blood spilt by another. Again, that which we now call wilful murder, was no more considered by the European as an act of cowardice or treason than it is by the savage. Let us remember, moreover, that in the Middle Ages, chiefs occupying the highest positions in European society, did not hesitate to act in this manner; let us remember that the commanders of our ships, when punishing savages for some attack, bombard and burn the first villages that they meet without any scruple, although they may be almost sure that many innocent will pay for the guