitant who has attained his majority 
 has the right to -an equal part of the common land. 
 
 In the mir the common utilitarian reasons and arguments will 
 dominate over every other. The status of co-proprietor or of co- 
 taxpayer is never annulled ; there are certain rights which cannot 
 be avoided. 
 
 The chiefs of the family in a general meeting may dissolve the 
 mir, and institute individual property, but for that two-thirds of the 
 votes would be necessary. 
 
 The same utilitarian character is predominant in the constitution 
 of the family, which is the unity of the Kussian commune. The 
 chief of the house is called Jchozain, a word which signifies a general 
 administrator, and yet it gives no idea of parental authority. 
 When a household is dissolved, the members do not inherit ; they 
 all partake of the collective property. For instance, all the male 
 members receive an equal share, but the married daughter, or the 
 son who has already left the house, is excluded. If those left 
 remaining are all minors, a near relation comes to live with them 
 and becomes a joint proprietor. 
 
 In Servia, not until all the members of the family are dead can 
 the last surviving member dispose of the property as he pleases. 
 
 This organisation of property is very interesting; it has its 
 drawbacks as well as its advantages. On the one hand, it brings 
 together into close intercourse the members of the families and of 
 the communes, by means of the joint responsibility of interests and 
 of duties ; it prevents both great riches and great poverty ; it 
 abolishes to a great extent the plan of payment by wages ; it 
 renders null every poor-tax and every organised system of charity. 
 
 On the other hand — and this is a very great objection — it trammels 
 individual liberty, it makes each of the members of the community 
 more or less the slave of all. It discourages all individual initiative 
 action, and therefore all progress. 
 
 Does the sum total of good resulting from property held in 
 
•Chap. IV.]' THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY. 431 
 
 common outweigli all its disadvantages 1 Ought we to regret having 
 lost it ^ May we hope to re-establish the system again amongst us 
 upon a better footing 1 We cannot answer these questions before 
 we have given a general glance over the theory of the evolution 
 of the right of property. This is what we now propose to do. 
 
 CHAPTER TV. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OP PROPERTY. 
 
 Prom the foregoing long exposition of facts we may see clearly 
 that our present notions of the rights of property are of a relatively 
 recent date. The theory which now regulates the owner's right of 
 property, submitting to the absolute will of one individual a 
 portion of the common soil, is almost an anomaly, if we look syn- 
 thetically at the evolution of the human kind both as to present 
 and to past times. 
 
 At the commencement of every society the primitive families, or 
 groups of families, the clans, the tribes, ordinarily composed of 
 people connected with each other by blood relationship, hardly 
 thought of fixed property (la proprietS quiritaire). 
 
 The different clusters of men formed so many small associations, 
 all struggling, the one against the other, for their existence. From 
 this competition there came a sort of collective appropriation of the 
 ground. Each little group protecting, unguihus et rostro, the patch 
 of land on which it found its daily food, a general cantonment 
 naturally followed. Chance as it might, each little clan was 
 obliged to select their own domicile in a given district marked out 
 with more or less clearness. In this settlement, relatively very 
 large, each tribe lived as they best could, hunting, fishing, picking 
 up here and there a few fruits or eatable roots. This little country 
 was very precious to them, for it was in fact their larder. They 
 
432 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 became much, attached to it, and as far as possible did not permit 
 the intrusion of strange guests, though they never missed the 
 chance, when it came in their way, of encroaching upon their neigh- 
 bours' territory. Owing to this struggle, every man trying to satisfy 
 his own appetite, or his own ambition, strife and conflict was. 
 perpetually raging between the different hordes. 
 
 Individual appropriation of land was not often thought of ; the 
 hunting-ground was possessed in common by all the tribe. Such 
 has always been the case where man has been obliged to pursue 
 for long distances large animals in order to provide food to enable 
 him to live. Where the large game was rare, as in Australia, or 
 where there were none at all, as in the islands of the Pacific, the- 
 male members of the tribe used sometimes to divide the common 
 territory into individual properties, stipulating at the same time 
 that restrictions for the general interest be duly kept. This 
 precocious establishment of individual landed property has, 
 theoretically, a great importance. It proves that the personal 
 appropriation of land is in no way connected with an advanced 
 state of civilisation. 
 
 When the hunters in the primitive tribes were so far advanced 
 as to have come to the pastoral life, the pasturage still remained 
 indivisible as the forest had been, for migration among the herds 
 of men was one condition of their existence. 
 
 Quite at its commencement — at its very birth — agriculture 
 suggested the idea and the desire for individual property, but the 
 enjoyment of this property was confined at firc?t to the usufruct. 
 The hunting-grounds and the pasture land were so vast in extent 
 that when any one member of the tribe, more intelligent and more- 
 provident than the others, thought of clearing away and sowing, 
 after some rough fashion, a small patch of the forest or prairie- 
 round about his hut, his labour was at first unnoticed by his 
 neighbours. But he who by the sweat of his brow, or rather of 
 his slaves or his wives, first cut down or burned trees, weeded and 
 sowed the ground, was generally allowed to remain the undoubted 
 owner of his own little harvest. But then the art of planting- 
 and dressing was quite unknown; and also all the village in- 
 
Chap, iv.] THE EYOLUTION OF PROPERTY. 433 
 
 habitants would often change their place of abode, and the strip 
 of land that had been cleared was soon abandoned by the first 
 agricultural occupant, who went away to renew his attempts 
 elsewhere. 
 
 At a later date, when agriculture, instead of being merely an 
 accessory, became an important industry, exacting large spaces of 
 ground and the labour of every hand, the arable soil was then as the 
 pastoral land, and as the forest, possessed by everyone in common. 
 The tribes held despotic sway over the property; the soil was 
 served out by the village communities, who obeyed their chosen 
 chief; and after the harvest the produce of their labours was 
 divided amongst those who had the right to it. 
 
 By degrees the holders began to seek their own individual 
 independence ; the clan was thus gradually broken up into small 
 groups. Instead of dividing the property in common, periodical 
 allotments were made to each family, and they in turn formed 
 themselves into a usufructuary society, obeying their chief, who 
 usually governed after a very despotic manner. But even then the 
 prairie and the forest usually continued to be owned in common. 
 This form of possession has been preserved in the Slav mir and in 
 the Swiss allmend. 
 
 But the formalities of the allotment, and the servitude to which 
 each family thereby became subject, imposed a restraint which 
 people were at last determined to abolish. In principle the clan 
 stiU remained proprietor of the ground, but the enjoyment of each 
 lot was granted to each family for an indefinite period of time. 
 The families also still lived together, each one obeying their chief, 
 their father, or their general administrator. We find in the early 
 days of Eome the most perfect type of this phase of proprietorship. 
 Absolute master both of things and of people, the paterfamilias 
 had the right to kill his wife and to sell his sons. Priest and king 
 in turn, it was he who represented the family in their domestic 
 worship ; and when after his death he was laid by the side of 
 his ancestors in the common tomb, he was deified, and helped to 
 swell the number of the household gods. 
 
 This family community is certainly the most noble form in 
 
 2 F 
 
434 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 whicli the right of property has yet been clothed ; hut it had its 
 miles and its limits. Girls were not allowed to inherit anything, 
 and the father of the family had not the right of alienation nor of 
 testamentary disposition. 
 
 And also the rigid organisation preserved in the Roman family 
 became intolerable to individuals, at least in certain countries, 
 amongst the most perfectible, the most progressive people : it was- 
 then that the theory of individual property arose. The father had 
 first of all the right of bequest, and also of disinheriting this or that 
 member of his family ; then he came to have the faculty of alienating 
 his patrimony and of dividing it ; his wives inherited, they received 
 large dower portions, and when they married they took into another 
 family a portion or all the patrimony belonging to their own. The 
 quiritary property was thus established, and the right of individual 
 property was pushed to the extreme point. The Roman law 
 said : "Dominum est jus utendi et abutendi re sua." Eut even in 
 those days the great civic community attested its ancient right in 
 the form of a reserve : " quatenus juris ratio patitur." 
 
 The right to absolute proprietorship has become established only 
 in Europe ; but, thanks to the Roman conquest, it gradually became- 
 customary over all the portions of the continent, severing itself 
 more and more widely from the older theory of holding property 
 in common. 
 
 The Roman empire was followed by the feudal system, which, 
 based on the right of conquest, and drawing with it the right of 
 eviction, caused in principle the property in every country to pass 
 into the hands of the conquering chief ; and he, according to his 
 good j)lGasure, gave out to his companions portions of the stolen, 
 territory. This concession was in theory no more than usufructuary. 
 The master remained the true proprietor, and the feoff granted at 
 first for life necessitated not only the payment of fines, but also the 
 obligation to perform certain functions : to mete out justice, and to 
 take up arms on behalf of the lord in all his wai's. Ry degrees 
 these temporary concessions became liereditary, excepting the 
 formalities of investiture, and the feudal o^vner at last enjoyed 
 nearly all the rights of the Roman proprietorship. Once more the 
 
Chap. IV.] THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY. 435 
 
 instinct of individual independence had nearly succeeded in shaking 
 off the yoke of dominant mastership. But the communes for a 
 long time kept their vast domains, contesting each foot as it was 
 taken away from them by the great feudal lords or by the clergy. 
 The former took the land by force, and the latter slyly, seizing 
 when they could a new inheritance, and thus appropriating to 
 themselves new portions of the soil. 
 
 It was not, however, until the break up of the feudal system that 
 individual property became wholly enfranchised, in law as well as 
 in deed. Possession then ceased to be a feoff conceded, a tenure 
 exacting the performance of certain duties. It raised itself by its 
 own efforts, and was dependent upon no social office. Property 
 became saleable and movable according to the needs and the 
 caprices of the proprietor. Confiscation by the master was no 
 longer an evil to be feared, as was formerly the case, nor was 
 eviction to be dreaded from the conqueror. This last evil had at 
 any rate the advantage of compelling the proprietor to reside upon 
 his land. Then, in process of time, our present notions of individual 
 property came into vogue. According to our present conceptions, 
 each strip of ground forms a small empire of which the master is 
 the absolute owner. To him belongs not only the superficial extent 
 but the foundation ; he may dispose of what is above ground and 
 what is underneath in every piece of landed property, be it small 
 or large, and this property represents a cone or a pyramid, having 
 its summit in the centre of the globe. The right of bequest became 
 more or less admitted. In every case, in default of will, the property 
 itself outlived the owner, and after his death it went to his direct 
 or to his indirect heirs, who to entitle them to the privilege of 
 absolute ownership had done no more than take the trouble to be 
 born. It is as we read in Beaumarchais' comedy : " Qu'avez-vous 
 fait pour tant de biens 1 Yous vous etes donne la peine de naitre." 
 
 That is the point at which we have now arrived. In every 
 country which enjoys the European system of civilisation, the 
 right of property has ever been in a state of evolution, always 
 tending to give a greater degree of independence to the individual 
 owner ; in other words, the evolution has always worked in favour of. 
 
 2 F 2 
 
436 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 individual egotism. Wlio can say that the evolution is now com- 
 plete, or that we have yet realised the highest ideal system in 
 the disposition of our property] A progressive evolution is for 
 every society one of the conditions of existence. The right of 
 proprietorship cannot therefore remain stationary. Let us now 
 endeavour to conjecture in what direction it will most probably 
 turn. 
 
 II. 
 Our preliminary exposition has shown us that in " the principle 
 of proprietorship" there is no inviolable claim, that it contains 
 no sacred or holy right. The jus utendi et ahutendi grew very 
 slowly, and as a rule established itself only by dint of violence 
 and cunning. But, in spite of its origin, is there any social 
 interest in preserving it in its present state? Is it essential to 
 the progress of societies 1 We cannot deny that it has rendered 
 great service, for in spite of innumerable acts of injustice in', 
 smaller matters, it has guaranteed leisure and independence to a 
 minority, which would otherwise have been paralysed by the 
 strongly-bound ties of common property. The majority of the 
 privileged persons have used their right only for their own per- 
 sonal interest ; but some have, of their own initiative movement, 
 endeavoured to advance the much-tossed-about car of progress. 
 Many, too, though in thinking only of their own interests, have 
 served the common cause, from the very fact that they were free 
 agents. But, after all, the total result has only been one of dif- 
 ference. We may therefore be prepared to believe that, in future, 
 individual property will have to undergo very serious changes ; for 
 as man becomes more civilised, he also acquires more strongly the 
 love of justice, and he learns better how to turn his social resources 
 to a good purpose. We may add that because of the ethnical com- 
 petition each nation must advance, or else, in course of time, dis- 
 appear. But, in order to make good progress, every society ought 
 to utilise as far as possible all its means of strength ; and for that 
 end it must create between its members a joint responsibility, 
 always tending to become more serious and more blading in its 
 nature. 
 
Chap, iv.] THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPERTY. 437 
 
 The defenders of our present system of property, and (who 
 would have thought it 1) Proudhon himself joins issue with them, 
 cry out that property is a shield against tyranny, " the cuirass of 
 personality."* But the care of protecting oneself against tyranny 
 will vanish, as tyranny also becomes dispelled; and despotic 
 governments are now gradually on the wane. Again, the " cuirass 
 of property" can only guarantee the shielded person; for the 
 others, those who have no defensive armour, are tied hands and 
 feet, and are governed by superior force. If the theory of indi- 
 vidual and hereditary property, such as we find it constituted in 
 countries where Eoman and feudal law prevails, may be considered 
 as a good cuirass, it is also an excellent pillow on which we may 
 sleep very soundly, without fear of molestation. How many men 
 are there who have lived as idle parasites, and who, if they had 
 been compelled to work in order to gain their bread, would have 
 made good and industrious citizens'? But because of their pre- 
 sumed descent (7s jpater est quern nuptice demonstrant) they have 
 never in the whole course of their lives recognised the necessity 
 for doing a day's work. The weight of their cuirass has prevented 
 them from coming into the field of action. 
 
 The enormity of the privileges resulting from our modem theory 
 of the right of property has been condemned by many writers 
 whom we cannot fairly accuse of demagogism. We need not 
 enumerate them all, for we should have to go back to Plato, to 
 Essenius, and to the early Christians. But in confining ourselves 
 to writers of our own times, protestations abound upon all sides. 
 
 M. Laboulaye says : " The right of property is a social creation. 
 .... Every time that society changes the conditions under which 
 it has existed, every time it alters the rights of inheritance or the 
 political privileges attached to the soil, it is doing that which it is 
 entitled to do. 'Eo one can find fault in virtue of an anterior 
 right, for before and outside of its organisation nothing can or 
 could have existed. Society itself is both the source and the 
 origin of the law." t 
 
 * P. J. Proudhon, " Theorie de la Propriete," p. 237. 
 f E. Laboulaye, " Histoire du Droit de Propriete." 
 
438 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 J. Stuart Mill, after proposing to disallow the right of inherit- 
 ance to collateral relations, and to confine the amount of direct 
 inheritance to making a sufficient provision, goes on to say that 
 he does not think it fair or right that there should he a state 
 of society in which there is a " class " of men who do not work, in 
 which there are human creatures who, not incapable, or who have 
 not bought repose by anterior labour, are exempt from sharing the 
 toils common to the whole human race. 
 
 J. Fichte predicts that property " will lose its exclusive private 
 character, and will become a real public institution. It will not be 
 sufficient to guarantee to everyone his property lawfully acquired ; 
 we must see that everyone gets his own, that he is paid in ex- 
 change for his lawful work. . . . Work is a duty incumbent upon 
 everyone ; the man who does not work injures others, and there- 
 fore deserves punishment." * 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer says : " Equity, therefore, does not permit 
 property in land. For if one portion of the earth's surface may 
 justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held for 
 his sole use and benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive 
 right, then other portions of the earth's surface may be so held ; and 
 eventually the whole of the earth's surface may be so held ; and our 
 planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands." t 
 
 "We must at last recognise," M. de Laveleye well says, "the 
 first maxim of all justice : * everyone according to his work,' so 
 that property come really to mean the result of labour, and that the 
 welfare of everyone be in proportion to the assistance that he has 
 brought towards the work of production." J — " Property has now 
 been deprived of all its social character ; it is totally different to 
 what it was originally ; it is now no longer collective. A privilege 
 without obligations, without trammels, without reserves, it seems 
 to have no other object than that of assuring the welfare of the 
 individual." § — " The net produce of land is absorbed now in indi- 
 
 * " System der Ethik," b. ii. pars. 93, 97. 
 f H. Spencor, ** Social Statics," ch. ix. 
 X E. de Laveleye, "De la Propriety," xii, 
 § Ibid. XX. 
 
<:;hap. IV.] THE EYOLUTION OF PEOPERTY. 439 
 
 vidual expenditure, which in itself does not in any way contribute 
 to the progress of the nation." * 
 
 What does all this mean 1 Are we to return to the Slav mir, 
 making of each citizen a guarded workman, attached to the glebe'? 
 Certainly not. The ancient system of holding property has died 
 out because of its tyrannical character, and the general civilisation 
 has progressed because of the degree of liberty granted to each 
 individual. But individual liberty cannot degenerate into an in- 
 herited privilege. A reaction is therefore probable. In fully main- 
 taining individual liberty this reaction will probably bring us back, 
 slowly and by means of a series of graduated measures, to the life- 
 interest usufruct of the land, thus rewarding intelligence and useful 
 work, and also the labour given. We are, of course, to understand 
 that this reform, by reason of its radical character, can only be 
 effected with the greatest precautions, and made to work in such 
 a way that it will bear upon future generations very much more 
 than upon our own contemporaries. 
 
 But then the family would be dissolved ! There are many families 
 who never inherit anything. We may add that the same tendency, 
 fatal to individuation, which has already destroyed common property, 
 will surely, by degrees, slacken more and more the family ties in 
 proportion as there is utility in replacing them by social ties of a 
 more general kind. But what can be more sad, according to family 
 sentiment, than the unwholesome greed coming from the right of 
 inheritance? And this sentiment, so strong in the Slav com- 
 munities, is with us gradually becoming extinct. If it still has 
 any real power, it is certainly a remnant of a moral fundament 
 bequeathed to us by our ancestors, who lived under a more col- 
 lective system. No doubt among our contemporaries the best of 
 them do not say that the lives of our fathers, of our mothers, etc., 
 are a barrier between themselves and luxury, or welfare, or a 
 hundred other desirable objects ; but the worst of them do say so, 
 .and they repeat it very constantly. 
 
 We may add that thecare of individual property is certainly the 
 
 * E. de Laveleye, " De la Propriety," p. 363. 
 
440 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 principal cause of the diminution in the number of births, both in 
 France and elsewhere. The holder of a property does not "wish 
 that it should be too much divided after his death ; he endeavours 
 to leave to his children the means of living in noble idleness; 
 and, contrary to the patriarchs of old, his glory is to have only 
 a few children. "We may mention in passing the calm egoists 
 who wish to enjoy, alone by themselves, both their actual 
 property and their " hopes." If we continue to follow this plan, 
 statistics tell us that at the end of five or six centuries the French 
 race will be extinct. 
 
 But the reducing of individual property to the enjoyment only 
 for life would naturally impose fresh duties upon society at large* 
 The state would have to watch the young generations much more 
 closely, to give to any who were capable of receiving it a complete 
 general and special education ; it ought then, in many cases, ta 
 substitute itself in place of the family, to cultivate the character of 
 the young as well as their intelligence. Pedagogy would then 
 become the first of the sciences. 
 
 When the work of education is completed, an attempt should be 
 made to open to everyone the career for which he is best fitted, to 
 establish district banks, who would advance to those who showed 
 sufficient moral and intellectual guarantees a capital large enough 
 to start them in their first trial. Efi'ort should also be made to 
 reward real deserving merit, so that a whole long life of toil 
 should not terminate in abandonment and in misery. 
 
 To establish such a system very large pecuniary resources would 
 be indispensable; the reforming body itself might furnish them. 
 J. Stuart Mill has proposed that no inheritance should exceed a 
 modest maximum, and we may follow this same course still farther. 
 By means of succession duties charged upon the transmission of 
 hereditary property, the state is ever imposing a tax upon the rights 
 of inheritance. The amount of money coming from these rights 
 might be increased in the most legitimate manner by establishing 
 the amount of payment, not according to the degree of kinship, but 
 according to the value of the property inherited. If this were 
 prudently graduated over a long series of years, the progression 
 
Chap, v.] MORALITY. 441 
 
 would finally bring us, and without any sudden shock, to the 
 abolition of the right of inheritance. At the same time we should, 
 by taking warning from the lessons taught by experience, have 
 learnt to ward off the social evils resulting from this great reform, by 
 the side of which all political machinations are but as child's-play. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 MORALITY. 
 
 As the human mind becomes enlarged and enlightened, it gradually 
 corrects itself of the infatuation with which it was intoxicated, so to 
 speak, during its early youth. The human race does not know 
 very clearly where it is going, but it knows still less from whence 
 it has come. The line, 
 
 L'homme est un dieu tombe, qui se souvienfc des cieux, 
 
 now causes us to smile. We know that man — the genus homo — 
 was a very poor creature when he first made his entrance on to this 
 world's scene. It was not without much efi'ort that he has freed 
 himself from animality, and from his head to his feet this poor little 
 god is stiU impregnated with it ! It was upon this coarse foundation 
 that the noblest human qualities have been grafted ; and the origin 
 of these qualities is still clouded over by a thick fog of metaphysics 
 amassed and brought together during many thousands of years. 
 Some few glorious specimens of this kind have come to their full 
 bloom, and certain sentiments dazzle our eyes, though they are in 
 fact nothing else than the simplification of conscient phenomena 
 very common in the animal creature. 
 
 "We have explained elsewhere how the nervous cells, acting as 
 registers, preserve the trace of molecular vibrations of which they 
 have been the seat, and how these rhythmical vibrations are aroused 
 and reproduced in proportion as they are the more often brought 
 into action. These signs are very often quite unconscient : it is in 
 
442 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 this way, for instance, that the cells of the molar spine show many 
 collective kinds of movements. The phenomena are still more 
 curious in certain invertebratse, who, in virtue of an education that 
 they have inherited, which we popularly call instinct, perform un- 
 consciously series of very complicated actions, and to which on 
 first thought we should be inclined to attach a moral importance. 
 
 If the insects had professors of philosophy to whom they paid 
 money wages, we should undoubtedly be enlightened with many 
 lucubrations on the abnegation of the female of the liparis cliry- 
 sorrhea enveloping carefully her own eggs in an impermeable tissue 
 which the animal fabricates herself by pulling out the hairs from 
 her own body for twenty-four or perhaps for forty-eight hours. 
 The operation is a cruel one, and the bombyx dies because of it ; 
 but certainly without having the slightest notion of the object for 
 which he seems to be devoting himself. He has never known his 
 mother, and he will never see his own little ones. He mechani- 
 cally obeys an automatic habit which a slow work of selection has 
 imposed upon his kind. 
 
 Moral instincts are not formed otherwise in the human brain. 
 Under the persistent pressure of various influences, moral habits 
 establish themselves and become hereditary. So that in many 
 thousand circumstances an inner voice, the voice of our ancestors, 
 cries out imperiously within us, urging us to do this thing or to 
 abstain from doing that. All this will happen in the absence of 
 any reasoning power, and very often in spite of it. That is the 
 moral sense, the feeling of duty, which we may rightly admire 
 when we see it push a Winkelried to die for his countr}^ out of 
 which we may very easily discover the schema in certain animals 
 and even among the coarsest savages. 
 
 From this point of view nothing can be more interesting than to 
 watch a dog to whom man has succeeded in teaching so many 
 curious habits contrary to his nature. 
 
 Without having been trained, one of these animals will suddenly 
 stand still the first time he sees game ; another, under the same 
 conditions, will bring the game to his master ; a young shepherd's 
 dog will begin to run, not into the middle of a flock of sheep, but 
 
Chap, v.] MORALITY. 443 
 
 round about them. Why do these young animals act in such a 
 singular way, so contrary to the nature of their savage ancestors'? 
 Clearly because the commands of their human masters, through 
 many generations, always reiterated in the same way to suc- 
 cessive generations of the animal, and followed wisely by reward 
 or by rebuke, have at last fixed themselves in the animal brain, 
 have taken root there, and have implanted hereditary habits. 
 An automatic association of nervous inclinations to obedience has 
 been formed, all of which act upon and strengthen one another. 
 "When once the instinct has become implanted in the nervous cells 
 it holds imperious sway ; the animal yields with pleasure to the 
 unreasoning impulse which calls him ; it would be painful to him 
 to resist. 
 
 But if we really wish to look to the bottom of things we may 
 find a sort of morality, very inferior no doubt, for the animal 
 has no thought which way his acts tend, and the mechanical 
 impulse to which he yields has in fact sprung only from the 
 stronger will of several generations of masters. But instances 
 of this low morality are far from being rare in the human kind. 
 Is it not merely the caprice of the master, that, in many des- 
 potic countries, gives to the actions of their subjects their moral 
 value 1 In one place, everything that pleases the tyrant is regarded 
 as good, everything that displeases him as evil, and after this 
 system has lasted for a sufficient number of centuries it is the 
 most abject slavery that forms the morality of the down-trodden 
 people. In Burmah, in Siam, and in other countries, man's sub- 
 mission to his master is boundless. Every Siamese, H. Mouhot 
 tells us, respectfully calls himself " the animal of the king." In 
 the legal language of some of the Javanese smaller states, crimes 
 and offences are considered as treachery towards the sovereign, not 
 injuries to the individuals who have been injured. In all the 
 Mussulman states in the middle part of Africa the caprice of the 
 master is the supreme law, and every man degraded by him is 
 •condemned, ill-treated, and put outside the common pale. 
 
 In societies still quite primitive and anarchical, the directing 
 influence of a despotic will is often replaced by public opinion ; 
 
444 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 that is to say, by social custom. This is the case among some of 
 the Australian tribes, from which we might in fact construct a 
 theory of the embryo state of human morality. 
 
 In Australia, the animal kingdom is poorly represented. There- 
 fore, the poor aborigines consider that the flesh of the emu (a sort 
 of cassowary) is most dainty food ; and as roast emu is a rare dish, 
 it is reserved for the old men, who, in the Australian tribes, have 
 great privileges reserved to them. It is strictly forbidden to aU 
 young people to eat of this holy meat : to do so is an oflfencs 
 against morality. And this inhibition, which has been handed 
 down through many generations, has created in the Australian! 
 mind a peculiar and quite instructive code of morality ; for the- 
 Australian is not a man capable of much reasoning. The flesh is 
 weak, and the pangs of hunger are very strong. It may happen, 
 therefore, that a young man hunting a long way from his home, far 
 off from where his tribe is encamped, secretly infringes the law — 
 the emu law. But then, as happens also in other countries, when 
 the desire is satisfied, the moral instinct awakens. The guilty man 
 hears the inner voice of conscience cry : "You have eaten emu !" 
 Troubled by remorse he returns to his own people, he sits down 
 in silence apart from the others, and his countenance would be 
 sufficient to reveal his crime if he did not first avow it, submitting 
 himself to the punishment which he knows he has deserved. 
 
 It is to the traveller Sturt that we are indebted for this curious 
 fact ;* but many other instances of inchoate morality have been 
 observed among the Australians. In this respect, nothing is more 
 typical than the Australian vendetta. The same idea of morality 
 which forbids the eating of the emu, will also in certain cases 
 impose upon the individual an imperative duty of vengeance ; but 
 it is a blind vengeance, taking little heed of justice or of right. If 
 a native has been injured by a white man, he will be satisfied if he 
 revenges himself upon any white man. In the opinion of the 
 Australian, there is no such thing as natural death ; every disease is 
 the result of some evil act, which ought to be avenged ; it there- 
 fore imposes upon every man a long series of bloody actions, which 
 * Sturt, " Hist. Univ. des Voy." vol. xliii. 298. 
 
Chap, v.] MOKALITY. 445 
 
 he considers it his duty to perform. And as the Australian mind 
 is very simple, his impulsive movements have no mutual restraint 
 one upon the other, these moral obligations are very strongly felt. 
 Dr. Lander relates that an Australian, whose wife had died of 
 illness, declared that he must kill some other woman belonging to 
 a far-away tribe, so that the spirit of the departed might rest 
 in peace. He was thwarted in his desire, and was threatened 
 to be put in prison. Then a serious conflict arose within him. 
 Broken down by remorse, he became sad ; he grew pale and wan, 
 until one day, listening only to the voice of duty, he escaped. 
 After a certain time he came back, holding his head up as though 
 he were easy in his mind : he had acquitted himself of what was to 
 him a sacred obligation. 
 
 Facts such as these lay bare the mechanism of primitive morality, 
 which is perfectly observed in the animal and in the savage, until 
 it becomes entangled with some process of reasoning. This is merely 
 a question of education. Certain associations of sentiments and 
 ideas have been slowly written down in the nervous conscient 
 centres, and under the shock of impulse they will almost fatally 
 unfold themselves. 
 
 It is in. virtue of psychical facts of the same order that the 
 elephant, broken loose, will after a sufficient domestication once 
 more obey docilely the voice of his tamer. In London, a tamed 
 elephant who had grown furious, and whose death had been 
 resolved, was observed to obey mechanically the commands of 
 his keeper, even under a whole battery of fire that was being 
 showered upon him. For the brain of the elephant preserves very 
 tenaciously any impression it has once received. The elephant is 
 an animal capable of receiving education, and perceiving the effects 
 of morality. 
 
 "VYe find instances of this automatic morality in all humankind, 
 in the most savage people as well as in the most refined. The 
 Hottentot huntsman coming back to the kraal empty-handed will 
 bear unmoved the reproaches of his famished wife; but all his 
 stoicism will vanish if his housekeeper unties her only article of 
 •clothing, her apron of modesty, and with it slaps him on the face. 
 
446 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 At this pitcli of opprobrium the Hottentot can resist no longer ; he 
 puts on his hyena-skin cap, and rushes off like a madman, deter- 
 mined that, cost what may, he will kill or steal a head of game of 
 some sort to wash out the affront. That is to him the moral, the 
 point of honour, — such a powerful incentive in our hetter-regulated 
 societies. For reasons of the same kind, a Bedouin Arab, Kiebuhr 
 tells us, thinks himself bound to pursue with cruel vengeance 
 anyone who says to him : " Your bonnet, or your turban, is dirty. 
 Arrange your bonnet ; it is all awry." And in the same way our 
 smart young gentlemen make it a point of duty, if one gives them 
 the lie, to wash it out with blood, — though for the most part they 
 themselves have no horror of falsehood. 
 
 During the early phases of social development, morality does 
 not rise higher than the instinctive education that we find in every 
 sporting dog. Man does not reason out his actions; he never 
 weighs their value in the scale of utility ; altruism has yet to be 
 born ; morality is still a mechanical habit. The Kamtschadalian 
 considers that to violate a woman, whom he has found a long way 
 from his own iourte, is quite a lawful action ; but the same man 
 would consider himself dishonoured if, when he had captured and 
 safely landed a seal into his boat, he should then be weak enough 
 to throw it overboard, should a storm arise. 
 
 It is to this total absence of control that we must lay the charge 
 of coarseness in all primitive morality. At first man is obedient 
 only to a stronger force. The Australian languages are devoid of 
 words to express "justice, fault, crime." A Bushman — one of the 
 very savage Hottentots — said one day : " A man commits a bad 
 action when he runs off with my wife ; I do a good action when 
 I run away with the wife of another man." Burton says that in 
 Eastern Africa a theft may distinguish a man, but an atrocious 
 murder will make a hero of him. A negro, too, said to the same 
 traveller : " What ! must I die of hunger when my sister ha& 
 children whom she can sell 1 " In New Archangel, four men, who 
 were in love with the same girl and jealous one of the other, 
 agreed at last to cut her in pieces with their knives. During the 
 performance, Kotzebue tells us, they were singing aloud : " It was 
 
Chap, v.] MOKALITY. 447 
 
 impossible for thee to live. Men looked at thee, and thou set 
 their hearts aflame." Wallace reports that at Timor he has known 
 public opinion justify two officers who poisoned the husbands 
 of their mistresses, because these husbands were only half-caste 
 men. 
 
 And if we go back to past ages, we shall discover traces of 
 this savage morality among the superior races. The Menu 
 Code inflicts upon a Brahmin the same degree of punishment for 
 the murder of a ^oudra as though he were to kill a blue jay, a 
 mongoose, a frog, a dog, a crocodile, a crow, or an owl, — for the 
 f oudra man is only a slave. In the same way, the Wergeld in 
 ancient Germany placed human life upon a scale in the inverse 
 ratio to a man's social importance. In China there are associa- 
 tions of men outside the pale of the law, in which moral ideal 
 consists in giving and receiving blows with perfect impassibility, 
 to kill others in cold blood, and not to fear death for themselves. 
 In our so-called civilised Europe, do we not know too well that 
 the most frightful human hecatombs become not only legitimate, 
 but glorious, when they are justified by political passion 1 
 
 How can man from this inferior degree of morality raise himself 
 to such a fever-heat of virtue, of heroism, of abnegation, that we 
 admire among the most noble specimens of our kind ? It is not 
 that the essence of moral qualities has altered, but that the 
 standard has become higher. The social intelligence has grown 
 slowly, and by degrees the moral impressions, stored away in the 
 nervous centres, have become considerably enriched. Experi- 
 ence has taught us to test the value of individual acts from 
 the general utility point of view. At the same time public 
 opinion has become less confined, and the social verdict 
 more severe. The number and the strength of moral customs 
 have increased. Many of these, considered lightly by the 
 uncultured conscience of the primitive man, have awakened a 
 feeling of repugnance in the man truly civilised ; to do them, or 
 even to be a witness to their performance, would entail a certain 
 amount of disturbance in the impressions fixed from time im- 
 memorial in the cerebral cells; hence, if the case were to happen,. 
 
448 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 moral suffering and remorse would follow. On the other hand, edu- 
 cation has aided, more or less powerfully, to ripen these inherited 
 tendencies, and at the same time punishment has followed the infrac- 
 tion of certain admitted moral rules. It is the total sum of inherited 
 tendencies that forms the most solid basis of individual morality. 
 Education may develop these tendencies ; it cannot supply them. 
 
 As is natural to expect, a higher degree of morality has been 
 developed in those societies whose conditions of life are most 
 stable, where the same system of culture has been pursued through 
 a long chain of generations. An exception, however, may be 
 found among men very little civilised, or even among certain 
 intelligent animals. For instance, two Indian elephants fell 
 into a ditch dug purposely with a view to capturing them. One 
 of these succeeded in getting out of the ditch. Then, instead of 
 taking flight immediately, he lent a charitable assistance to his less 
 fortunate companion. 
 
 As a general rule, honesty, veracity, etc., in business transactions, 
 is uncommon with the primitive man; but it is not unknown 
 among aU savage tribes. According to the abbe Domenech, some 
 tribes of the Eed Skins plant in the middle of their villages a post 
 which they call " the tree of probity," and on to this all waif and 
 stray objects are hung. In the same way the most honourable 
 conduct is preserved in the transactions of the Esquimaux between 
 themselves, but between themselves only, for they do not consider 
 themselves bound by any law of morality with regard to the 
 stranger. Wallace says that the Eorneo Dyaks are most scrupulous 
 in their notions of veracity. Mungo Park saw a negro woman in 
 Senegambia follow her son, who was severely wounded by a 
 musket-shot, lamenting her boy, and enumerating all his good 
 qualities : " Ho never told a lie in all the course of his life." 
 
 On this matter there is, as regards the evolution of the moral sense, 
 an important distinction to be made. It is the least elevated portion 
 of morality, that which we may call commercial morality, which 
 becomes the first developed. It is not rare to find probity in trans- 
 actions, fidelity in a given word, co-exist with the greatest disregard 
 for human life. For instance, the over-nice veracity of the Dyaks 
 
Chap, v.] MOEALITY. 449 
 
 does not at all prevent them from running after people to kill them. 
 The Sandwich Islanders, who made a sport of infanticide, used to 
 observe religiously the taboo, and would confide themselves without 
 hesitation to an enemy when he had sworn to them friendship over 
 a crest of yellow feathers. The ferocious Turkoman will shed blood 
 as though he were pouring out water, but he will leave with full and 
 entire confidence, in the hands of a debtor, the written acceptance 
 that the debtor has signed. " What will he do with it?" the creditor 
 says. But the debtor has need of the acceptance, to remind him of 
 the amount of the debt and the date of its falling due. The main- 
 tenance of societies, even the most rudimentary, is first the all- 
 important matter; a certain amount of good faith in daily transac- 
 tions, in the habitual current of life, especially in the middle of a 
 social group, is absolutely necessary. Kindness, charity, humanity, 
 respect for the feelings of others, are not born in man until a much 
 later date. 
 
 As everything else, morality has evolved slowly, and it is only 
 too evident that it is still far from having arrived at its highest 
 point of development. The most advanced of human societies are 
 still in a furious conflict of egoism, of cupidity, and of cruelty. 
 The primitive instincts of the beast are not yet extinguished in 
 all hearts, and the moral level is very little elevated even among 
 people who call themselves civilised, for nobility of character is too 
 often the cause of want of success in the struggle for life. How often 
 does it happen that duplicity, meanness, greed, hard-heartedness 
 are used as means to overcome the more delicate individuals who 
 have freed themselves too quickly from the state of low morality, 
 and who therefore are fighting with courteous weapons against un- 
 scrupulous rivals, to whom every weapon is good, provided that it 
 is destructive. Facts in support of this sad truth abound both in 
 history and in daily life. It would be waste of time to enumerate 
 them. We have done enough if we have succeeded in drawing 
 the broad outlines of the origin and the development of the moral 
 sense. Tew subjects are so well worthy of the meditations of our 
 teachers, of our legislators, of all those upon whom is incumbent 
 the delicate task of forming and moulding our individual characters. 
 
 2 G 
 
450 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 
 L 
 
 Animal Societies. 
 
 Man has long enougli deceived himself with the idea that he was 
 made in the image of the Divinity. It is now more than time to 
 say and to repeat to this poor creature that he is animal in every 
 fibre and in every particle of his existence. In the foregoing 
 chapters we have several times pointed out the mental similitudes 
 which connect man with his inferior brethren. Many tendencies, 
 many aptitudes, on which man prides himself, may be seen more or 
 less developed in the animal, and it would be only too easy to point 
 out the same manifestations as regards social matters. Man is no 
 doubt a sociable creature, and we may agree with Aristotle in 
 defining him " a polite animal." . Eut the definition does not apply 
 only to man. 
 
 We need not say that we regard the word " society " in another 
 sense than mere juxtaposition. The polypi, the madrepores, the 
 ascidise, oysters, etc., live together in aggregations, but their grouping 
 together is not a matter of sociability any more than the clustering 
 of buds or leaves on a tree. We may say the same of the clouds of 
 grasshoppers which from time to time devastate Algeria, or the 
 immense columns of butterflies which in summer may sometimes 
 be seen swarming in our own country. The idea of society implies 
 that of active concourse ; a social state can exist only where creatures 
 endowed more or less with sensibility, with will, and with intelli- 
 gence, pursue together the same object in common. 
 
 A glance over the animal world from this point of view may be 
 interesting and instructive. As regards social aptitudes the palm 
 is far from belonging to the mammalia, even to the mammalia 
 most approaching to man ; nor could we decern it to the inferior 
 
€hap.ti.] the constitution OF SOCIETIES. 451 
 
 human groups. Many mammalia come together only temporarily 
 during the season when prompted by their amorous desires. Deer 
 will form small societies amongst themselves, but these societies 
 are no more than mere family associations. Reindeer, buffaloes, wild 
 horses, elephants, certain kinds of monkeys sometimes constitute 
 large agglomerations, in which a sort of government of a hierarchical 
 order may be found established. Flocks of wild reindeer are guided 
 and protected by the old males, who in their turn act as sentinels 
 while the others are resting ; and they are ever careful to stop the 
 more foremost of the herd, or to drive in the laggards. In the 
 same way the tribes of elephants do not gambol and frolic unless 
 they are under the guard of a few old males. 
 
 The chief of the hordes of cercopithici is careful also every 
 now and then to climb up to the top of a tree to explore the 
 surrounding country, and by guttural noises he communicates the 
 result of his examination to his associates. Anthropomorphous 
 monkeys collect together only in little groups, in polygamous 
 families, living under the despotic authority of a male adult, who 
 is served and obeyed until the young ones revolt and assassinate 
 him. The gorillas so grouped together in little hordes have made 
 themselves masters over a whole district; they arm themselves 
 with sticks and stones, and drive from off the soil and away out of 
 the country everything which is displeasing to them. 
 
 But how rude are these slight associations if we compare 
 them to the firmly-established republics of bees and of ants ! 
 We have all heard of these societies, so numerous and so well- 
 regulated, in which the nervous instinct, which makes men say 
 and do so many foolish things, is made subordinate to the social 
 interest, where the system of castes is fully practised, and where 
 the division of labour is pushed so far. In the republic of bees 
 there is in the first place a female whose only occupation is to 
 furnish citizens to the state ; then there are males or drone bees, 
 and working bees or neuters. These last divide themselves into 
 working nurses or working wax bees. Social foresight is pushed 
 very far, they are careful to provide against eventualities by filling 
 •everywhere the closed cells with wax. If they wish to build a 
 
 2 G 2 
 
452 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 hive J the work is all divided out. Some of the female working 
 bees furnish the necessary materials, others plan out the work, 
 which is finished by another set of female workers. And during 
 all this other females provide the labourers with food. If the- 
 female bee is hungry she has only to lower her trunk. At this 
 signal the purveyor of food opens her honey bag and pours out a 
 sufficient quantity. All this industry is performed freely and 
 spontaneously ; there is no despotism in these societies, and indi- 
 vidual initiative has no other guide than the instinct of duty. 
 The female bees so unsexed and deprived of the joys of maternity 
 are not wanting in solicitude for the young. They take care of 
 them, they bring them up, and the affectionate sentiments which 
 subsist between the nurses and their children are later transformed 
 into one of the strongest social ties. 
 
 Ants, too, have created for themselves a similar social organisa- 
 tion. With them, when the females have become pregnant, they 
 themselves pull out their wings to devote themselves to the 
 foundation of a new tribe. When this new tribe has become 
 numerous, they will soon construct an underground habitation, in 
 which everything will be ordained towards the perpetuation of 
 their kind. They will build a city and defend it most courageously, 
 and this city will have gates opened always in the daytime and 
 closed at night. Among the termites there is only one fruitful 
 female ant. There are also winged and idle males, and the neuter 
 aptera, some of whom are busy in constructing the great pha- 
 lanstery of the republic, while others form a warlike caste apart. 
 We may also mention the ants who have domesticated the plant- 
 lice, those who, like the forraica rubescens, have confided to their 
 slaves the care of constructing their nest, and to furnish their 
 larvae. These ants are so aristocratic that they cannot eat alone ; 
 they will die of hunger if their slaves are not ready to put their 
 food into their mouths ! 
 
 This last case is a social monstrosity. The ants, ignorant, 
 we may suppose, of our human prejudices, have, in pushing matters^ 
 to an extreme length, realised for themselves caricatures of our own 
 aristocracies. But what good examples may we not find in these^ 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 453 
 
 little republics, where family feeling is established, and care for 
 the welfare of others is pushed to an extent of which men have 
 hitherto been incapable ! 
 
 The surest way to make us admire the cities built by bees 
 ^nd by ants is to consider the societies which human beings have 
 formed for themselves. 
 
 II. 
 The Melanesian Societies, 
 
 In the Melanesian races we may see a long graduating scale of 
 societies and governments, but the boundaries of the humblest 
 people in this series are very little removed from animality. 
 
 The Tasmanians, grouped together in small hordes, each having 
 their totems, used to live almost in an anarchical condition. In the 
 lime of war, but then only, each horde would flock round their 
 temporary chief, and they would obey his orders until danger was 
 actually upon them. 
 
 In these small societies there was no sort of division of the social 
 labour. No aristocracy, no caste, no slave. For slavery will imply 
 a certain degree of civilisation. In the earliest days of every society 
 wars are pitiless ; no quarter is shown to the conquered people. 
 
 But with the Tasmanians, an idea of law had begun to show 
 itself. To infringe a man's right of property over his wife or 
 wives was considered a fault deserving severe chastisement. The 
 delinquent, fastened to a tree, had to expiate his crime by serving 
 as a target for the javelins of his neighbours. He was allowed, 
 however, to ward them off, perhaps with a shield. 
 
 The Tasmanian hordes must have been very small, for the Austra- 
 lians, who were more civilised, live together in very small agglomera- 
 tions. Dampier saw them always in groups of twenty or thirty, 
 never more, counting the men, the women, and the children. On 
 the banks of the Murrumbidgee, Sturt met only fifty individuals 
 over a space of one hundred and eighty miles. But in the forests 
 on the banks of the Murray the country is more thickly peopled. 
 
 The social organisation of the Australians, which we know 
 better than that of the now extinct Tasmanians, is, we believe, more 
 
454 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 complex. In their tribes the Australians have created for themselves 
 a sort of aristocracy. In the same way that hordes of chimpanzees 
 are despotically governed by the old males, the small Australian 
 societies are governed by their old men, or by the mo3t robust of 
 their male members. A whole collection of rules and customs 
 puts at the discretion of these privileged persons the life and the 
 property of the weak, of the young, of the women. Everything 
 that they like becomes their own as a matter of right : the best 
 bits of food, the handsomest women, or whatever they may fancy. 
 As we have already seen, the young are forbidden to eat of the 
 emu. All these tyrannical customs are not supported by any 
 family reasons ; they merely suppose an agglomeration of people 
 more or less large. 
 
 Tor the weaker ones servitude becomes an absolute necessity ; to 
 think even of escaping from it is considered a crime, often punished 
 with death. But still there does exist a sort of social justice. For 
 certain offences, the injured person has a right to inflict upon the 
 wrongdoer so many cuts with a lance upon this or that part of his 
 body. Sentiments of joint responsibility may also be observed, 
 though they are naturally of a very barbarous kind. As they 
 never consider the death of a man to have come by natural causes,, 
 it is with them a sacred duty to avenge the death on the real or 
 supposed murderer, or upon one or more members of his tribe. It 
 will make no difference if the deceased has been killed, or if he 
 has died accidentally, X)v of sickness. In this latter case, his death 
 is imputed to some wicked machinations of a member of a hostile 
 tribe ; and it therefore becomes a strong point of duty to avenge 
 the death by killing a number of persons, proportionate in number 
 to the importance of the deceased. 
 
 If we will recollect that in the small Australian societies the 
 family and the laws of inheritance are governed by precise customs, 
 we shall at once agree that these societies of men are higher than 
 the societies of monkeys, though they are very far inferior to the 
 societies of ants and of bees. 
 
 Among the Melanesians in the Fiji islands, the despotic power 
 has become organised j it has been constructed after some system- 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETIES. 455 
 
 of rule. The Fijian chieftains, whose dignity is hereditary, enjoy 
 plenary power. As they come near to them, the common people 
 prostrate themselves ; to speak to them they employ a whole 
 vocabulary of servile words and expressions, such as " god," '' root 
 of war," etc. etc. The subjects hold their property only under the 
 good pleasure of the chiefs, who dispose of it for their own use 
 if they wish to do so. At the time of Dumont d'Urville's travels, 
 half a century ago, the whole population of the archipelago was 
 under the orders of a monarch, who owned more than a hundred 
 wives, who claimed also, as his tribute, young girls, the teeth of 
 whales, boats, the stuffs fabricated from the mulberry tree, mats, 
 bananas, pigs, and anything else if he wanted it. 
 
 In Fiji judicial penalties are regulated according to the rank in 
 society; the gravity of a crime varies with the social position 
 of the culprit. A theft committed by one of the people is a 
 much more serious offence than murder perpetrated by a chief. 
 But the faults held worthy of punishment are not numerous. 
 They are : theft, adultery, rape, magic, arson, the want of respect 
 towards an important personage. The offences will group them- 
 selves, for the most part, under two main heads : offences against 
 the master, and violation of property. This same remark will be 
 found applicable to many other ethnical groups, and to many 
 other races of men. We shall see, in point of fact, that in many 
 barbarous societies men think much more of the rights of property 
 than of the value of human life. 
 
 In ^ew Caledonia society is better administered, it is also rather 
 less servile. According to M. de Eochas, each New Caledonian 
 tribe forms in itself a small feudal organism. At the bottom of 
 the social scale we find the villains, the labourers, who may be 
 proprietors, and who may consider . their own bodies to be their 
 own property, more or less, on condition that they pay to, their 
 master certain fines. Above them there is an hereditary aris- 
 tocracy, according to the right of male primogeniture. This aris- 
 tocracy, composed of vassals and sub-vassals, obeys a much-respected 
 suzerain ; but in him is not vested the power of disposing of the 
 life or the property of his nobles. He will, however, be less 
 
456 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 ceremonious with his villains ; and a chief named Bouarate, who has 
 left behind him a glorious name, thought it perfectly legitimate, 
 every now and then, when dining at home, to eat one of his inferior 
 subjects. Another chief who made use of his people as though 
 they were a provision market, thought well to preserve human flesh 
 by salting it. 
 
 In InTcw Caledonia slavery does not yet exist, and the wars are 
 therefore very bloody. But some small sparks of humanity are 
 beginning to appear ; if in the middle of a battle, for instance, a 
 chief desires that any particular life may be spared, that individual 
 will be respected. 
 
 The same prisoner may afterwards be adopted, if the chief gives 
 his consent ; henceforward he forms part of the tribe to which his 
 adopted father belongs. This facility of adopting and of assimilation 
 is common among the primitive races, in whom a patriotic sentiment 
 is still very ill defined. 
 
 On the whole, the social organisation of the ITew Caledonians 
 seems to be the most complex and also the most advanced of any 
 of the Melanesian people. The primitive confusion has been 
 followed by an hereditary hierarchy, and, despotic as this hierarchy 
 may be, a certain individual right is already beginning to be 
 recognised ; also, to a small extent, humanity is sometimes practised. 
 But we may ask if this social constitution, relatively advanced, is 
 in fact the work of the Melanesians themselves. We do not find 
 it elsewhere in Melanesia, and it is certain that New Caledonia has 
 more than once received emigrants from Polynesia, who have intro- 
 duced there the custom of the taboo. In any case, whether it be native 
 or imported, the New Caledonian civilisation indicates a certain 
 degree of perfectibility among the people who have adopted it. 
 
 III. 
 
 Societies in Southern Africa, 
 
 The black or the negroid races on the vast African continent are 
 anthropologically very difi'erent. They certainly do not all come 
 from the same origin, and many of their ethnical groups have evolved 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 457 
 
 separately. Nevertheless some sort of sociological gradation may be 
 noticed in Africa, starting from the south and going northward. 
 
 At the bottom of the scale we must place the Bushmen, people 
 who wander about in families, in small groups, in human flocks, 
 through the forests and plains of southern Africa. They are igno- 
 rant of agriculture, they have no domestic animals, they eat what- 
 ever they can kill or steal, crunching, when they can find them, a 
 few roots, the larvae of ants, and grasshoppers ; they live in naturally- 
 made grottoes, or in holes scooped out in the earth. They are not 
 more advanced than the most humble types of the animal creation. 
 
 The higher kinds of the same race, the Hottentots, properly 
 so called, have founded amongst themselves pastoral societies, and 
 they are a people much more advanced. But strangers to agriculture, 
 at least in their native state, they will sometimes descend to the 
 bestial life of the Bushmen, if it happens to them to lose any of 
 their cattle. Thompson has seen some of the members belonging 
 to one of the most advanced of their tribes — the Koraquas — go 
 through this sociological retrogression ; for though progress is 
 general in humanity, it does not always move regularly. 
 
 In the villages in the Hottentot kraals, no form of government 
 has yet dawned upon the people. In time of peace, each clan 
 scarcely know of other laws than a few of their own customs. But 
 over each kraal there is a chief, whose authority in time of peace is' 
 almost nominal ; his office is sometimes temporary, and sometimes 
 hereditary. In some of the Koraqua kraals, the chief used to 
 abdicate in favour of his son, when the son in fighting against his 
 father had succeeded in ousting him ; it was literally no more than 
 the law of the stronger party. The Hottentots have no social 
 hierarchy ; an aristocracy and slavery are equally unknown. But 
 a wide difi'erence is made between the rich and the poor; the 
 possession of a large flock gives to a man a great social influence. 
 It is the aristocracy of cattle, not of money. 
 
 This same aristocracy may be seen also among the Kafirs, who 
 are neighbours and rivals of the Hottentots ; the Kafirs are both 
 an agricultural and a pastoral people, and their social state is of a 
 more complex kind. " The organisation of each Kafir tribe is a 
 
458 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 coarse feudal hierarchy, governed hy an absolute monarch, whose 
 authority becomes mitigated by deputations of the people. Every 
 man is the chief of his own family ; he is the undoubted master 
 of his wives whom he has bought ; he is the master of his 
 children, until the son is old enough to share with him the parental 
 authority. Each father of a family ordinarily holds his property 
 under a suzerain, near to the cotla (the Kafir forum), on which he 
 builds his house. And this suzerain owes his obedience to the 
 chief of the tribe. He is the master supreme. It is he who 
 divides the land according to the individual wants, for in Kaffraria 
 landed property is held in common. It is he who is at the head of 
 every hunting or war expedition, which he orders and conducts as 
 he pleases. But still this kinglin^, who sometimes rules over towns 
 of 8000 or 10,000 inhabitants, does not usually take upon himself to 
 decide a matter of much importance, without first convoking the 
 pitsho, or the national assembly. In this assembly the orators are 
 allowed the greatest liberty of speech ; the king must not allow 
 himself to be angered at anything that is said. But, as a con- 
 solation, he is not obliged to take into account any opposition 
 that is made to him. 
 
 " The Kafir kings, proprietors of large flocks, are necessarily rich 
 men, for they are the great purveyors of the tribe, and they do not 
 impose a regular impost except a tax upon the game killed, and 
 upon the booty taken in war. We may add the fines that they 
 inflict upon guilty persons, but these are relatively rare; the 
 Kafir code is purely traditional and is very elementary, it punishes 
 only a very small number of crimes or offences. Theft is punished 
 by chastisement or by death. Adultery is reprimanded as though 
 it were theft ; the manners in this respect are far from being severe. 
 On the other hand, human life is very little respected. The husband 
 may kill his wife for the most futile reasons. In Kafir towns and 
 villages murder will produce little or no sensation among the people. 
 Everyone defends himself as he can, and he takes his revenge after 
 his own fashion."* 
 
 * Ch. Letourneau, article " Cafres " (" Diet. Enoyolop. des Sc. M^dicsales,'*^ 
 t. xi.). 
 
Chap, VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 45^ 
 
 Power and social rank are hereditary. In some tribes the servility- 
 is excessive, for the inferior ought to salute his chief, saying to 
 him : " You are my chief, and I am your dog." The Kafir aris- 
 tocracy consider wealth as the basis of their existence ; for among 
 the Matchlapis those who own a sufficient number of cattle to 
 maintain a family have the right to the title of chief. 
 
 In some tribes, notably the Bachapins and the Eechuanas, 
 there is also a servile class who hunt with the dogs for the profit of 
 their masters, and are obliged to bring to them the skins of all the 
 animals killed. Sumptuary laws forbid members of this class to 
 make use of the same skins for their clothing that the rich men 
 use — jackal skin, for instance ; their quality of slave is hereditary, 
 as are also the dignities among the rich. 
 
 In a word, the Kafirs have not got beyond their primitive anarchy 
 except to organise a state of slavery. Many other races, as we shall 
 see, have followed the same steps ; even this is progress, it is a 
 barbarous moving onward towards a better future. 
 
 We may also remark that in these coarse societies the law first 
 concerns itself with the care of property ; but it pays very little 
 attention to any regard for human life. This is a significant fact ; 
 it is also a very common one, and wo may connect it with what 
 we have already said in speaking of morality. Pity, charity, 
 justice, etc., are implanted in the heart of man, but they are the 
 fruits of a later season. 
 
 The Kafir society, with its hierarchy, its castes, its monarch, has- 
 already taken rigid forms very similar to those which we find 
 among the majority of the human groups at a certain time in their 
 evolution. 
 
 Among the Gaboon tribes we may study this social condition in 
 its primitive state. In this region each tribe divides itself into 
 clans, they again subdivide themselves into small villages, more or 
 less nomad, and each having their independent chief. The power 
 of these chieftains is generally hereditary. Ordinarily it passes 
 from one brother to another, as among the Kafirs ; but the elders 
 have the right of passing their veto ; they may also exclude the 
 rightful heir, and elect another. 
 
460 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 To this same council of old men also belongs the right of 
 deciding if the community ought to emigrate; if they ought or 
 not to declare war. The king decides only upon matters of 
 daily practice. 
 
 Slavery is in vogue among these people, and we may see clearly 
 the reason. Punishment there is inflicted in a very simple manner: 
 — a man is condemned to slavery or to death. Of all rights, the 
 right of property is the most strongly respected. The adulterer, 
 that is, he who has violated feminine property, is sold as a slave ; 
 so also are thieves and insolvent debtors. These men pay their 
 creditors in the shape of service done. Sorcerers, and children of 
 whom people wish to rid the'mselves, share the same fate. Prisoners 
 whose lives have been spared are also sold. But for slavery, all 
 these disinherited persons in the Gaboon tribes would be put to 
 death. A slave trade is everywhere carried on between the tribes, 
 on the seashore and also on board the slave-ships. But in the 
 interior of the country, as well as on the sea-coast, a slave is the 
 monetary unity. When slaves are kept in the village, it is 
 intended that they shall reproduce their own kind ; their des- 
 cendants are servile by the right of birth. Slaves in this category 
 are treated with some consideration ; they are not sold out of the 
 country. A sort of feeling of humanity has already arisen in their 
 favour, for they have the right to take refuge in a neighbouring 
 village, and to choose there a new master, who is bound by public 
 opinion to take charge of them. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Societies in the Centre of Africa, 
 
 Certain negro groups whose social condition we have just 
 sketched are tending more or less clearly to institute slavery, castes, 
 and the theory of absolute power. This organisation, still in an 
 embryo and confused state among the black men in Gaboon, is 
 spreading and becoming implanted in the portion of Africa north 
 of the equator. We find there, all across the continent, a large 
 zone that we may call the servile zone, and which stretches from 
 Senegambia and from Guinea as far as Abyssinia. 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 461 
 
 Over all this vast region, occupied by the best specimens of the 
 black races of men, by populations in which Berber or Semitic 
 blood is more or less mixed, monarchical despotism is exercised 
 almost without control. 
 
 In Ashanti the king, who has 3333 wives, a mystical number 
 rigorously determined, inherits all the gold belonging to his sub- 
 jects. In his purchases he makes use of weights a third heavier 
 than those used by the rest of the nation. He is surrounded by 
 children, who carry for him his fetich arrows, and they have the- 
 right of pillage over all the common people. Whenever this demi- 
 god spits, children, who carry with them elephants' tails, carefully 
 wipe up the royal saliva, or cover it over with sand. When he^ 
 sneezes, all his assistants draw two of their fingers across their fore- 
 heads and across their chest; this is equivalent to asking for a 
 benediction. 
 
 The Bambarrans of Kaarta are a little less servile. At his corona- 
 tion the king has to undergo a sort of investiture. He is lifted up 
 on a large strip of oxhide by the representatives of the caste of the 
 blacksmiths, and he then listens to the following allocution: 
 " Before accepting the power you must know four things : — First, 
 that you are our master and that all our heads belong to you ; 
 secondly, that you must treat us as your fathers have treated us ; 
 thirdly, that you must make the laws respected and protect the 
 nation ; fourthly, that you must win the favour that you receive 
 by signalising yourself in a warlike expedition." 
 
 This ceremony, however, does not at all prevent the monarch 
 from enjoying absolute power, or even from choosing his place of 
 residence where he pleases. 
 
 Among the Mandingos, and among them only, do we 'find the 
 despotic power at all mitigated. Before declaring war, before 
 concluding peace, or deciding upon a matter of any importance, 
 every Mandingo king ought to take the advice of a council com- 
 posed of the elders and of the principal members of his small 
 nation. 
 
 The Timmanis have also their deliberative assemblies, that which 
 in the greater part of negro Africa is called palavers. But these 
 
462 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 assemblies are purely formal ; the orators as they speak are careful 
 to watch for the expression of the king's face, and to make their 
 opinions conform to his. 
 
 Among the Fellatahs, in Soudan, despotism is absolute ; the king 
 ivill concede, possess, or sell, at his own pleasure the government 
 of his provinces to whomsoever he pleases. 
 
 At Katunga, in the valley of the Niger, when the king holds an 
 audience, the eunuchs, the courtiers, and all the assistants ought, 
 before sitting down, to prostrate themselves lying with their 
 stomachs on the ground, and be bare of clothing down to the waist. 
 Then they must drag themselves along the ground towards their 
 master, kissing the earth as they do so, and rolling their heads in 
 the dust. They compete one against the other as to who shall 
 most besmear himself. 
 
 The same unlimited despotism exists in Borgou, where the king 
 is the judge over every matter of business in dispute, and he 
 decides as his caprice directs. 
 
 At Kiama, still in the valley of the Nile, the king, when he is 
 mounted on his superb charger and followed by a numerous armed 
 escort, has close to his side six young girl slaves holding in their 
 right hands three light javelins ; they wear no other clothiug but 
 a band of cotton around their heads and a string of glass-ware 
 around their waist. 
 
 The King of Boussa thought that the European system of 
 monogamy might be good enough for the common people, but for 
 monarchs he considered that it was very impertinent. 
 
 We are indebted to Captain Speke for some curious details in 
 the great monarchy of M'tesa near the large lake on the Upper 
 Nile. Here we find absolute power almost in the form of a 
 caricature. Whenever the monarch holds an audience the nobles 
 and the high dignitaries place themselves round about him, 
 crouched up or kneeling, and they remain perfectly silent in this 
 form of adoration. Any default in a ceremonial form is punished 
 instantly with death. The courtiers or the ambassadors, when 
 they have to report upon a mission, approach the king grovelling 
 in the dust. The monarch expedites business very promptly by 
 
^^ 
 
 Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETD 
 
 ordering confiscation of property, fustigation, and capital pi 
 ment, while young women, quite naked, are handing about cups of 
 banana wine. Every royal decision, no matter what it be, must be 
 considered as an act of grace, and he whom it concerns must roll 
 in the dust, grovel with his belly on the ground, and utter cries of 
 rejoicing. At the same time the great king receives the fines 
 which he has levied, the presents that are brought to him either 
 in cattle or'in women. The latter are usually young girls respect- 
 fully offered by tiieir fathers and destined to replace the odalisks 
 in the harem whom the monarch causes to be slaughtered when 
 they have ceased to please him. 
 
 Farther northward, but still in the basin of the Upper Nile, the 
 Mam-Niam kings every now and then will rage and howl like 
 wild beasts over one of their subjects ; they will cut off his head 
 with their scimitar only to show that this human animal was their 
 property. The Monbottous consider that every object touched by 
 the king becomes sacred, no once is henceforward allowed to touch 
 it. In the Mahomedan states of Fezzan, Sennaar, Darfur, the 
 government is also the most absolute monarchy. In Sennaar, upon 
 the accession of the king, all his collateral relations are put to 
 death, all the land belongs to him, all the inhabitants of the 
 country are his slaves. 
 
 So also in Abyssinia every man is born a slave of the sovereign. 
 The monarch overrides all law, he is proprietor of all the soil, he 
 -decides absolutely upon every civil or ecclesiastical matter of 
 business, he is at once pope and sultan. 
 
 In Madagascar, too, the sovereign exercises an unlimited power. 
 He disposes at will of the life and property of his subjects. 
 
 But though he is the personification of the most complete 
 despotism, the African monarch is not the only master. Under 
 him there is ordinarily a long hierarchical scale of tyrants, one 
 more brutal than the other. There are castes of aristocratical 
 bullies who, after grovelling on their belly before the king, trample 
 upon the neck of the slave. With some few unimportant differ- 
 ences, this is the sort of social organisation among all the servile 
 people of whom we are now speaking. 
 
464 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 In Ashanti a sort of council of state, composed of four members- 
 of the aristocracy and of the principal chiefs, have a consulting 
 voice in the administration of the affairs of the country. 
 
 Among the Bambarrans of Kaarta there are three aristocratical 
 castes : (1) the caste of the blacksmiths, of which the chief crowns 
 the kings upon their accession, and has the right of justice in his 
 caste ; (2) the tanners ; (3) the griots. The revenues of the state 
 are composed of the booty taken in war, tribute-money paid by 
 the neighbours, a tithe ad valorem duty put upon all merchan- 
 dise transported by caravans, arbitrary taxes levied capriciously 
 by the king, and tithes in kind which weigh upon the labour of the 
 different castes or corporations. A similar system exists also in 
 Bondou and among the Timmanis. In Mahomedan countries such 
 as Bondou, or among the Fulahs, Mussulman laws are more or 
 less in force ; but everywhere the imans who exact them are good 
 courtiers. 
 
 The Mandingos, as well as the Bambarrans, have their pro- 
 fessional castes : blacksmiths, and shoemakers, also orators and 
 musicians ; and in the first rank must be put the profession of 
 the Koran. 
 
 Even in these barbarous societies, the organisation becomes^ 
 special and complex. Despotism is conducted after a regular- 
 form; and the most civilised of these agglomerations, the Man- 
 dingos, for instance, are beginning to attach a value to artistic 
 and intellectual aptitudes. Despotic monarchy is none the less 
 violent ; it exists to such an extent that, in Bondou, to kill a lion 
 is an offence for which pardon must be asked of the chiefs ; for this 
 is considered as a want of respect to the sovereign. In Kiama 
 men salute their superiors by lying down with their bellies touch- 
 ing the ground ; the women kneel, their elbows on the ground and 
 their hands open. In Kano, the governor lets out all the shops at 
 so much a month, and he regulates at his pleasure the price of 
 every article. 
 
 The government and those men in power think little about the 
 people, except as to how far they can vex and oppress them ; other- 
 wise they allow them liberty to do what harm they like. The 
 
Ghap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 465 
 
 people in the towns are always fighting one against the other ; they 
 will at once jump at any pretext for pillage and robbery. 
 
 This social state, which we find almost everywhere throughout 
 this African zone, is evidently a rough sketch of the feudal system ; 
 and in Abyssinia it has showed itself in the shape of a real feudality 
 quite similar to that which has once existed in Europe. There are 
 endless ties, rights, and duties among the Abyssinians, establishing 
 a reciprocal joint responsibility, which each man prides himself in 
 observing. The freed man, who is bound to no subjection, is outside 
 the law ; he is outside the social pale. 
 
 In Madagascar the nobles, before they were made obedient to the 
 royal power, used to live as petty sovereigns, shut up in their 
 fortresses, pillaging their neighbours, plundering travellers, as was 
 the practice for so long a time with our own feudal barons. And 
 like our old barons, the Madagascar nobility used to pay a tithe to 
 the suzerain or to the king. On the other hand the villains were 
 taxable, and the labourers were mulcted at pleasure. 
 
 Analogies such as these seem to convince us of the idea of a law 
 of evolution. 
 
 But hitherto we have only spoken of the governing classes, or 
 rather of the oppressors. Beneath these privileged persons there 
 lies groaning a large mass of servile people, who have many duties 
 to perform and who enjoy very few rights. 
 
 In the countries of which we are speaking, as in Gaboon, the 
 soldiers are taken from the servile classes ; and all those w^ho are 
 condemned for insolvability, or for any ofi'ence, are also considered 
 servile. The newly-made slave has no surety, no guarantee; he 
 may be killed or sold at will. The hereditary slave is somewhat 
 more respected; and among the Mandingos his master cannot 
 put him to death until he has first held a iDolaver to decide upon 
 his conduct. 
 
 It is everywhere incumbent upon slaves to cultivate the land, to 
 look after the cattle, to perform every servile office. Sometimes 
 they are allowed to have a habitation of their own, and there to 
 carry on a trade, but only on condition that they will make over 
 to their master all or a portion of their profits. 
 
 2 H 
 
466 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book ir. 
 
 The number of slaves is enormous. At Boussa and in the 
 neighbouring districts, four-fifths of the population were slaves 
 according to E. and J. Lander, and three-fourths according to 
 Mungo Park. 
 
 In Madagascar, where slavery has the same origin as elsewhere, 
 and the class is made up of convicts and insolvent debtors, a 
 whole servile hierarchy has been established, each class having 
 their own dififerent rights. The Hova slaves are the most favoured^ 
 then come the Malagasi of every sort, and lastly the black men. 
 
 We see therefore that from the Guinea coast to Madagascar,, 
 across all the vast African continent, the social state is in reality 
 everywhere very similar ; in certain regions only we find it more 
 or less clearly defined. But to complete our short sketch, we must 
 first say a few words as to the administration of justice. 
 
 It would appear that nothing is more confined than the moral 
 horizon of the poorly-developed man. For this being, as yet so very 
 inferior, every desire is lawful ; for him, his own personality, his 
 own small self fills the whole universe. During this phase of his 
 evolution, man has not the faintest idea of liberty, of humanity, 
 of right, or of justice. If our opinion on this point be true, we shall 
 find superabundant instances in support of it in Africa. 
 
 In Ashanti, to kill a slave is quite an indifi'erent matter. But 
 the murder of a high personage by another of equal rank entails 
 upon the assassin the punishment of death ; but the guilty man is- 
 allowed to kill himself. One of the king's sons ought never to 
 be put to death, no matter how black be his crimes. Every chief, 
 but every chief only, has the right to kill or to sell his wife if she 
 is unfaithful to him. Cowardice, being a want of respect to the 
 king, entails capital punishment. Every amorous intrigue with a 
 woman belonging to the royal family is punished by castration. 
 In Abyssinia, as in many other African countries, the accusation 
 .of sorcery involves torture, death, and other punishments. In a 
 word, justice is no more than the vengeance of damageable or 
 disagreeable acts done to those in power, and especially to the king,, 
 from whom everything proceeds. 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 4G7 
 
 Over all this region of Africa whicli we are novf considering, the 
 right of high and low justice belongs in principle to the king, who 
 is almost quite free to decide any matter just as he may please. 
 In the smaller states the master will judge for himself. With the 
 Bambarrans of Kaarta the members of the royal family have only 
 the right of middle and of low justice ; high justice is the royal 
 prerogative. Crimes entailing death, and therefore submitted to 
 royal jurisdiction, are theft, murder, and adultery. But the black- 
 smiths and the royal family are not liable to capital punishment ; 
 they may be subject to confiscation of property, banishment, or flagel- 
 lation. But the flagrant adultery of a blacksmith with the wife of 
 a Massassi, or a member of the royal family, or with a woman of 
 another caste than his own, is a crime punished by death. In 
 Soudan the death inflicted will vary according to the caste to 
 which a man belongs, or according to the religious faith he is 
 supposed to profess. In Mahomedan countries the true believers are 
 decapitated, the others are impaled or crucified. 
 
 Among the Mandingos, relatively more intelligent, the organisa- 
 tion of justice has made a step in advance. The trial is public, in a 
 local spot set apart for the purpose, similar to the cotla of the Kafirs. 
 "Witnesses are called, and a special functionary, an hereditary judge, 
 passes sentence. 
 
 Among the Koorankos, murder only is punishabk with death ; 
 and the guilty man may buy back his life by indemnifying the 
 friends and parents of the deceased. The matter is considered 
 private, and no one thinks of interfering with the general interests 
 of society. This rude conception of justice is very common all 
 over the middle part of Africa. In point of fact, there is never an 
 offence committed ; damage is done to the master or to an indi- 
 vidual. So also in case of murder, the people who live in the 
 Syouah oasis deliver up the guilty man to the relations of the 
 victim, and they are free to kill him, to torture him, to give him 
 his liberty, just as they may please. 
 
 In Darfur, the sultan will judge according to his own caprice. 
 His will is law, and is controlled only by the representations of the 
 
 2 H 2 
 
468 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 imans. In the provinces, the master's authority is delegated to the 
 functionaries, to the sub-tyrants whose commands are acts of 
 arbitrary authority upon a smaller scale. 
 
 In Abyssinia, there is a class of legists who boast that they 
 know the Pandects and the Institutes by tradition, brought to them 
 from Byzantium ; but the prince is above all the laws. It is to 
 him that, in principle, application must be made for relief against 
 all wrongs. His door, his windows are besieged with people crying, 
 weeping, and lamenting, praying for justice, and if by any chance 
 there are no oppressed people who really want to make their claims 
 heard, others are hired to play their part. 
 
 In Madagascar, the functionaries administer justice in open air, 
 but always in the name of the sovereign, and reserving for him the 
 decision in graver matters. In Madagascar, also, as in other 
 countries, as in Ashanti, for instance, judges, when they find them- 
 selves embarrassed, often resort to judicial proof by means of 
 poison. This mode of judgment, the judgment of God, might be 
 exacted either by the judges or by the parties, and the trial was 
 made upon the accused or upon an animal ; it was also practised 
 in civil cases as well as in criminal 
 
 The foregoing facts will show clearly enough that all over the 
 middle part of Africa the ideas of justice and injustice are still in a 
 most confused state. Against the slave, and especially the newly- 
 made slave, everything is lawful ; and among men who call 
 themselves free, the oppression of the weaker by the stronger is 
 the common rule. We may notice, however, that in each of these 
 small states, the despotism of the master, hard as it may be, is 
 still a sort of social safeguard. It will often happen that the death 
 of a despot is the signal for a long string of acts of unbridled 
 crime and violence ; the bad instincts of men which fear alone 
 could keep in check are then let loose. The oppressed man will 
 become oppressor in turn when it is in his power. 
 
 A certain sort of social organisation has, however, established 
 itself : individual property exists, but it is tolerated rather than 
 lawfully constituted. The master has learnt not to kill the goose 
 who lays for him golden eggs. In place of confiscating everything, 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 469 
 
 lie Tn.ll content himself by capriciously imposing heavy taxes. At 
 Kano, in Houssa, the governor takes for himself two-thirds of the 
 dates and other fruits brought into the market. 
 
 The idea of offering protection to society in general has not yet 
 begun to dawn, nor yet the notion of scrupulously weighing the 
 degrees of guilt in offences and in crimes. Human life is not 
 guaranteed ; and very generally, as among the Bambarrans, theft is 
 reputed as the greatest of crimes. For in many barbarous societies, 
 and even also in some civilised societies, man thinks more of his 
 property than of his life, — especially of the lives of others. 
 
 If we pass from these rude disordered societies to that of 
 ancient Egypt, a country where the organisation was better ad- 
 ministered, we shall see that the different functions were more 
 clearly determined, the offices were strictly hereditary, the control 
 and the administration of power were better defined. ]N'o doubt 
 the old Egyptian race has assimilated to itself some of the Berber 
 and Semite manners ; but at bottom it does not differ from the 
 coarse states in negro Africa. It has done no more than regulate 
 and bring to a high degree of perfection the tendencies and the social 
 ideas common among all the African races. At a later date these 
 customs became modified. 
 
 The Social State in Ancient Egijpt. 
 
 In ancient Egypt, as all through the middle part of Africa at 
 the present time, there was at the basis of society a mass of servile 
 people, who, reduced to the condition of domestic animals, per- 
 formed all the hard agricultural and industrial labour. On the 
 backs of these humble sons of the state were piled the aristocratic 
 castes, ingeniously ranged, the most useless, as of right, occupy- 
 ing the highest places. A despotic monarch, in all his parasite 
 splendour, sat at the top of the pyramid, the result of the labour 
 and the suffering of a large nation. 
 
 We are not called upon now to describe minutely the social 
 constitution of ancient Egypt, but we may recall the main 
 characteristics. 
 
470 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 There seem to have been four castes : the priests, the army, the 
 agricultural, and the commercial people. Outside these divisions 
 everyone else was a slave. 
 
 The superior castes, the warriors and the priests, possessed as 
 their own a portion of the territory. It would seem that the 
 priests had first instituted a pure theocracy, to which the military 
 caste substituted afterwards a monarchy, the government of a royal 
 family set up in the middle of their own body. 
 
 Social immovability was the general law in the state. 'No one 
 went out of his caste, and every man followed his father's pro- 
 fession. The doctors even had their hereditary specialities. They 
 were each, from father to son, obliged to concern themselves with 
 the same kinds of diseases. 
 
 At the head of all society, the king and queen sat upon the 
 throne, honoured with the title of gods, and surrounded by a 
 numerous train of courtiers ranked in minute hierarchical succes- 
 sion. Orders of chivalry set off the situation of the courtiers. 
 There were clasps and collars of honour, belonging of right to the 
 courtiers in chief, to the " parents." 
 
 Passive obedience was the general law in the kingdom. The 
 government knew everything, would do everything, directed every- 
 thing. jS"o initiative was allowed to individuals. 
 
 Nevertheless the constitution of the Egyptian state differed from 
 the rude monarchies now existing in Africa in important matters, 
 and the balance was altogether in their favour. Justice, which 
 was usually administered by the sacerdotal caste, was carefully 
 organised. The pros and cons of each case were pleaded, but only 
 in writing ; the judges delivered their verdict after they had con- 
 sulted the books of Thot. The desire that equity should be done 
 was so great that dead bodies were judged before allowing them to 
 be placed in the family sepulchre. 
 
 Various torments were inflicted in the future life, in hell, on the 
 shades of the guilty persons. These shades were sometimes de- 
 capitated, sometimes cooked in hot caldrons ; sometimes they 
 dragged about their heart which was torn out. The Egyptian 
 
€hap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 471 
 
 notion of hell was very like our Christian notion j it would seem 
 that from them we borrowed our model. 
 
 There is one very honourable feature in the ancient Egyptian 
 society, and one that shows a true sentiment of joint responsibility. 
 The people held it to be an imperative duty to give succour to their 
 fellow-creatures. A man was judged guilty of homicide if he did 
 not proffer assistance to another in danger. To pursue with justice 
 -a guilty person was obligatory ; he who did not fulfil this task was 
 beaten with rods. 
 
 Nothing is more typical than this form of society ; it preserves 
 in its full bloom every primitive social tendency. As yet the 
 individual does not exist. The structure of society is as though it 
 was congealed ; it does not suppose the possibility of progress, and 
 is resolutely antagonistic to it. But the public conscience, though it 
 made legitimate and held to be lawful oppression and privilege, 
 was not opposed to the feeling of justice. Every illegal violence 
 was forbidden, and mutual assistance was considered a duty. We 
 may add that the insolvent debtor was not reduced into slavery ; 
 he paid his debts with his property, and not with his person. 
 
 Egypt seems to have realised the social ideal conceived by the 
 African races. It now remains to us to describe those that have 
 been imagined by other human races. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Societies in North and in South America. 
 
 Like the African continent, in America we shall see different 
 phases of human societies. 
 
 The stupid Euegians are at the bottom of the scale. According 
 to Cook, their daily life is more like that of brute beasts than the 
 life of any other people. Essentially wandering and vagabond, 
 they go about in small hordes, changing their place of abode as 
 fioon as they have exhausted the supply of animal food, or more 
 -especially the shell-fish at any point on the sea-shore. 
 
 The Patagoniaus, the Araucanians, the Charruas, and, speaking 
 
472 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 generally, all the nomad tribes who ride about the pampas of South 
 America, whom D'Orbigny has called the Pampas nations, have 
 already made a commencement towards social organisation, though 
 it is still very rude. As their means of subsistence are more certain 
 than that of the Fuegians, they can group themselves together in 
 larger numbers, they can constitute tribes. But in these tribes the 
 government is of the very simplest kind. As the principal occu- 
 pation of the people is fighting, the men, before undertaking an 
 expedition, all sit in a circle to deliberate their plans ; and they 
 designate a chief who is charged temporarily with the care of the 
 expedition. While they are under their tents there is no sub- 
 ordination among them, no submission from one to another, not 
 even from the son to his father. As they live only upon the pro- 
 duce of the chase, of their razzias, and upon the flesh of their horses, 
 they leave a district as soon as the pastural supply of food is exhausted. 
 Their principal passion is war. We find here an anarchical state 
 in all its brutality. They have yet no idea of protection, nor of 
 social justice. Everyone acts as he pleases, he defends himself as 
 best he can, and he takes his vengeance after his own fashion. Tho 
 Botocudos of Brazil are hardly more civilised than the Fuegians. 
 Absolutely ignorant of agriculture, they wander about stark naked 
 in little hordes, living upon game, which they devour raw. 
 
 The Guarayos have made a step towards social organisation. Each 
 group of families has an hereditary chief, whose power is confined to 
 giving advice in time of peace and directing the warlike operations. 
 Two offences these people punish very severely. These are tho two 
 principal forms of violation of property— theft and adultery. 
 
 Among the Caribs and the Tupinambas, the chiefs have nothing 
 to do with the administering of justice. Everyone for himself 
 avenges the offences he has received, and if he does not do so, he is 
 stigmatised by public opinion. The manners of the greater part of 
 the natives in these vast regions are therefore almost bestial. We 
 may therefore now explain the facility with which the Jesuits 
 reduced to a state of animal domesticism the Indians of Paraguay. 
 These poor creatures began their daily task at eight o'clock in the 
 jiioming,, under the eye of the corregidor. The men used either to 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 473 
 
 till the ground, or to labour in the workshops ; the women wove 
 the cotton. The submission of the Indians to the cures Avas abso- 
 lutely servile. The whip, administered without distinction of sex 
 in an infantine fashion, was used for public faults ; and sometimes, 
 obeying the voice of their own conscience, the sinners would come 
 themselves to solicit chastisement for the omission of duties they 
 had forgotten to perform. The Paraguayas, devoid of every indi- 
 vidual initiative, docilely submitted to this mechanical existence. 
 Life gave them no pleasure, and they died without regret. 
 
 The Columbian savages, a more intelligent and more energetic 
 people, choose for themselves chiefs, whom they honour as beings 
 of a superior nature ; but they first make them undergo a most 
 severe training. In the first place, every candidate for the office 
 has to submit to a rigorous fustigation, without showing any sign 
 of pain. He is afterwards laid in a hammock, with his hands tied, 
 and myriads of venomous ants are showered over him. Then 
 underneath the hammock a fire is lighted, composed of herbs, so 
 that the patient shall have the full benefit of the heat, and 
 be thoroughly enveloped in smoke. Under all this treatment he 
 must be completely passive. The least sign of impatience, or 
 the slightest possible groan, will at once disqualify him for office. 
 
 "We shall soon^have to describe the more advanced civilisations 
 in Central America ; but to preserve the order of our plan, we must 
 first mention the ill-developed societies of South America. 
 
 In a sociological point of view, the Californian natives may be 
 compared with the Fuegians. Living in a state of complete 
 anarchy, they know of no other right than brute force. Everyone 
 acts as he pleases, without taking heed of his neighbour. Vice and 
 crime are unpunished, or rather, public opinion does not recognise 
 either vice or crime. Everyone must defend himself as he can. 
 Such at least is the description given of them by the Jesuit Baegert, 
 who lived among them for seventeen years. 
 
 Though the Indian Eed Skins are much superior to the Cali- 
 fornianSj the organisation of many of their tribes was, and is still, 
 as rudimentary as that of the Araucanians or the Patagonians. 
 They have no form of government in time of peace ; in time of 
 
474 SOCIAL LIFE. [Bookiv. 
 
 war they obey the bravest of their warriors. Birth has nothing 
 to do with this ; physical and moral force only will give a man 
 prestige. Important matters are also often eloquently debated 
 by a council of old men. They have no idea of social justice; 
 every man avenges himself as he can. 
 
 Such of these tribes who have laboured at all seriously at agri- 
 culture have materially improved their social condition. We may 
 mention the Iroquois, of whom all the tribes have united against 
 their white or red enemies. As the Tcheremiss have done else- 
 where, the Creeks established among themselves a system of 
 common agriculture. At certain fixed times everyone had to per- 
 form his portion of the work in the fields, and the harvest was 
 divided among the different families. 
 
 Certain tribes had constituted among themselves a barbarous 
 form of justice. Among the Comanches the adulterous woman 
 was punished by having her nose slit ; but it was the family of 
 the injured husband who awarded the penalty. 
 
 The peaceful Esquimaux, whom Eoss could not succeed in 
 making understand what was meant by warfare, and who pos- 
 sessed no fighting instruments, sometimes obey a chief to whom 
 they pay a certain fine, but usually form themselves into small 
 free communities. They could not understand that there should 
 be chiefs and officers among the men in Parry's expedition. In 
 the little Greenland republics, aU the citizens are equal. The 
 community will not admit a new member, but with the general 
 consent ; every associate is bound to hunt seals and whales as long 
 as his age will permit him, and he has no son to replace him. 
 
 This instinct of equality, these sentiments of joint responsibility, 
 joined to a great softness in their manners, make of the Esqui-' 
 maux a race apart, and their origin is probably very diff'erent from 
 that of the Eed Skins, their enemies and their tyrants. 
 
 Among the societies of Central America which will now claim 
 our attention, ancient Peru will off'er an interesting example of a 
 -communist society ; and though it was much more complex than 
 any association of Esquimaux, the Peruvian organisation was morally 
 inferior to theirs, because it was founded upon despotic monarchy 
 and the system of caste. 
 
•Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 476 
 
 vn. 
 
 Societies in Central America. 
 
 "We find among the American races anatomical resemblances and 
 also mental analogies so striking as to justify us in supposing a 
 common origin, and also to allow of the very unequal degrees in 
 their social organisations making themselves subordinate and taking 
 their place in the successive stages of a great evolution. The 
 Fuegian and the Botocudo would be at the bottom of the scale ; 
 the people belonging to the ancient states of America would be at 
 the top. But the large empires of Mexico and of Peru ought not to 
 be considered as civilised islands in the middle of a great ocean of 
 savagery. Round about them there were other societies less 
 important, but still having a social organisation very far above that 
 of the Red Skins or the Guarayos. 
 
 At the time of the conquest of Hernando Cortez, there were 
 in iN'ew Mexico, where we may still see them, communities, 
 phalansteries more or less, — the pueblo. Each pueblo is a small 
 republic, composed of from forty to fifty families, inhabiting in 
 common one enormous house, of difficult access, constructed in the 
 shape of a colossal mound of huge stepping-stones, and of which 
 each step forms one story of the house. Each story contains so many 
 cells, and in each cell a family resides. One cannot mount or 
 descend from one story to the other but by a ladder. The Indians 
 who live in these pueblos ere skilful agriculturists ; they have learnt 
 how to fertilise the soil by means of canals. Their manners are 
 soft, and on the whole they are much superior to the Indian 
 tribes of huntsmen. 
 
 Small monarchies used to exist elsewhere, but these were little 
 more than a form of great empires of Central America upon a 
 reduced scale. 
 
 The Natchez were governed by a grand chief who was brother to 
 the sun. This demigod had the right of life and death. His 
 wives and his slaves were bound to immolate themselves upon his 
 •tomb. Below him there was a line of hereditary nobility. 
 
476 - SOCIAL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 In Florida the caciques were regarded with servile respect. 
 
 The inhabitants of the Antilles islands used to obey chiefs by 
 the right of birth — men who enjoyed an absolute power; they 
 sprang from the gods, and they governed the elements. 
 
 In Bogota there was a numerous people already skilled in 
 agriculture ; they had built important towns and convenient houses, 
 they had traditional laws repressing certain crimes, recognising as 
 their absolute master a king, whom they approached with awe and 
 trembling ; and whenever the king went out, the people used to 
 strew his path with flowers. This monarch imposed his own taxes, 
 and he also received rich presents. 
 
 This is, upon a small scale, the same organisation as that of the 
 Aztecs. The chroniclers of this empire do not make it date farther 
 back than the end of our twelfth century ; and we find there a 
 theocratic and monarchical society very similar in its principal 
 features to that of ancient Egypt. 
 
 The Mexican monarch was chosen from among the brethren of 
 the defunct monarch, assisted by four delegates of the nobility ; 
 and he henceforward became a quasi-divinity, the representative at 
 least of the gods upon the earth. He was always surrounded 
 by a most complex ceremony. In his harem there were no less 
 than 3000 concubines. His sumptuous repasts were served by 
 handsome young girls. His body-guard, his postal couriers, his 
 ministers of peace and war, were everywhere stationed along the 
 roads in the empire. 
 
 Below the king, and always near to him, were a numerous 
 aristocratical and hereditary class, who owned the soil and occupied 
 the principal places about the court and in the administrative 
 offices. To these men was confided the government of the provinces 
 and of the towns. 
 
 The principal occupations of this aristocratic caste were governing 
 and carrying on wars, which often had no other object than that 
 of procuring so many prisoners, which the religion of the country 
 imperiously exacted should be offered up as sacrifices. All the 
 great social labour was performed by the serfs and by the slaves. 
 The serfs were attached to the glebe ; they could not go away from 
 
Chap. Yi.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 477 
 
 the little bit of ground which they had been commanded to 
 cultivate; they were transmitted hereditarily from one owner 
 to the other, together with the domain, as though they were 
 domestic animals. Their lot differed from that of the slaves in 
 only one particular : they could not be sacrificed to the gods. 
 
 As in Africa, there were in Mexico several categories of slaves. 
 The majority were prisoners of war. Others had been con- 
 demned to servitude for various crimes. Some of them were 
 voluntary slaves, for free men had the right of disposing of their 
 liberty. Poor parents could also sell their children. In this case 
 a contract of sale was drawn up before witnesses, in which was 
 clearly specified the kind of service that might be exacted. The 
 slave might have a family of his own, he might even own other 
 slaves. The masters rarely sold their slaves without strong reason. 
 They had the right to do so, nevertheless, and there were fairs at 
 which this kind of traffic was regularly carried on. The slaves 
 were dressed in their best clothes, and they were bound to sing, to 
 dance, and to entice buyers by showing off their good qualities. 
 The vicious slave was sold with a special collar round his neck, 
 and if he repeated his offence a second time he was destined to be 
 sacrificed — a most important matter in the Mexican society. 
 
 On the other hand, the children of the slave were free. In 
 Mexico no one was born a slave. 
 
 Outside the rank of slaves and agricultural serfs there was a 
 ^corporation of working men, and in Mexico each of these men 
 fulfilled a certain office, to which was connected its fast days, 
 and its protecting divinity, its patron. In these corporations the 
 profession was hereditary; everyone was bound to follow the 
 occupation exercised by his father. 
 
 A similar organisation prevailed in Mexico, properly so called, 
 and in the tributary kingdoms of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. Even 
 in Tlascala and in other republics bordering on the Aztec empire, 
 there was the same social hierarchy. The monarch only was 
 wanting. 
 
 The Aztecs seem to have had that sort of care for justice which 
 is compatible among a despotic and barbarous people ; but their 
 
478 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 legislation was not complex, and it was very severe. Theft and 
 murder, even that of a slave, were punishable with death. The 
 adulterer was stoned. In a young man, drunkenness entailed the 
 penalty of death ; in persons of ripe age, it was punished with 
 degradation and confiscation of property. 
 
 The care of administering justice was put into the hands of 
 special functionaries ; each of these had his own separate jurisdic- 
 tion. Inferior magistrates decided upon the smaller matters ; they 
 were elected by the people. In each province, a court, composed of 
 three members, who were named for life, decided upon important 
 matters. This court was subject to the revision of a supreme judge, 
 named by the king and also for life, and from his judgment there 
 was no further appeal. 
 
 A portion of the Crown lands was affected to the maintenance of 
 the superior judges. 
 
 At Tezcuco these judges used to come together every eighty days, 
 under the presidency of the king, to decide upon difficult or 
 important causes which had been reserved for them. 
 
 The judge found guilty of bribery or of corrupt influence under- 
 went the penalty of death. 
 
 The attribution of judicial functions to a special body of men 
 will everywhere indicate a state of society free of barbarism, or at 
 any rate endeavouring to become free. It shows a marked progress 
 in the division of social labour. The organisation of justice among 
 the Aztecs implies therefore a certain moral elevation, contrasting 
 strongly with their ferocity and their sanguinary religion, which 
 degraded them so much below the Peruvians, of whom we must 
 now speak. 
 
 Though they were almost neighbours from a geographical point 
 of view, separated only by two states, both of whom were fairly 
 civilised, it would appear that each of the empires of Mexico and 
 Peru was totally ignorant of the existence of the other. It is 
 therefore all the more curious that in the social organisation of th© 
 two countries there should have been so many features common 
 to both. 
 
 The monarchy of the Incas, of which we have already spoken, 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 479 
 
 offers to the sociologist a most interesting subject for study. "We 
 find there the largest communist society that has ever existed, and 
 it seems to have realised in a great measure the Utopian ideas of 
 many an ancient and modern reformer. But still, in spite of its- 
 own peculiar characteristics, the organisation of ancient Peru is not- 
 very widely different from that of ancient Egypt or of Mexico. 
 There also we find at the top of the social pyramid an absolute 
 monarch, and under him the castes in their order. A large body of 
 servile plebeians are made to labour, and by the sweat of their- 
 brow the rich men lived and were made happy. 
 
 In Peru the king was not merely, as in Mexico, the vicar of the 
 gods, he was the son of the supreme god, the offspring of the sun ; 
 and " when he was recalled to the home of the sun, his father," — 
 or, in plain language, when he died — he was thought to be greater 
 than a god. The divine monarch, so to say, was supposed to tower 
 above and look down upon his people. High pontiff, the repre- 
 sentative of the sun, he presided over the grand religious solemnities; 
 generalissimo of the army, he levied and commanded his forces ; 
 absolute king, he imposed taxes, legislated, appointed or revoked all 
 his functionaries and judges at will. He was, in fact, an earthly sun. 
 
 He was the eldest son of the coya, or the lawful queen, and was 
 therefore brought up at the military school, as were all the descen- 
 dants of the Inca grandees, the reputed descendants and the suc- 
 cessors of the founder of the monarchy. Like them he was broken 
 in to warlike and gymnastic exercises. 
 
 At the death of an Inca, his palaces, his places of residence,, 
 everything that had belonged to him, remained in the state in 
 which he had left it ; and his pompous funeral was always accom- 
 panied with the sacrifice of an infinite number of human lives. 
 His servants, his concubines, his favourites, sometimes numberino- 
 a thousand souls, were immolated upon his tomb ; for it was neces- 
 sary that he should be properly waited upon in the other world 
 before he came back to give life to his mummy, which was carefully 
 embalmed and deposited in the grand temple of Cuzco, by the side- 
 of those of his predecessors. 
 
 After the king, but very much below him, came two privileged 
 
480 . SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 castes: the Incas, or descendants of the polygamic series of the 
 kings, and the curac^as, or caciques, of the conquered nations. 
 
 The noble Peruvians of royal blood wore a particular costume, 
 and many of them used to live at the court. They only were 
 intrusted with the high offices in the state ; they only held military 
 cominands. The laws, very severe upon others, were not made for 
 them. They bowed only to the master, before whom they always 
 performed a slight act of reverence. 
 
 As we may expect, the greater part of the public property was 
 intended for the maintenance of this caste of divine blood. 
 
 Underneath these men came the curagas, or the caciques of the 
 conquered nations. 
 
 The Peruvian government generally allowed them to remain in 
 possession of their offices, obliging them only to come from time to 
 time into the capital, and that they should there educate their 
 children. 
 
 The great mass of the people were governed much in the same 
 way as a careful cultivator will bring up and look after his domestic 
 animals. Every male inherited his father's profession ; he was not 
 allowed to choose another employment. By right of birth a man 
 was either labourer, miner, artisan, or soldier. The population, 
 divided into groups of 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1000 persons, each 
 having its chief, was attached to the soil. The government officers 
 treated the people kindly, as though they were a flock of sheep. 
 Every man had his task set out for him beforehand ; he was 
 married ; a portion of ground was given to him for his maintenance. 
 His morality was watched ; he was dressed ; and in case of need 
 assistance was given to him. In the empire of the Incas liberty 
 and misery were equally unknown. 
 
 In Peru, the spiritual government was mixed up with the tem- 
 poral government. Nothing was more natural, for the Inca himself 
 was God. The mission, therefore, of every Inca was to extend the 
 territory of his empire, and to wage a perpetual crusade against 
 the unfaithful people. Peru was consequently often engaged in 
 war against its neighbours. The conquered people were treated 
 leniently; they were only made submissive to the laws of the 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 48X 
 
 conqueror, who endeavoured to assimilate them with his own 
 people. There was in Peru none of the brutal tyranny similar 
 to that which the Mexicans inflicted upon their vassals. 
 
 In virtue of the passive condition of the Peruvian people, a 
 methodical and well-regulated centralisation was everywhere the 
 rule. The kingdom was divided into four parts, into each of 
 which there was a great highway starting from Cuzco, the capital, 
 the navel of the monarchy ; and this town was itself divided into 
 four corresponding parts. Pour viceroys governed the four pro- 
 vinces, which in their turn were subdivided into departments; 
 and these dignitaries were obliged to live in Cuzco for a portion 
 of the year. They formed a sort of council of state, under the 
 command of the master. 
 
 A system of statistics, by means of quipos, was kept, showing 
 a register of the births and deaths, and also of the revenue of the 
 empire. With the aid of these documents, the government was 
 enabled to impose taxes and other means for collecting the revenue, 
 to authorise the public works, and whatever else was necessary. 
 
 The postal arrangements were well organised. There were relays 
 of couriers carrying quipos, and stationed at equal distances from 
 each other along all the roads. Small buildings were erected, 
 offering shelter. There were also other constructions, upon a 
 larger scale, intended either for the Inca, or for the public func- 
 tionaries, or for the troops when on the march. In Peru there were 
 no other travellers. 
 
 The laws were not numerous, and were very severe. Capital 
 punishment was common. Such was the penalty for theft, for 
 adultery, for murder, for blasphemy against the sun or against 
 the Inca — they were both considered equally — for setting fire to a 
 bridge, and for other crimes. If the inhabitants of a town or of a 
 province revolted they were exterminated. To rebel against the 
 child of the god-sun : what an abominable crime ! 
 
 This description, incomplete as it is, may be sufficient to give 
 some idea of the social economy of this singular country. Xowhere 
 do we find has the idea of monarchical government been realised 
 more ingeniously or more minutely. It was the great ideal dreamed 
 
 2 I 
 
482 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 of by the first founders of the empire ; servitude was flourishing in 
 all its glory, and it was exercised tenderly. A superhuman power 
 conducted everything, ruled everything, foresaw everything. The 
 subject was a simple machine, an automaton without initiative 
 movement, bound to serve a superior caste, and also an all-powerful 
 master. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Polynesian Societies. 
 
 The old empires of Mexico and Peru show to us the monarchical 
 phase in all its splendour ; it was the adult age of royalty. In 
 Polynesia, where every archipelago formed a small independent 
 society, and where the ethnical evolution has not everywhere 
 progressed with the same quickness, we can in some way study 
 monarchy in its embryo state, one stage after the other. 
 
 When the Polynesian society has arrived at its highest pitch 
 of development, we find all the social degrees which used to exist 
 in the monarchies of Central America : a caste of slaves, recruited 
 from the prisoners taken in war, a popular class, an hereditary 
 aristocracy, and a despot crowning all. But we do not find this 
 gradation to be perfect in all the islands. The crowning of the 
 edifice is often wanting. The chiefs of the tribes owe no tribute 
 to a suzerain monarch. 
 
 The few inhabitants of Easter island were divided into small 
 circles, each governed by a chief. Also in the Navigator islands 
 the chiefs were very numerous, and they used to govern the 
 people by means of the rod. 
 
 In Noukahiva each valley is the country of an independent tribe, 
 having its own laws, its priests, and its chiefs. Here a monarchical 
 system prevails among the tribes, and each one of these small 
 ethnical groups is usually obedient to a powerful old man, who 
 owns a great many cocoa-nut trees and bread-fruit trees. 
 
 The power of the chief is considerable. He has the right to 
 claim for his own anything to which he may take a fancy wherever 
 he goes; and whenever the people hear of the coming of the 
 sovereign or of his lady, they immediately hide all their most 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 483 
 
 precious objects. Before declaring war the Noukahivan chief ought 
 to call together his nobles in council ; but the more usual custom 
 is to rush wildly upon a neighbouring tribe which has given offence 
 to a woman, or who has run away with a victim and offered him up 
 as a holocaust to the gods. 
 
 The chief, whose office is ordinarily hereditary, can command 
 scarcely more than a few hundred individuals, for the tribes are not 
 large. Under the chief, there are, not counting the slaves, two 
 social classes : the nobles and the villains. The nobles, or the 
 ahdikis, hold their privilege by right of birth ; but its ranks are 
 also open to m^^n valiant in war, to those who marry a woman-cliief, 
 or to those whom the chief has adopted. The inferior class, the 
 MldnoSj are ordinarily attendant upon the others both in peace and 
 in war. The kilcinos also eat with their superiors off the same 
 plate, they sleep upon the same mat, their wives are often in common, 
 and they may change their patron at pleasure. 
 
 The akaikis enjoy some important privileges. They may claim 
 as their own any object that pleases them ; they may impose a 
 tithe upon the harvest, and an impost upon privileges of every kind. 
 They may drive the kikinos off from their property ; and they may 
 proclaim the tabu. We shall speak again of this latter prerogative. 
 In the large islands of Xew Zealand we do not find that any 
 large form of monarchy had been established. The islanders had 
 grouped themselves together in small tribes, governed by a chief, 
 whose authority they obeyed only in time of war. During peace 
 this chief had no other right than that of living in a noble idleness, 
 upon the produce of a tax of a tenth part imposed upon all sorts 
 of produce. He enjoyed the privilege of being allowed to keep the 
 heads of all the prisoners taken in war. As regards his own head, 
 it was always eagerly sought after by the hostile tribes. The office 
 of chief was often transmitted from one brother to another; it 
 might also be acquired by great riches, by great valour, or by great 
 sacerdotal influence. But to be chief, a man must first belong to 
 the aristocratic class, to the caste of the rangatiras. 
 
 In many of the Polynesian archipelagoes, the people owed 
 obedience to one master, who governed the whole feudal hier- 
 
 2 I 2 
 
484 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 archy. This was the case in Tahiti, in Tonga, in the Sandwich 
 islands, in the Gambier islands, and in others. In these islands the 
 sovereign power, nearly always hereditary, was transmitted some- 
 times through the direct and sometimes through the collateral heir. 
 In Tahiti, the crown passed virtually to the infant of the king 
 upon the day of his birth, and from that time his father was only 
 king-regent. 
 
 Great marks of respect were due to the Tahitian monarch and to 
 all the members of his family. When any one of their great per- 
 sonages passed, everyone was bound to uncover their shoulders. 
 
 At Tonga, to salute the monarch, people prostrated themselves 
 before him ; they put their heads under the sole of his august 
 feet. The body of the king was not tattooed, as was that of 
 his subjects. On no pretext was it allowed to anyone to stand 
 behind the royal head. Whenever the monarch condescended to 
 sleep, women used to assist him in this important occupation by 
 smacking his thighs. The king of Tonga was the natural heir of his 
 subjects ; but ordinarily he inverted the inheritance in favour of 
 his own son. But sometimes the royal power was transmitted 
 from the deceased prince to his brothers, or in their default, to his 
 sisters. Such was the usage in Tonga island at the time of Cook's 
 voyage. At a later date (1845) the moribund king had the faculty 
 of choosing his successor out of the royal family, provided that his 
 will was ratified by a consent of the chiefs. Then the accession 
 of the new prince was celebrated at Kava with much feasting and 
 ceremony. 
 
 The power of the Tonga monarch had some of the same cha- 
 racteristics that we find in real monarchies. The life, liberty, and 
 the property of the subjects were at the free disposition of the 
 master. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the majority of these archipelagoes, the supreme 
 dignity did not remain indefinitely in the same family. The most 
 powerful chiefs were ever struggling to usurp it. In the Sandwich 
 islands only do we find a real dynasty dating back from time 
 immemorial. 
 
 In all of these Polynesian islands, whether they were or not 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 485 
 
 governed by a monarch, there existed an aristocratic caste, gene- 
 rally hereditary and possessing excessive privileges. 
 
 The power of the principal chiefs was almost absolute. In the 
 Sandwich islands the common people were bound to prostrate them- 
 selves before them, literally ^' lie down to sleep in their presence." 
 In Tahiti, they had the power of life and death over the populace. 
 A chief who had killed a villain got into a furious fit of anger 
 when he was told that, for a peccadillo of such a nature, he would, 
 in England, have been hanged. There were even culinary privi- 
 leges. In Tahiti, the common people were not allowed to eat 
 pork. In the Sandwich islands, when the wind carried the chief's 
 canoe towards Cook's larger ships, it struck against and sank, with 
 no sort of compunction, the canoes of the common people. It was 
 above all things necessary to lie upon the ground, belly down- 
 wards, the moment the great master landed. And in the combats, 
 people endeavoured mainly to strike the enemies' chief ; for his 
 death was generally followed by the defeat of all his party. 
 
 "When they were young, the Polynesian chiefs were almost 
 worshipped; people approached them with fear and trembling. 
 And if, during their lifetime, they had done any action worthy 
 of renown, they were, after death, really put into the same 
 category as the gods. Their prestige was so great that, standing 
 naked and unarmed in the middle of the people, they were obeyed 
 if they gave the slightest sign. But this unlimited power was 
 enjoyed only by the supreme chiefs, those who were of high 
 birth, and who also owned sufficient land to feed a great number 
 of people. 
 
 On the other hand, the plebeians were everywhere at the mercy 
 of their great men ; the toutous of Tahiti, the Mkinos of the Mar- 
 quesas islands, the touas of Tonga, and others, could call nothing 
 their own. "Without being actually slaves, they yet constituted a 
 servile class. They were the domestics and the soldiers of the 
 chiefs ; and at Tahiti it was usually from this class of men that 
 the human sacrifices were chosen, of which the gods were so 
 terribly fond. A man was born and died toutou; he could not 
 chan^^e his condition. 
 
486 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 There was also a hierarchy among the governing classes, and in 
 the great archipelagoes there was an organisation that was almost 
 feudal. At the top of the aristocratical edifice, in Tahiti, were the 
 Aril, or princes, lords either of a whole island, or of a portion of it. 
 After these came a sort of feudal baron. These men also had their 
 vassals ; and under these vassals there remained only the toutous. 
 At Tahiti, however excessive the power of the arii might be, they 
 were not allowed to confiscate the property of their inferiors ; but 
 they arbitrarily claimed a large portion of their harvest produce. 
 
 The assistance of the petty Tahitian nobility was indispensable 
 to the high aristocracy to enable the great men to carry on their 
 wars ; the arii never embarked upon an expedition without first 
 consulting their vassals. All the dignities, privileges, and titles of 
 nobility were strictly hereditary, and in default of a male heir the 
 Tahitians had recourse to the expedient of prince-consort or lord- 
 consort, who was empowered only with the duty of raising a male 
 heir. 
 
 At Tonga there was also the same sort of social order, but more 
 frankly despotic. The king was the supreme master, and the nobles 
 possessed their domains only as feoffs, which were ever at the 
 king's disposition. The nobility and the titles were hereditary, 
 and always commanded most servile respect. It was forbidden to 
 touch the person of a chief or to enter his house. The members of 
 the aristocracy had a special dialect for their own sole use ; they 
 were not in the least bound to respect either the persons or the 
 property of the common people. The Tonga nobility was sub- 
 divided into four classes, one subordinate to the other. Some of 
 the professions were strictly hereditary, specially the carpenters and 
 the fishermen. Above this social edifice the royal power was pre- 
 dominant ; it was despotic and subject to no control ; this society, 
 so very feudal, had even its knight-errants. They were young 
 warriors, who always went armed with their javelin and their club, 
 ever in search of warlike adventures, and sometimes going in quest 
 of them as far as Fiji, boasting that they would eat the bodies they 
 had killed. ^ 
 
 In the Sandwich islands the aristocratic caste also subdivided 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 487 
 
 itself into different classes, of which, the two principal were : that 
 of the district chiefs, who enjoyed an absolute authority ; then the 
 nobles who were simply proprietors, and who had no functions 
 given to them. Below these men, who were noble by race, were 
 their servants : the villains, the plebeians, the toutous, who had no 
 rank, no right, no property. 
 
 At Tahiti, and in the Easter islands, whenever a chief said : 
 " Hog, who does this tree belong to ? " the owner would never say 
 " To me ; " he would answer : " To us two," or " To you and to me.'' 
 
 In this coarse state of society, founded only upon hereditary 
 despotism, justice was the last thing thought of. JSTo judicial 
 function had been constituted. Sometimes the injured parties 
 would address themselves to the chiefs ; but the chiefs had other 
 things to think about, and they cared little for protecting the weak 
 against the tyranny of the strong. They did not often inflict 
 chastisement but for injuries done to themselves, and then the 
 punishment was terrible. The slightest offence, the least wrong, 
 done either to themselves or to their favourites, were in their eyes 
 unpardonable crimes. In reality there was no social justice in 
 Polynesia. Everyone avenged himself as he pleased. "An eye 
 for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," such is still the law of laws. But 
 a very rude morality is beginning to be born, and public opinion 
 has sanctioned or reproved certain acts of vengeance. As in the 
 majority of barbarous societies, theft and adultery are considered as 
 the gravest offences ; and the penalty was also simple and very 
 severe. Theft, rape, and adultery were usually punished with 
 death. In New Zealand the thief was decapitated, his head was 
 hung on to a post in the form of a cross. In Tahiti the husband 
 might kill his adulterous wife, but ordinarily he contented himself 
 with beating her. 
 
 In Tahiti the murderer was attacked by the friends of the 
 deceased. If he was conquered, his house, his furniture, his lands, 
 became the property of the assailants, and vice versa. In these 
 conflicts the stronger despoiled the weaker. As regarded infanticide, 
 no one thought anything about it ; every man had a right to do 
 what he liked with his children, either born or those about to be 
 
488 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 born. Theft was the greatest crime. Sometimes the culprit, con- 
 demned by the verdict of public opinion, was given over to the 
 vengeance of the persons injured, and was also deprived of the 
 right of defending himself. 
 
 At Tonga the judgment of God was sometimes invoked against 
 the thief. The suspected man was made to bathe in certain places 
 frequented by sharks, and if he was devoured, or even bitten, he 
 was adjudged guilty. 
 
 At Noukahiva justice was less strict : to be able there to pass 
 oneself off as an artful thief gave a man a sort of distinction. 
 Murder was avenged by murder. A man, if he was famished, was 
 by the law of public opinion allowed to eat his wife or his child. 
 Adultery was considered as a crime only in princely families, and 
 even there it might be held lawful under certain circumstances. 
 At the time of Krusenstern's travels, at the commencement of this 
 century, there was close to the wife of the potentate, whom this 
 traveller calls the king of ISToukahiva, a functionary called the 
 " king's fire-lighter." The duty of this functionary was in the first 
 place to be always near to the monarch to execute his orders, then 
 to take his place in everything and for everything beside the queen, 
 in case of his prolonged absence. In a country where such a 
 custom exists, adultery cannot be regarded as a great crime. In all 
 primitive societies adultery is assimilated to theft, and it becomes 
 lawful when authorised by the proprietor or by custom. 
 
 In Polynesia, public morality, so indulgent or so heedless of 
 many acts reprimanded or condemned in Europe, had taken a 
 peculiar special form; it had adopted the tabu — such was the 
 expression always used. By tabu we must understand a sort of 
 prohibition that might be put upon anything by the priests, who in 
 this respect acted nearly always concurrently with the chiefs ; and 
 they had made of the tabu a powerful instrument of despotism. 
 The tabu was sometimes a very wise provision. 
 
 When a bad harvest of bread-fruit was feared, a tabu was placed 
 upon the bananas and wild ignames and other substances ; in this 
 way a reserve supply of food was assured to the people. Pigs 
 and hens were tabued when they became scarce. Certain bay 
 
€iiAP. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 489 
 
 leaves were tabued for fishing purposes when the fish would not 
 approach them. In !New Zealand an iron pot of European origin 
 was declared tabued, and therefore all cooked food was forbidden 
 to the slaves. The idols, the morais, the burying-grounds, the 
 bodies of the priests, the chiefs and their dwelling-places, some- 
 times whole districts, were tabued. Many tabus were strange, 
 vexatious, and capricious. A tabu was sometimes placed over an 
 individual, forbidding him to leave his house for a certain number 
 of days, to light any fire, to eat after the rising and before the 
 setting of the sun. Because of the tabu women were not allowed 
 to touch men's food, not even that of their husbands, their 
 brothers, or their children. They could not go into the morais. 
 The woman was tabued just after her confinement. She was 
 obliged to be in a cabin apart, and was not allowed to touch her 
 food ; women came to her who put the meals into her mouth. The 
 tabued chiefs were fed in the same way, sometimes for months 
 together, during which time they were bound to abstain from all 
 intimate acquaintance with women. At Tonga the hands which 
 had touched the feet of the king were tabued until they had been 
 washed, and before this ablution a man could not make use of 
 them. In New Zealand the backs and the heads of free men were 
 tabued, they were therefore forbidden to carry burdens. In the 
 Marquesas islands public disasters, sickness, etc., were generally 
 considered as the consequence of the violation of some tabu. 
 And therefore the violation of a tabu was everywhere considered 
 as a crime, and was severely punished. In the Sandwich islands a 
 woman who had dared to eat of pork on board a European vessel 
 was sacrificed to the gods. Generally speaking, to violate a tabu 
 was a capital crime, if it was even suspected a man was put to death. 
 The revocation of a tabu necessitated a religious ceremony, for 
 which human holocausts were indispensable, and as the care of 
 designating these victims belonged to the priests, this prerogative 
 conferred upon them the right of life and death over the common 
 people, Erom the characteristic custom of the tabu we may 
 conclude that a moral sense is beginning to awaken in the Poly- 
 nesians. They had a keen sense of what was lawful and what 
 
490 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 was unlawful, but their infantine morality was wholly irrational, 
 and was very often confounded with their religious obligations. 
 ]S"o act was considered blamable until a priest had declared it to 
 be so. 
 
 Such was the ancient social organisation in Polynesia, as it 
 had spontaneously developed itself. It was a despotism, often 
 brutal, but more often tempered by the thoughtless puerility of 
 the race. In time, thje Polynesians would, doubtless, have come 
 to possess institutions more rational and more human; but the 
 intrusion of the Europeans has cut short all progressive evolution 
 in the country. It is at Tahiti, especially, that the deplorable 
 effects of this change have been the most startling. There the 
 English missionaries have succeeded in civilising the people after 
 their own fashion. They have enforced their ascendency by 
 making one-half of the population exterminate the other half. 
 Then they founded a monarchy grotesquely theocratic. One mis- 
 sionary, the Kev. Mr. jS'ott, armed with a holy ampulla, anointed 
 and consecrated the prince Pomare king of the half-devastated 
 archipelago. Then, with the assistance of the secular power of 
 this eldest son of the Church, the missionary endeavoured to 
 impose upon the islanders the religion and morals of the English, 
 people. 
 
 Up to this time, love had been free, and was practised un- 
 reservedly in Tahiti. The voluptuous Polynesians lived for little 
 else than enjoying the pleasures of sensual love ; and they saw no 
 harm in it, when legitimate property was respected. The missionaries 
 considered that these delinquencies were grave offences, and many 
 female sinners were condemned to give their assistance towards carry- 
 ing out the public works ; they had to labour at the construction of 
 the roads, the bridges, etc. The great high-road which runs all round 
 the island of Tahiti represents a very large amount of gallantry on 
 the part of the Tahitian women. The most curious thing is, that 
 each condemnation was preceded by a public debate on the matter 
 before a tribunal, in which the offenders fully set forth, with a sort 
 of cynical candour, all the circumstances of their fault. The Tahitian 
 morality gained little ; but the people have at last acquired the 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION" OF SOCIETIES. 491 
 
 vice of hypocrisy, which was before unknown among them. They 
 did not sin the less, but they endeavoured to hide their faults. 
 Then, to extract confession, which grew to be less spontaneous, the 
 pious legislators resorted to torture. A slip-knot put round the 
 waist of the women, and drawn tight by two men, drew from 
 them the confession of their faults. After which, their faces were 
 indelibly marked with a special tattoo sign. 
 
 We know the result of this imbecile tyranny. The rudimentary 
 morality of the race perished and was not replaced. The Tahitians 
 borrowed from European civilisation nothing but its vices. In the 
 smaller islands especially, where the natives were more or less free 
 from the vigilance of the missionaries, in Eaiatea, in Tahaa, in 
 Bora-Bora, the principal occupation of the converted people was in 
 distilling alcohol and intoxicating themselves. The number of 
 islanders diminished with wonderful rapidity, and the queen island 
 of the archipelago — the lovely Tahiti, the Kew Cytherea, of which 
 Cook and Bougainville have left us such graceful pictures — counts 
 only a few thousand inhabitants. Uhi solitudinemfadunt, religionem 
 appellant. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Malay and Indo-CIiinese Societies. 
 
 A man must surely be a missionary before he can believe that 
 the morality of a people can be changed suddenly and by dint of 
 force. The mental condition of any race, their desires, their 
 tendencies, show the very life of the people, the series of cerebral 
 impressions resulting from their acts through a whole chain of 
 generations. These characteristics, which have been gradually 
 forming themselves from father to son during the course of centuries, 
 cannot be readily effaced. 
 
 The Dutch colonists in 1;he Malay archipelago, who think less of 
 saving the souls of the natives than of their commercial interests in 
 the country, have obtained results far more satisfactory than those 
 of the fanatical English missionaries in Polynesia. 
 
 Without apparently changing anything in the social organisation 
 of the Malays of Java, in Celebes island, and elsewhere, the Dutch 
 
492 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 have confined themselves to placing beside each native chief a 
 resident, who is called " the elder brother " of the little prince, and 
 he never gives orders, but only " recommendations." And besides 
 the resident there is a controller who visits the natives, hears their 
 petitions, and inspects their plantations. New modes of cultivation 
 have been introduced, and even new sorts of culture — coffee, for 
 instance — and schools also have been established. It is a paternal 
 and disguised form of desj)otism which seems to show excellent 
 results. In some districts in Celebes island the aborigines, who 
 were savages, now enjoy a relative civilisation. They are now well 
 clothed, well housed, well fed, well brought up; and, instead of 
 diminishing, their numbers are on the increase. 
 
 But we have now to describe the native societies of the Malay 
 archipelago, and also the monarchies founded by this race on the 
 continent, in Siam, and in Cochin-China. These ^longoloid people 
 have all more or less freed themselves from primitive savagery, but 
 they have not yet succeeded in getting beyond the phase of 
 despotism. 
 
 In Celebes island there were quite recently savage tribes, each 
 having their own particular dialect, and constantly at war one with 
 the other. The hut of the chief, built upon pile-work, according to 
 the old Malay custom, was also decorated with a few human heads. 
 It was an act of duty to place upon his tomb trophies of this kind, 
 but cut freshly for the occasion. As far as possible the heads of 
 some of the enemy were offered up to the departed sjjirits of the 
 master, but in their default slaves were sacrificed. 
 
 In all the tribes of the Malay archij)elago the power of the 
 chiefs is absolute. It is so in Lombok island, in Celebes, and in 
 others. In this last-named island no one dare to stand upright in 
 the presence of the rajahs. 
 
 There are slaves everywhere. At Sumbawa they are attached to 
 the glebe and are sold with the soil. In Timor the islanders are 
 perpetually fighting amongst themselves, and only to capture slaves 
 from each other ; these slaves are everywhere bought and sold as 
 merchandise. 
 
 The laws are very severe, and sometimes remind us of those in 
 
Chap, vi.] " THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 493 
 
 Polynesia. In Timor the custom of the pomali is very like that of 
 the Polynesian tabu; to protect a garden from thieves it is con- 
 sidered sufficient protection if a few palm leaves, suitably arranged, 
 are hoisted. 
 
 At Lombok, theft, which in most primitive countries is considered 
 a great crime, is punished with death. 
 
 As in all barbarous societies, the Malays are very conservative ;, 
 they are very strongly attached to their ancient customs. A tribe 
 of Dyaks agreed to impose a fine upon anyone who, in cutting 
 down a tree, should notch it in the European way ; the tree must 
 be gashed by perpendicular strokes only, according to the ancient 
 custom always observed by their ancestors. In Malay, that which 
 in a family has belonged to the ancestors is often regarded as- 
 possessing a peculiar value. In Sumbawa, a house which has shel- 
 tered several generations becomes quite sacred, and nothing is con- 
 sidered more precious than the stones which, because they have long 
 been used as seats, have become polished. With tendencies such 
 as these, we can easily understand that the ideal of despotic 
 monarchy should have been realised. 
 
 In Cochin-China, in Siam, etc., wherever the Mongoloid races, 
 of whom we are speaking, have grouped themselves together into 
 semi-civilised states, they have created the most despotic forms of 
 monarchy that can possibly be imagined. To lay a stick over the- 
 back of an inferior, or to expect the same treatment from a 
 superior, was in Cochin-China considered as the most ordinary way 
 of governing. Any idea of showing resistance to a despotic caprice 
 was never conceived. The abject condition of the Siamese, which 
 formerly astonished Pinlayson, also, twelve years ago, was the 
 cause of much wonder to the French traveller, H. Mouhot. 
 
 In Siam, the king, who is the absolute proprietor of the persons 
 and the property of his subjects, has only the right of standing. In 
 every degree of the Siamese hierarchy, everyone literally grovels 
 before his superior, and exacts also that his inferiors shall grovel 
 before him. At a dinner given in Bankok by a functionary of the 
 fifth order, servants brought in the dishes walking as animals on 
 their hands and feet. When the king gives audience he is placed 
 
494 SOCIAL LIFE. - [Book nr. 
 
 upon a throne, in a sort of nest, twelve feet from the ground, 
 curled up in the sacramental attitude of Buddha, while his assistants 
 are prostrated before him, their faces on the carpet. " I, a hair ; 
 I, an animal," are the respectful formula which in Siam a man 
 uses in speaking to his superior. If anyone passing the gates of 
 the, royal palace neglects to take off his hat, hard balls of clay are 
 thrown at him by watchmen, who are made to stand there specially 
 for the purpose. The king has a harem of six hundred women, 
 perpetually renewed by the voluntary gifts of fathers of families. 
 
 While the high dignitaries of state, overladen with gilding and 
 decorations, are walking on board the long boats that carry them 
 up and down the Menam river, women, and children, and officers, 
 prostrate themselves before them, and are bound to collect in golden 
 vases the saliva of the masters. 
 
 In Siam, the imposts laid by the terrestrial god upon his 
 respectful subjects are enormous. According to H. Mouhot, the 
 treasury does not allow the peasant to keep for himself more than 
 two and a half per cent, of his income ; the master has the right 
 to take everything. 
 
 People are forced to sell sugar, pepper, benzoin, and other things 
 to the king, who resells them at his own price. To have the right 
 of fishing in the watercourses, of distilling arack, the privilege 
 must be bought from the Crown. 
 
 But some traces of progress may be affirmed, even among the 
 Siamese. Finlayson relates to us how their way of looking at 
 adultery has gradually become changed. At first, the injured 
 husband might avenge himself as he pleased ; he might kill, or 
 receive payment for the injury done him. Then the law intervened, 
 and accorded the right of killing the two delinquents, but only in 
 the case that they were found flagrante delicto. The punishment 
 too must be instantaneous. Afterwards it was thought that there 
 was no capital crime, except for women belonging to the palace, 
 and a fine was adjudged sufficient punishment. 
 
 If progress will penetrate among the human cattle of the 
 Siamese monarchy, where, indeed, will it not make itself felt 1 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 495 
 
 "The Social Organisation of the Nomad Mongolians and of the 
 
 Tliihetans. 
 
 To examine the whole human kind in order to ascertain the 
 desires, the tendencies, the degree of development in each of its 
 principal races is a most serious task, and we could not hope to 
 arrive at any result at all satisfactory, except by limiting our work, 
 by confining ourselves only to the characteristic facts, to the main 
 features of the great whole. We are compelled, therefore, in this 
 short review, to omit a thousand interesting details, to pass over, 
 almost in silence, whole ethnical groups of people. We shall say 
 nothing as to the government of Burmah, where, as in Siam, the 
 most despotic monarchy prevails. The few preceding pages will 
 have shown us clearly enough that the Malays, and other con- 
 generous people on the Asiatic shore, have in fact emancipated 
 themselves from savagery, properly so called, but only by organising 
 the most abject form of servitude. 
 
 The great Mongolian race, the first in the world in point of 
 numbers, and the second in moral and intellectual dignity, have 
 learned the most various and the most ingenious social manners 
 and customs. But all the different people composing this large 
 group have not advanced with equal strides ; and from the hind- 
 most to the foremost in the struggle may be seen a most interesting 
 5,nd long progressive series. 
 
 According to Chinese traditions, the ancestors of the sons of 
 heaven were in a very remote bygone age wretched savages, who 
 had not passed the Age of Stone, and who used to wander about in 
 small hordes at the foot of the Thibet mountains, much in the same 
 state and condition as are nowadays the least civilised of the 
 Kamtschadales. This is indeed probable, for traces of the Stone 
 Age may still be seen almost everywhere in China, and all the 
 northern half of Asia is inhabited by the nomadic Mongolians. It 
 is only in Thibet, in Japan, and in China, that the yellow race has 
 succeeded in founding societies worthy of being called civilised. 
 
496 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 Somewhat owing to Chinese influence, many Tartar tribes have 
 tried to organise themselves in a regular way ; but westward among 
 the Turkomans, and eastward in the basin of the Aniori river, at 
 the end of the last century, the Mongolians were still living in a. 
 primitive state. These were the people with whom La Perous& 
 entered into relation on the shores of Asia, as far north as Saghalien. 
 island. They lived still under the patriarchal system. Every 
 family had its own chief. The people were very soft-mannered, 
 and the}'- professed a great respect for old men. Their dogs, 
 which they harnessed to their sledges in the winter, were their only- 
 domestic animals. They lived mainly upon fish, which the women 
 dried and prepared. In race and in manners they were quite the 
 same as the people in Saghalien island. 
 
 The nomads of Khorassan, or, perhaps, to speak more accurately, 
 the Turkomans, are still without government, and live almost upon 
 a footing of equality. They form small groups of thirty, a hundred, 
 or two hundred families, each having for their own debonair 
 director a white beard, whom they respect ; but in the community 
 he exercises only the functions of counsellor and arbitrator. 
 
 These men are constitutional chiefs, they are governors who are 
 paid for their trouble, obedient like everyone around them ta 
 traditional customs, not grasping at exorbitant power, which, as a 
 matter of fact, would not be tolerated. The Turkomans say : " We 
 are a people without chiefs, and wo do not want any ! " An 
 organised despotism is rare among nomadic primitive people of 
 any race, and there are few people who show as strongly as the 
 Turkomans their love of equality and of individual independence. 
 
 Among the more civilised Mongolians who, spiritually, are 
 subservient to the grand lama of Lhassa, and temporally to the 
 Chinese government, social equality has now quite disappeared. 
 Mongolian princes who boast that they are the descendants of 
 Gengis-Khan, and sometimes great lama dignitaries, are at the 
 head of the different ethnical factions. Below these princes is 
 the caste of the nobles, proprietors of the soil, and equally the 
 descendants of Gengis-Khan. This caste subdivides itself into 
 other lesser castes, whose rank and dignities are transmitted here 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 497 
 
 ditarily from father to eldest son, or in default of lawful child to 
 the nearest relation. Lower still, below the princes, the nobles, 
 and the clergy, is a servile mass, who, though they smoke with 
 their masters and live under the same tent, are nevertheless slaves. 
 Every noble Mongolian has the right to impose upon his slave any 
 injustice he pleases; he has over him the right of life and death. 
 There is no way of escape from this tyranny, for in spite of the 
 nomad life which prevails almost everywhere, the districts are 
 clearly defined and flight is not possible. 
 
 Everyone, princes, nobles, and people, belongs to a squadron, to 
 a regiment ; everyone serves under some banner. The princes hold 
 their office under the government at Pekin ; from there they receive 
 their salary, and every three or four years they have to go to the 
 capital to pay their homage. Mongolia is one large camp, through 
 which a population of some millions of shepherds are perpetually 
 wandering. They all serve in some military grade, and they form 
 the reserve of the Chinese army — a reserve composed only of 
 cavalry. It is a warlike colony, and all the important affairs are 
 decided at the Foreign Office in Pekin. 
 
 But Mongolia does not pay tribute to China. She governs 
 herself, in spite of the presence of a Chinese functionary beside 
 the Mongolian governor at Urga, the most important of the 
 embryo Mongolian towns. 
 
 Tartar customs, drawn up into a code by the Chinese govern- 
 ment, serve more or less as guiding rules to the princes, who, by 
 the way, trouble themselves little as to any notions of equity. 
 The tax upon the cattle, which they lay upon their subjects, 
 weighs only upon the poor. The fixed ratio is one sheep for 
 every twenty, two for every forty; never more, though a man 
 had ever so large a flock. 
 
 In its social organisations, Mongolia is as different from all the 
 other half-civilised countries which we have already mentioned. 
 The majority is made to work for the minority ; but this minority 
 does not now exact exorbitant privileges, and enforce them 
 brutally. A man is slave or master by right of birth. There, as 
 everywhere, man is a hierarchical animal ; to command is pleasant 
 
 2 k 
 
498 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 to him, and it is not very irksome to him to have to obey. And 
 as man is an intelligent creature, he will justify his mode of action 
 by a hundred reasons. Why should not a noble have the pre- 
 dominance, since he is descended from Gengis-Khan ? Why 
 should not the slave humble himself 1 He has in him no heroic 
 blood. As man is tractable and susceptible to hereditary ten- 
 dencies, the inclination to impose his will, or to be obedient to 
 that of others, is generally bom in him. That is, assuredly, the 
 principal reason which, all over the world, has prevented, and 
 still continues to prevent, the servile classes from wringing the 
 necks of their oppressors. 
 
 The masters by the right of birth are not the only men whose 
 foot weighs heavily on the poor Mongolian. He has also masters 
 by divine right, and of these it is more difficult to free himself ; 
 for these masters take hold of men by the ideal side of their 
 nature, by their imagination, and hence they tyrannise over every 
 inner thought. 
 
 A whole world of lamas is scattered over the plains of ^Mongolia. 
 They have peopled quantities of rich monasteries, into which the 
 faithful souls pour their offerings. Let us say, however, in praise 
 of the lamas, that, more generous than the Christian clergy of the 
 early centuries, they admit the slave into their ranks, which for 
 him is equivalent to emancipation. 
 
 • Though they devote their lives to divine objects, the lama clergy 
 are far from taking no interest in matters passing round about 
 them. The high dignitaries of their church are also great lords, 
 and the koutouktou of Urga, a sort of Buddhist cardinal, owns 
 round about the town nearly a hundred and fifty thousand slaves, 
 forming a whole social category among themselves. In Thibet 
 itself, the spiritual power, as the sectarians of positivism say, has 
 completely absorbed the temporal power. From this confusion, so 
 much to be regretted from a Comtist point of view, has resulted a 
 curious theocracy, in which the principal abuses of semi-barbarous 
 societies have become common, but in nowise improved. 
 
 As Father Hue judiciously observes, the political organisation of 
 Thibet, as governed by the lamas, very strongly resembles that of 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 499 
 
 the old pontifical states. The fountain-head of this clerical society- 
 is the papal lama, in whose hands, in principle, resides all legis- 
 lative, executive, and administrative power. This terrestrial god, 
 as we know, is an incarnation of Buddha. He cannot die, he only 
 transmigrates. In spite of his immortality the grand lama has not 
 the gift of omnipresence, he therefore delegates his most important 
 functions, the government of his provinces, to dignitaries of a 
 second order, to the koutouktous, or cardinals, who are sovereigns 
 upon a smaller scale, enjoying a great independence, warring per- 
 petually against each other, pillaging and burning the houses of 
 the common people. As these holy personages are essentially men 
 of peace, they do not fight themselves. For this inferior work 
 they have smaller lay rajahs, who command a sort of warlike caste 
 of men, the Zinkabs, and to them these lesser employments are 
 given. Below these governing and fighting classes, there is a hard- 
 working and peaceful class of men, the labourers, who provide 
 their masters with food. They are ever liable to be robbed, they 
 are badly fed and badly clothed ; they place all savings into the 
 pious hands of the lamas, who naturally keep a portion of it for 
 themselves. 
 
 In case of dispute it is the rule in the lama tribunals that the 
 priestly party should never be condemned. Exactions, contribu- 
 tions, and hard labour are showered down upon the poor ; the 
 soldiers, the rajahs, and the lamas despoil them without mercy. 
 
 All this while caravans of pilgrims are ever bringing to the 
 great dignitaries of lamaism, riches, offerings, bullion in silver and 
 in gold, a sort of Peter's pence, in return for which are given to 
 the donors scraps of paper on which pious phrases are printed, 
 statuettes of terra cotta, rags of old clothes which had at one time 
 been worn by some holy saint. 
 
 We can prove that the Mongolian race is inferior to the white 
 race, for the Thibetans have never known a Kabelais. 
 
 The way in which the Mongolians and the Thibetans carry on 
 justice among themselves shows a level of a low order. With 
 them, as with most poorly-civilised people, in Sinai, in Burmah, 
 and elsewhere, theft is considered a much graver crime than 
 
 2 K 2 
 
500 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 murder. At the time of Marco Polo's wanderings, petty theft 
 and larceny were in Tartary punished by bastinado which often 
 resulted in death. But if a man was condemned for stealing a 
 horse he underwent capital punishment — his body was cut into two 
 j)ieces. There are in the community no magistrates entrusted 
 with the power of repressing this punishment. The individuals 
 injured, or their friends, must bring the guilty man before th& 
 judge. But every sentiment of joint responsibility is not ignored^ 
 for the inhabitants of an inhospitable tent are punished if they 
 have refused to give shelter for a night to an injured and forsaken 
 traveller. 
 
 In Thibet there are lama tribunals, but their jurisprudence is still 
 very coarse, and often iniquitous. Theft is always considered 
 the great crime. After he has been in prison for six or for twelve 
 months the thief is sold as a slave, his property is confiscated, 
 and sometimes this punishment will extend even to his relations. 
 In case of adultery the husband may kill the delinquents if he 
 finds them flagrante delicto. But the rich man ransoms himself 
 from murder by paying an indemnity to the rajah, to the high 
 functionaries, and to the family of the deceased. In case of 
 insolvability the body of the murderer is sometimes tied to the 
 corpse of his victim, and both are thrown together into the water. 
 Il^or is the judgment of God unknown in the Thibetan Himalayas ; 
 a man there will prove his innocence by drawing a piece of money 
 out of a pot of boiling oil, or in holding in his hand an iron made 
 red hot in the fire. Sometimes each of the parties will poison a 
 kid, and the kid who lives longest will show justice to have been 
 with his master. 
 
 If the Mongolian race had not given rise to societies of a higher 
 order than those seen in Thibet and in lama Tartary, it would hold 
 only a very humble rank in the hierarchy of the human kind ; but 
 from what wo know of China and of Japan, we are authorised to 
 assign to it the second place in the order of human races. 
 
Chap, vi.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. gOl 
 
 XI. 
 Social Organisation in Jaioan. 
 
 In speaking of Japan, we are enabled once more to make an 
 encouraging remark for the future study of sociology. It may be 
 taken for granted that there -vvas no direct communication between 
 our societies of the Middle Ages in Western Europe and that of 
 Japan. In both countries, the human agglomerations have evolved 
 separately, and yet the two organisations are in reality identical. 
 The Japanese feudal system is now a faithful image of what ours 
 once was, and like our own, it is probably the result of conquest. 
 
 In the topmost rank of society, the emperor, the mikado, sits in 
 all his glory, surrounded with divine attributes. A superhuman 
 mortal does not act like ordinary men ; a most majestic etiquette 
 governs each one of his daily actions. In the year 1788, an 
 irreverent fire made him run away in all haste, and for two days he 
 was obliged to eat rice, which had not been very scrupulously picked. 
 This was an event in the annals of monarchy 1 The mikado, the 
 successor and representative of the gods, is in principle the pro- 
 prietor of the whole empire. The principals and nobles own their 
 parcels of land only as feoffees, and they enjoy only the usufruct 
 of the soil. One of these great personages, under the emperor, the 
 siogoun, shogun, or taicoun, allows the mikado to rest torpid in 
 his half- divine solemnity of existence ; and then the high official is 
 enlaced so tightly in a strait etiquette waistcoat, that he makes his 
 annual visit to his sovereign only by proxy. 
 
 Below these great dignitaries, there is a whole hierarchy of 
 nobles of various orders; they are landlords of the first degree 
 (daimios), who have granted smaller feoffs to their vassals of a 
 lesser rank ; and they in their turn under-let to the peasants. And 
 if we include other nobles who possess no other feoffs, but their two 
 swords, the samourais, a sort of condottieri, men in the service of 
 the princes, we shall then have mentioned all the orders in the 
 governing classes in Japan. 
 
 The whole nation divides itself into eiprht classes : 1. The 
 
502 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 princes and nobles of the first rank. 2. Nobles of the second 
 rank, who owe military service to their suzerain. 3. The Sintoist 
 and Buddhist priests. 4. The samourais, or the petty nobility, 
 who have lost their rank. 5. A class of citizens, comprising the 
 subaltern officers and physicians, having the seigneurial right to 
 wear a sabre, but only one. 6. Wholesale merchants. 7. Retail 
 merchants and artisans. 8. Peasants and day labourers, who, for 
 the most part, are serfs of the nobles, and are crushed under the 
 burden of heavy fines. 
 
 Then after these eight classes, or rather outside every class, come 
 the category of pariahs, who are obliged to live in particular villages ; 
 men who may not enter inns or other public places, and who are 
 not included in the census of the population. 
 
 These outcasts are tanners, curriers, and others ; all those who 
 live by the preparation and the manufacture of skins. 
 
 In Japan the feoffs are hereditary, but in case of disinheritance 
 they revert to the sovereign. 
 
 This society, so accurately divided, in which every member of 
 the governing classes pays homage to his lord, and receives homage 
 also from his vassal, in which the feoffs are possessed merely as 
 hereditary usufructs, is in fact the image of our European feudal 
 system, but it differs from it in one particular feature. 
 
 Suspicion is, we know, a characteristic of all semi-barbarous 
 societies. The superior is everywhere considered as a man of a 
 different mould to his inferior; he pretends to govern him, and 
 he usually distrusts him. But in Japan this want of confidence 
 has come to be a principle running through every system of govern- 
 ment. The families of the princes were retained as hostages at 
 Yeddo, and the princes themselves were obliged to live in this 
 town six months in every year, or one year out of every two. In 
 Yeddo the smallest details in their daily lives were governed by 
 severe etiquette. Princes who were the owners of two neighbouring 
 feoffs were not allowed to live together upon their domains, except 
 when they were notorious enemies, for these high personages wero 
 constantly at war one with the other. 
 
 When they were over rich the siogoun would ruin them by 
 
.Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF' SOCIETIES. 503 
 
 inviting them to dinner, and this entailed the necessity of a most 
 sumptuous banquet in return. There was a body of police who 
 kept a very strict look-out upon these important personages^ and 
 the proudest of the nobility were always glad to be enrolled. 
 
 The system of spies was carried even into a lower scale. The 
 houses were divided into groups of five, and the chiefs were held 
 responsible for people in the other groups. Every head of a family 
 was bound to watch over that portion of the street near his house ; 
 and if asked to do so, was obliged to draw up a report, under penalty 
 of fine, of whipping, or of imprisonment. 
 
 No one was allowed to change his residence without first having 
 obtained a certificate of good conduct from his neighbours. 
 
 A man was bound to remain always in the same class of life in 
 which he had been born. 
 
 This policeman-like system had been pushed to excess with the 
 peaceful islanders of Loo-Choo, for here a watchful and suspicious 
 eye was ever prying into the smallest actions of private people. 
 The peasants were fearfully oppressed by the nobles, and lived in 
 a state of misery ; and the sovereign mikado, or miniature taicoun, 
 after death took his place among the gods or kamis of the country; 
 The populace, whom he had caused to tremble while he was alive, 
 still feared him after his death, and offered up sacrifices to his 
 shade, not to obtain good things, but that it might not injure them 
 from the bottom of the tomb. 
 
 Nevertheless in this society, where tyranny is so carefully orga- 
 nised, where the social edifice rests only upon force and upon cunnings 
 the administration of justice is no longer carried on merely accord- 
 ing to the good pleasure of the rich and of the strong. There are 
 tribunals in which judgments are publicly and solemnly pronounced, 
 and from whose decision there is no appeal. Crime cannot be 
 ransomed by money ; impunity to rich men cannot be guaranteed. 
 The penalties are not numerous, but they are severe. They are : 
 forfeiture of office, imprisonment, banishment, confiscation, and 
 death, which is often accompanied by torture. Capital punishment 
 always carries with it confiscation of property. 
 
 Penal joint responsibility was crooked in Japan as in ancient 
 
604 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 Egypt. A man was adjudged guilty of crimes that he did not 
 prevent, and was often punished for the faults of others. 
 
 It would be idle to deny the influence that the institutions and 
 the government of a country have upon a people who live under 
 them ; but still every race, and every ethnical group of men, do not 
 move in the same way. Despotism will for ever quell some people, 
 others will resist it. It would seem that the Japanese belong to the 
 latter category. 
 
 All travellers are agreed in allowing to the Japanese energy, 
 pride, and independence of character ; and the remarkable efforts 
 that they are now making to introduce European civilisation into 
 their country, show clearly that they at any rate have not been 
 altogether enervated by feudal and inquisitorial despotism. 
 
 xn. 
 
 Society in China, 
 
 In our short sociological review we have already noticed many 
 ethnical groups belonging to very different races. Some of these 
 were savage, others barbarous or semi-barbarous, and some few 
 more or less civilised. But in these societies, various as they are, 
 we recognise one feature common to them all : the predominating 
 quality is a shameless and undisguised egotism. In all these societies 
 the social formula is nothing else than a more or less savage organi- 
 sation, a more or less intelligent system of government by force. 
 
 "We find in China, and for the first time, a society governed by 
 higher and better motives. !N"ot that here despotism is extinct; 
 the people are still immersed in it. But the conscience of the 
 governing classes has grown wider and has become more enlightened ; 
 the best of their members have felt keenly the desire for the general 
 welfare, and to their lasting honour they have endeavoured to put 
 the reins of government into the hands of the more intelligent men. 
 
 The ideal of the Chinese society is no doubt still far from just. 
 The idea of government hitherto realised is no more than an 
 enlargement of the system that prevails in every family. The mass 
 
€nAP.Yi.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 505 
 
 of humanity is still regarded as a collection of children and minors, 
 for whom guidance, protection, and chastisement are necessary. 
 The general welfare is much considered, though the governing 
 powers are careful not to allow to the individual any stretch of 
 liberty of which they do not believe them to be worthy. They 
 endeavour to put every man into his proper place in the social 
 hierarchy. They wish that the nation may be governed by the 
 most intelligent of its members, by mandarins, chosen after com- 
 petition, no attention being paid either to caste or to birth, and to 
 whom authority will be measured out in proportion to their merits. 
 
 As is customary, we find at the head of society a monarch 
 hedged in with divine prestige, a son of heaven, raised immeasur- 
 ably higher than other human mortals. He makes or unmakes 
 the law ; he chooses or dismisses the mandarins ; he has the power 
 over life and death. The forces and the revenue of the country are 
 in his hands. Everything reverts to him; everything proceeds 
 from him. Upon his accession to the throne the principal per- 
 sonages in the country bring their daughters before him, that he 
 may choose from them five wives. One of these will be the prin- 
 cipal wife, and her children, all other things being equal, will be 
 preferred to the children of the other wives, when the son of 
 heaven appoints his successor. 
 
 But the imperial power finds a barrier to his will in the vast 
 hierarchy of scholars. In theory the emperor is the chief of an 
 immense family, " the father and the mother of the empire." It 
 is he who appoints all the administrative functionaries, but he has 
 to conform to a law higher even than himself. In theory he is all 
 powerful ; but he cannot, in point of fact, choose his agents except 
 from among men of letters, and according to the classifications 
 established by graduated competition, divided into three series; 
 all of which are open to every Chinaman, and which are the only 
 means of opening to him an administrative career. 
 
 It is the idea of family that regulates all these social dis- 
 tinctions. Each functionary possesses a certain portion of paternal 
 authority. The dissertations of moralists and philosophers, the 
 allocutions of mandarins, the proclamations of the emperor, are 
 
506 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 ever exhorting, commenting upon, and exalting fiKal piety. Family 
 sentiment is a fundamental virtue which is often pitched to the 
 height of passion. 
 
 As a good father of a family, the emperor of China is strictly 
 obliged to give assistance to his children. It is his duty to keep full 
 the garners of plenty, where in case of famine the needy may 
 find, at a small cost, barley, rice, and millet. An imperial edict of 
 the year 1260 declares that aged men of letters, orphans, those 
 who are abandoned and have no home, the sick and the infirm, 
 are the population of heaven. But the theoretical father of 
 300,000,000 of Chinamen is himself watched over and lectured. 
 During his lifetime " the son of heaven " is closely looked after 
 by duJy-appointed censors, who, under peril of their life, are 
 bound to bring him back to his duty, if he departs from the right 
 path. When the emperor Thsin Chi, 212 years before our era, 
 in a fit of madness commanded that all books containing political 
 or religious laws — in fact, all the historical traditions of China — 
 should be burned, 460 scholars in Pekin alone preferred to be 
 burnt alive than approve of such aberration on the part of 
 their sovereign. The imperial censors have many a time honoured 
 themselves by similar acts. When the emperor is dead, his life 
 and his reign are judged, and a posthumous decision, laudatory or 
 critical, is henceforth attached to his name. During his lifetime 
 he is even sometimes held responsible for earthquakes ; and on these 
 occasions, as was the case in 1069, he is asked if there has not 
 been anything reprehensible in his conduct, or any abuse in the 
 government, that ought to be reformed. Even nowadays these 
 censors will present to the emperor a critical examination upon 
 this or that act in his public or private life, and these minutes are 
 published in The Pekin Gazette. In a word, the emperor of China, 
 who is also " the son of heaven," and before whose throne no one 
 may approach without knocking his forehead nine times on the 
 ground, cannot choose any petty government officer except from 
 the list of candidates composed of the names of men of letters. 
 
 In China, the hereditary titles extend only to members of the 
 imperial family, and to those who are the more or less probable 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETIES. 507 
 
 descendants of Confucius ; but these distinctions are purely- 
 honorary. In reality, in the heart of the empire, the governing 
 classes are formed solely from the men of letters ; and with the help 
 of competition, these men are chosen from the vrhole population of 
 the empire. 
 
 It may be worth our while to consider for a moment this curious 
 organisation, of which the object is to place the reins of govern- 
 ment into the hands of the most intelligent men. 
 
 The foimdation of the class of scholars in China dates back as- 
 far as the eleventh century before our era, at a time when all 
 Europe was still sunk in the most coarse barbarism. In principle 
 the corporation was chosen by universal suffrage ; the mayors only 
 are now chosen in this way. Literary competition was substituted 
 for general election in the eighth century. 
 
 There are minute regulations to prevent every kind of fraud in 
 these examinations ; for candidates crowd into them by thousands. 
 Examination is the only means by which a man can obtain govern- 
 ment employment ; everywhere in the administration, from the top 
 to the bottom, the offices are purely civil. The military chiefs have 
 authority only over their subordinates ; the troops are encamped a 
 long way from the large toVns, and do not come in except upon 
 the invitation of the civil mandarins. 
 
 The idea of confiding power to the most intelligent men 
 reflects honour upon the nation who first conceived the idea; 
 but unfortunately, Chinese knowledge is very backward, and, as a 
 rule, mnemonical exercises are the only tests required of the candi- 
 dates. The greater number of quotations from ancient authors 
 found in the examination paper of the candidate, the greater merit 
 he is supposed to possess. 
 
 However this may be, the examination-rooms are crammed with 
 candidates. At Mng-Po, Sinibaldo de Mas has seen three 
 thousand aspirants try for thirty-seven places. 
 
 These trials are made gradual, and the ambitious scholar may 
 have to wait in expectation for many years. There are four 
 degrees that may be mentioned : bachelor, licentiate, doctor, and 
 professor. These must be gained in order, and each successive 
 
508 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 step gives to the holder of the office a more important position. 
 But for several years the capability of the individual is constantly 
 tested by additional examinations. There is no competition for 
 special functions, each mandarin may occupy any place corresponding 
 with his rank. 
 
 In theory this organisation of a class of scholars is very remark- 
 able ; it is the greatest effort that has ever been made to realise the 
 true social problem : to everyone according to his works. In 
 actual practice, and in spite of rules, the institution has very much 
 degenerated. Grades have been bought, judges have sold their 
 opinions. In point of fact, like everything else, this wonderful 
 organisation has become altered ; but the largest ethnical agglome- 
 ration that has ever existed, after having founded, maintained, and 
 governed three hundred millions of people for thousands of years, 
 after having in this enormous collectivity so uprooted all idea of 
 hereditary privilege — the Chinese have learnt, not without much 
 astonishment, that in Europe there was an hereditary order of 
 nobility. In China, the grades equivalent to our titles of duke, 
 marquis, count, baron, and knight are given to those civil and 
 military mandarins who have distinguished themselves in their 
 administrative functions ; but these titles are held only for life. 
 They can never be transmitted to the descendants — rather to the 
 progenitors — for it would be against all rule and principle to con- 
 tradict in any way the fundamental maxim, that a son should be 
 better qualified than his father. 
 
 Every mandarin of high rank convicted of negligence in the fulfil- 
 ment of his duty is made to go down two degrees in the social 
 hierarchy, and is for two years deprived of his salary. To obtain 
 from a great personage by undue influence a flattering notice in a 
 report made to the emperor is considered a crime both for the officer 
 making the report and for him who is praised. If connivance is 
 proved, the higher functionary is beaten and is exiled ; his creature 
 is punished by decapitation and by confiscation of his property. 
 Instead of protecting its officers, the Chinese government is sus- 
 picious of them, and holds them aloof. If a popular sedition breaks 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 609» 
 
 out, the governor is invariably deprived of his situation. The 
 people, it is thought, are harmless ; there must therefore be either 
 an abuse of power or great incapability. 
 
 It is also forbidden to functionaries holding jurisdiction to 
 acquire land in their district. In principle the Chinese administra- 
 tion is conceived with much good sense and a great desire for 
 justice; but nowadays, in actual practice the government departs 
 very widely from the old ideal laws. In China, as in many other 
 countries, the men are not so good as their institutions ; but these 
 institutions have so much prestige attaching to them that the 
 Chinese army counts only 10,000 men, a very insignificant military 
 force for such a vast empire. 
 
 China is certainly the only country in the world in which 
 military glory is scoffed at, and in which the profession of arms is 
 held in small honour. A known Chinese philosopher, and one 
 quoted in the world of letters, has said : *^ Give to the conquerors 
 only funereal honours; greet them with cries and wailings in 
 memory of their homicides." In these latter years, after the injustice 
 and insults that the Europeans have imposed upon China, these 
 people have somewhat recovered from their disdain for war and 
 everything connected with it. Europe may one day become more 
 aware of the fact. 
 
 In the interior government of the country the authority of the 
 mandarins is still mainly moral. In theory every government is- 
 as the father of a family ; and in this way their administration 
 is naturally over minute and harassing. Confucius has laid down 
 that the conduct of children should be carefully watched : the 
 officers ^* ought to look after the people as they would after a son."~ 
 But this administrative tenderness cannot exist without jealous 
 supervision. In the fourteenth century a functionary used to 
 come every evening into each inn, and then bolt the door upon 
 every traveller after first taking his name. The next morning he 
 came back to make his call, and the travellers continued their 
 journey under the care of a guardian, who at the next station en- 
 trusted them, giving at the same time a receipt into the hands of 
 
510 SOCIAL LIFE. [Boor iv. 
 
 the next functionary. At the same epoch, a signboard fixed upon 
 the door of each house indicated numerically all the inhabitants, 
 and even the number and the kinds of animals that were kept. 
 
 But in China people are far removed from the intolerable tyranny 
 practised in the countries where there are hereditary castes of men. 
 Every Chinaman may follow the profession that he pleases with- 
 out need of authorisation, and even (a most enviable thing!) 
 without having to pay for a patent. It is lawful for anyone in 
 China to print, to sell, to distribute books and pamphlets, to 
 placard advertisements and loose sheets. The only associations 
 forbidden are those which attempt to overthrow the dynasty. In 
 this respect, as in many others, the Europeans have still a good 
 deal to learn from the Chinese. 
 
 The imposts are not numerous in the Celestial Empire, and they 
 are established upon a very simple basis. A tax upon salt, of 
 which the Chinese are very fond, is the principal duty upon 
 food. All the other taxes are unchangeable, they are laid upon 
 landed property and affect the merchant and the artisan only by 
 indirect means. 
 
 China has not, like some countries in Europe, pushed to 
 excess the mania for centralisation ;. its 300,000.000 inhabitants 
 scattered over a vast extent of country would be inconveniently 
 lodged. Each province, under the authority of a governor, forms 
 in itself a small state ; it has its own customs, levies its own taxes, 
 and makes its own contracts. In China, as elsewhere, the nation 
 is but the result of the grouping together of small agglomerations 
 of ethnical unities, each having dissimilar tastes, different needs, 
 living under conditions essentially unlike, and all of which it 
 would be absurd to congregate together under the rule of one 
 uniform despotism. How many of our statesmen would do well 
 to go to China to learn this very simple lesson ! 
 
 In order to govern a country well it is first necessary to know it 
 thoroughly and accurately. The reigning dynasty in China has 
 ordered that a general report of the empire be drawn up, contain- 
 ing minute details as to the population, products, topography, the 
 towns, the fortifications, the temples, the examination-rooms, etc. 
 
Chap.ti.] the constitution OF SOCIETIES. 611 
 
 This report fills from two to three hundred volumes. Monographs 
 of each province, department, or district help to complete this huge 
 collection. 
 
 Besides these rites and customs which age has consecrated in 
 the country, there are written constitutions, modified from time to 
 time, which determine the general basis of government. 
 
 The organisation of Chinese justice is also most interesting; 
 like everything else, it rests upon the notion of a family upon an 
 extended scale. The condemned man must thank the mandarin 
 for the chastisement he has been kind enough to inflict upon 
 him; for after all it is only a paternal correction, and the judge 
 was very sorry to have been obliged to enforce it. 
 
 Attempts have been made to reduce the number of causes in the 
 courts of law. Each group of a hundred families have a chief ; he 
 imposes the taxes and he is made responsible for a great many 
 offences. Under penalty of bastinado he must look to the proper 
 cultivation of the land. To give his people a dislike to lawsuits, 
 one emperor went as far as enjoining the tribunals to harass the 
 litigants, who would therefore be driven to have their differences 
 and their disputes settled before the mayors in their own districts. 
 
 To prevent acts of personal violence, and abandonment of people 
 in distress, the government has created responsibilities which often 
 bear very unjustly. If for instance a man dies in a field, or upon 
 the doorstep of a shop, the proprietor of the land or the merchant 
 will undergo a penalty. 
 
 Every murder entails upon the murderer capital punishment 
 and deprivation of funeral honours; for his relations it means 
 r-uin and dishonour. But as a man is held responsible for a suicide 
 • of which -he has been the means or the cause, it is by a threat of 
 suicide jthat the weaker will often punish the stronger adversary ; 
 it is by suicide that he takes his revenge. Eor a spoken word that has 
 given pain, for an affront, etc., a man will hang himself, or throw 
 himself into the bottom of a pit. Suicides are very common; 
 they are thought to be honourable and glorious in public opinion. 
 
 The Chinese idea of justice is quite utilitarian ; it is unrefined, 
 and not at all metaphysical. Punishment is not measured according 
 
612 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 to the moral gravity of the offence, but according to the extent 
 of injury caused. The penalty exacted for theft will be in propor- 
 tion to the value of the object stolen. 
 
 The punishments inflicted are brutal ; they remind one very 
 strongly of primitive justice. They are : bastinado, which in 
 China is very often used ; slaps with thick broad pieces of leather ; 
 small iron cages, in which the prisoner is crouched up ; imprison- 
 ment; banishment into the interior of the empire, or exile into 
 Tartary ; death by strangulation or decapitation. Formerly slavery 
 was also a Chinese penalty. 
 
 A high judge forms the whole tribunal He questions the 
 prisoner, who remains on his knees before him; and there is 
 always an executioner, who, upon the judge's order, beats the 
 witnesses for the prosecution or for the defence, when their 
 answers are displeasing to his lordship. There is no advocate ; but 
 the magistrate may, using ^the discretionary power given to him, 
 allow the parents or the friends of the prisoner to plead his cause. 
 
 In other respects the criminal legislation of the Chinese is con- 
 siderably advanced, at least in theory. It admits extenuating cir- 
 cumstances, a non-retroactive effect, the right of appeal, temporary 
 liberty under the responsibility of the magistrates, merger of 
 punishments, and the right of mercy, which is reserved to the 
 sovereign. 
 
 On the other hand the duty of a judge in China is not always 
 soft and pleasant. Measures are taken against him, and he is 
 threatened with severe chastisement. If he marries or takes a 
 mistress in his district he is liable to have eighty blows; and 
 double the number if by chance the wife or the concubine is the 
 daughter of a litigant over whom he has to pronounce a decision. 
 For an erroneous decision given, even upon an appeal case, the 
 judge is beaten. 
 
 Beatings here and beatings there, the stick plays a very impor- 
 tant part in the administration of the Celestial Empire. It is how- 
 ever the old family maxim : " The wise father chasteneth his son." 
 
 But everything is not childish in this vast organisation. China 
 shows the most ingenious and the greatest social effort yet made by 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 513 
 
 the Mongolian race. It is the largest human agglomeration that 
 has ever existed ; it has lasted for thousands of years and has for a 
 long time occupied the foremost rank in the human race in the per- 
 petual march onwards towards a more perfect condition of life. It 
 is the first large society which, to its everlasting honour, has for 
 ever broken the mould of castes and abolished hereditary privileges. 
 And it is still the only country in the world in which, in theory at 
 least, a systematic attempt is everywhere made to give to individual 
 merit its full reward. There is much grandeur in the idea, certainly 
 much fairness ; and it will assuredly form the basis of better 
 societies which we may hope to see in future ages. China may 
 have awkwardly realised her conception, but to that conception 
 she has certainly owed her ancient prosperity. Modern Europe 
 has slowly entered upon the same path, and for the most part 
 clumsily enough. In Europe, as in China, candidates for examina- 
 tion are tested by the retentiveness of their memory more than by 
 their powers of originality. And even if this method of trial were 
 Letter understood, man's intelligence would count for much, but it 
 cannot include everything. There is behind it that which sup- 
 ports it : character, generous sentiments, every moral force so abso- 
 lutely necessary to one who has the care of souls. 'Now, all this 
 side of the human creature, so difficult to appreciate accurately, has 
 nothing to do with school or other examinations ; and yet it is that 
 which vivifies man's intelligence and his activity ; it is that which 
 we must first grasp if we wish really to test his value. 
 
 Another objection, quite as serious, must be brought against the 
 Chinese civilisation ; that is, its besotted infatuation for what is past 
 and gone. After it had organised its class of men of letters, China 
 found herself very superior to her neighbours ; she sanctified herself 
 in her own eyes ; she denied the progress of which she was herself 
 such a remarkable instance, and then decreed absolute immovability. 
 Henceforward everything in China was congealed ; over minute 
 rites were made to govern the smallest details in social life. Before 
 the war of 1840 a merchant in Canton bethought himself of putting 
 a European-shaped rudder on to his boat, but before the skiff was 
 launched a mandarin, a dragon in the performance of what he 
 
 2 L 
 
614 SOCUL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 thought was his duty, ordered the boat to he destroyed, and imposed 
 a fine upon the irreverent innovator. Facts like these betray the 
 character of the people; it is the "laudator temporis acti," beyond 
 which nothing shall go, held up as an eternal maxim. We may be 
 quite sure that in pulling to pieces this haycock civilisation we 
 shall find that the rough aggressions of the Europeans have rendered 
 service to the Celestial Empire. 
 
 Nevertheless, the edifice of Chinese society has its good points, 
 and if we make certain allowances, there is much truth in the 
 eulogious judgment of one who is certainly well qualified to give 
 an opinion on Chinese manners and customs. Milne says : " The 
 political organisation of the Chinese empire, now more than four 
 thousand years old, is the most philosophical, the most rational, 
 and the most free from prejudices of all sorts that has ever existed 
 in any age or in any country in the world. That is the reason 
 why it has lasted so long." 
 
 However this may be, the Chinese form of government is the 
 most advanced social system yet realised by any Mongolian race. 
 It is despotism tempered by reason ; and to find a political organi- 
 sation of a higher kind, we must look among the most civilised 
 branches of the white races. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Societies among the White Races. 
 
 The different ethnical groups of the white races are now classed 
 mainly upon a linguistic basis, in default of less uncertain know- 
 ledge, that history and anthropological anatomy cannot give to us. 
 Ingenious as it is, the classification by means of modern languages 
 is open to criticism, if we wish by it to determine to what ethno- 
 graphical group or what race man actually belongs ; nevertheless, 
 all things considered, we may accept it. Moreover, it is con- 
 venient and it is generally allowed. "We shall therefore follow it, 
 dividing the white race of men into three great branches — the 
 Semitic, the Iranian, and the Aryan ; and wo shall endeavour to 
 describe what has been the social constitution in each of these 
 races. 
 
Chap, vi.] THE CONSTITUTION" OF SOCIETIES. 515 
 
 A. The Semitic Societies. — Like all the liumaii races which, have 
 played a large part in this world's history, the Semitic race is 
 divided into a certain number of ethnical groups, of which each 
 has had a different fortune, and has become more or less civilised 
 after its own manner. 
 
 Eut a notable portion of the Semites now extant have hardly, 
 as yet, passed the pastoral and nomad phase ; and if we may trust 
 to induction and to tradition, we may reasonably suppose that 
 such, in far-distant times, was the special characteristic belonging 
 to the whole race. 
 
 At the present time the Semites are still grouped into small 
 tribes, forming a sort of large nomad family under the orders of a 
 chief. Some of their tribes have shown such a strong love for 
 this wandering life, and so much aversion for every sort of pro- 
 gress, that in the tribe of the Nabatsei, according to Diodorus 
 Siculus, it was forbidden, under penalty of death, to sow corn, to 
 plant fruit-trees, or to build habitations. 
 
 But the Semitic and wandering tribe contains germs of the 
 elements belonging to the ancient monarchies. Slavery is in full 
 force ; a special magistrate, a cadi, is entrusted with the adminis- 
 tration of justice. This chief is a respected monarch, whom people 
 do not approach without first kissing the ground, and whose power 
 is transmitted hereditarily to his eldest son. This chief is especially 
 a military chief ; no razzia is ever undertaken without his autho- 
 risation. Such was also probably the primitive organisation of the 
 Hebrews, who were divided into tribes, families, and houses. 
 
 Here and there the tribes would league together ; here and there 
 they were subjugated by a chief, who governed despotically over a 
 certain number of clans. Then the people betook themselves to 
 agriculture, they built towns, they founded monarchies like those 
 of Assyria and Babylon. As far as we judge, from such confused 
 and incomplete knowledge as has come down to us, these ancient 
 monarchies were in nowise original, from a sociological point of 
 view. The crown was then hereditary. The monarch enjoyed 
 almost unlimited power. Society was, as it were, immovable j 
 professions and trades were always handed down from father to son. 
 
 2 L 2 
 
616 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 It is in the Bible and in the Koran that we must look for pre- 
 cise and detailed information as to the way in which the Semites, 
 in gradually becoming civilised, planned their social organisation. 
 
 Among the Hebrews, when one chief of the bands, more fortu- 
 nate or more artful than his rivals, found himself in the position as 
 commander over a greater or less number of tribes, he was usually 
 both priest and king ; for the Beni-Israelites were super-eminently 
 bigots. Melchizedek was the most high priest of God ; Saul 
 offered up a holocaust, etc. The government among the Hebrews 
 was always essentially theocratical j the chiefs were the lieutenants 
 of Jehovah. 
 
 In Judoea there was an hereditary aristocracy. The Pentateuch 
 tells us of a council of elders, of judges, of scribes, who were the 
 representatives of families and of houses. It was a council of this 
 kind that went to Samuel to ask for a king ; it was this council 
 which, at the request of the father, caused the son to be stoned ; 
 it was this council which heard the plaint of the husband who 
 pretended that he did not have the first offerings of his wife — a 
 crime that also entailed lapidation. 
 
 The judges were the monarchs, and their power was not 
 hereditary; but it became so after the days of Solomon. The 
 despotism of the kings of the people of God was not less severely 
 exercised than that of other Semite kings. "We know how 
 David acted towards Bathsheba; his son Solomon no sooner 
 mounted on the throne than he committed fratricide and other 
 murders. The fastuous splendour of this monarch, so celebrated 
 it would appear by his wisdom, his dealings with foreign women, 
 his crowded harem, — these are all facts which we may do well to 
 •recollect. 
 
 The theocracy which came from the great Arabian monarchs was 
 much of the same kind. Before Mahomet, there was in Arabia 
 only a few small confederations of tribes ; but with the assistance 
 of fanaticism, all these elements grouped themselves together around 
 the authority of the prophet. Then servility, which, as we have 
 seen, was customary in all tribes, soon developed in the most 
 shameful manner. The subjects of Mahomet used piously to keep 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 517 
 
 every drop of water which he had used, they used to collect the 
 hairs which fell from his head ; they used even to lick his saliva ! 
 But Mahomet was no more than a theocratical judge, as also was 
 Moses. After him the first caliphs were still elective ; but after 
 Moawiah the caliphat became hereditary. Then a systematised 
 policy of oppression bore upon the whole race, and still more 
 heavily upon the conquered people, who paid to the master a heavy 
 capitation tax in return for the great kindness with which he 
 allowed them to cultivate their lands, which by right of conquest 
 belonged to the conqueror. 
 
 The great majority of the Semitic race has never conceived, 
 ■either in ancient or in modern times, a social ideal more elevated 
 than that of a mute despotism, very similar to that which has been 
 established all over the world in the larger primitive agglomerations 
 of men. But perhaps we may make an exception in favour of 
 Carthage, and of Tyre, the metropolis. This fact has its value, for 
 it will suffice to establish the sociological perfectibility of the 
 Semites. 
 
 If we may believe Aristotle, Polybius, Diodorus, and others, 
 Carthage enjoyed a well-organised form of democracy. ITotable 
 families were established there — the Magos, the Hamilcars, the 
 Hannos, etc. — but there was no hereditary aristocracy. A sort of 
 senate was elected by the paternities or electoral colleges. With 
 the exception of judicial authority, every other power was vested in 
 this assembly. Between the sessions it was replaced by a com- 
 mission chosen of its own members. This commission appointed a 
 few delegates or ministers to exercise the executive power ; their 
 chief or sufFetes was named president of the assembly. A military 
 suffetes, or vice-president, had the command of the military forces. 
 The two sufFetes were chosen by the people out of a list drawn up 
 by the assembly, and their command was only nominal, except in 
 the case of prerogative. The military suffetes were also held in 
 check by a committee named for this purpose by the general 
 assembly. This committee supervised the operations of the suffetes, 
 and decided upon his prorogation or upon his recall as they thought 
 •expedient. 
 
518 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 The existence of a political constitution both so republican and 
 so complex among a people of the Semitic race, very backwards in 
 other respects, may naturally cause us some surprise ; and we can 
 hardly credit the testimony of ancient authors, inasmuch as this 
 democracy rested, like every Semitic civilisation, upon slavery, of 
 which we must now say a few words. 
 
 The institution of slavery is inherent in every inferior civilisation. 
 Before man can understand that there should be in liberty, in 
 freedom over his own actions, a right not resting merely upon the 
 law of prescription, he must necessarily have first arrived at a higher 
 degree of intellectual development ; his heart must first warm his 
 intelligence, and his intelligence must first warm his heart. 
 
 We find slavery at the bottom of every Semitic society, ancient 
 or modern, nomad, monarchical or republican. The romance of 
 Antar shows to us how in ante-Mussulman Arabia the slave was 
 absolutely submissive to the will of his master, who kept his life in 
 his hands, who naturally had the right of violating every woman 
 slave. But the male slave may be ennobled by the chief, and then 
 enjoy the rights of a free man. 
 
 Nor do we find that the Koran thinks of protesting against 
 slavery. The enemy conquered by the faithful are either put to 
 death or else brought into servitude. This latter was usually the 
 fate among women and children. 
 
 Slavery was common in the ancient Semitic kingdoms of Assyria 
 and Babylon; it existed also in the republics of Tyr and 
 Carthage. In the Homeric ages the Phoenicians used to make raids 
 upon the slaves on the coast of Greece ; they then took them into 
 Egypt and sold them. Herodotus tells us how they ran away with 
 lo, the daughter of Inachus, king of Argos. In Spain the Cartha- 
 ginians used to make the Iberian slaves work in the mines ; they 
 overwhelmed them with blows, and they exhausted them with 
 work. At Tyr there was a whole population of slaves, and we 
 hear oven of servile revolts. 
 
 The Jews, the people of God, had their slaves. When he was- 
 much in want of money the Hebrew father might sell his daughters 
 as slaves. The wretched populace might even sell themselves. 
 
Chap, ti.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 51» 
 
 The thief, incapable of paying his fine, became the slave of him 
 from whom he had stolen. Prisoners taken in war were slaves. 
 But even the Jewish conscience had some scruples about slavery. 
 "We read in Exodus that the slave be set free at the end of six 
 years, but the master has the right to keep his wife and children. 
 There were at this early period certain laws protecting the slave ; 
 but the master might with impunity beat the slave to death, on the 
 condition that the slave lived one or two days after his beating, for 
 " the master had bought him with his money." We have now said 
 enough to show that morality was at a very low ebb among the 
 ancient Semitic races. 
 
 Justice, as administered by the sons of Shem, was also very 
 coarse. Among the ante-Islamite Arabs the chief of the tribe was 
 often invested with judicial power, and he decided the differences 
 according to his own good pleasure. Eut still the poem of Antar 
 speaks of cadis who served as arbitrators between the chief and 
 his followers. Among the Hebrews, judicial matters were decided 
 either by the elders or by the king. "We find the talion law> 
 exacting " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," to prevail 
 everywhere ; and during many ages it must have been the only 
 code known among the nomad tribes. By degrees, as societies 
 established themselves and became more civilised, legislation grew 
 to be more complex. The Hebrew false witness was made to 
 bear the same penalty that had been enacted against the innocent 
 man whom he had accused. For every goat stolen a man had to 
 restore four goats, for every ox five oxen. For voluntary homicide 
 the talion law was in force ; for involuntary homicide a pecuniary 
 compensation was received. For blows and personal injuries the 
 injured man might exact the same punishment upon the culprit. 
 The greatest of all crimes among the Hebrews, the crime for which 
 there was no remission, was idolatry. If an individual was 
 convicted he was stoned ; if a town was so convicted it was 
 anathematised, all the inhabitants were put to the sword, and the 
 town was burnt. Certain incests and sodomy were punished with 
 death. 
 
 Capital punishment was ordinarily by lapidation, sometimes by 
 
520 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 fire or by decapitation. For smaller offences a bastinado or the 
 rod was very common. That, however, was considered only as an 
 admonitory punishment, and there was no dishonour attaching 
 to it. 
 
 Like the Bible, the Koran allows the talion law, and also 
 pecuniary compensation. For instance, twenty camels for an 
 involuntary murder. But thieves may also be liable to having 
 their hands cut. The penal code of Mahomet is not original, for 
 its author declares that he drew it from the Bible. In addition to 
 the penalties enacted by the Koran the modern Mussulmans have 
 added punishment by impalement, often inflicted in Arabia on the 
 Bedouins, who rob the pilgrims. But for the majority of crimes 
 the social justice of the Arabs is slack. In Bagdad the punish- 
 ment of a murderer is generally decided by the relations of the 
 victim : it is a case of a private quarrel in which those not concerned 
 are careful not to meddle. 
 
 On the whole, we see that the Semitic race, taken in a mass, 
 have freed themselves from savagery, but not from barbarism. 
 But on one point we must give them justice. Some of their 
 ethnical groups — at least if we may believe the ancient writers — 
 seem to have been the first in the world who have organised 
 republican governments with deliberative assemblies, to have 
 separated the legislative and the executive powers. That is a 
 sociological progress of the first order, and one which the superior 
 races only have realised. 
 
 B. Tlie Persians. — In a treatise upon sociology, we may be brief 
 in speaking of the Persians, both ancient and modern, for their 
 institutions seem to have been very unoriginal. 
 
 In spite of a certain moral dignity, which we may discover here 
 and there in the Zend-Avesta, amid a thousand inanities, the social 
 ideas of the ancient Persians never went beyond the most absolute 
 despotic monarchy, or the institution of castes. 
 
 Even under the legendary government of Djemschid, the popu- 
 lation in Persia was divided into four castes, which we now find in 
 India : the priests, the warriors, the labourers, and the artisans. 
 Wo need hardly say that, as in every society of this kind, there 
 
€hap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 521 
 
 "was outside the legally-recognised classes a large number of 
 slaves. 
 
 From what Greek writers, and Herodotus especially, tell us of 
 the ancient Persian monarchy, we may easily imagine what it was 
 at a still more remote date ; for it is not in going back through the 
 course of ages that we shall have most chance of finding, in the 
 annals of humanity, any notions of justice and of liberty. 
 
 At the time of Cyrus, Xerxes, and others, Persia was under the 
 most unalloyed form of despotic monarchy. The king of the 
 Persians was, above every other, " the grand king ; " his smallest 
 <;aprice was law. When the Lydian Pythias allowed himself to ask 
 of Xerxes, when he was preparing to invade Greece, the favour of 
 keeping his eldest son by his side, offering at the same time as 
 soldiers his four other sons, the king of kings caused the man for 
 whom the intercession was made to be cut into two halves. During 
 the march, as the Persian troops defiled before their master, the 
 xod was constantly held over them. 
 
 In spite of centuries gone by, and in spite of the introduction of 
 Mahometanism into Persia, the kings in this country still exercise a 
 power quite as despotic as was that of Xerxes. They have 
 the right of life and death over all their subjects, and over the 
 members of their own family. Praser saw a young Persian prince 
 accustoming himself to go about blindfolded, for he said : " When 
 ■our father dies we shall all be put to death, or else deprived of our 
 sight, and I am trying to see what I can do when I am blind." The 
 whole Persian code of laws is resumed in this short phrase : " It is 
 the will of the Shah." Below this tyrant in chief, there is a whole 
 hierarchy of sub-tyrants, men who are slaves on the one hand, and 
 despots on the other. At the bottom of the social scale is the class 
 of cultivators who have to bear a whole mountain of injustice. 
 These men are ill-treated, robbed, ransomed at pleasure ; they have 
 to defend themselves as best they can against the tax-collectors, by 
 ■every cunning device that they can invent. 
 
 In a country such as this, justice is an empty word. When 
 there is a shadow of it, it is ever the same talion law that 
 has existed for centuries. The thief may be pardoned by the man 
 
522 SOCIAL LIFE. [Bookiv. 
 
 from whom he has stolen. The heir of a murdered man may 
 commute with the assassin, or kill him, as he pleases. In Fraser's 
 time, the murderer of a young man was given over to the mother 
 of the man murdered ; she drove a knife into him fifty times, and 
 then cut his lips with the knife all stained with blood ! 
 
 There are magistrates, cadis, or governors, who sit in judgment 
 and inflict fines, bastinadoes, strangulation, extraction of the eyes, 
 or decapitation. But as nearly all the Persian functionaries receive 
 bribes, crimes are easily washed out for a few tomans. 
 
 This frightful state of things, which has probably lasted through 
 all historic ages, from the earliest times, has produced a general 
 debasement of character in the whole nation. The people are 
 obsequious, servile, stealthy, cruel, and bigoted. For the institutions 
 of a nation, when they have lasted through a long series of gene- 
 rations, at last mould the people according to their image. 
 
 C. TJie Vedic and Hindoo Societies. — If the Persian branch of 
 the so-called Aryan race offers to us but little interest as regards 
 the constitution of societies, it is very different when we turn to 
 the Indo-European branch, properly so called. On the one hand, this 
 fraction of the human species is the one of whom there is most 
 record in past ages, and consequently we may retrace its evolu- 
 tion ; and, on the other hand, it comprises the races of men who 
 are the most richly endowed, the men with the largest brain, those 
 who have struggled the hardest, who have been bolder than others, 
 and who have had the gift of invention most strongly developed. 
 
 It may be doubtful to maintain the theory that the Aryan races 
 have originally all sprung from one district, from one creative navel, 
 situated in the Hindoo Koosh mountains, or in the plains of Pamir ; 
 but it is certain that in these regions man has soonest arrived 
 at any large degree of moral, social, or intellectual development* 
 This is what will now first claim our attention. 
 
 The Yedic hymns furnish us with much information upon the 
 social condition of the Aryan tribes of Central Asia, before the 
 time of any large emigration, either towards Europe, or along the 
 valley of the Indus towards India. 
 
 There was then no caste known among the Yedic tribes. Certain 
 
Chap, yi.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 52a 
 
 social functions were marked out, but there was no impassible 
 barrier line between them. The priest who was entrusted with 
 grinding the soma, or with lighting the divine fire, did not disdain 
 to till the ground, to tend the cattle while they were grazing ; he 
 even went into the middle of the battle by the side of the 
 Kchattriyas. There were the Brahmins, the Kchattriyas, the 
 Vaicyas, but between these classes there was no hierarchy, no 
 subordination was necessary. The servile class, that of the 
 ^oudras, did not exist, for the Vedic Aryans had not yet become 
 conquerors. 
 
 It is now somewhat a feudal organisation. The Aryans are 
 divided into small groups, into tribes, who are obedient to a chief 
 owning upon a hill a fortified habitation, from which he governs the 
 Yaicyas, or Yi9as, agriculturists or shepherds, scattered over the 
 plain. This chief is a wealthy man. Among the Vedahs richness is 
 the condition of royalty. The master is surrounded with sumptuous 
 splendour. He mounts an elephant, or a gilt chariot ; his head is 
 adorned with a tiara, or crest of diamonds; he is covered with 
 precious stones ; a troop of Kchattriyas compose his suite. In the 
 Vedic society the spiritual power shows but poorly enough. The 
 Brahmin seems generally to be reduced to performing the part of a 
 chaplain, or the flatterer of the petty barbarous king. Nevertheless 
 he clothes the king with religious investiture, he crowns him, he 
 tries to extort from him presents by selling to him his prayers at 
 exorbitant prices. He prays the aurora to "grant a wholesome 
 plenty to the noble lords who have showered presents upon him." 
 He extols in pious hymns the horses, the cows, the chariots, the 
 jewels that the royal munificence has bestowed upon him, and he 
 prays that Indra and Agni may reward the generous donor a 
 hundredfold. 
 
 These sovereigns, gracious as they are towards the representatives 
 of the gods, are invested hereditarily with the exercise of power, 
 and sometimes they organise a complete feudal system, recognising 
 a suzerain, the great king, the maharajah. 
 
 Among the Vedahs there is no question of slavery. It would 
 seem that long before the conquest the people, the artisans, the 
 
624 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 labourers, and shepherds, grouped together in villages at the foot 
 of the strong castles, were only vassals, and were treated mildly 
 enough. There is nowadays a considerable degree of familiarity 
 existing between the princes and the subjects in Nepaul, in Raj- 
 pootana, and in Peshawur. But when the Vedic Aryans became 
 more established in India as conquerors, they altogether modified 
 the constitution of their societies. The feudal kingling became a 
 powerful and absolute monarch. Three Vedic classes were changed 
 into hereditary and isolated castes. The conquered people formed 
 a servile caste, that of the ^oudras, below which there were half- 
 castes, or unclassed groups of men, who constituted a class apart in 
 a still lower scale. Then the Brahmins became glorified creatures ; 
 they grew to be demigods. 
 
 The Menu Code describes minutely this theocratical society, in 
 which the king is in principle the secular arm of the Brahmin, in 
 which also the spiritual and temporal powers are so completely 
 distinct as to give delight to any disciple of Comte. 
 
 In the first place the king receives from a Brahmin the divine 
 sacrament of initiation. After the ceremony he is consecrated in 
 every sense of the word. Anyone that shows ill-feeling towards 
 him must perish. The principal duty of this sub-Brahmin monarch 
 is to chastise, for the Brahmins have gone so far as to deify chastise- 
 ment ; it has become a genius created by God. From daybreak the 
 king must present his homages to the Brahmins ; he must especially 
 give a great deal to the Brahmins. Every present made to a 
 Brahmin who is a good theologian carries with it infinite merit ; 
 but to a man who is not a Brahmin it has only an ordinary merit. 
 A king, even if he is dying for want, must never receive tribute 
 from a Brahmin who is versed in Holy Writ. A king ought to be 
 very careful not to kill a Brahmin, even though he be guilty of 
 every possible crime, or to confiscate his property. There is no 
 iniquity in the world greater than to kill a Brahmin ; the king 
 ought not to be able even to conceive the idea. 
 
 The pious monarch chooses seven or eight ministers, with whom 
 he examines all affairs of importance ; but when he has formed his 
 decision, he ought always to obtain the sanction of a Brahmin. 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 525 
 
 The country is well organised, the communes are grouped ac- 
 cording to a decimal system, by ten, twenty, a hundred, a thou- 
 sand ; and each group has a responsible chief dependent upon the 
 chief of the superior group. 
 
 The king imposes a tax upon cattle, upon the annual savings, 
 upon the produce of the soil. The Yaicyas pay annually a fine 
 comparatively very small. The poor ^oudras, who have no pro- 
 perty worth taking into consideration, pay their tribute by one day's 
 labour in every year. 
 
 We can easily understand that the privileges and duties in every 
 caste are very unequal. The three first castes only participate in 
 the social advantages, but very variously. The Brahmin shines in 
 his splendour at the head of all society ; he is the chief and the 
 proprietor of everything that exists. The Kchattriya must protect 
 him, the Vaicya work for him, the ^oudra must serve him. The 
 Brahmin may beget an adulterous child, if he undergoes a purifi- 
 cation lasting for three days ; but if his wife is unfaithful to him, 
 the king must order her to be devoured by dogs in the public 
 place, and her accomplice to be burnt upon a bed of red-hot iron. 
 
 The Brahmin has the right to compel the ^oudra to serve him ; 
 he may rob him with perfect safety of conscience. To collect 
 riches, in any way, however honestly, is forbidden to the ^oudras. 
 
 In the Indian society the administration of justice is already 
 organised; but in this, as everywhere else, the Brahmins have 
 the upper hand. The king may deliver justice in person, but he 
 must be assisted by some Brahmins. He may delegate his judicial 
 authority, but only to the Brahmins. The cases are regularly con- 
 ducted; witnesses are heard, after they have been harangued and 
 after they have taken oaths. The offences are few in number. 
 Theft and adultery, assimilated to theft in most primitive societies, 
 are the offences which most concern the legislator. The fine to be 
 paid for stealing will vary according to the caste of the thief ; but 
 here, strange to say, it increases in proportion to the dignity of the 
 guilty person. 
 
 In spite of this peculiarity, which may cause us some surprise, 
 the Indian society, as it is explained in the Menu Code, does 
 
 X 
 
626 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 not differ, fundamentally, from those of other larger primitive 
 monarchies which we have already described. It is an organisa- 
 tion of the most complete despotism, for the benefit of a privileged 
 class, in the hands of whom the king and the military caste are 
 only the instruments. Because of the indispensable services which 
 it fulfils, the working and commercial caste still enjoy certain 
 rights ; but the servile and the mixed castes are considered merely 
 as domestic animals. 
 
 After they conquered India, the Vedic Aryans seem to have 
 sociologically degenerated. They have, no doubt, founded vast 
 empires; but they have exchanged their relative liberty, which 
 was enjoyed by these primitive people, for monarchical servitude 
 and the rigid immovability of castes. Nearly everywhere, as we 
 shall see, the Aryan race has undergone a similar evolution. We 
 may add that in its main features, this social organisation, inferior 
 as it is, has in India withstood the weight of centuries. Even 
 now, the system of castes and of despotic rajahs exists more 
 or less over a great part of India. The English domination has 
 tended to lessen it, though it has not abolished it. Even where 
 the British functionaries and residents have taken their place 
 beside the rajahs, they are powerless beside the system of castes. 
 And quite lately M. Ujfalvy has found the same power in full 
 force, even in Russian Asia, among the ethnical helots of the 
 white race settled in Central Asia on the northern side of the 
 Himalaya mountains. 
 
 D. The Social Condition of the Afghans. — If we start from the 
 supposed country of the Vedic Aryans, and travel westward, and 
 as we go glance over the societies founded in far-distant ages by 
 the people belonging to the so-called Aryan race, we shall, without 
 much difficulty, be able to disentangle from the ethnographical 
 division of the different groups, and from out of the historical re- 
 volutions, a large and general evolution, similar to that which we 
 have traced in the foregoing section. Everywhere as they have 
 freed themselves from the savagery of prehistoric ages, men belong- 
 ing to the Aryan races have grouped themselves together in semi- 
 barbarous tribes, and then, whether they came together with the 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 627 
 
 intention of forming feudal societies or aristocratic republics, making 
 a servile class jjerform all the hard labour, they have always brought 
 themselves into a state of absolute monarchy ; and it is only in 
 quite recent times that the monarchical power has become mitigated 
 in some countries and broken in others. 
 
 The present race of Afghans, in those regions where neither the 
 Mussulman nor the Indian civilisations have taken root, have still 
 preserved the organisation of warlike and semi-barbarous clans 
 which has everywhere existed among the Afghan people. 
 , Many of the Afghan tribes are only nominally governed by the 
 sultan of Cabul, and certain of them choose their own chief from 
 an aristocratic family. The power of these chiefs is very variable. 
 Sometimes it extends to the right over life and death. These clan 
 chieftains live as great feudal lords, they own fine castles, and 
 they maintain in their houses a state of luxurious splendour. 
 
 The emir of Cabul, a suzerain more or less obeyed by these clan 
 chieftains, coins his own money, declares war, levies taxes, mainly 
 consisting of a tax upon landed property, custom duties, and fines. 
 These taxes are collected by the chiefs of every village. 
 
 In a country so little centralised as is Afghanistan, the adminis- 
 tration of justice is far from being uniform. In Cabul, and among 
 tribes under the direct control of the emir, the Mussulman customs 
 have aU the force of law. In law the judicial power has become a 
 royal prerogative, and criminal matters are brought before the emir 
 wherever he may have chosen his residence. Everywhere else he 
 delegates his power to cadis, or to cauzis, reserving to himself the 
 right of appeal that may be brought from their decisions, though 
 he never interferes himself spontaneously. Social justice is as yet 
 unknown. 
 
 In the rural, far distant, and almost independent districts, the 
 king's justice is almost nominal. When the people are under the 
 care of the central government the village chiefs are held respon- 
 sible. They are bound to deliver up the guilty persons, or else to 
 pay their fines and indemnities, and to reimburse themselves by 
 levying taxes. Among the most independent tribes the ancient 
 Afghan customs are still preserved. The people have not yet 
 
528 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book 17. 
 
 come to that state of civilisation to be aware of any social interests. 
 Public opinion holds it to be right and just for each individual to 
 take the law into his own hands ; the talion law is customary, and 
 this is usually practised at once and without delay. Sometimes 
 matters are brought before a council of old men, of mollahs, of 
 notables, or before the chief of the tribe ; but recourse to judges is 
 always considered in public opinion as an act of weakness : the 
 strong man ought to avenge his own cause. 
 
 We have already mentioned the curious Afghan custom which 
 makes of the young girl a monetary unity. This custom also 
 holds good in law. Among the western Afghans, as among the 
 ancient German tribes, crimes and offences may be ransomed by 
 giving over to the injured party, or to those in his place, a cer- 
 tain number of young girls, or their value in money. There 
 is an established legal tariff : a murder costs twelve young girls ; 
 mutilation of the hand, of an ear, or of the nose, is bought by six 
 girls. 
 
 Except for the matter of compensation, which sounds strange to 
 our ears, we find here the old German Wergeld, of which we shall 
 again have to speak. Many other sociological analogies also may 
 be discovered between the present state of the Afghan tribes and 
 that in the early days of Greece, of Eome, and of Germany. 
 
 E. Ancient Greece. — The mere mention of the name of Greece 
 awakens in us feelings of respect and of gratitude; our recollec- 
 tions are at once surrounded with a halo of glory. We know, in 
 point of fact, that in this privileged corner of the earth the human 
 understanding did for the first time command itself, that there 
 was here an intellectual harvest unique in its kind. The Hellenic 
 genius, the most equally balanced that has yet existed, has en- 
 lightened everything, it has attempted everything, and shown 
 everything. It personifies truly the virile age of the human kind, 
 for after having become extinguished, enervated by Asia, enslaved 
 by Eome, it has left behind it such a ray of light, that merely by 
 glancing at it all feudal Europe, benighted by a thousand years of 
 mental and political slavery, awoke again, dazzled at the new 
 spring, and began afresh to enrich the human mind. 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 529 
 
 But, as we have more than once had occasion to remark in the 
 course of this book, the Hellenic civilisation was not born spon- 
 taneously. Like every other human effort, its beginnings were 
 very humble. Between the social condition of the primitive tribes 
 in Greece and that of the age of Pericles, there is all the difference 
 which separates the Yenus of the Capitol from the rude forms in 
 terra cotta found in the tombs of Mycenae. 
 
 The early Greeks were divided into small independent tribes, 
 who obeyed their military chiefs, a sort of cacique, often at the 
 mercy of caprice and the violence of his subjects. It was only 
 under fear of common danger that the people came round their 
 guardian shepherd and were obedient to his orders. Important 
 affairs were often decided by a majority of votes. The name of 
 king is much too pompous for the leader of one of these clans, 
 whose precarious power was exercised only over a handful of 
 inhabitants. Cecrops, wishing to reckon the number of his sub- 
 jects, ordered them, tradition tells us, each to place a stone in a 
 certain spot. The stones were afterwards counted; there were 
 found to be 20,000. But Cecrops was a great king. The small 
 kinglings. did not dare to decide upon anything without first 
 consulting the chiefs of the tribe, or perhaps aU the members. 
 
 Ordinarily they were rich enough; they possessed flocks of 
 cattle, and a special domain cultivated by the slaves. The 
 members of the tribes, and especially of the conquered tribes, paid 
 to them subsidies in kind. Their office, which was ordinarily 
 transmitted to their eldest son, was not merely civil; they exer- 
 cised also at the same time a sort of priestly duty, they presided 
 over the sacrifices, etc. The religious duties of the people were 
 heaviest upon those who had to perform the office of chief in each 
 family. 
 
 When the Hellenic clans aU came together with the object of 
 discussing some common project, such as the siege of Troy, for 
 instance, the power of the chief of the confederation was always con- 
 siderably enshackled. We all know how with what liberty of speech 
 the king of men is apostrophised in the councils of war related in 
 the Iliad. At a much later date, in the established monarchies, as 
 
 2 M 
 
530 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 at Sparta, for instance, five ephors, named annually hj the people, 
 were chosen to watch over the kings, the queens, and to guard the 
 public treasury. 
 
 Tradition relates that twelve Hellenic towns united to found 
 Athens. These twelve cantons for a long time preserved their 
 autonomy. Thucydides gives to Theseus the honour of bringing 
 them together in one body. But the Grecian mind was essentially 
 prone to particulate, and in spite of the amphictyons, Greece never 
 succeeded in founding a real federation. 
 
 In their intimate organisation, the smaller states of Greece, 
 whether they were republican, or more or less monarchical, resem- 
 bled in many ways the primitive societies in every country. In 
 all of them slavery was common, and many did not shrink from the 
 institution of castes. 
 
 In almost legendary times, the people of Athens were divided 
 into four classes : labourers, artisans, priests, and warriors. Later, 
 the sacerdotal class disappeared, or rather it became merged into 
 the aristocratic class, into the class of the well-born, the eupatrides. 
 
 Then, by degrees, the social evolution ever going on, the archonte, 
 who was chosen for life, replaced the king. Then the archonte 
 lost all political power ; the church separated itself from the state. 
 When the archonte was deprived of his temporal power, he was 
 chosen by lot. To the gods was left the care of choosing their 
 terrestrial vicar ; but for all other functions, notably for determining 
 the strategic places of the executive power, universal suffrage 
 became the law of the state. 
 
 These were the golden days in Greece; but even in these 
 glorious republics, which have left their mark upon all the ulterior 
 development of civilised humanity, the social edifice was based 
 upon slavery. Aristotle laid down the principle that, in a well- 
 governed state, the citizens ought not to be obliged to trouble them- 
 selves with the first primary wants. Serfs, which in Sparta were 
 called helotes, in Thessaly, penestoe, in Crete, perioeki, performed all 
 the hard social labour ; and all this servile mass of people were 
 considered beneath the law, because the slave could be driven out 
 03 game. It was the materialist Epicurus who seems first to have 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 631- 
 
 discovered in Greece that the slave was a human being. " The 
 slave is," he said, *' a friend in a lower condition ; " and he 
 recommended owners not to beat their slaves. 
 
 Among the Greeks, as everywhere else, slavery had its origin in 
 war and in conquest. The Thessalian penestce were no other than 
 the ancient inhabitants reduced to the state of domestic animals ; 
 the helotes of Sparta had the same origin ; for the right of people, 
 all over the world, began by placing the conquered man at the 
 absolute mercy of his conqueror. There were, however, other 
 motives for slavery. Until the laws of Solon, a man might in Athens 
 borrow by hypothecating not only his own liberty, but also that 
 of his wife and children, which it was always lawful for the father 
 to sell. 
 
 From the time of Solon the castes of primitive Athens became 
 classes founded more or less upon the gifts of fortune. From the 
 first of these classes, that of the proprietors, having an annual 
 revenue of 500 medimni, the people chose the higher city func- 
 tionaries ; the number eligible was restricted, and, after all, the 
 reform introduced by Solon did not change much in the social 
 hierarchy. 
 
 The partitioning of imposts was more equitable than that of the 
 political rights, and the privileges were very costly. To be entitled 
 to be ranked in the first class a man paid a tenth part of his 
 revenue, in the second a twentieth, and a sixtieth only in the third 
 or last class. This was the proportional system of taxation that 
 our modern states have not yet had the courage to introduce. 
 
 Much money was brought into the public treasury from the 
 succession duties upon immovable property, and upon many indirect 
 forms of taxation which affected mainly the commercial trans- 
 actions. The scale of taxation in Athens was never definitely 
 established, not so, at least, during the time of the full bloom of the 
 republic. For laws, after having been for some time immutable, 
 and considered as of divine origin, became, simply measures of public 
 utility, changeable according as necessity required. 
 
 There were also many heavy charges upon the public treasury. 
 In Athens, each man was not, as in our modern societies, left to 
 
 2 M 2 
 
532 SOCIAL LIFE. ' [Book irj 
 
 himself, surrounded "by every chance in the struggle for existence.' 
 The state considered itself bound to give portions to poor girls, to 
 distribute at very low prices, or perhaps quite gratuitously, corn in 
 times of need, and to amuse the people by theatrical representations. 
 The modern egoism, which has for its maxim *• Every man for 
 himself," is very far removed from this organised form of joint 
 responsibility. In sociology, as in many other things, Athens has 
 shown to humanity more than one good example. 
 
 In the same way, from barbarism to civilisation, the conception 
 of justice evolved itself among the Greeks. The talion law sufficed 
 to the early Hellenes as to so many other races. Aristotle and 
 Diodorus Siculus furnish us with proof of the fact. The talion 
 was seen in the laws of Solon, and hence sprang a whole theory of 
 jurisprudence. Men perceived that the law " an eye for an eye " 
 was insufficient when the aggressor had taken the second eye of one- 
 who before had only one ; and that in this, if equity was to be 
 observed, instead of "an eye for an eye," the rule should be " blind- 
 ness for blindness." This barbarous form of justice was a long 
 way from that of the Areopagites. 
 
 But when a penal code, public tribunal, and rules of procedure 
 had been established in Greece, there was no magistrate entrusted 
 with the office of prosecuting the murderers. The right of initia- 
 tive lay with the relations of the deceased. The accused was not 
 even made to undergo preventive imprisonment. He might take 
 flight and so avoid prosecution, but then his property was confis- 
 cated and sold by auction. The legislator had not yet arrived at 
 a clear idea of social justice. In his eyes murder was a wrongful 
 act of a peculiar kind ; and for a long while the homicidal man 
 might assure himself from punishment by disarming the ven- 
 geance of the relations of the deceased by a pecuniary compensa- 
 tion. For a long time also the accuser had the right of being 
 present while the guilty man was being punished, who, at his 
 request, was condemned to capital punishment. In a word, the 
 arm of justice was only a substitute for the vengeance of the 
 aggrieved person. 
 
 More elevated notions of general justice came to be formulated 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OP SOCIETIES. 533 
 
 in the minds of a few philosophers. In practice the Grecian 
 legislation confined itself to applying the talion law ; but Aristotle 
 wrote : " Justice is perfect virtue, not only in itself but in con- 
 nection with others ; that in justice every virtue is contained." 
 The same philosopher also says : " The city rests upon love even 
 more than upon justice, and that supreme justice is love." 
 
 What would have befallen the Greek societies if nothing had 
 come to trouble the course of their evolution 1 We are authorised 
 to suppose that this spontaneous development of Greece, already 
 so glorious, would have been but the prelude to a more full, a 
 more intelligent, and a more perfect blossoming. The Macedonian 
 brutality put an end to the most interesting sociological expe- 
 rience that has been attempted in humanity, to the regular progress 
 of the most intelligent of the human nations. Philip and his 
 glorious son cost dear to the Greeks. After them a deluge of 
 Asiatic despotism invaded the whole country, and an abject 
 Demetrius, a Nero upon a small scale, was at last deified in the 
 city of Pericles. 
 
 F. The Roman Society. — As our object is not to write an anec- 
 dotical history, but to note the main features in the social de- 
 velopment of the human races, we need not dwell at length upon 
 the sociological evolution in Rome in so far as it was analogous 
 with that of Greece. 
 
 In Latium, as in Attica, there were at first very large families 
 despotically governed by a chief — pater familias ; then these 
 families grouped themselves into curiae, analogous to the Grecian 
 phratries. Later, these curiae, each having their own worship, their 
 own tribunal, their own government, associated together to form 
 themselves into tribes. By degrees the confederation of the tribes 
 grew into the city. 
 
 Hence resulted a great number of small federations, often at war 
 one with the other, under the command of a military chief, whom 
 they called their king, though his power was, like that of the chief 
 of the Hellenic tribes, very much confined. 
 
 As everything in these small Roman societies was hereditary, 
 so was also the royal dignity often hereditary, though not always. 
 
534 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 as wasihe patriarcat, and as was slavery. For in Italy, as in Greece, 
 the system of castes was at the basis of the social edifice. It is not 
 our object to rewrite Roman history ; we all know how the Eoman 
 monarchy became a republican aristocracy ; how this republic ob- 
 tained the mastery over the greater portion of the Aryan people ; 
 how, enervated by its successes, overweighted by other less- 
 developed nations coming into and forming part of its own vast 
 territory, it dwindled away and became lost in the slavery of the 
 Lower Empire. Such is the habitual result of conquest — the 
 conqueror and the conquered are both usually impoverished. 
 
 From our present point of view the judicial organisation in 
 Eome concerns us more fully than its historical facts. In Eome, 
 as in Greece, the talion law was the primordial custom. The 
 earliest written laws — the Laws of the Twelve Tables — still 
 allowed it unless in case of agreement with the injured party : " Si 
 membrum rupit, ni cum eo pacit, talio esto." The Theodosian 
 Code mentions the talion law. 
 
 For a long time there were in Eome neither penalties nor well- 
 defined forms of procedure. The magistrate having the imperium 
 exercised it at his discretion. The permanent commissions were 
 instituted for the recognition of certain crimes. 
 
 Caius Gracchus formed one of the commissions to take cognisance 
 of cases of murder and of poisoning. 
 
 Sylla took similar measures against arson and spurious witnesses, 
 in testamentary dispositions. 
 
 The Cornelian laws established, without the slightest care of 
 justice, penalties graduating in an inverse ratio to the dignity of 
 the social classes. The judges were nearly always chosen from the 
 governing classes ; the list was published every year. 
 
 There was no civil or judicial hierarchy ; appeal was unknown ; 
 but the judicial functions are otherwise specialised. There was a 
 judge of law, the praitor, and a judge of fact chosen by the parties- 
 from an annual list drawn up by the praetor. The judge of fact 
 was held responsible for any bad decision. 
 
 The Eoman mind passes for having been essentially judicial ; but it 
 •was rather cavilling, litigious, very jealous of its judicial formalities 
 
Chap. VI.] THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETIES. 635 
 
 and careless enough about real justice. We know how in modern 
 Europe, we who have inherited from Eonie much of her legal pro- 
 cedure, that the most solemn and most minute judicial forms have 
 often sanctioned monstrous iniquities. And even nowadays, though 
 the Anglo-Saxon jury in nearly every country in Europe holds a 
 check upon the tormenting jurisprudence of the legists, the slightest 
 matter is still crushed under the weight of useless formalities, and 
 only too often the judges, crammed to overflowing with their know- 
 ledge of the law, astonish us with their partiality and the iniquity 
 of their judgments. 
 
 G. Tlie Celtic and German Societies. — The Celtic, German, and 
 other European tribes, brought by Eome under her subjection, 
 began^ socially speaking, much in the same way as the primitive 
 classes began in Greece and Eome. 
 
 The Germans had their slaves, their nobles, their priests, to 
 whom was extended the right of inflicting punishment, of beating, 
 and of imprisonment. In Germany the families used also to form 
 kinds of curiee, and they remained united together even upon the 
 battle-field. 
 
 These tribes had their chiefs, generally hereditary; often they 
 were generals chosen merely on account of their valour. 
 
 The German slaves were a sort of colonists, having their habita- 
 tions and paying to the master a fine in kind ; but the master had 
 the right to beat them or to kill them with impunity. The free 
 man might become a slave by playing his liberty at a game of 
 hazard. 
 
 The chiefs discussed together the important matters, and decided 
 the smaller ones proprio motu; but every decision bearing upon 
 the general interests of the community could be decided pnly in a 
 general assembly, in an open field, where everyone was under arms. 
 This is the direct form of government as we see it now practised in 
 some of the Swiss countries, in Uri, Schweitz, Glarus, Appenzell, 
 and Unterwalden. 
 
 Crimes entailing capital punishment were also debated in public 
 assemblies ; ofi'ences of a lesser importance were adjudged by the 
 chiefs of the village, who were chosen by the assembly. 
 
636 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 • Every family was held to join in the friendships or the enmities 
 of their chief. The vendetta was a duty ; but commutations were 
 allowed; everything might be ransomed, even homicide. This is 
 the Wergeld, that we find again better organised in the fifth century 
 of our era, among the Franks on the borders and the Burgundians 
 established in Gaul. In the border Wergeld everything was fixed 
 according to the tarifi*; each portion of the body had its price, 
 which varied also according to the social category to which the 
 injured man belonged. 
 
 We see here the same social iniquity, the same shamefaced 
 candour, which we have also pointed out in Eome, in India, and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Like the conscience of every race of people, the conscience of the 
 Indo-Europeans was at first far from delicate. It is only quite 
 Recently that a desire for equality, for true justice, has shown itself 
 strongly in the human mind, and there is still ample room for very 
 much wider development. 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION OF THE ARYAN TRIBES. 
 
 The long analytical exposition continued in the last chapter may 
 enable us to determine by comparison the social value of the Aryan 
 race. It is beyond all doubt that this race now holds the foremost 
 place in the competition for progress among the various human 
 types. But such has not always been the case. We can hardly 
 do more than make inductions as to the primitive origins of the 
 Aryan societies, because, as far as history, legends, and even lan- 
 guage will take us back into past times, we find the Aryans already 
 emancipated from the very early state of savagery. Not that the 
 Indo-European, considered individually, has always been superior 
 to primitive bestiality. ^W^ have seen Europeans adopt most 
 
Chap, vii.] EVOLUTION OF THE ARYAN TRIBES. 537 
 
 completely the sort of life of the Tupinambas of South America, or 
 of the Melanesians of Fiji, and go back even as far as anthro- 
 pophagy. Cook has met in certain small Malay states in Batavia 
 the descendants of the Portuguese, reduced to the condition of the ser- 
 vile classes ; and if we threw the sounding-line down into the depth 
 of squalor and misery which the civilised varnish of our own con- 
 temporary societies have but badly covered, we should find people no 
 further advanced than the Eed Skins, or perhaps than the Fuegians. 
 However, taken as a mass, the least civilised groups of the Indo- 
 European branch— for instance, the Kafirs of Afghanistan — have 
 already acquired a certain degree of moral and intellectual develop- 
 ment. They may be still barbarians, but they are no longer 
 savages. There can be no doubt that the antique progenitors of 
 the race were originally savages of the coarsest type. On this point 
 prehistoric archseology will amply instruct us. 
 
 Following the early stages of civilisation, the Aryans evolved, as 
 did their brethren, the Semites, even also as the best-endowed 
 branches of the great Mongolian race. They passed from the horde 
 to the tribe, from the tribe to the town, from the town to the great 
 oligarchical or monarchical states. But at a very early date some 
 of their groups distinguished themselves by a certain moral 
 strength, a spirit of initiative strongly marked. Among some of the 
 tribes in ancient Germany also might be seen an individual inde- 
 pendence, a spirit of equality. Even the loiterers in the Aryan 
 race, the Slavs, if we may believe Procope, began by forming 
 small democratical tribes, and in the Kussian mir we see the 
 remains of this primitive organisation. But the oligarchical or 
 monarchical servitude is already in germ in the mir, for the indi- 
 vidual is thus deprived of his liberty. Also, after the passage from 
 the nomad to the agricultural life, when the social functions 
 became determined, slaves of the labouring and fighting classes 
 were formed in the small communities; the former were soon 
 brought into subjection by the latter, and reduced to the con- 
 dition of the Egyptian fellahs. Another cause ought to be taken 
 into account to explain the transformation which the other 
 branches of the Indo-European race have not felt, not at least 
 
53a . SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 in tho same degree ; that is, the influence of the Tartar blood, so 
 largely mixed with the Slav blood all over eastern Europe. 
 
 As a matter of course, in the Indo-European race, as in every 
 other, equality, when it was thought of, was at first conceived after 
 a very narrow fashion. Inequality, sometimes, of the most unjust 
 kind was common between castes or classes subordinate one to the 
 other. Equality was never supposed to exist but among men in 
 the same social category. But below the privileged classes there 
 was an enslaved multitude of people for whom there was no legal 
 right ; and these men were made to sweat, to suifer, and to die, in 
 order that their masters might live and enjoy themselves. 
 
 We can understand that a social organisation such as thia 
 should end in a monarchical despotism; and in fact such was 
 the social destiny of every primitive state founded by the Indo- 
 Europeans, oven the republics of Greece and Kome. The impul- 
 sion once given made itself felt a long time after the fall of 
 the Eoman empire ; the European feudal system was nothing 
 more than the subdivision of the unitary despotism in imperial 
 Eome. The fragments of the great Latin monarchy became 
 smaller monarchies, which received the titles of kingdoms, princi- 
 palities, duchies, counties, etc. Bonds of feudal suzerainty tied 
 together more or less closely all the remains of the great crumbled 
 edifice ; but the institutions of privileged classes were everywhere 
 carefully preserved ; tho noble profession of arms was everywhere 
 glorified; the right of force was everywhere held to be the first 
 law ; the degradation and the slavery of the labourer and of tho 
 villain were everywhere at the basis of the social organisation. 
 
 If the Indo-European races had stopped there, there would bo 
 no need to make further crowns of laurels. The political consti- 
 tution of feudal Europe is certainly far inferior to that of China. 
 But during the last few centuries of European history a very great 
 social transformation has taken place. In England a parliament 
 has put a check upon monarchical power ; in France the sub- 
 despots have in their turn been conquered by the most powerful 
 members of their own body, and the multitude, who have now 
 but one master, may think of setting themselves free. 
 
Chap. VIII.] EVOLUTION IN HUMANITY. 539 
 
 At the same time, the general intelligence has developed, reason 
 has made itself felt, the scientific mind has become enlarged. In 
 the seventeenth century religious persecution drove to the other 
 side of the Atlantic fanatical men whose character was sombre 
 and severe, and these exiles have shown to the world how easy- 
 it is to live without aristocracy and without a king. And, finally, 
 the great upheaving of society in modern times, the French Eevo- 
 lution, has maimed for ever the feudal system. From that time a 
 new era in humanity began, an era of redemption and of emanci- 
 pation, and though we are still only in its early days, it is possible 
 to prejudge roughly the general course. But before attempting to 
 do so it may not be useless to resume very briefly all the series of 
 social changes through which humanity has been made to pass. 
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION IN HUMANITY. 
 
 Is it possible for us to formulate sociological laws 1 The universe 
 is assuredly not governed at haphazard. Chance is but a word, 
 and everywhere, not only in the small human world, but even in 
 the cosmical community, effects are very closely linked to causes. 
 But to ascertain the laws of all this concatenation is a most diffi- 
 cult task. At what expense of labour have we, even up to this 
 time, been able to trace out in the inorganic sciences a few 
 general fundamentary notions worthy of the somewhat pompous 
 name of laws ! Is there, even in physics, even in chemistry, one 
 single true law, " a law of brass," which will admit of no excep- 
 tion 1 It is very doubtful. Even in biology, where the intricate- 
 ness of the phenomena becomes very embarrassing, the so-called 
 laws are quite free from any rigorous constraint, for at every instant 
 we find whimsical exceptions frisking about and jumping merrily 
 over the legal ditch. But in sociology the apparent confusion is 
 far greater, for there the skein of causes and effects is so entangled, 
 
540 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 they result from so many other antecedent or concomitant pheno- 
 mena, that there would be some boldness on our part to talk 
 of laws. We maintain, however, that there are sociological laws, 
 and that it is our duty to discover them. We shall use our best 
 endeavour, enumerating, examining, and classing together the 
 facts, but we must leave to our grand-nephews the honour of 
 crowning the edifice. For our own individual part we are obliged 
 to confine ourselves to pointing out a few main features in the 
 general outline, which is itself not always very distinguishable. 
 We wUl now try to do so, resuming, upon the basis of the facts 
 already given, the progressive social development in humanity. 
 
 Quite at the commencement, the human mammalia, weaker and 
 less well armed than many of their competitors in the animal 
 kingdom, instinctively joined themselves into small groups, en- 
 deavouring so to gain a little collective force by putting many 
 weak bodies together into one bundle. 
 
 At this time the ideal of human existence was far from being 
 high. To eat, and not to be eaten, to satisfy their amorous 
 passions like beasts in the thickets, as do now the Papuans, the 
 New Caledonians, and the Andamans : such were in this primitive 
 stage of the social development the only objects in human life. 
 During this early and very inferior phase, man wandered about 
 through the forests, naked, almost unarmed, devouring everything 
 that was at all eatable ; and in case of great need he would eat 
 his wives and his children. There were small hordes of people 
 totally ignorant of what was meant by family, by morality, or by 
 laws ; they were almost equally ignorant of industry. Such were 
 the ethnical unities at that time. Each little group lived pro- 
 miscuously, huddled up together, under the command of the 
 strongest male, after the manner of the chimpanzees. The word 
 society is too eulogious a term to apply to these small agglomera- 
 tions ; we must turn to the zoological vocabulary to find a fitting 
 qualification. Man then lived in a flock, in a gregarious state. 
 
 Every human race began from the gregarious stage ; some groups 
 of men have not yet passed it. 
 . It was, there can be no doubt, the vital, inveterate, and never- 
 
Chap. VIII.] EVOLUTION IN HUMANITY. 641:. 
 
 ceasing competition among the human hordes which pushed them 
 more or less quickly into the way of progress. The more fully 
 the memhers of any group of men assisted each other in times of 
 danger, the better chance had that group of endurance, of out- 
 lasting its less prudent rivals. Therefore, by force of things, the 
 association ameliorated itself by degrees; the family sprang up; 
 industry made progress ; customs which experience had shown to 
 be useful became instinctive and obligatory. When the social 
 instinct became developed, even to a small extent, the ethnical, 
 unity then increased ; several hordes came together ; the phase of 
 men living in tribes then began. 
 
 But the more numerous the tribe was, the more need was there^ 
 for a complex form of organisation ; a certain division of labour, a 
 commencement of hierarchy soon established itself. In the plunder- 
 ing or warlike expeditions men found it to be advantageous to allow 
 themselves to be guided by the boldest, by the most experienced ; 
 but as the daily life among these tribes was but a long suc- 
 cession of warfare, it soon became customary to obey a chief 
 who was chosen temporarily. When men thus lived together in 
 hordes, a sort of submission was naturally forced upon them ; for 
 the strongest man enforced his will or his caprice upon his com- 
 panions. Therefore, the tendency to bend before a master had 
 become very early implanted in the human brain. By degrees a 
 sort of hierarchy became established in the tribe ; the best warriors- 
 or the most skilful huntsmen formed a rudimentary aristocracy, 
 obeying often the advice of the chief, or sometimes governing th© 
 community with no chief at their head. 
 
 At the same time these chosen people of the tribes had some 
 thoughts as to their genealogy ; as the family became constituted 
 the descendants of the chiefs and the notables had more chance of 
 inheriting either directly or collectively certain social advantages. 
 This was especially the case among the more advanced tribes, 
 among those whose means of subsistence were not entirely dependent 
 on the more or less fortunate results of a hunting expedition among 
 the tribes whose habits were pastoral or agricultural. As soon as 
 men came to own flocks of cattle and fields whereon to feed them, tho^ 
 
642 • SOCIAL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 social condition became less unstable. These were their properties, 
 or, in other words, their collective strength ; but these properties, 
 even when the ownership lasted only for life, were very soon 
 divided into most unequal shares. It was not likely that the chief, 
 the foremost warrior, after a successful attack, should not take for 
 himself the largest share in the plunder. Why should not he 
 claim the lion's share in the flocks and fields of the conquered 
 party 1 But the conquered people themselves became also a property, 
 generally individual, sometimes collective. In this way slavery 
 was established. 
 
 The institution of slavery was a fact of the highest importance ; 
 it has left its mark upon every ulterior development of society. It 
 was at first a progress ; it has ever since been a stumbling-block. 
 In principle, when the small human groups had neither fixed 
 dwelling-place nor sure means of food, the prisoner taken in battle 
 was ordinarily killed and often eaten upon the battle-field. As we 
 have seen, such was the custom with the ITew Zealanders. But 
 when hunting and warfare were no longer the only important 
 occupations, when it became necessary for man to work — either 
 tending the flocks or digging the soil — the lives of the conquered 
 prisoners were often spared on condition that they performed 
 the hard labour. They were turned into domestic animals, over 
 whom their conqueror had every right, even that of life and 
 death. 
 
 Henceforward the social organism became much more complex. 
 There were chiefs, there was an aristocracy, there were slaves. It 
 became necessary therefore to draw up a code indicating the rights 
 and duties of everyone, a code which should pass traditionally from 
 one generation to another. At the same time the same reasons of 
 social utility which had more or less civilised the hordes, and after- 
 wards grouped them into tribes, brought about aggregations of a 
 still more complex kind. Spontaneously or not, the tribes camo 
 closer together, they formed themselves into larger associations ; 
 villages grew into cities; the tribes as they joined themselves 
 together constituted monarchical or oligarchical states, always 
 resting upon the basis of servitude. From this point in the social 
 
Chap. VIII.] EVOLUTION IN HUMANITY. 54^ 
 
 evolution a ne^ class or caste was formed. The intellectual torpor of 
 the first ages was dispelled, but ignorance being still very great, 
 metaphysical or religious speculations played an important part in 
 the mental condition of every people. The humble sorcerer in the 
 primitive tribe acquires a sacred character ; he is in time raised to 
 the dignity of priest. Often also the chiefs take upon themselves 
 both the political and the sacerdotal power ; they command men, 
 and they hold intercourse with the gods. Sooner or later the 
 functions become distinguished; the priest has his own separate 
 office. But even then, the chiefs and the priests find it worth their 
 while to understand each other; and the government, when not 
 purely theocratic, is at least impregnated with theocracy. 
 
 In societies so constituted, whether the government be oligar- 
 chical or monarchical, the classes are clearly defined, each having 
 unequal rights and duties. There are the aristocrats, the priests, 
 the labourers, and the slaves. 
 
 This system of castes has ever, either owing to a natural evolu- 
 tion or to violence, terminated in absolute monarchy, in a centra- 
 lisation of despotism — a most natural result, for slavery is the 
 essence of every society established upon the basis of castes. The 
 privileged classes at last felt more or less the yoke which they 
 thought lawful to impose upon those below them, and against which 
 the conscience even of the slave did not protest. As a matter of fact, 
 nowadays, in Africa, the negro slave thinks that his condition is 
 •quite a natural one ; he would impose it upon others were he able 
 to do so. The idea of there being injustice in his lot in life 
 never occurs to him. In all the great races, the vast agglomera- 
 tions of men were first constituted under this system of castes and 
 of despotic monarchy. Ancient Egypt, Menu India, the Semitic 
 kingdoms, even the Eoman empire, and, nearer to us, Peru and 
 Mexico before the Spanish conquest, show us this social phase in 
 all its splendour. And in our own times, in Africa, there are 
 examples, perhaps not so wonderful, but quite as characteristic. 
 
 Whole races of people — the African negroes, the Indians in 
 Central America, the Semites — taken in the main, have never 
 succeeded in reaching a higher social ideal ; and all the efi'orts of 
 
544 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book iv. 
 
 the most advanced Mongolian groups — the Chinese, for instance — 
 have had no other result than substituting for the castes a large 
 corporation of men of letters, restricting to some extent the 
 caprices of a monarch, who is at the same time worshipped as 
 though he were a god. 
 
 The feudal system, which has existed in a very crude form in 
 Polynesia, which came to its full bloom in the Europe of the Middle 
 Ages, and which we still find in Japan, is only a particular form of 
 the system of castes. In feudal countries the ethnical group always 
 comprises slaves and nobles by the right of birth ; it is nothing 
 more than a hierarchy of petty despots, one controlling the other, 
 and all governed by him who is the most powerful. 
 
 Under such a system the mass of the people are made submissive 
 to a perpetual guardianship. The governing classes have decreed 
 everything, have ruled everything beforehand. Everyone must 
 remain during the whole course of his life exactly in the same 
 position in which his birth had placed him ; as far as possible he 
 must carry on his father's trade. He is told what he must do, what 
 he must say, what he must believe. As long as the human mind 
 is minor, all these trammels are borne docilely enough. But among 
 the better-endowed races, reason tries to free itself. Man in- 
 quires if all this oppression is lawful ; if the more privileged classes, 
 if those who are better born are essentially superior. Science, and 
 philosophy, its offspring, plant revolutionary ideas in the best- 
 endowed brains ; religious myths, which had so long bolstered up 
 political abuses, are shaken at their foundation; those who are 
 oppressed dare to think of freedom ; the oppressors themselves begin 
 to doubt the legality of their rights. A social transformation then 
 becomes necessary, and in one way or the other it is effected. The 
 Renaissance, the Eeformation, the foundation of the United States 
 of America, and last, the great thunderbolt of the French Revo- 
 lution, have been, in the so-called Indo-European race, the prin- 
 cipal stages in the metamorphosis, which is still far from being 
 completed. 
 
 We find also, corresponding to this evolution, profound modifi- 
 cations in the organism of societies. At first the enslaved masses,. 
 
Chap. VIII.] EVOLUTION IN HUMANITY. ;545 
 
 hj whose labour everyone else lived and was happy, possessed 
 nothing A7hich they could call their own. The soil was the par- 
 ticular property of the privileged classes. In Sparta the helotes 
 laboured for the free men ; in India the Coudras sowed and reaped 
 the corn which the glorious Brahmins condescended afterwards to 
 eat ; in Eome the slaves and the colonists cultivated the latifundia 
 of the patricians. "We have seen that in Polynesia the chiefs had 
 the right to appropriate to themselves anything that they wished 
 to possess. This was at first the custom all over the world. Then 
 the good pleasure of the strong man had its limits ; fixed fines and 
 taxes were substituted in the place of universal grasping. We 
 need not say that these taxes were levied very capriciously and 
 most unjustly. Even when there was a monarch, the powers and 
 the saints paid to him very little, and the burden fell altogether 
 upon the shoulders which had from long ages past been accustomed 
 to support it. The desires of the governors and the patience of the 
 governed being both unbounded, the paying classes paid for every- 
 thing. They paid to work, to be allowed to carry on their business, 
 to travel, to salt their food, and even to breathe fresh air. We do 
 not now speak of taxes capriciously laid, of fines ten times com- 
 muted and ten times re-established, simply by the right of force. 
 It would be useless to insist upon the fact that past ages have 
 bequeathed to us many yexatious imposts unjustly established ; but 
 the great social evolution that has taken place during the last few 
 centuries has introduced a certain degree of justice. "V\rhether we 
 have succeeded well or ill in placing the burden upon the proper 
 shoulders, the strong man must now feel that his hands are not 
 quite unfettered. 
 
 In the same way, too, law and justice have evolved. The 
 first laws were no other than customs traditionally preserved. 
 How did these customs arise? There is no trace of them kept 
 in the memory of the people; and nearly everywhere laws were 
 supposed to be clothed with divine attributes. They were the 
 orders dictated by the gods, or sent by the gods. To change them 
 in any way would have been sacrilege. But as it developed, the 
 human intellect grew so audacious as to contest even these divine 
 
 2 N 
 
646 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book it. 
 
 prescriptions. Laws were despoiled of their religious prestige; 
 people saw in them nothing more than the commands of the 
 most powerful men, established more often upon force than upon 
 right. At last, laws came to he merely measures of social utility, 
 debatable and changeable according to our progressive wants. 
 
 It is especially in the evolution of the penal laws, properly 
 so called, that one sees how the care for the general welfare 
 has gradually established itself. At the commencement of every 
 society, man is just like his brothers in the animal kingdom, quite 
 ignorant of every idea of justice; the right of a stronger force 
 is his only law. But by the very fact that his brutality gives 
 rise to conflict, a vague instinct of justice is at last awakened 
 in the human brain. He thought it just to repress violence by 
 violence; then the idea came to him of establishing the balance 
 between wrongs and revenge. Hence grew the talion law : " An 
 eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." The care of applying 
 this primitive law was at first left to the parties interested, 
 because for a very long time the governing classes had other 
 matters to think of than the administration of justice. "When 
 they did interfere, it was only with the object of putting the 
 offender into the hands of the injured party, who then carried 
 out this talion law as well as he was able. By degrees manners 
 grew softer ; the spirit of foresight and of calculation increasing, 
 the injured party renounced his right of vengeance, accepting in 
 exchange compensation in kind or in money. At the same time, 
 the judicial functions became in some measure determined ; codes 
 were drawn up, at first very simple and very cruel. Kepression 
 began by bearing only upon a very small number of actions, often 
 remissible enough, according to our modern idea. In the opinion 
 of the Hebrews, the greatest, the most inexpiable of crimes was 
 idolatry. The want of respect to masters was everywhere one of 
 the main offences. As a general rule, the early penal laws 
 punished theft more severely than murder. For in primitive 
 societies life was held cheaply enough, and also the right of 
 vengeance was left to the friends of the deceased. Not until a 
 comparatively late date did the community take upon itself the 
 
Chap. VIII.] BYOLUTION IN HUMANITY. 647 
 
 right to punish murder, to institute for this purpose tribunals, a 
 form of procedure, a penalty soundly and equitably established. Do 
 we not find, even in Athens, that the tribunal, in case of murder, 
 confined itself to appointing " an avenger of blood 1" In the spirit 
 of our modern codes, the spirit of vengeance is completely taken 
 away from the individual, but only to be handed over to society. 
 Our penal laws aim principally at punishing the guilty person, at 
 making him suffer. In the future, justice will think only of putting 
 the criminal beyond the possibility of doing harm, to correct him 
 of his faults, and to make of him, if possible, a useful citizen. In 
 the future, justice will guard herself from showing anger, she will 
 break her sword ; to establish her balance weights and measures she 
 will be guided only by social utility ; she will become thoughtful, 
 and will lean upon the observation and the experience of mankind. 
 
 If, after the manner of the god of the metaphysicians, for whom 
 every bygone age is but 'as a moment, we were to endeavour 
 to envelop in one short formula the slow progress already accom- 
 plished by poor humanity on its long journey in search for improve- 
 ment, we might say that all social evolution is but a gradual 
 emancipation of the individual, both in his mind and in his body. 
 But we should have to close our eyes very determinedly, if we wish 
 to make ourselves think that this social renovation is completed. 
 
 It is difficult to predict the future, except for those who may 
 have the gift of divination. But as we have now followed the 
 evolution of societies from their cradle down to these our present 
 days, we may perhaps, without over rashness, if we confine our- 
 selves to generalities, hazard a few conjectures as to the future 
 destinies of humanity. No doubt, in the Indo-European societies, 
 the weaker creatures have been very greatly relieved, but they do 
 not yet walk upright. The mountain of oppression which has 
 weighed upon the shoulders of the humble has been much lessened, 
 but it will one day be altogether removed. Many privileges have 
 been wiped out, but there are still others that must be abolished. 
 Liberty has already enlarged the brain of him who was once a 
 slave, and instruction must now come to give it greater power. 
 Depths of suffering, of misery, of vice still remain, and these must 
 
 2 N 2 
 
648 SOCIAL LIFE. [Book i v. 
 
 one day disappear. In a word, we must succeed in equalising, as 
 far as it may be possible, the chances of the combatants who enter 
 into the arena of life. 
 
 If, as in a fairy tale, a magician could bring before us the picture 
 of a future epoch, perhaps not too far distant, we should see the 
 superior human races constituted into republican federations, and 
 their social organisation radically modified. The confederated 
 ethnical unities would then be small groups of men, governing 
 themselves in everything that did not manifestly touch the general 
 interests of the republic. In each of these groups, the social 
 activity would be altogether spent in useful occupations. The 
 physical, moral, and intellectual education of the young generations 
 would be watched over with greater care. Men would endeavour 
 to lessen gradually at fitting opportunities the organic inequalities, 
 the only ones which still exist in our happy times. 
 
 " To everyone according to his works " has become the great 
 social law; the inequality of conditions rests merely upon the 
 differences of individual worth, and upon services rendered. All 
 the useless trammels have been broken ; nothing is forbidden but 
 that which is manifestly injurious to the social body. Kings, 
 priests, and standing armies have all disappeared into the dismal 
 limbo of the past. All artificial inequality has vanished. The 
 fairy of inheritance no longer lays riches into any cradle, and society 
 now holds out her helping hand to give succour to the weak. The 
 individual is aided as much as possible, and is governed as little as 
 possible. The Erahmins had made of chastisement a divinity. 
 The Europeans in the future will punish little ; they will anticipate 
 and reform a great deal. Without crushing anyone, they will, by 
 intelligent selection, ever ameliorate the poor human kind, con- 
 fiding the social government to the wisest. Their device wiU be : 
 knowledge, justice, joint responsibility. 
 
( 
 
 \ 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 
 
CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF PSYCHICAL LIFE. 
 I. 
 
 Psychical Evolution. 
 
 In spite of many reveries a hundred times imagined and printed 
 on the subject of the souls of plants, and even of minerals, we are 
 obliged to recognise, if we wish to keep clear of positive biology, 
 that except in the nervous cells — in certain of the nervous cells — a 
 conscient life does not exist. But this conscient life is a privilege 
 inherent to the aristocratical castes of cells. In many of the 
 radiates or inferior molluscs the nervous ganglions are no other 
 than centres totally unconscious of reflex action. A little higher 
 in the zoological scale we find a more complex nervous system 
 already provided with conscience, but this conscient life is still 
 very rudimentary. The reflex actions no longer silently pass over 
 the nervous cells, but they provoke nothing more than impressions 
 of sorrow or of pleasure. Then in proportion as, in the superior 
 kinds, the organic commencements distinguish themselves and 
 become complicated, in proportion also, the nervous centres 
 develop — special sensibility and intelligence (which is dependent 
 upon it) join themselves to movent power and impressionable 
 feelings. The conscient life is then provided with all its principal 
 means ; it has only to ripen into perfection. 
 
 From the foetal period every human being goes through the 
 whole psychical series, and shows to us again upon a small scale 
 
552 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book y. 
 
 ' his ancestral evolution, of which he is the final term. During the 
 last months of pregnancy the human f cBtus is, like many invertebrata?, 
 susceptible only of movent power ; it acts and reacts under the shock, 
 but unconsciously. At the time of birth the new-born child is sus- 
 ceptible of painful impressions, but his special sensibility hardly 
 exists ; not until afterwards, and then slowly, is intelligence bom in 
 the child and begins to develop itself. 
 
 In a word, the embryology and the taxinomy of the animal kinds, 
 enlightened by the doctrine of transformism, show to us the slow 
 acquisition of conscient life in the animal kingdom. A whole 
 organic history is unfolded out before us. Once formed, the nervous 
 cell, which is primarily a registering measure, has stored away im- 
 pressions gradually becoming more delicate and more complex. 
 In principle this cell has been no other than a centre of movable 
 reactions, of reflex inconscient actions. Then the transmission has 
 ceased to be silent ; it has been accompanied with impressions of 
 grief or of pleasure ; by a new progress a peculiar sensibility is 
 born, and various sensations have been tested and definitely 
 registered. And from the conflict of all these impressions, more 
 or less revivifying, the intelligence is born. Henceforward there 
 is a conscient me, which, very awkwardly at first, more artfully 
 later on, is able to compare and classify the recorded ideas, to 
 foresee future events mor« or less clearly, to imagine, to invent, to 
 deduct, to induct, and at last to reason. 
 
 Prom the foetal life to the adult age every human being goes 
 through this series of evolution, becoming at every stage a simple 
 machine showing a reflex inconscient action, then afterwards a 
 sensible register, and finally a creature more or less intelligent and 
 reasonable. He is all the more reasonable in proportion as his 
 impressions and sensations allow themselves to be governed, and as 
 they lose their primitive excess of intensity and of natural colouring. 
 
 We see here a whole graduated scale, which all individuals and 
 all races of men succeed in climbing more or less well. Intellectual 
 progress will ever show itself in man by a greater subordination to 
 the automatic life, by his having a greater command over himself. 
 But in this respect men and nations are very difi'erent. In the 
 
Chap. I.] DEGREES OF PSYCHICAL LIFE. 553 
 
 inferior degrees of intellectual development the human being is but 
 the plaything of outside circumstances. Impressions and desires 
 exercise such a violent hold upon such a man that they rarely 
 allow him to be master of his own actions. His nervous centres 
 are as yet but very poor registering-machines ; his impressions 
 are quickly wiped out ; his memory is short ; the present, always 
 very vividly before him, soon eclipses a future hardly thought 
 of; he has no sort of idea of foresight. JS'either can he fix 
 his attention. The present is to him a tyrant which the hazy 
 gloom of the future cannot dispel. Also the nervous conscient 
 cells, the psychical cells, are in a state of perpetual instability; 
 the equilibrium of their molecules is constantly troubled. The 
 conscient me cannot therefore become fixed. Every effort of 
 attention tries him ; he is essentially versatile. In the opinion of 
 all travellers^ fickleness, want of foresight, incapability of fixing the 
 attention, are psychical characteristics inherent in every inferior 
 race of men. 
 
 II. 
 
 Comparative Psychology of the Human Races. 
 
 To explain with any sort of fulness the short review of com- 
 3)arative psychology, on which we must now say a few words, we 
 «hould require a volume, and we have only a few pages at our 
 disposal; we must therefore confine ourselves to a very short 
 enumeration of the most characteristic details. 
 
 In this, as in most respects, the Melanesians, and especially 
 those of Tasmania and Australia, are at the bottom of the social 
 ladder. Cook was struck with their apathy, with their want of 
 •curiosity. They barely paid any attention to the English or to their 
 ships, to all the novelties which they saw before them. D'Entre- 
 casteaux bears the same testimony. " The Tasmanians," he says, 
 " express a wish for every kind of trifle, but drop them immediately 
 afterwards ; everything seems to distract them, nothing can occupy 
 their minds." At a later date, in the schools in the English 
 colonies, the Tasmanian children gave proof of strong memory as to 
 persons, places, and objects ; but it was with difficulty they could 
 
554 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v* 
 
 be made to understand grammatical constructions, and they were 
 especially extremely rebellious to arithmetic. 
 
 The " soul " of the Australians was very like that of their 
 Tasmanian brethren. Some of them did not even condescend to 
 look at Cook's vessel ; others left in a comer the stufifs that had 
 been given to them as presents. They seemed to be more interested 
 with a few turtles that they saw upon the deck of the vessel than 
 with anything else. Leichard says that, for details, for particular 
 objects, they have a tenacious and a photographical memory ; but 
 that they cannot understand even the simplest drawing. They 
 mistook a portrait of one of themselves for a ship, or for a kangaroo. 
 That which struck them most in a book was that it could be 
 opened and shut like a mussel ; they called a book by that name. 
 It has been attempted to teach the Australian children to read and 
 write ; but civilisation has modified their natures only on the sur- 
 face. Their early years of manhood are often marked by an ex- 
 plosion of savage-like instincts, which irresistibly di'ive them back 
 into the kind of life from which they had sprung. 
 
 The ITew Caledonians, more civilised in appearance, are extremely 
 changeable ; their intelligence is at the lowest possible ebb. They 
 know of no name designating their own island. 
 
 The Bushmen are not more developed than the Australians. 
 They have no proper names ; they despise an arrow which has- 
 failed in striking its object ; they think that of two chariots the 
 smaller is the child of the larger ; they do not trouble themselves, 
 about any future meal, but when they are finishing the one which 
 they are actually eating. 
 
 The Hottentots, barely more intelligent, but already a pastoral 
 people, have a strong, exact, and tenacious memory for everything 
 that concerns their cattle. Like the Australians, they are sus- 
 ceptible of receiving a certain dose of European education ; but 
 also like them, they return immediately afterwards to theix savage 
 mode of life. Like the Australians also, they are quite ignorant of 
 common prudence ; they will without hesitation consume all their 
 provisions in one day, turning themselves, like Falstaff, into a 
 ** bolting-hutch of beastliness," without any thought of the morrow. 
 
Chap. I.J DEGREES OF PSYCHICAL LIFE. 55S 
 
 The very inferior savage, like our own infant cliildren, does not know 
 what to-morrow means. 
 
 The Kafirs_, the neighbours and the hereditary enemies of the- 
 Hottentots, barharians rather than savages, and belonging to the 
 superior black races, have learnt agriculture ; and they are prudent 
 enough to store away the produce of theu' harvests. But still they 
 do not kill an elephant without making excuses " to the great chief 
 elephant, whose trunk is his hand," and without declaring to him that 
 his death was merely an accident. In the same way the negroes of 
 near the Gaboon river, when they have killed a leopard, compliment 
 him upon his beauty. But these same negroes, who commercially 
 are very crafty, never think of provisioning themselves with food 
 before they are in actual want of it. In the centre of Africa, a 
 Tibbou chief could not understand a landscape drawing, any more 
 than one of our own children three or four years of age. 
 
 All travellers are agreed in saying that the majority of the 
 black races in Africa may be compared to our young European 
 children. They have all the light-headedness, the caj)riciousness, the 
 want of prudence, the volubility, and the same quick and confined 
 intelligence^ as a child. The negro child is precocious ; sometimes 
 he will surpass the young white child of the same age. But his 
 progress very soon stops short, the forced fruit does not ripen. In 
 the same way, the small Andaman iN'egritos learn their letters very 
 quickly, they repeat them like parrots , but they have great 
 difficulty in joining ideas to the words they have learned. 
 
 Not counting the Esquimaux, who seem to have come from 
 Mongolian Asia, there is everywhere in the American man, from 
 the north to the south, a certain unity. It is the same human 
 type which has progressed, more or less, according to the regions in 
 which he has lived, and which we may study in the different phases 
 of his development from extreme savagery to semi-civilisation. 
 
 The Euegians, a people without any industry, without any 
 prudence, not having got beyond the Age of Cut Stone, show to us 
 the primitive American man. Their soddened mind is not capable 
 of astonishment or of curiosity. On board Cook's vessel they 
 saw many objects, but without looking at them; and these objects 
 
656 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 they surely could have never seen before. They are still in a state 
 of the coarsest animism. A missionary, who complained of the 
 heat, was answered by a young Fuegian that he was wrong to 
 reproach the sun, for if the star hid himself they would soon have 
 an icy cold south wind. 
 
 From the time of the Spanish conquest the history of the Indians 
 of South America is most instructive. It shows to us how very 
 slowly has the intelligence of man developed in the different races. 
 Except certain tribes of the Grand Chaco and on the Chilian 
 plateaux, who have become more or less pastoral, the aborigines in 
 South America have mentally undergone very slight modifications. 
 All the tribes which have lived exclusively upon hunting and 
 fishing are still in the lowest degree of savagery. Such are the 
 Abipones, the Botocudos, many tribes in Columbia and others. In 
 the heart of a country of exuberant fertility the majority of the 
 native Brazilians are still grovelling in a state below that even of 
 the Esquimaux. Though they have become pastoral, and live upon 
 their flocks and their horses, the Araucanians of Chili, the Puelches, 
 the Patagonians of the pampas are still savages, untamable, and 
 are more wandering now than ever. On the other hand, nearly all 
 the people who have become agricultural and pastoral, or who have 
 at least joined agriculture to their desire for the chase, have sub- 
 mitted themselves to the Spaniards, have become Christianised, 
 and have accommodated themselves to Christian habits. All the 
 Chiquitos have been reduced by the missionaries; the Peruvian 
 branch, a long while ago curbed by civilisation of the Incas, is now 
 quite submissive. The true savages have resisted or have died out. 
 The ancestral instinct is so strong in them that a Botocudo man 
 who had become a doctor, and had received a diploma from the 
 University of Bahia, has been known to throw off the clothing and 
 the life of civilised men in order to go back and wander about 
 naked in his native forests. 
 
 Pacts of the same kind have also been observed in !N"orth Ame- 
 rica. In spite of the Jesuitical missions, the Calif orniaus still live 
 principally upon acorns and upon what they can kill either hunt- 
 ing or fishing. The Eed Skins prefer a fish-hook which has taken 
 
CiiAP. I.] DEGREES OF PSYCHICAL LIFE. 557 
 
 a large fish to a handful of hooks quite new. Their imprudence is 
 very great. Like the Caribs, who will sell their hammocks in the 
 morning for less money than they could have done the evening- 
 previous, the Red Skins will destroy a whole herd of bisons and 
 take only their tongues, without thinking that in two days' time 
 they may again be hungry. The intelligence of the Alits is so 
 deadened, that in order to fix their attention one must repeat to 
 them several times the same question. As a rule the Red Skin is 
 like a child in his thoughtlessness, and like a decrepit old woman 
 in his obstinacy and in his want of understanding. In !North 
 as well as in South America, the only tribes which have more or 
 less conformed to European civilisation are those who had of 
 themselves arrived at a certain degree of intellectual development, 
 the Choctahs, the Cherokees, and others. 
 
 Among the Esquimaux intelligence seems to be more generally 
 awakened than among their enemies the Red Skins. They could 
 understand the maps that Ross showed them, and they even drew 
 maps upon the sand, marking the principal objects, the hills and 
 mountains, by a stone or by little mounds of sand. But the 
 Esquimaux are not real Americans. 
 
 But of all savage races none are more childish than the Poly- 
 nesians. Their thoughtlessness and their light-headedness are 
 extraordinary. It is impossible to fix their attention upon any- 
 thing for two minutes. The most civilised, the Tahitians, had no 
 idea as to their age; to recall the date of an event that had 
 happened two or three years previously was altogether beyond 
 their power. But some of them could speak from memory of the 
 old traditions in their race ; that was a practice which in certain 
 families the children had been taught to observe. But they held 
 generally that memory and knowledge were gifts of the gods, 
 quite spontaneous; and at the death of one of their habitual 
 story-tellers they always placed the mouth of a child over the 
 mouth of the dead man, so that he might so catch the spirit of the 
 deceased in its flight into the next world. 
 
 Like the children of all inferior or backward races, the Poly- 
 nesian child is precocious^ for in inferior civilisations a rapid 
 
558 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 development is necessary ; man has not the time to remain long a 
 child, but his intelligence is as narrow as it is quick in coming to 
 perfection. According to Lieutenant Walpole, the little Sandwich 
 islanders brought up in the English schools showed at first an 
 excellent memory, but they were incapable of receiving any kind of 
 superior instruction. In the same way the New Zealand children 
 are at first more intelligent than the English children, but they 
 are very rarely capable of any sort of high education. Some- 
 times, also, among the Polynesians who have been brought up 
 in European civilised manners, the tenacious ancestral influence 
 gains the upper hand ; and when the neophyte has come to an 
 adult age he feels the constraint of civilisation to be so irksome to 
 him, that in spite of himself he casts aside the yoke and returns 
 wild and savage into the woods. Mr. Marsden has noticed a fact 
 of this kind in a young Tahitian, brought up in the school at Port 
 Jackson, where he had been taken when he was eleven years old. 
 
 So far we have been concerned only with the inferior races ; but 
 the early stages of the other races have not been more brilliant, as 
 indeed is proved to us by the want of development in the most 
 humble of their species, and even in certain of their ethnical 
 groups. "We need not despise the large civilisation of Japan or of 
 China, but the nomad Mongolians are as yet very backward. 
 Some of them, the Ostiaks for instance, never kill a bear without 
 making their excuses to him afterwards. The Mongoloids of 
 Kamtschatka are still in the age of the coarsest cut stone; and 
 certain Malays who live from day to day only upon the produce 
 of their fishery, and take no heed as to their next meal before 
 they have digested the last, are still in a state of extreme savagery. 
 In Europe, at the time of Tacitus, the Finns had not yet learned 
 the art of agriculture. 
 
 Taken as a whole, it would seem certain that the white race 
 are now well clear of savagery. That is the general result ; but 
 in the heart of societies apparently the most civilised, how many 
 creatures do we not find as little intelligent as the lowest savage '? 
 We may also notice that our civilisation, still imperfect, is of com- 
 paratively recent date. Before the days of history cycles of 
 
€hap. I.] DEGREES OF PSYCHICAL LIFE. 559 
 
 savagery slowly unfolded themselves, as is now shown to us by 
 prehistoric archaeology; and even the Latin historians may well 
 have seen some of these European ethnical groups. If we may 
 "believe them, the Breton Celts, before the Eoman conquest, were not 
 more civilised than the present Polynesians. 
 
 III. 
 
 It is a commonplace observation that the moral and intellectual 
 development do not always go together hand-in-hand ; the fact con- 
 stantly strikes us in our so-called civilised societies, and we remark 
 also the same thing in comparing races one with the other. "Wallace 
 tells us that the Dyaks are more sincere, more frank, more honest 
 than the Malays and the Chinese. But nevertheless, as a very 
 general rule, intellectual activity in any society is the prime mover 
 in all great progress, industrial, moral, or social. On this point 
 there can be no possible doubt as regards industry. In the moral 
 and social development the relation of ideas is less evident. But 
 in a word, morality will depend strictly upon the kind of education 
 imparted to a series of generations, and the value of this education 
 is closely dependent upon the intelligence of the ethnical group. 
 In the same way the social condition is higher and more con- 
 sonant with justice in proportion as the governing classes are more 
 enlightened as to their true interests, and especially as they can 
 foresee more clearly into the future. 
 
 Now, foresight is especially the result of intellectual develop- 
 ment. To have this gift man must be endowed with keen observa 
 tion ; he must be capable of concentrating his attention to enable 
 him to group together and compare facts, to deduce future events 
 from present and past history. But the observation of the inferior 
 man is very restricted ; he is concerned only with that which relates 
 to his most urgent needs ; his memory is short, events gone by do 
 not dwell in his mind : no savage race has a history. It is almost 
 impossible for the inferior man to relate an event exactly without 
 changing anything; even the Hindoos do so with the greatest 
 difficulty, consequently in their rich literature the historic element is 
 
560 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 wanting. The power of concentration of thought, especially upon 
 any intellectual object, is weaker even than his memory. The Ahts 
 of South America can answer accurately only a very few questions. 
 Near to the lake Tanganyika, in Africa south of the equator. Burton, 
 endeavouring to notice in each tribe the names used for counting 
 from one to ten, succeeded only after an infinite deal of trouble. 
 After a few minutes, the negro, when questioned, became vague 
 and stupefied; his answers were incoherent; he was obliged to 
 sleep in order to refreshen himself. Burchell, too, relates the same 
 thing of his teacher of languages in Kaffraria. As regards any 
 complex reasoning, combining together any number of observations 
 and ideas, the dull intelligence of the primitive man can never 
 grasp it. This would be as completely impossible for him as strong 
 force of will, capable of overcoming and controlling his natural 
 desires. 
 
 To confirm these general ideas we must now consider the principal 
 manifestations in the human intelligence, starting from the most 
 elementary, from those seen most constantly in daily life, to th& 
 most abstract, to the industry of languages, and to science. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 INDUSTRY. 
 
 Wb should fill a thick volume were we to describe all the in- 
 dustrial inventions of the human species. "VYo must, therefore,, 
 rest content with a sort of enumeration, and even then confine 
 ourselves to certain primordial industries : arms, the invention of 
 fire, pottery, metallurgy, and agriculture. 
 
 We see here the principal manifestations of the inventive genius 
 of humanity on the side of industry ; and it is owing to them that 
 man has been able to conform to nature's laws, and to increase in 
 number and in strength. 
 
CiiAP. II.] INDUSTRY. 561 
 
 Beliind every conscient activity in man there is a secret agent, 
 which, marks it with its stamp; that agent is the intelligence, 
 very unequal, both in races and in individuals. From what has 
 been said in the last chapter, and from the long exposition of facts 
 given throughout this volume, we are now enabled to classify 
 the human and the sub-human races in the order of psychical 
 development. Between the lowest and the most glorious types of 
 men there is an abyss; it is not unfathomable, though it must 
 be crossed very gradually and very slowly. Everything in social 
 life works together, one thing into the other; the races, or the 
 people, which from a nutritive, sensitive, affective, or politic point 
 of view occupy the inferior degrees in the human hierarchy, are 
 also backward in industrial progress. 
 
 A. As regards the manufacture of arms, the Tasmanians, when 
 they were extant, were of all the Melanesians the most inferior. 
 They were content with their club, their bone spear, and their 
 wooden javelin, the point of which they hardened in the fire; 
 but the cleverest of them made their weapons more deadly by 
 fastening on to them, with the xantorhcea gum, coarsely-cut 
 stones. In addition to these primitive instruments, the Austra- 
 lians had their boomerang^ a weapon more curious perhaps than 
 dangerous, in the form of a bent stick, and fashioned in such a 
 way that it fiew through the air and whizzed round in an opposite 
 direction to that in which it was thrown. These boomerangs 
 remind us of the magic arrows mentioned in some Sanskrit 
 poems, which came back of their own accord into the quiver of 
 the warrior. The bow, the most universal of all propelling arms, 
 was known to the majority of the Papuans, and even to the 
 northern Australians; but it is certainly a Malay or a Poly- 
 nesian importation, for the ^ew Caledonians had no bows, 
 and we may take this as a significant fact. The manners and 
 industry would surely seem to indicate that all the branches of 
 the jNIelanesian race have originally come from one and the same 
 settlement. 
 
 But as regards arms, there is little variety throughout all the human 
 
 2 
 
562 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 kind. The club, the javelin, and the lance are in fact the foundation 
 and the complement of the primitive arsenal; and they are little more 
 than a perfected form of the stick or broken branches of trees, the 
 ordinary weapons of large monkeys. To these we must add, excepting 
 in a portion of Melanesia, the bow, the most serviceable propelling 
 instrument known to savage humanity, and one of the great inven- 
 tions of the old races. Another missile also, not a very learned 
 one, was the sling. This too was common, for it has been seen in 
 New Caledonia and in Polynesia, where they preferred it to the 
 bow, then also in use. The sling was used, too, in South America, 
 in the Pelew islands, in the Mariana islands, and among many 
 Asiatic and European people. 
 
 These offensive weapons were no doubt different in each race, in 
 each group, according to the greater or less degree of skill exercised 
 in making them, and in the nature of the materials employed. 
 We may say as much of the defensive armour. The Australians 
 warded off the blows with a long and narrow shield made of 
 bark. The majority of the Africans, and of the Ked Skins, and of 
 other races, used shields made of leather. The coats-of-arms of 
 wadded cotton worn by the Mexicans and by some of the half- 
 civilii'ed people on the shores of the lake Tchad, and the cuirasses 
 of skill worn by many hordes of men, differed only in substance from 
 the coats of mail, cuirasses of steel, so lately worn in Europe, and 
 which we still find in Central Asia. We see therefore that until 
 the invention of gunpowder, the art of killing, which has been, 
 and is still amongst the majority of men, the most necessary of all 
 arts, rested only upon a few simple and uniform ideas. Firearms 
 are no more than one of the many applications of metallurgy and 
 of empirical chemistry ; and their manufacture, even including all 
 the science of modern projectiles, has only put into operation a 
 number of industrial and scientific methods, forming part of one 
 very elementary idea. The Indian of Guiana had need of as much 
 inventive genius to imagine his nicely-contrived air-cane (sarbacana), 
 into which ho puts a light arrow with a few rolls of cotton round 
 the top end, moulding itself on to the sides of the cylinder, as the 
 sheeting of lead of the modern shell on to the rifling of the 
 
Chap, ii.] INDUSTRY. 563 
 
 cannons. The inventor of the sarbacana also must have remarked 
 the poisoning properties of certain substances, he must have learned 
 that which we ignore, how to mix them so as to kill, to calcu- 
 late the effects of this subtle poison. In all that a great effort of 
 intelligence and imagination was first necessary. 
 
 No doubt the inventors of the bomb and the explosive shell 
 have been encouraged in their industry by the greatness of the 
 results which they were endeavouring to effect. They have antici- 
 pated that their future projectile would burst in the roof of a 
 house, make holes in walls, cause a general explosion, tear human 
 creatures into rags ; and to bring about so much destruction they 
 have not been niggardly in using their labour. In the same way 
 the Indian or the American, constructing his venomous projectile, 
 has, in his imagination, seen his prey, animal or human, overcome 
 by the poison, fall lifeless into his hands, in spite of his own 
 weapons of defence and in spite of all his strength. The invention 
 of the sarbacana, which we also find between the Amazon and the 
 Orinoco rivers and in the Malay archipelago, is equal then, in a 
 psychical point of view, to the nicely-perfected firearms. The 
 Indians know full well what they are about when they say of their 
 poison : " It is our form of gunpowder ! " But if we consider 
 that the envenomed arrow is used mainly for the chase, we shall 
 then have a right to consider that the invention of the savage is 
 quite as intelligent as that of the civilised man, and that it is also 
 more moral. 
 
 B. Of all primitive inventions the greatest and the most fruitful 
 has surely been that of fire. 
 
 As the animal genesis of the human kind is now beyond all 
 doubt, we may therefore conclude that man has not always known 
 fire. And this induction is also confirmed by the traditions of the 
 Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Chinese, 
 and others. According to Pigafetta, who wrote the history of 
 Magellan's voyage, the Mariana islanders ignored the use of fire 
 in the year 1521 ; at first they imagined it to be some aU-devour- 
 ing animal. Even nowadays the Australians are not very skilful 
 
 2 o 2 
 
564 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 in the art of lighting a fire. Some of these tribes do not know how- 
 to keep it burning, and they will make long journeys to procure 
 lire, when by accident the women have let it go out. All over 
 Australia, one of the main duties of the women is to keep small 
 sticks of hanhsia grandis constantly burning. These switches are- 
 like a wick, they have the property of burning slowly. 
 
 The numerous pyrolatric religions, the legend of Prometheus, 
 etc., prove abundantly that in many primitive civilisations man 
 had a full knowledge of the importance of his conquest when he 
 first discovered fire. 
 
 The early pyrogenic methods are not numerous ; they are often 
 similar among very various races. Nearly all of them may b& 
 reduced to one of the three following methods : gyration, friction, 
 or percussion. Although primitive men little suspected th& 
 modern principle of the unity of physical forces, they always 
 endeavoured in their pyrogeny to transform movement into heat. 
 
 The most widely spread pyrogenic method was that of gjTation.. 
 The operation was making the point of a very dry stick turn, 
 round with sufficient rapidity in a small hole bored into another 
 stick. That was the means employed for producing fire by the 
 Australians, the Bushmen, the jS"ubians of Sennaar, the Fuegians, 
 many of the tribes of the Eed Skins, the inhabitants of the 
 Carolina islands, the Kamtschadales, and others. The Arani of 
 the Vedic Aryans was nothing else; but it had given rise to a 
 whole mythological conception, for the race was intelligent. Two 
 pyrogenic sticks had endowed two difi'erent races. The turning 
 stick, Pramanta, was the father of the god of fire ; the immovable 
 stick was the mother of the adorable and luminous Agni. 
 
 The mode by friction was merely moving rapidly backwards and 
 forwards the point of the male branch in the furrow of the female 
 branch. That was the means used by the Polynesians, and also by 
 some of the Malay hordes, notably by those of Atchins. 
 
 The method by percussion was by striking sparks from the 
 sudden contact either of two stones, or of two pieces of mineral, 
 or of a ailex and a piece of metal. The Algonquins used two- 
 
Chap. II.] INDUSTRY. 565 
 
 stones. Tlie Esquimaux preferred two pieces of ferruginous pyrites. 
 The Semites used flint and steel ; which were still used in Europe 
 not so many years ago, for we are all still impregnated with the 
 relics of past times. 
 
 The use of fire when it had been once discovered gave rise 
 to many industrial inventions, specially to pottery and to metal- 
 lurgy, which have both played very important parts in primitive 
 civilisations. 
 
 C. Most of the groups in every human race have been potters. 
 We must, however, except in past times the majority of our 
 European ancestors of the Age of Stone, and in modern times, the 
 Australians, the Tasmanians, and what is much more singular, the 
 Polynesians, already free from primitive savagery, and arrived at 
 the Age of Polished Stone. 
 
 The history of pottery alone would prove that in proportion to 
 the greatness of progress, the onward march of the tortoise has been 
 astonishing. It is but slowly, painfully, and ever protecting him- 
 self that man changes his industry and his usual mode of life. In 
 the far-distant prehistoric ages, all over the world, and also now in 
 all primitive pottery that has been burnt with fire, we do not find 
 hollow or scooped-out vessels. This invention is comparatively 
 recent ; it is nearly contemporary with the invention of polished, 
 ornamental, and artistic pottery. The turning of the pottery was 
 also a rare art and is almost modern ; simple as it may be, it was 
 unknown to all prehistoric humanity, and to all savage people in 
 contemporary humanity. Only the most civilised nations of the 
 old continent have adopted it, or have invented it. 
 
 On different spots of the globe, even in Europe, old practices, 
 anterior even to the invention of pottery, have subsisted down to 
 modern times. In the sixteenth century the islanders of the 
 Hebrides used skins for boiling ; in these skins they heated water 
 in the same way as the Shoshonis of North America do now in their 
 wicker-work saucepans. 
 
 In terminating this short sketch on ceramic art, we may remark 
 
666: INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v, 
 
 that the potter's skill has always been disdainfully left to the women. 
 It was doubtless because this industry, essentially primitive, was 
 invented during a social phase in which hunting and warfare 
 were the only manly occupations, and at a time also when the care 
 of the kitchen was left entirely in the hands of the weaker sex. 
 And even nowadays the fabrication of pottery among the Papuans, 
 the Niam-Niams, the Guaranis, and others, is a labour exclusively i 
 feminine, and in many fragments of prehistoric pottery we see 
 the impressions of small fingers which in all probability were 
 feminine. 
 
 D. No doubt the potter's art has played a very important part 
 in the development of civilisation, especially as without it the 
 culinary art would hardly exist ; but primitive metallurgy was an 
 invention still more fruitful. In his perpetual fight against nature 
 man never had really a fair chance until he had learnt how to 
 employ mineral substances ; how to extract the hard and useful 
 metals, how to cast aside the alloy, to melt or forge the metal into 
 arms, into utensils, and into instruments. 
 
 "With arms man could, without being at too great a disadvantage, 
 conquer his terrible adversaries in the animal kingdom. Also, the use 
 of metals multiplied in many ways all kinds of primitive industry. 
 With his stone hatchet a Carib took a month to cut down a tree, 
 or a year to scoop out a canoe. Everything was in the same pro- 
 portion, and the smallest industrial result was not obtained until 
 after very long and laborious effort. The use of metals increased 
 the capabilities of man by tenfold. But every people had not their 
 Yulcan. In the far-distant times the Ages of Cut and of Polished 
 Stone have been prolonged over geological periods ; and even now 
 there are whole races of men who ignore or who have ignored the 
 use of metals. Some people have not got beyond the use of copper 
 or of bronze. 
 
 Except certain Papuans of the eastern part of New Guinea, who 
 have been somewhat civilised by the Malays, and who forge their 
 iron in the Malay fashion, by means of a double wind-bag, metals 
 ■were ignored all over Melanesia and so also in Polynesia. 
 
Chap. II.] INDUSTEY. 567 
 
 In America the majority of the savage tribes were or are still in 
 the Stone Age, but among the Americans on the north-western shore, 
 more or less in communication with northern Asia, copper and 
 sometimes iron were not absolutely unknown, but they were pro- 
 cured only by way of exchange. The half-civilised nations of 
 Central Am^erica, before the time of the Spanish conquest, knew 
 how to melt and extract gold, silver, lead, and brass ; they had 
 copper mines, which they worked after a clumsy fashion by digging 
 horizontal galleries into the side of the mountains. They knew 
 how, by mixing brass and copper, to fabricate bronze ; but they did 
 not know what to do with iron, which was a common mineral in 
 the country. Slabs of pyrites of iron, cut and polished, served the 
 Peruvians as looking-glasses ; they had not yet thought of making 
 any other use of their ferruginous metals. 
 
 In some of the antique mounds in J^orth America bracelets of 
 copper have been found, and near the lake of Erie mines of copper 
 were worked in prehistoric ages. 
 
 JSTot going outside European archaeology, a so-called necessary law 
 of succession has been established between the Ages of Stone, of 
 Bronze, and of Iron ; but we cannot say that this law has every- 
 where and always been perfect. ISio doubt, we may find it in 
 Egypt, where stone instruments were used at a comparatively 
 modern date in certain religious ceremonies, and where, during 
 many centuries, bronze was the metal most frequently employed. 
 But all over negro Africa, iron has been known from time imme- 
 morial j the people know nearly everywhere how to extract it from 
 other mineral substances, how to forge it, and how to mould it. 
 Instruments of iron, probably belonging to the Berbers, have been 
 found under the dolmens in northern Africa ; and all over the rest 
 of the continent, very rich in ferruginous substances, there is no 
 trace of an age of bronze, nor of copper. 
 
 Iron is worked everywhere in Africa from the country of the 
 Kafirs, as far as Senegambia and the valley of the Nile. Nearly 
 everywhere, also, the means employed are a double wind-bag ; this 
 is used also in New Guinea, in Malay, and in Madagascar. The 
 accounts of modern travellers in Africa have made us acquainted 
 
563 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 with this ingenious contrivance, consisting in principle of two bags, 
 from which by alternate pressure the air is driven into two tubes ; 
 these two tubes unite into one, and the air is so carried down into 
 the middle of the pit. This system is too complicated to suppose 
 that its use can have been spontaneous nearly everywhere. It is 
 probably a Malay invention, and has been afterwards borrowed 
 from them. There has certainly never been any regular communi- 
 cation between Malay and Madagascar, but many authentic ex- 
 amples will prove that contrivances, far inferior to those of the 
 Malays, have been transplanted to enormous distances. Coincidences 
 such as these do not of course constitute ethnical migrations. They 
 are insignificant occurrences which do not modify any race of 
 men, though they may conduce to diffuse very widely industrial 
 inventions. 
 
 All the Africans know how to work iron, but they do not all 
 know how to extract it from other mineral substances ; such was at 
 least the case with the Kafirs, according to Levaillant. It is in the 
 middle portion of Africa that we find the great metallurgic zone. 
 In Senegambia, in the valley of the Niger, in the basin of the 
 Upper Nile, the large furnaces, seven feet and a half high, are con- 
 structed in clay, and at a very trifling cost. The mineral substance 
 is placed in the upper portion of this small contrivance ; the coal 
 burnt is in the lower part ; the draught is caused by the air from 
 the double wind-bags. The construction of these primitive high 
 furnaces is better adapted as one gets nearer to the basin of the 
 Upper Nile. The Bongos, for instance, a poorly-civilised people, 
 know how to build furnaces with three compartments, and these 
 are often permanent constructions. The relative geographical close- 
 ness to Upper Ethiopia and to Egypt may perhaps partly help to 
 explain these facts. 
 
 But a general diffusion of the use of iron, both in ancient and 
 contemporary Africa, is one of the most notable facts in the history 
 of the human kind. In negro Africa wo can, in fact, follow step 
 by step the evolution of the metallurgy of iron, from the simple 
 hole dug in the clay, and round about which burning coals and 
 mineral substances are piled up, as is the practice at Mandara, 
 
-Chap, ii.] INDUSTRY. 569 
 
 until we come to tlie almost scientific furnace as we see it in use 
 among the Eongos. All this certainly authorises us to conclude 
 that Africa is one of the great homes for the primitive metallurgy 
 of iron. 
 
 If we except the Esquimaux tribes, who are still in the Age of 
 Stone, all the Asiatic people know the use of hard metals. But 
 some of the Mongolian tribes in eastern Asia are more familiar with 
 copper than with iron, though iron has been known for a long 
 time past by all the civilised Mongolian nations, in Japan, in China, 
 in Thibet, and elsewhere. The Aryan nations of Asia also discovered 
 iron at a very early date, because we find mention of it in the 
 Vedic hymns. The Greeks knew it later, for all the Iliad is an 
 epopee of the Age of Bronze. Iron is mentioned in the book of 
 Genesis ; but the Bible tells us that it was with fetters of brass 
 that the Philistines bound Samson. Gaul before the time of the 
 Eoman conquest was nearly everywhere in the Age of Bronze. 
 
 We may say, therefore, that there has been no civilisation at all 
 advanced which has not more or less known the use of metals ; and 
 the most intelligent, the great Aryan, Mongolian, and Semitic 
 civilisations, and even that of ancient Egypt, though at a com- 
 paratively late date, knew how to extract and to forge iron. 
 
 But we should fall into error if we thought that the use of iron 
 was everywhere and always the chief sign of a high civilisation. 
 The metallurgy of iron is more or less common all over negro Africa ; 
 and yet the Kafirs, the Bongos, and others are very much less 
 civilised than were the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, the Greeks 
 of Homer, the Hebrews in the book of Genesis, and other people. 
 The intellectual development of a nation cannot be tested by one 
 single characteristic. Any partial discovery may no doubt give a 
 great impulse to progress ; but before the progress can come man 
 must first have been in a condition to profit by it. The most im- 
 portant sign is cerebral progress, the development of the brain and 
 of the intelligence. The worth of the tool will depend upon the 
 use that the workman can make of it. 
 
 E, The remark at the end of the last paragraph will apply to 
 
570 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v^ 
 
 agriculture as well as to metallurgy. In the progressive movement 
 of humanity, no industry has played such an important part as 
 agriculture. According to Sully's famous expression, agriculture 
 is the "breasts" of the people. Every great civilisation, all 
 those which have grouped themselves together and produced large 
 agglomerations of men, all those which have become real homes 
 and hearths, giving to humanity warmth and enlightenment — they 
 have all been based upon agriculture. But there are, and there 
 have been, agricultural attempts amongst the wildest savages. 
 
 The inferior Melanesians, the Tasmanians and the Australians^, 
 in all respects the lowest of men, have doubtless never thought of 
 agriculture. They might collect well enough certain fruits, certain 
 vegetable substances, but the idea of sowing had never taken root 
 in their bestial brain. Eut their cousins, the Papuans, rather 
 more intelligent, and less isolated, who have received some notions 
 of it from different quarters, are all more or less agricultural. 
 Even the Xew Caledonians, savages as they are, have known how 
 to root up the ground with a hatchet and with fire ; they have 
 learnt how to cultivate the taro {arum esculentuin), the igname, the 
 sugar-cane, and to water their plantations. 
 
 In Africa, if we except the pastoral Hottentots, the nomad 
 Arabs, and the Tuaricks of Sahara, who despise the labourer and 
 the townsfolk, all the races are agricultural. The rudimentary 
 civilisation of the Kafirs rests principally upon agriculture; whereas 
 the savage tribes of the Gaboon, less skilful in cultivating the soil, 
 look to the chase as a means of supplying them with a greater pro- 
 portion of their food. In all the middle zone of the African conti- 
 nent agriculture is very highly esteemed ; the people know how to 
 cultivate sorgho, rice, cassava, bananas, etc. We may make one 
 observation upon African agriculture : nowhere are domestic 
 animals employed ; all the labour of digging the ground, sowing, 
 etc. is done by women and by slaves. 
 
 With the exception of the Fuegians, the majority of the Pampas 
 races (the Patagonians, the Puelches, the Charruas, *the hordes 
 on the Grand Chaco, and others) to whom we may add the 
 
Chap, n.] INDUSTRY. 571 
 
 Esquimaux of North America, all the native tribes of America are 
 more or less employed in agriculture. The Indians of the pueblos 
 naturally understand it very well ; the majority of the Eed Skins 
 have an agricultural season lasting for a few months. In speaking 
 of food we have said what were the plants cultivated by the 
 American aborigines. "VYe have seen, also, that among the ancient 
 nations of Central America agriculture was already fairly advanced. 
 Besides maize, the Mexicans used to cultivate cocoa, the agave, 
 tobacco, etc. ; they were familiar with the science of the distribution 
 of crops, and of irrigation. They had upon their lakes, like the 
 Chinese, established floating gardens. The Quichuas of Peru were 
 still more clever. With them agriculture was the grand affair of 
 the community. They cultivated the quinoa (cJienopodium), the 
 potato, maize, the oxalis, the occa ; they knew the fertilising pro- 
 perties of the guano, the consumption of which was regulated by 
 law j they knew how to dig watercourses down to their lakes, to 
 execute great works of irrigation determining the quantity of water 
 to which everyone had a right. They made the sides of their 
 mountains valuable by cutting gradually-inclining paths ; they knew 
 how to cultivate the different plants, putting each one at the most 
 suitable altitude. 
 
 Excepting the ITew Zealanders, all the Polynesians were more 
 or less agricultural; but the most clever were the Sandwich 
 islanders. They knew how to build aqueducts, to construct terraces 
 upon the mountain slopes, like the Peruvians, and they carried 
 their terraces up as far as the snow line. 
 
 Various as are the populations in the Malay peninsula, they are 
 nearly all agriculturists; and we have seen that in many dis- 
 tricts the culture of rice, which requires the assistance of a great 
 many hands, had given rise to the system of holding land in 
 community. 
 
 On the vast Asiatic continent^ if we except the Esquimaux, 
 there is no ethnical group at all important who are quite ignorant 
 of agriculture. But La Perouse says that the Mongolians of 
 Saghalien, and also on the western side, were not yet agricultural, 
 
572 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 and confined themselves to collecting eatable bulbs from a sort of 
 lily. In western Mongolia the Tartars have become quite agri- 
 cultural from the contact with the Chinese, and the nomad people 
 even sow small fields of millet. 
 
 We know well enough to what degree of perfection the Chinese 
 have carried the art of agriculture. 
 
 The Aryan and the Semite branches of the white race have 
 always been more or less agricultural from time immemorial. The 
 Yedic Aryans were agricultural, and to find a purely pastoral 
 state, even among the Arabs, we should have to go back to the 
 pre-Islamic ages sung by Antar. 
 
 In short, the greater part of the human race is agricultural ; but 
 the different human groups can give to it only as much intelligence 
 as they possess. In the early stages the distribution of crops and 
 dressing are unknown. After each harvest the bit of land cleared 
 is forsaken. Tools are also very rough and rudimentary. Man first 
 digs the soil with a pointed stick ; he then generally makes a few 
 holes, into which he puts the grain. The wooden pickaxe is the 
 only agricultural instrument known to the New Caledonians, to 
 the Caribs, to the Nubians of Darfur, and to many others. The 
 ancient Peruvians made use of a stake, through which they drove 
 a piece of wood horizontally, and upon this they placed their foot. 
 The Kafirs and the Bambarrans have now a sort of rudimentary 
 spade. The plough is unknown throughout all negro Africa ; but 
 it was known in ancient Egypt, where cows were put into the 
 yoke. This was a most important innovation. But it would 
 appear that the plough is an Asiatic invention. Its primitive 
 model is still found in Celebes island. It is a machine with only 
 one arm, with a wooden socket made of the palm-tree ; it is dra^vn 
 by buffaloes. No doubt slaves, and even women, were formerly 
 harnessed to these light ploughs ; and this custom still prevails in 
 China. 
 
 If we may believe Hesiod, the first Greek ploughs were no more 
 than a long wooden hook ; the curved end was driven into the 
 ground. The Hebrews apparently knew of the plough, for in 
 Deuteronomy we find that it is forbidden to yoke together an ass 
 
Chap, ii.] INDUSTRY. 573 
 
 and an ox. In Job, too, we find the harrow mentioned, an 
 instrument long unknown to the Greeks. 
 
 This savage form of agriculture is no doubt very far indeed 
 behind the agricultural industry of modern ages, and even of the 
 old civilisations in Asia and in Egypt ; but putting all technical 
 considerations aside, that which we may call the psychology of 
 agriculture we find everywhere to have been the same. We have 
 seen that the quite inferior races are incapable of any power of 
 foresight, and agriculture demands necessarily an insight into the 
 future. Every form of agricultural labour demands thought as to 
 what the morrow may bring forth. The Australian, whose only 
 delight in life is to stuff himself with the flesh of whales, and the 
 Eed Skin, who thinks of little but destroying game merely for 
 the pleasure of killing, are utterly incapable of considering events 
 four-and-twenty hours in advance. 
 
 And also the history of agriculture will show to us the perfecti- 
 bility of races, even of those of the lowest kind. The Australian 
 cannot conceive that to-morrow he may be hungry ; but the !N"ew 
 Caledonian has this care upon his mind. The Eed Skin is essen- 
 tially a huntsman and is most imprudent ; but certain tribes in 
 New Mexico have learned the use of the harrow and of the 
 wooden plough. In 1825 the Cherokees became an agricultural 
 people, at the expense, it is true, of their slaves and of their wives. 
 The Peruvians knew how to establish a sound and far-seeing 
 organisation, based mainly upon agriculture, and in which the 
 only thing wanting to them was liberty. Progress, therefore, is 
 not a dream, as we have more than once been asked to believe. 
 
 F. But though it has been both the cause and effect of the 
 development of civilisation, industrial labour has had upon human 
 societies many unhappy results : among others we may mention 
 the system of castes and of the enslaved classes. Industry must 
 certainly be ranked among the principal reasons for slavery, which 
 indeed, in quite primitive societies is a progress, for it replaces 
 slaughter. Manual labour, however little sustained, supposes a 
 stationary life and a persistent effort of will; and this is abso- 
 
574 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 lutely opposed to the savage man, or even to him who is barbarous. 
 Except the fabrication of arms, all industrial labour was at first 
 imposed upon the woman and upon the slave. Man kept for 
 himself what he thought was the more noble task : that of killing 
 animals and his human competitors. His work in life was hunting 
 and warfare. 
 
 We know well enough that this disdain for manual labour has 
 lasted through all the historic phases in humanity, down to our 
 own times. But even after the abolition of slavery and of bondage, 
 the labourers were often divided into castes and into corporations 
 of a more or less degraded kind. We must, however, make an 
 exception in favour of certain people in Africa, among whom the 
 blacksmith is held in very high honour. The Kafirs call him 
 " the iron doctor," and among the Bambarrans the blacksmiths form 
 an aristocratic class. We find nothing of this sort in modern 
 Europe, where the governing classes hold in poor estimation the 
 artisan and the peasant, though they do not always themselves reach 
 to that degree of intellectual development which, even though 
 it existed, would hardly excuse their disdain. 
 
 In primitive humanity industrial labour weighed very heavily 
 upon the weak and the forsaken, and in our so-called civilised 
 societies this same state of things has not disappeared so fully as 
 many of us imagine. It is true that we have no longer slaves or 
 serfs among us, but we have men who work for wages, who are 
 constrained to perpetual toil, often excessive and dangerous, and 
 whose only advantage over the ancient slave is that they can 
 change their master. 
 
 Erom the perfectioning and development of large industries in 
 our modern societies there has also resulted for the working 
 classes a baneful consequence. The industrial consumption has 
 grown to be enormous, and to suffice for its own wants it has been 
 obliged to inaugurate upon a vast scale labour in common and the 
 most minute divisions of this labour. In this respect, as in many 
 others, the old Chinese civilisation was in advance of us. Before 
 it is completed a Chinese flute passes, as does a pin with us, 
 through a very large number of hands ; the labour, therefore, of 
 
-Chap. III.] PUKE INTELLIGENCE. 575 
 
 each workman becomes purely mechanical and stupefying in its 
 simplicity. 
 
 Even in savage or in barbarous societies man is in some way an 
 artist. He manufactures completely the objects of his own in- 
 dustry, he can perfect them according to his own taste, he can 
 interest himself in his work, and he exercises his own intelli- 
 gence. There is nothing of this sort in our large manufactories, 
 where the human creature is reduced to a mere automaton, executes 
 every day of his life a small number of movements which are ever 
 and always the same. Hence are born our large class of pariahs, 
 who emaciate themselves with enervating labour. "We might 
 also mention homicidal industries, decimating the hard-working 
 victims in our large societies, to their infinite detriment. 
 
 "We hold it to be all important to remedy these flaws in our 
 civilisation. We ought to transform the wages system into a free 
 association, and above all things lessen the hours of daily work. 
 Certain industries, also, which are necessary but unwholesome, 
 ought to be considered as a social drudgery, existing because 
 of their public utility, and therefore divided out among those 
 interested. In this case, and in this case only, the extreme 
 division of labour would be salutary. Fourier's industrial 
 armies would gradually replace the armies of men now turned 
 into soldiers. 
 
 The future will place civilised societies in an inexorable dilemma : 
 justice or death. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PURE INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 The effects of intellectual power, properly so called, are so widely 
 spread, that we cannot now even attempt to give a sketch of their 
 extent. We will confine ourselves to saying a few words upon the 
 most primordial acts of the human intelligence, mentioning them 
 
57G INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v^ 
 
 only as specimens, as standard measures, whereby we may charac- 
 terise the different races, and assign to each a place in the hierarchy 
 of the human kind. 
 
 Languages. 
 
 We no longer lose our time in trying to argue that language is 
 a thing of human origin ; there are only a few belated minds who 
 endeavour to contest the fact, by using arguments belonging to 
 another age. No doubt, among the superior races, the luxuriant 
 complexity of flexible languages may dazzle us, but a comparison of 
 the idioms spoken by the whole medley of the human kind, their 
 hierarchical classification, a study of their rise and of their evolution, 
 will inevitably lead us to connect the articulate language with the 
 animal cry, in which also there is no divine element. As a matter 
 of fact, every cerebral impression that is at all exciting may reflect 
 itself upon these or those movent nerves, and the cry is but a reflex 
 action of the mind. It is an automatic sign of the vocal organs, 
 especially of the larynx. In man, and in many animals, certain 
 sentiments will provoke cries, inflections, modulations of the voice, 
 as expressive as they are spontaneous ; it is a mechanism showing 
 its elasticity. 
 
 To this primitive foundation of language are immediately added 
 the imitative onomatopoeia. With more or less conscient feeling,., 
 the primitive man, and the child, who resembles him so strongly,, 
 endeavour to reproduce the noises which most frequently strike 
 their ears. But they will copy differently, according to their race ; 
 for imitation is of necessity imperfect, and each human type has a 
 mode of auditive impressionability peculiar to itself. 
 
 In order that a real language may free itself from this very rudi- 
 mentary verbal utterance, a social life of some sort is necessary, and 
 a social life with all the attendant incidents, the conflicts, and the 
 fruits of liberty. We know the story of the two children brought 
 up by Psammouthis in silence, and away from the rest of the 
 world : the conclusion is false, for experience has shown, beyond 
 
Chap. III.] PUEE INTELLIGENCE. 577 
 
 any doubt, that a child brought up in silence cannot learn to speak. 
 Father J. Xavier, nephew of Frangois Xavier, when he was a 
 missionary in India in 1594, heard from the lips of the Emperor 
 Akbar a curious history similar to that of Psammouthis. The all- 
 powerful monarch had an idea to make an experiment as to the 
 origin of language. He therefore caused thirty children to be 
 brought up together, in a confined place, under the care of nurses 
 and guardians, who were enjoined to keep absolute silence, under 
 penalty of death. The children imprisoned in this way grew up, 
 and became, as was natural, dumb, and absolutely stupid, having 
 no other language at their command than a few gestures, to express 
 their bodily wants. 
 
 Even when they live freely in the middle of our societies, 
 children do not speak unless they hear, and this is irrefutably proved 
 by the speechlessness of children struck with congenite deafness at 
 a time when they receive no special education. In order that 
 articulate sounds may fix themselves in their memory with 
 any determined meaning, it is absolutely necessary that they should 
 hear the same sounds repeated several times. But childhood is of 
 all others the age most suitable for learning to talk. During the 
 first years of life, vocal imitation is always the easiest ; as Itard has 
 remarked, it is very often automatic, unconscient. Now, this 
 mental condition of the child probably shows to us, with more or 
 less accuracy, that of our ancient ancestors, hardly yet human 
 beings, who created articulate form of speech. But this early 
 language was very poor, as may be seen nowadays from that of the 
 inferior races. 
 
 To whatever linguistic family the idioms of the poorly-developed 
 human types may be connected, there are two characteristics 
 common to them all : the extreme indigence of their vocabulary, 
 and the want of abstract and general terms. A few facts chosen 
 from many others will show the truth of this statement. 
 
 The Weddahs have none but the most usual words at their com- 
 mand, necessary to express the simplest acts of their daily life and 
 the things that they see around them. 
 
 In the Tasmanian language there were no adjectives ; the 
 
 2 p 
 
578 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 people could qualify a thing only by comparison. The Tasmanian 
 vocabulary had words to designate this or that kind of tree, but the 
 general word " tree " was wanting. We need not, therefore, be 
 astonished to find that the Australians, so similar to the Tasmanians, 
 have no expressions to say "justice, crime, fault," etc. 
 
 The language of the Bushmen is so poor that they have constantly 
 to make gestures one to the othet ; they cannot therefore talk in 
 the dark. The Bechuana dialect has no word corresponding to 
 " conscience, spirit." The Fulah has neither masculine nor feminine; 
 it classes beings into two categories : those which belong to humanity, 
 and those which belong to animality. 
 
 The American idioms, numerous as they are, are not more philo- 
 sophical. According to Spix and Martins, the aborigines of Brazil 
 have no words to say " colour, kind, sex, mind." The expressions 
 " time, space, and substance " are wanting in most of the American 
 dialects. The Choctahs have words to designate the black oak, the 
 white oak, but not to say " oak tree ; " and the Calif ornians have 
 only one expression to say "toad" and "frog;" their moral qualifica- 
 tions are all taken from their sense of taste. The saine word among 
 them will designate a good man and a savoury aliment. "We may 
 remark by the way that a similar confusion exists in our European 
 languages wherever there was originally a mental condition of a 
 very coarse kind. 
 
 The Malays cannot say " red, blue, grey, or white ; " they have 
 no word signifying colour. The vocabulary of the people on the 
 banks of the Drave is wanting in expressions to convey ideas of 
 God, of the soul ; the word " will " is also wanting. There is no 
 Basque word that has the large sense of our denominations " tree, 
 animal," etc. 
 
 But without going into savage countries, we may observe similar 
 facts even among the races in Europe, who have a rich vocabulary 
 at their command. Whatever be the total opulence in any lan- 
 guage, it becomes poor when it is handled by an unintelligent or 
 poorly-educated man. Great writers have at their command a 
 thousand expressions, corresponding to each delicate shade and turn 
 of their thoughts ; but for the peasant or the tmleamed man a very 
 
Chap, in.] PURE INTELLIGENCE. 579 
 
 modest supply, containing perhaps a few hundred words, will be 
 amply sufficient for all his wants. 
 
 If the richness or poverty of a vocabulary will convey to us a 
 fair idea of the degree of intellectual development in any race, the 
 quality of the articulated sounds will also instruct us as to the 
 general character of a people. The Papuans of the 'New Hebrides, 
 a most ferocious nation, spoke a language all bristling with con- 
 sonants and with harsh articulation. On the other hand, every 
 sharp hissing sound was banished from the Tahitian dialect ; there 
 were very few consonants, a constant repetition of syllables, and 
 the language had generally a very infantine character. The Poly- 
 nesian idioms, very different in their vocabulary, became more 
 phonetic in their sound as one approaches nearer to Melanesia. 
 The language of the warlike New Zealanders was guttural ; the k, 
 the V, the hard consonants were predominant. This was also the 
 case among the anthropophagous islanders of Pomotou. 
 
 Another feature, comm.on to the languages of the inferior races, 
 is the extreme variety of their dialects, however close may be their 
 .linguistic relationship, however identical their general construction. 
 In Australia, between neighbouring districts, the vocabulary will 
 change, and the natives are often obliged to speak English if they 
 wish to understand each other. In the same way, in New Cale- 
 donia, the people belonging to tribes at all distant do not under- 
 stand each other. The Eed Skins, in the Rocky mountains, who 
 have the same tokens but who belong to different tribes, are obliged 
 sometimes to converse by signs ; and in the exogamic tribes the 
 men and the women will often speak different languages. Something 
 of the same kind still exists in Europe in the valleys of the Caucasus, 
 a region which the Persians call " the mountain of languages." 
 
 This diversity of dialects, in languages having no written litera- 
 ture, owes its origin mainly to the isolation of the tribes into small 
 groups, which are still barbarous. Each one of these small ethnical 
 unities lives separately, troubling itself little about its neighbours 
 except to fight them, and its idiom, not established by any law, 
 soon acquires its own special form. 
 
 Thanks to modern linguistic science, which has succeeded in 
 
 2 p 2 
 
680 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 unravelling from the infinite diversity of verbal forms general 
 characteristics enabling us to classify languages into large families, 
 it has become easy to trace the evolution of the most complex 
 idioms. Every language first began by monosyllabic utterance, 
 and many have not yet succeeded in getting beyond the first 
 stage. The language of primitive Egypt was monosyllabic, as are 
 also the majority of the Mongolian languages : the Chinese, the 
 Thibetan, the Burmese, and the Indo-Chinese languages. The 
 genealogy of Sanskrit will lead on to an ancestral foundation of 
 monosyllabic roots, upon which the whole growth of the language 
 entirely rests. 
 
 Linguistic progress first began by the juxtaposition of mono- 
 syllables, coupling into one element, which kept its primitive 
 value, other elements playing the part of suffixes or of prefixes, 
 and determining the moods of the invariable element. In this 
 way monosyllabic words grew into agglutinations of words. The 
 agglutinative languages are still very numerous. We may mention 
 among others, the Japanese, the Corean, the Malayo-Polynesian 
 languages, the American and the African languages, the Drave and 
 the Basque languages. 
 
 The third and most ingenious form of articulate language is the 
 flexible form. In flexible languages man has not been content to 
 agglutinate together the roots; he has modified these roots, and, 
 therefore, we have now dialects that may be bent and twisted as 
 we please, capable of rendering every possible shade of thought. 
 The class of flexible languages will comprise all the Semitic and 
 Indo-European dialects, but those only. The flexible languages, 
 therefore, are the most dignified, belonging to the superior races. 
 
 Nothing is more interesting than this evolution of articulate 
 language; but we can by no means say that the degree of de- 
 velopment in any race or people wiU depend accurately upon the 
 hierarchical order of their language. As regards humanity, as we now 
 see it, that which shows in any language the measure of its mental 
 energy is much less the place it occupies in the general classifica- 
 tion than the richness or the poorness of its vocabulary. There 
 are certain monosyllabic languages which very early became per- 
 
Ghap. III.] PUEE INTELLIGENCE. 581 
 
 manently fixed, as regards their construction, though they were ever 
 receiving new forms of expression. For instance, the majority of 
 the people of the Mongolian race have not gone beyond the mono- 
 syllabic phase of language ; but that has not prevented the Chinese 
 from creating a great and wonderful civilisation. On the other 
 hand, the Australians, the native Americans, the Africans, from the 
 Hottentots as far north as the Fulahs, speak agglutinative languages, 
 though all these people have never yet emancipated themselves from 
 savagery or from barbarism. We may perhaps infer that these races 
 have not created their own languages, and that during the very long 
 prehistoric period foreign initiators brought to them idioms which 
 had taken root and grown elsewhere. 
 
 May we be allowed, after having spoken of the forms of lan- 
 guage now past and gone, to make a few conjectures as to their 
 future; at least of the Aryan languages, of which we know the 
 past evolution, and which we see still constantly changing 1 If, in 
 spite of their common origin, these languages have so distinguished 
 themselves one from the other, that has certainly resulted from the 
 dispersion of the nations, from the separation of the people who 
 formerly spoke them. But European civilisation is evidently now 
 evolving towards fusion ; interests so long hostile are now becoming 
 joined together. Manners and laws are becoming uniform ; the 
 work of advancing towards a common end is gradually progressing. 
 If these wide transformations, of which we now see the commence- 
 ments, go on without hindrance for a sufficient number of centuries, 
 the Indo-European languages must necessarily form themselves 
 into one synthetic language, into one future Aryan tongue, as com- 
 plex and as rich as the primitive Aryan language was once coarse 
 and indigent. 
 
 IL 
 
 Mathematical Aptitudes. 
 
 The idea of numbers, as understood by the educated man, is 
 essentially an abstract idea, but of the most rational and logical 
 kind j for totally separate from concrete objects, it rests altogether 
 
582 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book t. 
 
 upon objective reality. Mathematics partly appertain to meta- 
 physics, for they seem to soar above the ideas which had prompted 
 them, but they are in fact a scientific form of metaphysics. We 
 may soon become convinced of this in studying their early stages. 
 
 When man tries to picture to himself a certain quantity of 
 similar objects, all at the same time, and to keep in his mind a 
 recollection of them, he very soon becomes confused, and his con- 
 fusion "will come all the quicker in proportion as he is less 
 intellectually developed. To enable him to retain his ideas he 
 has recourse to mnemonical signs. When man gave a particular, 
 an ordinal name to a few of these signs, when he succeeded in 
 abstracting the denomination of the material object from that to 
 which it was fastened, numbers were then established. 
 
 Mnemonical objects used at first to give support to the number 
 are ordinarily of the most simple kind : they are small pieces of 
 wood or of stone. Men reckoned by calces or stones (hence our word 
 " calculate "), or more often, and nearly all over the world, first by 
 the fingers and afterwards by the toes. 
 
 The Weddahs of Ceylon, who seem to be the least intelligent of 
 men, have still no mathematical faculty whatever; they have no 
 name for any number. 
 
 The Tasmanians, a little more advanced^ used to be able to say 
 " one " and " two ;" for a higher number they had to say " many." 
 Sometimes they could succeed in saying " two and one," or even 
 " two and two." In order to say " five " they lifted their hand as 
 high as a man's head. They had, therefore, the idea of the number 
 five, but the expression was wanting to them. 
 
 The Australians have only two numerical expressions, but in 
 putting them together they can count as far as ten. The most 
 intelligent of them when they want to expresss the number five 
 say " hand," and for the number ten they say " two hands." 
 
 The majority of the tribes in New Caledonia have only four 
 nouns of number. For five they say "a hand"; "two hands "will 
 mean ten. If they wish to go beyond ten they begin to count again 
 as far as five, and after that they put forward a foot, or five toes. 
 When they have got as far as twenty they say " a man." Tliat mean/* 
 
Chap. III.] PUEE INTELLIGENCE. 583 
 
 all a man's fingers and all a man's toes. Some few clever calculators 
 can continue in this way ; but the most skilful mathematicians in 
 all 'New Caledonia cannot get beyond two or three hundred. 
 Beyond this colossal extent of numeration people make use of the 
 expressive saying, " the grains of sand could not count it." 
 
 The digital form of numeration is, as we shall see, very common 
 among primitive races, and it certainly must have been the basis of 
 the decimal system. 
 
 Like the Tasmanians, the Bushmen have only two nouns of 
 number, which they continue more or less by juxtaposition : 
 2 + 1; 2 + 2; 2 + 2 + 1, etc. 
 
 The mathematical faculties of the Kafirs are hardly more 
 advanced. Three nouns of number are sufficient for the Dam- 
 maras ; beyond that they make use of their fingers. They are 
 obliged to sell their sheep one by one, as they are incapable of 
 counting them or of reckoning the price. The numerical expres- 
 sion among the Zulus for saying six is, " take the thumb of the 
 other hand." 
 
 In the middle part of Africa, where people are more civilised 
 and especially more commercial, the mathematical aptitudes are 
 greater. The Yarriba children amuse themselves by counting with 
 cauris, shells which are used as small money coins all over Africa. 
 If one man wants to reproach another for his ignorance he says 
 to him : " You can't add nine and nine together." But the Arab 
 influence has now become widely spread over these regions. 
 
 The numeration of the Indian Americans resembles very much 
 that of the Melanesians and the Africans. Among many of the 
 native tribes in South America, in the subarctic regions, the 
 numeration does not go beyond the first numbers, afterwards it 
 becomes digital. 
 
 To express a number higher than four the Guaranis say "in- 
 numerable." Many tribes, whom D'Orbigny has called Moxeans, the 
 Itonamas, the Canichanas, the Movimas, are very deficient indeed in 
 the power of reckoning ; they cannot go beyond two or four. 
 
 The Abipones have really only three nouns of number. To 
 signify four they will say "the fingers of an emu"; five, "the 
 
584 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 fingers on a hand " ; twenty, " the fingers on the hands and on the 
 feet." We find the same plan of enumeration among the Guiana 
 Indians, among the Caribs, among the Tamanacs of Orinoco. 
 
 The Esquimaux and the Ahts of North America can count only 
 a very few numhers upon their fingers. Eoss has seen Esquimaux 
 who could not get beyond the number ten. 
 
 Many Indians in counting are obliged to raise their fingers and 
 then to put forward their feet. Very often, when an Indian wishes 
 to signify twenty he will say "an Indian," or "a man." 
 
 It is evident that the decimal system of counting, which we see 
 used now among many civilised people, and which was used also 
 by the Mexicans and the Peruvians, sprang from this digital nume- 
 ration common among the primitive tribes. But the Mexicans had a 
 very extended numeration. The numeration used by the Quichuas of 
 Peru was employed also by the Araucanians, the Puelches, and the 
 Patagonians, who for the higher numbers still make use of the same 
 denominations as the Quichuas. We know that these latter people 
 used to count their numbers by the knots in their quipos, which 
 to them were real string registers ; whereas the Americans, to unite 
 their numbers, had invented a whole system of points. 
 
 Something similar to the Peruvian quipos was also customary 
 in the Sandwich islands ; here the messengers used to carry with 
 them thin pieces of cord on which they made their knots, and 
 these knots were their numerical signs. In most of the islands the 
 people used to count with stones or with small pieces of wood, each 
 of which was meant to signify a dozen. This same primitive 
 method was used almost everywhere. The Polynesian numeration 
 is decimal, and in principle it would seem to have been borrowed 
 from the Malays ; the Malay word rima or lima, which is meant 
 to signify both a hand and five, is used as a name of number 
 all through the Malay territory, in Madagascar, and in Polynesia 
 as far as Easter island. But in the Pomotou archipelago we do not 
 find this word rima, which is common for some other names of 
 number, probably of Malay origin ; and this is a fact not without 
 importance when we come to determine the origin of the Polynesian 
 islanders. 
 
Chap. III.] PURE INTELLIGENCE. 585 
 
 The decimal numeration of the Polynesians would, one would 
 think, have allowed them to count as far as the higher numbers ; 
 but in practice they could scarcely get as far as two thousand, 
 which indeed for savages is going a very long way. 
 
 The decimal system is common also in Mongolian Asia, or in those 
 portions of Mongoloid Asia which are more or less civilised. But 
 it would seem that mathematical aptitudes have as yet progressed 
 Yevj little way with the Siamese, for the tribunals will not accept 
 the deposition of any witness who cannot count as far as ten. 
 It is very different with the Chinese, for they have written books 
 upon mathematics, and they have recently adopted the geometry 
 and the logarithms of Euclid. In mathematics, as in everything else, 
 the great Mongolian race holds an honourable position in the 
 general competition in the human hierarchy. 
 
 But it is in India more especially that mathematics have early 
 acquired a scientific development. In the fifth or sixth century of 
 our era the Hindoos had invented a system of trigonometry. In the 
 fourth century, according to Colebrooke, the algebra scholar Arya- 
 Bhatta used to resolve equations from several unknown quantities. 
 This precocious development in mathematical science, and especially 
 in the very abstract branch of algebra, in a race more prone than 
 another to metaphysical ramblings, would seem to denote a more 
 or less narrow connection, a psychical relation between these two 
 methods, the one rational and the other irrational. 
 
 Hindustanee is also very rich in numerical expressions. There 
 is a word, " lak," to say a hundred thousand, and another word, 
 " krar," to express ten millions ; whereas our European languages 
 have not, as had the Greek, a special expression to say ten 
 thousand. 
 
 It is almost needless to say that the European nations did not all 
 at once arrive at the higher mathematics ; the barbarous nations in 
 ancient Europe were assuredly not more advanced in mathematics 
 than the Polynesians. Strabo tells us that the people in Albania 
 did not know how to count beyond a hundred. In the Basque 
 language there is no original word to express a thousand. The 
 ancestors of the Indo-European races must certainly have begun to 
 
586 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 count upon their fingers, as is still the practice with many savages. 
 This was also the mode in which the Abbe Sicard, at the close of 
 the last and the beginning of the present century, used to teach 
 his deaf and dumb pupils before giving to them special instruction. 
 They were made to count upon their fingers as far as ten ; beyond 
 that they cut notches upon a piece of wood. 
 
 For aptitude in mathematics, as for everything, the human brain 
 has evolved very slowly, and it also started from a very low ebb. 
 Quite at first, man, incapable of the slightest abstraction, knew of 
 no numerical term ; like certain animals, in seeing objects before 
 him he may have had a vague idea of number. Ey degrees h& 
 invented for himself a system of enumeration, at first very rudi- 
 mentary, using his fingers as mnemonical pins. Then, freeing 
 himself altogether from the objective world, he succeeded in 
 stringing together an infinite number of purely abstract qualities, as 
 he found it no longer necessary to strengthen his memory by graphic 
 signs, figures, letters, or lines, which indeed are nothing else than 
 a rather more ingenious way of counting on one's fingers, by stones, 
 or by pieces of wood. This was the only practice known to the- 
 early reckoners, who followed their rude nmemonical system. 
 
 III. 
 
 Com.putatlon of Time. 
 
 If the idea of number is abstract, that of time is perhaps still 
 more so. The commencement of it may be simple enough. In 
 proportion as the phenomena of the exterior world unfold them- 
 selves, they strike the man who witnesses them, and they engrave 
 themselves in his brain in the form of sensations and impressions. 
 But these mental impressions are successive, as are the facts which 
 have provoked them ; and they ever tend to efface each other 
 gradually. They have therefore a very different degi'ce of colouring, 
 according to their age and their intensity; the conscient me can 
 therefore compare them, and assign to each a relative date. That 
 is the fundamental basis upon which, by slow elaboration, the 
 
Chap. III.] PUEE INTELLIGENCE. 587 
 
 human mind has succeeded in abstracting an idea of time; a purely- 
 subjective idea, though it was glorified and placed by the Greeks 
 on the top of Olympus. 
 
 But this idea of time is conceived with less fulness in proportion 
 as a race is less intelligent. Among the most primitive races, a man 
 is incapable of saying how old he is, and even of giving approxi- 
 mately the date of any event more than a few months old ; the 
 chronological operations come very slowly to perfection. 
 
 In very early times the chronological periods observed are very 
 short. Day and night are the only unities of time. Preferring the 
 subjective to the objective, some of the Esquimaux whom Parry 
 saw used to count by so many sleeps. 
 
 Por distant dates the people would reckon from a remarkable 
 event : a storm, an epidemic, an emigration, or the capture of an 
 elephant, as is the custom among the Hottentots. This, we see, is 
 but an accidental kind of chronology, having no sort of regularity. 
 Many negroes, especially the Mandingos, calculate more or less the 
 recurrence of years by that of the wet seasons. It is probable that, 
 by observing the periodical return of seasons, man was enabled to 
 arrive at some degree of precision in the computation of time. 
 
 The course of the stars, when man was able to notice their 
 regularity, established landing-points that wete still far more 
 exact. The first astronomical phenomena observed were everywhere 
 the apparent movements of the constellations, and especially the 
 changes of the moon. 
 
 But this observation had at first a special character. We have 
 already seen how great is the animism of the savage, who throws 
 his own life on to the outer world. In the eyes of the primitive 
 man, the sky is not dull and dead, as it is to the mind of the 
 educated European. The Patagonians regard the Southern Cross as 
 an ostrich (nandou), and the surrounding stars are dogs following it. 
 To them the moon is a man, the sun is a woman, etc. The Abipones 
 think that the Pleiades come down upon earth, and when this con- 
 stellation becomes invisible they say that their grandfather is ill. 
 During this epoch in his evolution man interests himself in the 
 stars, as in living creatures, and each phase in their revolutions ar& 
 
588 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 to him as so many dramatic incidents. This same train of thought 
 outlives the period of mythological corruption, even in societies that 
 are actually becoming civilised. The Bambarrans, for instance, stiU 
 count their different seasons by the periodical return of certain 
 constellations seen beyond the horizon. 
 
 But it was mainly by the revolutions of the moon, nearly every- 
 where imagined to be a living creature, that gave to man the first 
 idea of time in any way definite. The lunar month seems to many 
 people to have fulfilled the same position that the solar year now 
 holds in our scientific chronologies ; then the periodical observations 
 of the risings and settings of the moon at different points of the 
 horizon suggested the idea of a longer period in the lunar year, 
 adopted among all half-civilised people. This lunar year is still 
 adopted by the Bambarrans in the middle of Africa, by the Poly- 
 nesians, by the New Caledonians. It happened often enough to 
 run twelve months when they were able to reckon accurately the 
 time of the conjunction. The four phases of the moon, the quarters, 
 gave the idea of the week, which has been adopted from time 
 immemorial by nearly all the people of the white race, Semitic as 
 well as Indo-European, and which has also been adopted in JS^ew 
 Caledonia, and by the Bambarrans in Africa. 
 
 But as the difference between the duration of the lunar year and 
 the solar year is considerable, it naturally followed that with this 
 system the order of the seasons was soon invented. People intro- 
 duced what remedies came most natural to their minds ; they made 
 alterations, they suppressed so many days ; and so they continued 
 until they discovered the solar year more or less exactly, unknown 
 to nearly every primitive race. The Polynesians, however, had 
 some rude idea of the solar year, but the discovery was not amply 
 and effectually made until the days of a more advanced civilisation. 
 
 In ancient Peru, where the system of reckoning by the lunar 
 year was still current, the people rectified it by solar observations, 
 made by means of rudimentary gnomons, by columns, the length 
 of the shadows enabling them to determine the epochs of the 
 solstices and of the equinoxes. The Mexicans, more skilful astro- 
 raomers, had altogether adopted the solar year, each year being 
 
Chap. III.] PURE INTELLIGENCE. 589 
 
 divided into eighteen months of twenty days, and to complete the 
 year of 365 days they added in five supplementary days. And 
 every fifty-two years they interpolated twelve days and a half, so 
 making up for the loss of six hours not comprised in the 365 pre- 
 scribed number of days in the year. The Mexicans had also 
 improved upon the rude gnomon of the Peruvians. From out of 
 one of the Mexican plains has been dug a colossal solar dial-plate, 
 upon which was engraved a calendar, indicating the hours of the 
 day, the epochs of the solstices and of the equinoxes, and that of 
 the passage of the sun, according to the zenith in Mexico. 
 
 Egypt, India, and China also discovered, each in their own way, 
 the solar year, and with more or less precision. The Chinese 
 almanack, adopted by the Mongolians, the Thibetans, the Indo- 
 Chinese, divides the year into twenty-four divisions, marking the 
 passage of the sun in the twelve signs of the zodiac ; and, according 
 to Eentley, the Indians had, as early as the year 1442 of our era, 
 known how to divide the ecliptic into twenty-seven lunar stations. 
 
 The ancient Egyptians were already far advanced in their chrono- 
 logical reckonings. Their year was divided into 365 days, or 
 twelve months, with thirty days in each, and five supplementary 
 days. But as the solar year does in fact exceed this by about a 
 quarter of a day, the Egyptians invented a long chronological 
 period, a sothic or cynic period of 1460 years. 
 
 Many other nations have also grouped their years into long 
 periods. The Thibetans had their cycles of 250 years. The 
 Chinese counted by cycles of sixty years, and they began to do sa 
 three centuries before the commencement of the Christian era. 
 But the Mexicans and the ancient Egyptians seem to have been 
 the only people who thought of making these cycles agree with the 
 irregularities of the civil year. The Mexicans had imagined a cycle 
 of fifty-two years, which they called " sheaves," or " bundles," and in 
 their hieroglyphs they used to represent them by a bundle of roses. 
 Because of its very long duration, the Egyptian civilisation, which 
 in all probability the people thought was destined to endure to the 
 end of time, had adopted in its sothic period a cycle enormously 
 lon^ in comparison with the ordinary life, not only of individuals, 
 
590 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 "but with that of nations. I^o other people have as yet shown so 
 much confidence as to future ages. 
 
 The study of chronometrical reckonings, invented by the different 
 races, will give us a very good indication as to their natural intel- 
 ligence, the strength of their memory, and also of their powers of 
 observation. Quite at the bottom of the social scale we see man 
 living a hand-to-mouth existence, like the animals, from whom he 
 is not far removed. Then he endeavours to recollect the notable 
 events ; he observes the regularity of the seasons, the most striking 
 astronomical phenomena. He succeeds in imagining first a lunar 
 year, afterwards a solar year, which by degrees he conceives with 
 more perfect accuracy, every now and then correcting his errors. And 
 the old civilisations which saw a long succession of years that had 
 evolved behind them in bygone times, and which hoped for a still 
 longer chain of years in the future, the short solar year was not 
 sufficient. They framed their annals into long cycles. Of all these 
 ambitious periods the sothic period is in our present opinion the most 
 inordinate. Eut we may nevertheless believe that future humanity 
 will imagine a term of years still more imposing, established by 
 long astronomical revolutions, the mutation of the terrestrial axis, 
 or the precession of the equinoxes ; for there is reason to hope that 
 the human kind is but at the commencement of its painful journey 
 along the course of ages. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THE AGES OF HUMANITY. 
 
 To anyone who has taken the trouble to read this book, it will be 
 superfluous to refute the pessimist doctrines which have recently 
 been current among the hlase men and women of our own time. 
 Some writers, whom we should imagine to be round, plump men, 
 xuddy in health, well provided with this world's goods, have en- 
 
Conclusion.] THE AGES OF HUMANITY. 591 
 
 deavoured to make us believe that to live is the worst of all 
 evils, and that henceforward every human effort ought to tend 
 towards suicide. Job also sang this anthem very many years ago, 
 but he might have pleaded extenuating circumstances. His bed 
 was a dung-heap, he was eaten up with leprosy, and he was worn 
 ■out by commonplace morality showered down upon him by his well- 
 to-do friends. Owing to his unfortunate position, his ideas of the 
 development of humanity were necessarily incomplete. But now, 
 in our time, when the history of the human kind is known to us — 
 at least in its broad outlines — now, when we know the evolution 
 through which man has passed, we must either be blind or be 
 wedded to some chimerical system of our own, if we dare to deny 
 the law of progress. 
 
 Man, no doubt, is very weak ; he is still a long way from being 
 perfect. No doubt the coarse instincts of the beast are still alive 
 in him, for he has freed himself from brute-like existence only by 
 long and constant efforts, and animality has by no means lost its 
 hold. But by a long course of steady progress, ever more and 
 more conscient, he has improved his condition, and in future ages 
 lie will still do so to a much greater extent. 
 
 The nature of man, like that of all the superior animals, is com- 
 plex ; and in the preceding chapters we have endeavoured to note 
 the main features, separating them one from the other. 
 
 In the mental life we have seen that the nutritive appetites 
 were predominant ; they roar so loudly that their voice drowns all 
 others. In every race, primitive man is a sort of wild beast ; his 
 chief thought is to satisfy his hunger, to capture and devour his 
 prey, which is often human flesh. But even as regards the nutri- 
 tive appetites man makes progress. He learns how to vary his 
 food, to modify it by means of cookery; and in this way he 
 augments the niggardly fare with which nature had first provided 
 him. As he learns to rear domestic animals, and more especially by 
 his acquired knowledge of agriculture, he replenishes his larder 
 with greater facility ; his culinary skill becomes more perfect, and 
 enables him to taste delicacies, of which, crude and inferior as 
 they may seem now to us, he had at first no idea. Still moving 
 
592 INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 onward, his invention always at work, he discovers that which we 
 have wrongly called the nervous aliments', substances which act 
 directly on the cerebral life, either to excite it, to disorder it, or 
 to deaden it. 
 
 Man's artistic notions develop also at the same time. He no 
 longer uses his sense of sight and of smell merely as a means of 
 perceiving the phenomena of the outside world ; he endeavours to 
 picture to himself, to realise the objects which his senses present 
 to his imagination. From this moment he can, at will, with ever- 
 increasing skill fix and give birth to a number of impressions, 
 sentiments, and even ideas. He becomes musician, painter, and 
 sculptor. 
 
 And parallel with the sensitive side of human nature the affec- 
 tive aptitudes have also developed. At first man confined himself 
 to the satisfying of his genesic desires ; but in proportion as his 
 sensibility has grown finer and his hunger has slackened, his power 
 of loving has increased, The manifestation of affective sentiments 
 were at first short and rare ; his love for his wife or his little ones 
 was only temporary, like that of animals for their females or for 
 their young. And sometimes, when hard pressed by fierce and 
 pitiless hunger, man has eaten his own children without much 
 hesitation or twinge of conscience. It was not until after many 
 ages that this early savagery gave him disgust, or provoked in his 
 mind any feeling of horror. It was by very slow degrees that 
 man's heart became so enlarged as to embrace his cares for his wife 
 and children, his neighbours, his friends, his fellow-citizens, and at 
 last humanity at large. 
 
 An ascending gradation of the same kind may be seen also in 
 our social institutions, from the animal horde of men, in which the 
 strongest reigned as brutal and absolute master, down to the clan, 
 to the tribe, to the city, to the nation. The ethnical group has ever 
 grown larger ; social ties have multiplied themselves and become 
 more complex ; man's interests have become more dependent one 
 upon the other ; we have passed from anarchy to a rigid despotism, 
 and at last have made for ourselves an individual independence, 
 always increasing, and limited only by the real interest of the 
 
Conclusion.] THE AGES OF HUMANITY. S93 
 
 commimity. The government of human societies is now a science, 
 with particular forms of procedure, all carefully studied ; and the 
 object is progressive amelioration of our kind from a threefold point 
 of view : physical, moral, and intellectual development. Mythology 
 is also unfolding itself, it is growing pale and gradually dying out. 
 Man no longer ignores that the terrestrial world is the only one to 
 which he can pretend to belong ; his constant endeavour is to make 
 his sojourn here more and more tolerable. 
 
 Each of these branches of progress supplies another more im- 
 portant than all the rest — the progress of intelligence. Primitive 
 man could only live in the present, so weak was his memory, his 
 imagination, his power of combining ideas. But the mental life 
 gradually expands itself. The impressions marked in the nervous 
 centres by the incidents and accidents of daily life become deeper 
 and more tenacious. Many associations, change of sentiments, 
 of ideas fix themselves in the nervous centres, and constitute 
 a large capital of accumulated experience. Upon this solid basis 
 man's intelligence spreads itself out and gradually widens ; he 
 learns to observe accurately, and to assimilate his observations, to 
 draw deductions and inductions. Science is then born, and by 
 degrees it finds its way into our everyday life. 
 
 In truth, all this very complex progress is above all things intel- 
 lectual. The taste for refinement in our sensitive pleasures, in art, 
 in humanising feelings, in the inauguration of justice and liberty, 
 in our social relations, is all expressed in and proceeds from the 
 gradual growth of intelligence. 
 
 We have been obliged, for the purposes of our analytical study, 
 to isolate one from the other the difi"erent modes of human activity ; 
 but in reality everything hangs together, is fastened, and works 
 harmoniously. In the brain of the dullest savage there is some 
 intelligence; and there are nutritive appetites in the man who, 
 morally and intellectually, is the most highly developed. But these 
 energies, though they are simultaneous, are so dissimilar, that in the. 
 
 2 Q 
 
594 / INTELLECTUAL LIFE. [Book v. 
 
 normal course of its evolution the human kind passes through a 
 succession of phases which we may rightly call the ages of humanity. 
 Each one of these phases is characterised by a number of wants 
 which govern and lead individuals and the ethnical groups, 
 -and these wants are less elevated in proportion as civilisation is 
 less advanced. No doubt all these wants, all these principal 
 aptitudes, exist in all races of men, but in very different propor- 
 tions. In this resj)ect the different human races may class them- 
 selves together according to periods of time, and according to the 
 countries in which they live. They are more especially nutritive, 
 sensitive, affective, or intellectual. We may say at once that a 
 very small minority of the human population deserve to be classed 
 in this last-named division. 
 
 Such is the general law, but we should strangely abuse ourselves 
 if we expected to find it hold good always and everywhere ; that 
 every individual man, and all the human groups of men, necessarily 
 evolve in a progressive scale merely by raising themselves more 
 or less high. Ketrogression is quite possible. We have given 
 abundant evidence to show that the human races are very unequal, 
 that they may be set in order in a long series; but it may also very 
 well happen that individuals, or even small groups, belonging to a 
 superior race should undergo a degeneration which will degrade 
 them to the level of the most inferior races. In Mexico, in South 
 America, in the Fiji islands, Europeans have returned to savagery 
 and even to cannibalism. Cook has seen, in the Malay peninsula, 
 Portuguese reduced by the Malays themselves to the condition of 
 a servile caste of people. 
 
 To find other examples we need only look underneath the de- 
 ceitful varnish of our civilised societies. No doubt that on its 
 good sides our civilisation is prodigiously superior to that of 
 primitive societies ; but the greater part of those signs of progress 
 •which blind our eyes is the work of exceptional individuals, — 
 men who have been innovators, and generally to their own 
 prejudice. The innovator's calling is often a dangerous one. 
 It is not the less true that among the dregs of our modern 
 societies there are thousands and thousands of persons who in 
 
■Conclusion.] THE AGES OF HUMANITY. 595 
 
 moral elevation and intelligence are hardly superior to the l^ow 
 Caledonians. 
 
 It is mainly to our industry that we owe our greatness. Now, 
 our industrial productions, so exuberant and so complex, result 
 principally from our ingenious implements and from our extreme 
 division of labour. But this crumbling of mechanical labour has 
 a most disastrous effect upon the general development of the 
 intelligence. It has come from the formation of an ever-increasing 
 class of modern workmen who have no time to think or to instruct 
 themselves. Owing to this state of things we see crying in- 
 equalities in the various conditions of our social welfare aijid of our 
 knowledge. These are fearful plagues in our civilisation ; they are 
 blots which all free and intelligent societies of men ought to 
 endeavour to remedy. 
 
 Many vast reforms have yet to be accomplished, and all those 
 who have the care of souls must work, each according to his 
 strength, towards the fulfilment of the great task. As men 
 neglect to do so they will assuredly be paving the way for future 
 social convulsions which will endanger even civilisation itself. We 
 have already felt the first attacks. 
 
 We must endeavour that justice, enlightened by superior 
 intelligence, shall take the helm and guide us in our social 
 -dealings. 
 
 
 Q 2 
 
iin)Ex 
 
 Abandonment of their dead by 
 
 the Mongolians 239 
 
 Abandonment of their dead by 
 
 the Thibetans 239 
 
 Abortion ... ... ... 143 
 
 Adoption in Polynesia . . . 389 
 
 „ Eome 898 
 
 Adultery in Africa 337 
 
 ,, in Arabia ... ... 369 
 
 „ among the Brahmins 365 
 
 „ in China 362 
 
 „ among the Circas- 
 sians ... ... 375 
 
 „ among the ancient 
 
 Germans... ... 374 
 
 „ in Greece ... ... 371 
 
 „ in Japan ... ... 363 
 
 „ amoDg the Kafirs... 458 
 
 „ in Malay 352 
 
 „ in the Middle Ages 375 
 „ among the Mongo- 
 lians 360 
 
 „ in New Caledonia 334, 
 
 335 
 
 5, in Noukahiva ... 488 
 
 „ in Rome 372 
 
 „ in Siam ... ... 494 
 
 „ in South America .. . 343 
 
 „ in Thibet 358 
 
 Affective life ... 129 
 
 Age of Bronze ... ... 567 
 
 „ Iron 567, 569 
 
 „ Stone ... ... 566, 567 
 
 Age, Primitive man does not 
 
 know his 587 
 
 Ager publicus in Eome . . . 424 
 Ages of humanity ... ... 590 
 
 Agglutinative languages ... 580 
 Agni, Worship of ... ... 314 
 
 Agricultural associations in 
 
 England 427 
 
 Agricultural associations in 
 
 Lombardy , 427 
 
 Agriculture 569-573 
 
 „ Primitive ... 572 
 
 „ Psychology of ... 573 
 
 Akaikis in Polynesia... ... 483 
 
 Alcoholic drinks ... 44-48 
 
 Allmenden in Germany ... 425 
 „ Switzerland ... 428 
 
 Allodial ground in Germany. . , 425 
 Amblyornis inornata... ... 78 
 
 „ ornata 57 
 
 Animism 276 
 
 „ in Greece ... ... 308 
 
 „ in India 307 
 
 „ Primitive ... ... 587 
 
 5, of the Scandinavians 310 
 
 „ Vedic ... 309, 310 
 
 Anthropolatry in Polynesia 295, 
 
 296 
 
 Anthropomorphism of the 
 
 Parsees ... ... ... 315 
 
 Anthropophagy ... ... 203 
 
 Ants, A caste of, set apart for 
 
 reproduction ... 329, 330 
 
 Areois ... ... ... 63, 64 
 
 Ariiat Tahiti 486 
 
 Aristocracy in Africa 468-165 
 
 China 506, 507 
 
 „ Mexico ... 476 
 
 „ Mongolia 496-498 
 
 „ Polynesia ... 483 
 
 Arts, The, in general ... 95 
 
 „ Genesis of the ... ... 108 
 
 „ The graphic and plastic 107 
 Assistance to the aged, etc. 152 
 Astrolatr-y at Bogota... .., 2S9 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PA6B 
 
 Astrolatryin Pern 293 
 
 „ in Polynesia ... 297 
 
 „ among the Tartars 302 
 
 Asylums for animals ... 162 
 
 Atheism among the Latoukas 284 
 
 Australian, sense of touch in 73 
 
 B 
 
 Benevolent sentiments ... 165 
 
 Betrothal among the Germans 373 
 
 Bison, The 23 
 
 Blue, Fondness for 85 
 
 Bolotou of the Fijians 250, 251 
 
 „ in Tonga island 
 
 ... 259 
 
 Boomerang, The 
 
 ... 561 
 
 Bos urus. The 
 
 .. 
 
 ... 26 
 
 Botoque, The ... 
 
 ., 
 
 87,88 
 
 Bow, The 
 
 
 ... 561 
 
 Brahmins 
 
 .. 
 
 ... 524 
 
 Bread-fruit tree 
 
 
 ... 21 
 
 Bread, Invention of 
 
 
 ... 35 
 
 Buddhism in China 
 
 
 ... 305 
 
 Burial customs in An 
 
 aerica 
 
 ... 233 
 
 among Aryan Vedahs 243 
 in Equatorial Africa 224 
 among the Hottentots 
 
 223, 227 
 among the Kafirs ... 223 
 among the Mongolian s 
 
 239, 240 
 among Niam-Niams 224 
 among the Persians 243 
 
 Calendar, The Mexican ... 589 
 Cannibalism in Africa ... 206 
 
 ,, amoDg Ashantis 254 
 
 „ in Bhotan ... 215 
 
 ,, in Brazil ... 168 
 
 „ among Esquimaux 214 
 
 „ among the Fantis 207 
 
 Filial 212 
 
 „ Judicial ... 212 
 
 „ among the Kafirs 206 
 
 „ among Massageta) 215 
 
 „ in Melanesia ... 205 
 
 „ in Mexico ... 213 
 
 „ among Monbouttous 
 
 208 
 „ in New Caledonia 
 
 205, 206 
 » among Niam-Niams 
 
 207,208 
 
 PAOX 
 
 Cannibalism in Polynesia ... 208 
 „ of the Polynesian 
 
 soul 257 
 
 „ among Eed Skins 213 
 
 „ amongthe Saxons 216 
 
 „ among Scotchmen 215 
 
 „ among Semites 215 
 
 „ in Terra del Fuego 213 
 
 „ Evolution of ... 217 
 
 Castes among the Bambarrans 464 
 Brahmin ... ... 525 
 
 in ancient Egypt • ... 469 
 
 Japan 501 
 
 among the Mandingos 464 
 in Polynesia ... 484-487 
 Castration among Hottentots 90 
 Caviare ... ... ... 25 
 
 Ceramic art 565 
 
 „ of the Peruvians 111 
 
 Cereals in Afghanistan ... 26 
 Ceremonial bearing ... ... 134 
 
 Ceremony in the Sandwich 
 
 islands 
 Ceremony in Tonga island ... 
 Chamanism ... 
 Changeableness of savages . . . 
 Charity, Christian ... 
 Cheek buttons worn by the 
 
 Esquimaux 
 
 Chicha... 
 
 Chiefs in Columbia, 
 
 chosen 
 Children, Abandonment 
 
 sale of 
 Chinese administration 
 Christianity, Effects 
 
 Tahiti 
 Chronology 
 
 485 
 484 
 303 
 133 
 
 506 
 
 91 
 45,47 
 how 
 
 ... 473 
 and 
 
 147-149 
 ... 509 
 of, in 
 490, 491 
 
 586-589 
 
 Evolution of ... 590 
 Circumcision ... ... ... 90 
 
 Civilisation of the Americans 
 
 556, 557 
 
 „ Dutch in Malay 491, 492 
 
 Classes of men in Greece . . . 530 
 
 Classification of races of men 7 
 
 Clothing 78 
 
 Coca 50 
 
 CofEee 50 
 
 Cold, Eesistance of Puegians 
 
 to 74,76 
 
 Communism in Peru ... 480, 481 
 
 Concerts among chimpanzees 102 
 
 Concubines in Greece ... 370 
 
 „ in Japan 363 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Confaclua " 303,304. 
 
 Cookery 31 
 
 „ , . Ethnography of ... 35 
 „ . , of the Papuans 33, 34 
 „ . of the Tasmanians ... 33 
 Cooking by means of hot 
 
 stones 33, 34 
 
 Corpses dried in Polynesia 228 
 Coverture in Africa ... 385 
 
 „ in South America 386 
 
 „ among the Basques 396 
 
 „ among the Cheetahs 387 
 ,, among the Iberians 396 
 Creation ex nihilo ... ... ,316 
 
 Cremation in California ... 236 
 
 „ in China 240 
 
 „ among the Germans 244 
 
 „ in Guiana... ... 236 
 
 „ in India 243 
 
 „ in Mexico... ... 234 
 
 „ in Mongolia ... 240 
 
 „ in Eome ... ... 244 
 
 „ among the Shosoni 236 
 
 „ in Siam 240 
 
 „ in Sitka island ... 236 
 Cross on a New Zealand tomb- 
 
 stone 229 
 
 Curiae of the Romans ... 533 
 
 Cycles 589 
 
 Cynophagy 204 
 
 D 
 
 Da'imios, Japanese ... ... 501 
 
 Dancing 96 
 
 „ Funereal, in the Mar- 
 quesas islands . . . 230 
 Dead, Books of, among the 
 Egyptians ... ... ... 256 
 
 Deaf and dumb children ... 577 
 
 Death, Idea of 217 
 
 Debts of an ancestor... ... 366 
 
 Decapitation customary among 
 
 theDyaks 238 
 
 Decentralisation in China ... 510 
 Decoration more used by men 
 
 than by women 94 
 „ by the New Cale- 
 
 donian of his belt 92 
 „ by the Tasmanian 
 
 women ... ... 91 
 
 „ by Veddah women 91 
 
 „ Evolution of ... 93 
 
 Deformations 86-90 
 
 Defloration, Legal in Cambogia 357 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Democracy in Carthage ... 517 
 Demons 311 
 
 Disfiguring the cranium ... 89 
 Divisions of industrial labour 574 - 
 Divorce in China ... ... 362 
 
 „ Japan ... ... 363 
 
 „ Scandinavia ... 374 
 
 Dolmens, Funereal, in Fiji ... 227 
 
 „ Madagascar 227 
 
 „ Tonga ... 229 
 
 Dogs, Scavenger, kept to eat 
 
 men's corpses ... 240, 243 
 Dowry, Gra^co-Roman 370, 371 
 Drawing practised by the Es- 
 quimaux ... 108, 119 
 „ in Melanesia ... 118 
 
 „ Prehistoric... ... 119 
 
 Droit de juveigneur ... ... 417 
 
 Drum, The 102,103 
 
 Drunkenness in Africa ... 48 
 
 „ in Australia ... 47 
 
 ,, in China ... 48 
 
 „ in Europe 47, 48 
 
 „ in Kamtschatka 49 
 
 ,, in Malay ... 47 
 
 „ in Tahiti ... 46 
 
 „ Psychology of 42-48 
 
 E 
 Eatouas, Polynesian ... 258-260 
 Ecstasy of the New Caledonians 251 
 Education, Influence of 161, 162 
 Eldest son. Right of, in Germany425 
 Endogamy among the Arau- 
 
 canians... ... 342 
 
 „ in New Zealand... 352 
 
 Enumeration of human races 3 
 Epitaphs, Materialistic, among 
 the Romans... ... ... 245 
 
 Equality among theTurkomans 496 
 Evolution, Psychical... ... 551 
 
 Exogamy in North America... 386 
 „ among the Chinese 362 
 „ in Guiana ... ... 342 
 
 „ among the Hindoos 366 
 J, among the Kasias 367 
 „ among the Red Skins 
 
 343, 344 
 F 
 
 Family in Africa 384 
 
 „ in America ... ... 386 
 
 „ The animal 380 
 
 „ among the white races 
 
 in Asia ... ... 393 
 
€00 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Family in Burmali 390 
 
 „ in Cambogia ... ... 390 
 
 „ in barbarous Europe 395 
 
 „ in Fiji 383 
 
 „ in Greece and Rome 397 
 „ among the aborigines 
 
 of India 392 
 
 „ among the Kariens . . . 390 
 „ as established by the 
 
 Koran ... 391, 395 
 „ in Melanesia ... ... 882 
 
 „ in Mongolia ... 390,391 
 „ in Polynesia ... ... 388 
 
 „ in the Sandwich islands 
 
 388, 389 
 „ in Sumatra ... ... 390 
 
 „ Evolution of the ... 398 
 „ The future of the ... 401 
 Fasting of the Bushmen ... 39 
 Fellatahs, Prayers of the ... 285 
 Ferocious instincts inhumanity 157 
 Ferocity, Absence of, in the 
 
 Hindoos 162 
 
 „ Absence of, in the 
 
 Mongolians ... 160 
 „ in Africa ... ... 158 
 
 „ in America... 158,159 
 ,, of Columbus ... 168 
 
 „ of the Malays ... 159 
 „ of theMelanesians... 158 
 „ in Polynesians ... 160 
 „ of the Romans ... 171 
 „ of the Turkomans ... 160 
 
 Feticism 279 
 
 „ in Egypt 286 
 
 „ in the Gaboon . . . 280 
 „ in Guinea ... 281, 282 
 „ in Madagascar ... 285 
 „ in Ouganda... ... 284 
 
 Feudalism in Madagascar ... 465 
 „ in Mexico ... ... 4-12 
 
 „ in Polynesia 483, 484 
 
 „ in Tahiti 486 
 
 „ Vedio 524 
 
 Filiation in Japan 391 
 
 Fire, Discovery and produc- 
 tion of 563,564 
 
 Firearms 562 
 
 Flute, The 104 
 
 Food 15 
 
 „ in Africa 27 
 
 „ in America 22 
 
 „ in Asia 24 
 
 M in Australia ... ... 17 
 
 Food in China 
 
 Pi.GB 
 
 ... 25 
 
 „ Funereal 
 
 ... 242 
 
 „ in Melanesia ... 
 
 ... 17 
 
 „ in Mexico 
 
 ... 22 
 
 „ in Mongolia 
 
 ... 25 
 
 „ Nervous 
 
 48-52 
 
 „ in New Guinea... 
 
 ... 18 
 
 „ in Peru 
 
 22,23 
 
 „ in Polynesia 
 
 ... 19 
 
 Frescoes 
 
 121-124 
 
 Funebrial doll of the Ostiaks 242 
 Funereal basket used by the 
 
 Caribs 235 
 
 ,, basket used near the 
 
 
 Orinoco river ... 235 
 
 » 
 
 boats in Noukahiva 228 
 
 5> 
 
 hillocks in America 292 
 
 3J 
 
 messengers in Da- 
 
 
 homey 244 
 
 »> 
 
 rites 217 
 
 J> 
 
 „ in Africa ... 223 
 
 J> 
 
 „ in America ... 233 
 
 5> 
 
 „ in China ... 242 
 
 
 „ in Malay ... 238 
 
 J> 
 
 „ in Melanesia... 220 
 
 »> 
 
 „ in Polynesia... 228 
 
 J> 
 
 „ among the white 
 
 
 races ... 243 
 
 }) 
 
 „ their reason ... 246 
 
 » 
 
 Bcaftoldings used by 
 
 
 the Red Skins ... 236 
 
 )> 
 
 statues in Siam . . . 242 
 
 JJ 
 
 suicide in Kamt- 
 
 
 schatka 266 
 
 }) 
 
 suicide in New Zea- 
 
 
 land 231 
 
 » 
 
 suicide in the Sand- 
 
 
 wich islands ... 232 
 
 Furnaces, High, in Africa ... 568 
 
 Future life 249 
 
 >j 
 
 Ideas of, in America 261 
 
 )i 
 
 „ in Asia ... 265 
 
 i) 
 
 „ in Ashanti 254 
 
 j> 
 
 „ in Egypt ... 254 
 
 M 
 
 „ in^Ielanesia 249 
 
 if 
 
 in Polynesia 256 
 
 i} 
 
 Evolution in ideas 
 
 
 of 272 
 
 G 
 
 Gardens, Floating ... ... 571 
 
 Generosity of the Esquimaux 168 
 Gcnesic aberrations ... ... 71 
 
 „ want 56 
 
INDEX. 
 
 601 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Genii 311, 312 
 
 Gods, The 274 
 
 „ Chinese 303,304 
 
 „ Pathological, in Burmah 301 
 „ ,, New Zealand 297 
 
 „ „ Persia 311,312 
 
 „ Polynesian ... ... 295 
 
 „ Semitic... ... ... 316 
 
 Gong 103 
 
 Gourah of the Hottentots ... 105 
 Guanaco 24 
 
 H 
 
 Hades of the Greeks 270 
 
 Harmonica ... ... ... 103 
 
 Head-dressing ... ... 90 
 
 Heedlessness among savages 
 
 553-558 
 Hell, Notions of, among the 
 
 Brahmins 268 
 
 „ Notions of, among the 
 
 Egyptians 256, 470, 471. 
 „ Notions of, among the 
 
 Esquimaux ... 263, 264 
 „ Notions of, among the 
 
 Peruvians ... ... 264 
 
 „ Notions of, among the 
 
 Eed Skins 263 
 
 Heterse 70 
 
 Hieroglyphics, Mexican ... 121 
 Horse in Africa ... ... 28 
 
 Hospitality among Arabs 163, 170 
 „ Turkomans 169, 170 
 
 Houses need in common in 
 
 Easter island 413 
 
 Humanity, The ages of ... 590 
 „ among the Chinese 169 
 
 „ Evolution in 164, 539 
 
 Idol worship among the Aryan 
 
 races ... •.. ••■ 312 
 
 Idol worship in China 303-305 
 „ among the Fin- 
 
 landers ... 313 
 Impiety of the Chinese ... 305 
 Imposts in China ... ... 510 
 
 „ in Greece ... ... 531 
 
 Imprecation uttered by a negro 283 
 Improvidence of savages ... 557 
 
 Inca, The 478-481 
 
 Infanticide 145 
 
 „ in Africa 146 
 
 in America ... 147 
 
 PAOE 
 
 Infanticide in China 148 
 
 „ among Esquimaux 147 
 
 „ in India ... ... 148 
 
 „ in Melanesia ... 145 
 
 Intellect become piteous in 
 
 China ... ' 157 
 
 Intelligence, Pure 575 
 
 Intoxicating substances ... 42 
 
 Iron in Africa 567,568 
 
 „ Asia 569 
 
 J 
 Jewellery ... ... ... 90 
 
 Judges in Judaea 516 
 
 Justes noces. The 372 
 
 Justice among the Afghans . . . 527 
 „ in Africa ... ... 467 
 
 „ among the Aztecs ... 477 
 ,, „ Brahmins 525 
 » „ Chinese ... 511 
 a „ Greeks ... 532 
 j> „ Japanese... 503 
 ,, according to the Koran 520 
 „ among the Mongolians 499 
 )» „ Persians ... 521 
 }) „ Polynesians 487 
 » „ Romans ... 534 
 5, „ Semites ... 519 
 „ „ Thibetan lamas 500 
 „ Evolution of 545 
 
 Kava 46, 49 
 
 Kikinos of theMarquesasislandsl83 
 Koumiss 44 
 
 L 
 
 Lamaism ... ... 498, 499 
 
 Languages 576-581 
 
 „ Agglutinative ... 580 
 
 „ Dialects of ... 579 
 
 „ Evolution of 580, 581 
 
 „ Flexible 580 
 
 „ Inferior ... 577-579 
 
 „ Monosyllabic ... 580 
 
 „ Origin of 576 
 
 Lao-tze ... ... ... 303 
 
 Lapps, not a ferocious people 
 
 199, 200 
 Latifundia in Rome ... ... 424 
 
 Laws, Evolution of ... ... 545 
 
 Letters, Men of, in China 505-508 
 
 Levriat in Afghanistan ... 367 
 
 „ among Red Skins 345, 34G 
 
 Life, Future 241/ 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Love, Filial ..; ... 152 
 
 „ for the young in animals 139 
 „ ,, „ humanity 149 
 
 „ among savages .. . ... 150 
 
 Love-making among birds ... 57 
 Lotus-grain bread ... ... 35 
 
 Lubricity in Abyssinia ... 66 
 „ in America ... 67 
 „ in Australia 60, 61 
 ,, among the Chinese 68 
 „ „ Esquimaux 67 
 „ in New Caledonia... 61 
 „ in Polynesia 61-66 
 „ among the Komaus 70 
 Lunar month, The 588 
 
 M 
 
 Ma.elhiat 
 
 Maguey 
 
 Man, The black 
 
 „ Origin of 
 
 „ The white 
 
 „ The yellow 
 Manes, Belief in, among the 
 
 Bambarrans ... 253 
 
 „ Belief in, among the 
 
 Bretons 311 
 
 „ Belief in, among the 
 
 nindoos 310 
 
 „ Belief in, among the 
 
 Kafirs 252 
 
 ,, Belief in, among the 
 
 Eomans 311 
 
 Man's first dwelling-place ... 16 
 Mantis religiosa, The... ... 60 
 
 Mark in Germany ... ... 425 
 
 „ Neerlande ... ... 428 
 
 Marriage 327 
 
 „ in Abyssinia ... 341 
 
 „ in Africa ... ... 335 
 
 „ Partial, in Africa ... 341 
 „ in America... ... 341 
 
 „ by purchase, in 
 
 America... 343-345 
 „ in Asia, among the 
 
 white races . . . 364 
 „ by capture in Australia 332 
 „ among the Berbers 340 
 „ among the Bongos 339 
 „ inBurmah... ... 356 
 
 „ in China 361 
 
 „ by confarreation ... 372 
 
 „ among Circassians 375 
 
 The dotal 372 
 
 Marriage,Incestnous,in ancient 
 
 Egypt 340 
 
 „ by capture among 
 
 the Esquimaux... 346 
 „ in barbarous Europe 373 
 
 „ Feudal 374 
 
 „ among the Fuegians 341 
 
 „ in Gaboon 337 
 
 „ The Graeco-Eoman 369 
 
 „ in Haiti 341 
 
 „ among the Hassi- 
 
 niyeh Arabs 340, 369 
 „ amongtheHottentot8 336 
 „ among the natives 
 
 of India 353 
 
 „ among the Indo« 
 
 Chinese 356 
 
 „ in Japan ... ... 361 
 
 „ among the Kafirs ... 336 
 „ in Kamtschatka ... 358 
 „ among the Latins ... 371 
 „ in Malay ... ... 352 
 
 „ in Melanesia ... 331 
 
 „ in Mexico 348 
 
 „ among the whole 
 
 Mongolian race . . . 364 
 „ among the Mongo- 
 lians and the Mon- 
 goloids of Asia ... 358 
 „ in New Caledonia . . . 334 
 J, in New Guinea ... 333 
 „ Temporary, among 
 
 the Persians ... 367 
 „ Administrative, in 
 
 Peru 347 
 
 „ in Polynesia ... 350 
 
 „ by capture in the 
 
 Philippine islands 352 
 „ among the Reddies 354 
 „ among the Timmanis 338 
 
 „ in Thibet 356 
 
 „ by capture among 
 
 the Slavs ... 373 
 
 „ in Wales 373 
 
 „ .Evolution of ... 375 
 
 „ in the future 378-380 
 
 Masks, Metal, in MycensB ... 116 
 
 Mate 50 
 
 Materialism of the Califor- 
 
 nians 262, 263 
 
 Mathematical aptitudes 581-586 
 
 „ Evolution of ... 586 
 
 Matriarcat, The, in Africa ... 384 
 
 „ ,, in China ... 361 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Matriarcat, The, in Greece ... 397 
 „ „ among the 
 
 
 
 Lycians... 394 
 
 » 
 
 „ in Peru ... 387 
 
 y» 
 
 „ in Thibet 390,391 
 
 » 
 
 „ in Tonga ... 389 
 
 » 
 
 „ among the 
 
 
 Zaporoque 
 
 
 Cossacks... 396 
 
 Metallurgy 566-569 
 
 Mikado of Japan 501 
 
 Mir, Russian ... ... ... 429 
 
 Monarchy in Central Africa... 460 
 
 )} 
 
 in Arabia 516 
 
 » 
 
 in Ashanti 461 
 
 3> 
 
 among the Brahmins 525 
 
 5> 
 
 in China 505 
 
 }} 
 
 in the Indo-Chinese 
 
 
 states 493 
 
 Sf 
 
 in Mexico 476 
 
 J> 
 
 among the Natchez 475 
 
 )) 
 
 in Persia 521 
 
 J> 
 
 in Peru ... 478,479 
 
 }) 
 
 Primitive, in Eome 533, 
 
 
 534 
 
 j> 
 
 in Siam 493 
 
 55 
 
 in Tonga island . . . 484 
 
 Monogamy among animals 328, 329 
 
 ;; 
 
 in Greece 370 
 
 J5 
 
 according to the 
 
 
 Menu Code ... 365 
 
 )y 
 
 in Mexico 348 
 
 >» 
 
 Disguised, in Mon- 
 
 
 golia 360 
 
 f1 
 
 in Peru 347 
 
 
 among the Veddahs 354 
 
 Morai's in Polynesia ... 228,229 
 
 Morality 441 
 
 j^ 
 
 of the Australian ... 444 
 
 
 
 Brahminical ... 447 
 
 
 J 
 
 Contemporary ... 449 
 
 
 , 
 
 of the elephant ... 445 
 
 ' 
 
 J 
 
 Genesis of 442 
 
 
 , 
 
 in savages 448 
 
 
 > 
 
 in Siam 443 
 
 of the Tabu ... 449 
 
 Morimos of the Basutos ... 280 
 
 Mortuary houses of the Tim- 
 
 manis 
 
 224 
 
 Mourning in Melanesia ... 221 
 
 j> 
 
 in New Caledonia 222 
 
 " Muck, 
 
 To run a" 159 
 
 Mummification of their dead 
 
 b 
 
 y the Papuans 222 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Mummification of their dead 
 
 by the Peruvians 234 
 
 Mundium of the Germans . . . 373 
 Music of the future ... ... 107 
 
 „ Indo-Chinese ... ... 105 
 
 „ Instrumental... ... 102 
 
 „ Primitive 107 
 
 „ Taste for 106 
 
 „ Vocal 99 
 
 Mutilations ... ... ... 86 
 
 „ Funereal, in 
 
 Abyssinia ... 225 
 „ Funereal, of the 
 
 Bushmen ... 223 
 „ Funereal, in Me- 
 
 lanesia 221, 225 
 
 „ Funereal, in Poly- 
 
 nesia ... ... 230 
 
 Mythology in general . . . 274- 
 
 J, in Asia, among the 
 
 white races ... 307 
 
 „ in Egypt 287 
 
 „ of the Esquimaux 289, 
 290 
 „ Primitive, in India 300 
 
 „ of Kamtschadales 302 
 
 „ of primitive Malays 303 
 
 „ in Peru 297 
 
 „ Evolution of ... 310 
 
 Myths in Eastern Africa . . . 281 
 
 „ Ashanti 282 
 
 Fiji 277 
 
 „ Kaffraria ... ... 279^ 
 
 „ Melanesia ... ... 277 
 
 „ New Caledonia 278, 27» 
 
 N 
 
 Nandou 32 
 
 Narcotics ... ... ... 49 
 
 Nasal ornaments ... 86, 87 
 Necromancy among Eed Skins 263 
 
 Nirvana 268 
 
 Number, Idea of 581 
 
 „ „ wanting among 
 
 the Yeddahs 582 
 Numeration, Decimal 583-585 
 „ Digital... 582-586 
 
 „ Primitive, in 
 
 Europe 585, 586 
 „ among the ill- 
 
 developed races 582,584 
 
 Nutritive life 15 
 
 „ wants ... ... 3$ 
 
€04 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 
 
 Oven, Polynesian 
 
 33 
 
 Pacliacamao 294 
 
 Painting ... ... ... 117 
 
 „ the body in Africa 83, 84 
 „ „ S. America 82, 83 
 
 „ in Australia 80 
 
 „ in China 121 
 
 „ in the future 124, 125 
 „ The genesis of 119, 120 
 ,, Landscape ... ... 125 
 
 „ the face at Lassa 84, 85 
 „ of the Mexicans ... 121 
 „ on vases found at 
 
 Mycenso ... ... 122 
 
 „ of the Phoenicians ... 122 
 5, Primitive ... ... 118 
 
 Palavers in Africa ... ... 461 
 
 Paradise, Ideas of, in South 
 
 America ... 262 
 
 J, Ideas of, among the 
 
 Brahmins ... 268 
 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Esquimaux ... 263 
 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Greeks 270 
 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Japanese ... ... 267 
 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Kamtschadales ... 266 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Mahometans ... 271 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 New Caledonians 251 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 New Zealanders... 260 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Noukahivans ... 259 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Peruvians ... 264 
 
 ., Ideas of, among the 
 
 Polynesians 257-259 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Red Skins ... 263 
 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Scandinavians ... 271 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Tahitians ... 258 
 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Tonga islanders ... 259 
 „ Ideas of, among the 
 
 Vedio Aryans . . . 267 
 Parents, Murder of aged 154, 155 
 
 Parias in India 353 
 
 Parricides, Religious, in Congo 253 
 
 Pastoral life 29 
 
 Patriarcat, The, in China ... 391 
 Egypt ... 385 
 „ „ Mexico ... 388 
 
 „ „ the Society 
 
 islands... 389 
 „ „ among the 
 
 Veddahs 393 
 „ „ Evolution of 395 
 
 Pele, The goddess 296 
 
 Penality of laws ... 546, 547 
 Pessimism of Job ... ... 591 
 
 Pity, Goddess of, in China ... 305 
 
 „ Feminine, in Senegambia 16.6, 
 
 167 
 
 Plough, The 572 
 
 Police system in Japan ... 503 
 Politeness ... ... ... 134 
 
 „ Future 139 
 
 Polyandry, Animal, rare ... 328 
 „ among the Arme- 
 
 nians ... ... 368 
 
 „ among the Cin- 
 
 galese ... 354, 355 
 „ among the Esqui- 
 
 maux ... ... 346 
 
 „ among the Hindoos 367 
 
 „ in the Marquesas 
 
 islands... ... 351 
 
 „ among the Nairs. . . 354 
 
 „ among the Thi- 
 
 betans 355, 357, 358 
 Polygamy among the Afghans 367 
 
 „ in Africa 337 
 
 „ in America ... 343 
 
 „ in Cambogia ... 356 
 
 „ among the Hindoos 366 
 „ of the Inoas ... 347 
 
 „ in Malay 352 
 
 „ in Persia ... 367, 368 
 „ in Polynesia ... 351 
 
 „ among the Semites 368 
 „■ among the Slavs ... 374 
 
 Pomali in Timor 493 
 
 Popoi ... 35 
 
 Population in Java ... ... 416 
 
 Potato 22 
 
 Prayer 322, 323 
 
 Precociousncss in savage 
 children ... ... 557, 558 
 
 Prelibation, Right of, in Cochin 
 China 356 
 
INDEX. 
 
 605 
 
 TAQ-B 
 
 Priesthood 319 
 
 Priests, Primitive ... 320, 321 
 Priority of birth in India ... 394 
 Promiscuity among the An- 
 
 damanites ... 335 
 „ in Babylon ... 394 
 
 „ in the Balearic 
 
 islands ... 395 
 
 „ in California ... 343 
 
 „ in Cyrene ... 394 
 
 „ in Greece 369, 370, 
 
 397 
 „ among the Par- 
 
 thians 368 
 
 „ in Polynesia 350, 388 
 
 Property, Origin of .. . ... 402 
 
 , Family, in Abyssinia 406, 
 407 
 „ Common among the 
 
 Afghans 420 
 
 „ in Africa 404 
 
 „ in Equatorial Africa 405 
 „ in America ... 407 
 
 „ Common in Arabia 420 
 
 „ in Athens 421 
 
 „ Individual in Aus- 
 tralia ... 403, 404 
 „ Individual in Bhotan 420 
 „ CommoninColumbia 407 
 „ Common in the Caro- 
 line islands ... 415 
 „ Common and indi- 
 vidual in China 417, 418 
 
 „ in Egypt 406 
 
 „ in England ... 427 
 
 „ Common among the 
 
 Esquimaux ... 408 
 „ in barbarous Europe 426 
 „ in feudal Europe ... 426 
 „ Individual in Fiji 404 
 
 „ in Prance 428 
 
 Common among the 
 
 Getaj 425 
 
 ,, Individual in Germany 425 
 „ Family, among the 
 
 Hebrews ... 420 
 
 „ in Ireland... ^ ... 427 
 
 Common in India... 418 
 
 J, Individual in Japan 418 
 
 ', Common in Java 415,416 
 
 Individual in Ka- 
 
 bylie 406 
 
 „ in KafEraria ... 405 
 „ in Malay 415 
 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Property 
 
 in Melanesia ... 403 
 
 )} 
 
 in Mexico 412 
 
 3) 
 
 among the Mongo- 
 
 
 lian races ... 416- 
 
 )} 
 
 in non - Mongolian 
 
 
 Asia 418 
 
 M 
 
 among the Mussui- 
 
 
 mans 406 
 
 }} 
 
 Individual in New 
 
 
 Caledonia ... 404 
 
 
 Common in New 
 
 
 Zealand 413 
 
 )} 
 
 near the Orinoco 
 
 
 river 407 
 
 )> 
 
 in the Pelew islands 415 
 
 }> 
 
 in Peru ... 409-411 
 
 3) 
 
 in Polynesia . . . 413 
 
 )> 
 
 among Red Skins 407 
 
 J, 
 
 in Eome ...422-424 
 
 » 
 
 Common in Servia 430' 
 
 )i 
 
 Common among tho 
 
 
 Slavs 429 
 
 » 
 
 Common in Sparta 421 
 
 it 
 
 in Tartary 417 
 
 a 
 
 in Terra del Fuego 407 
 
 it 
 
 Common among the 
 
 
 Yaccsei 424 
 
 )i 
 
 Evolution of 431-436 
 
 }> 
 
 The future of 436-441 
 
 Prostitution in Asia Minor ... 70 
 
 » 
 
 Babylon ... 368 
 
 i> 
 
 . Cyprus 70, 368 
 
 it 
 
 India 69 
 
 » 
 
 Japan 68, 363 
 
 » 
 
 Mecca ... 69 
 
 Psychical life, Degrees of ... 551 
 
 Psychology of thehumanraces 36 
 
 » 
 
 music ... 99, 100 
 
 3> 
 
 nutritive wants 36 
 
 Pueblos 
 
 412 
 
 „ in New Mexico ...475 
 
 Pulque.. 
 
 45 
 
 Putrefied 
 
 meat devoured in 
 
 Africa 
 
 75 
 
 Pyrogeni 
 
 c methods 564 
 
 
 Q 
 
 Quinoa . . 
 
 23 
 
 Quipos.. 
 
 481, 584 
 
 
 R 
 
 Pace, Influence of 31 
 
 Eaces, Distribution of the 
 
 
 human 8 
 
€06 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Eaces, The human, in Asia... 299 
 „ Statistics of ... ... 11 
 
 „ Unmusical 102 
 
 Rangatiras ... ... ... 483 
 
 Bed, Love of the colour ... 93 
 Eeflex action ... ... ... 131 
 
 Beligion in general ... ... 246 
 
 „ in Africa 2V9 
 
 „ of the Ainos ... 307 
 
 „ in Central America ... 290 
 „ in South America ... 287 
 „ of the Aryans ... 313 
 
 „ in Asia 299 
 
 „ in Mexico 294 
 
 „ of the Parsees ... 315 
 „ of the Red Skins ... 290 
 „ of the Semites ... 313 
 
 Religionary ideas 248 
 
 Repasts of the Fuegians ... 32 
 Repudiation of the Berber 
 
 women ... 340 
 
 „ according to the 
 
 Menu Code ... 366 
 
 Retrogression 594 
 
 Rice 27 
 
 Rohoutou, Polynesian ... 258 
 Royal investiture among the 
 Bambarrans 461 
 
 S 
 
 Sacrifices made by the Bam- 
 barrans ... 283 
 „ Funereal, in Equa- 
 torial Africa ... 226 
 „ Funereal, in China 242 
 „ Funereal, in Da- 
 homey ... ... 244 
 
 „ Funereal, in the 
 
 Marquesas islands 232 
 „ Funereal, in Mexico 
 
 235, 291-293 
 J, Funereal, in Mon- 
 
 golia 240 
 
 „ Funereal, in New 
 
 Zealand ... 231 
 
 J, Funereal, in Peru 234 
 
 „ Funereal, in the 
 
 Sandwich islands 232 
 „ Funereal, in Sitka 
 
 island 237 
 
 Sago 25 
 
 Samourais in Japan 501 
 
 Saphis ... ... ... ... 91 
 
 Sarbacana of the Indians ... 562 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Scalping by the Red Skins ... 196 
 
 Sche61 of the Hebrews ... 269 
 
 Sculpture in America 110, 111 
 
 „ in China ... ... 112 
 
 „ in Egypt ... 113, 114 
 „ Genesis of... 115, 116 
 „ in Greece ... ... 113 
 
 „ in Japan ... ... 112 
 
 „ Mongolian, in butter 113 
 
 „ by the Phoenicians 114 
 
 „ Evolution of ... 117 
 
 Sensations, partly formed by 
 
 intelligence... ... ... 74 
 
 Sense of colour, according to 
 
 M.Magnus 76,93,122 
 
 Senses, Delicacy of 73 
 
 Sensitive life ... ... ... 55 
 
 „ Evolution of ... 126 
 
 Servility of the Persians . . . 162 
 Sexes, Intercourse between the 60 
 Shame... ... ... ... 56 
 
 „ among the Australians 57 
 „ a feminine sentiment 59 
 „ among savages is relative 58 
 „ among the Tasmanians 57 
 
 Shipwreck, Right of 172 
 
 Sintoism of the Japanese 306, 307 
 Skins used for boiling ... 565 
 
 Skulls, The, of assassins . . . 168 
 Slaughter of the Red Skins ... 202 
 Slavery in Africa ... 460-465 
 ,, in Greece ... 530, 531 
 „ Common in inferior 
 
 races ... ... 518 
 
 „ in Mexico ... ... 477 
 
 „ in Polynesia 483 
 
 „ among the Semites... 518 
 
 Sling 562 
 
 Smell, Strong sense of, in the 
 
 Arabs 75 
 
 „ Strong sense of, in the 
 
 Peruvians ... ... 75 
 
 Societies, Constitution of ... 450 
 „ of the Afghans ... 526 
 „ in Central Africa... 460 
 „ in Southern Africa 456 
 „ in Central America 475 
 „ in North and South 
 
 America ... 471 
 
 „ Animal 450 
 
 „ in Australia 453, 454 
 „ Celtic and German 535 
 ,, in China ... ... 504 
 
 „ in ancient Egypt ,., 469 
 
INDEX. 
 
 607 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Societies, in Fiji ... ... 455 
 
 „ in Gaboon 459 
 
 „ in Greece ... .., 528 
 
 „ of the Hebrews ... 516 
 „ of the Hottentots... 457 
 „ in Indo-China ... 491 
 „ in Japan ... ... 501 
 
 „ in Kaffraria 457-459 
 
 „ in Malay 491 
 
 „ in Melanesia ... 453 
 „ in New Caledonia... 455 
 „ of the Persians ... 520 
 „ in Polynesia ... 482 
 
 „ in Rome ... ... 533 
 
 „ The Semitic ... 515 
 
 „ The Tartar... 496,497 
 „ in Thibet ... ... 495 
 
 „ Vedic and Hindoo 522 
 „ among the white 
 
 races ... ... 514 
 
 „ Evolution of the 
 
 Aryan ... ... 536 
 
 „ in the future ... 547 
 
 Sodomy 72 
 
 ^ong of birds 99 
 
 „ of the gibbon ... ... 99 
 
 „ Materialistic, in the Gaboon 
 
 253 
 
 „ Primitive 101 
 
 Sorgho 27 
 
 Sothic period 589 
 
 -Soul, The, according to the 
 
 ancient Egyptians 254-256 
 „ The, according to the 
 
 Fijians ... 250, 251 
 
 „ The, according to the 
 
 Greeks 270 
 
 „ The, according to the 
 
 Jews ... ... ... 269 
 
 „ The, according to the 
 
 Mahometans 271 
 
 „ The, according to the 
 
 Polynesians , . . 256-261 
 „ The, according to Ter- 
 
 tullian 270 
 
 ■Spirits 261 
 
 „ of ancestors. Belief in 
 
 among the Kafirs ... 276 
 „ of ancestors. Belief in 
 
 on the Upper Nile... 283 
 „ of ancestors. Belief in 
 
 in China ... 303, 304 
 
 ■Stimulants 49 
 
 Stones worshipped in India... 308 
 
 Stones deified by the Khonds 301 
 Stupefying substances ... 48 
 Suicide in Japan ... ... 161 
 
 „ from revenge... 170,171 
 Syphilis deified 291 
 
 Taaroa, a Polynesian god ... 298 
 
 Tabu 299,483,488,489 
 
 Taicoun, Japanese ... ... 501 
 
 Tam-tam 76, 103 
 
 Tao-sze 303 
 
 Tartar code 497 
 
 „ , idols ... , 302 
 
 Tasmanians, Extermination of 164, 
 
 202 
 
 „ Language of 577, 578 
 
 Tattooing in Africa ... ... 83 
 
 „ among the Esquimaux 82 
 J, in Melanesia ... 80 
 
 „ in Polynesia 80, 81 
 
 „ in Sandwich islands 232 
 Tchin-than in Cambogia , ... 357 
 „ Malabar ... 365 
 
 Tea ... 50 
 
 Teeth painted black in Malay 84 
 Temples, Primitive ... ,282,319 
 
 Teocallis, Mexican 291 
 
 Terra del Puego, Kjoekkenmced- 
 
 dings in 24 
 
 Testamentary powers in Rome 423 
 
 „ „ Sparta 421 
 
 Theocracy in Tibet ... ... 321 
 
 Thunder deified 288 
 
 Tien, Chinese ... 304 
 
 Tiis, Polynesian 296 
 
 Time, Computation of , ... 586 
 Timorodea, Polynesian dance 64 
 
 Tobacco ... 49 
 
 Totems of the Red Skins ...343 
 Touas of Tonga island . . . 485 
 
 Toutousof the Sandwich islands487 
 
 „ in Tahiti 486 
 
 Transmigration of the Dalai- 
 lamas ... ... 315 
 
 „ in the Ladrone 
 
 islands 266 
 
 „ in Polynesia 261 
 
 Trinity of Brahma ... ... 315 
 
 Types, Principal, of men ... 7 
 
 U 
 
 Uniforms, Military 
 
608 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Unions of the sexes among 
 aBimals ... ... ... 327 
 
 Vapour divinised ... ... 314 
 
 Veneration for the ao^ed 155, 156 
 Virginity, Woman's, in Africa 339 
 Vocabulary, Value of ... 580 
 
 Voraciousness of Australians 37, 38 
 „ Bushmen 33, 39 
 
 „ Esquimaux 38, 39 
 
 W 
 
 Wages system... ... ... 575 
 
 Walhalla 271 
 
 Wants, Synchronism of ... 594 
 Warlike manners ... ... 185 
 
 „ in Africa ... 190 
 
 „ in America 194 
 
 „ in China ... 200 
 
 „ " among Euro- 
 peans 202,203 
 „ among the 
 
 Guaranis 195 
 in ancient 
 India ... 201 
 „ in Kaffraria 190 
 
 „ in Melanesia 188 
 
 „ in Mexico... 197 
 
 „ in Mongolia 199 
 
 „ in New Zea- 
 
 land 193, 1^ 
 ,. in Peru 197, 198 
 
 „ in Polynesia 192 
 
 „ among the 
 
 Eed Skins 196 
 „ among the 
 
 Eomans... 202 
 „ among the 
 
 Semites... 202 
 Wars among the ants ... 187 
 
 Weapons of the Melanesians 562 
 
 Wergeld 536 
 
 Wind-bag, Double ... 566-568 
 
 Wine from the palm tree ... 45 
 
 „ rice ... ... 52 
 
 Wives, Little, in China ... 361 
 
 Women, The condition of ... 173 
 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Afghanistan ... 183 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Africa 175 
 
 »»> 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Women, The condition of, in 
 
 America ... 179, 180 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Arabia 183 
 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Australia... 173, 174 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Burmah 182 
 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 China ... 181, 182 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Fiji 174 
 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Kaffrana ... 175, 176 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Kamtschatka ... 181 
 ), The condition of, 
 
 according to the 
 
 Menu Code 184, 365 
 „ The condition of, on 
 
 the Upper Nile ... 17& 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Nootka, Columbia. 180 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Peru 180 
 
 „ The condition of, 
 
 among the Eed 
 
 Skins 180 
 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Eome 184 
 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Senegambia ... 176 
 „ The condition of, in 
 
 Terra del Fuego 179 
 
 „ The emancipation of 184, 
 
 185 
 
 „ warriors ... 190, 191 
 
 Wood carving by the Africans 110 
 
 „ „ Australians lOS 
 
 Worship 319 
 
 „ of the jaguar ... 288 
 
 Year, Lunar ... 
 „ in Mexico 
 „ in Peru ... 
 ,, Solar 
 
 ... 588 
 ... 589 
 
 588, 589 
 58S, 589 
 
 Zoolatry among tho ■white 
 
 races ... ... ... 307 
 
 Zoroaster, Eeligion of ... 307 
 
 Ztigau, Papuan ... ... 87 
 
 CHABLES niCKKITS AND EYANS, CBTSTAL PALACE TKIhS. 
 
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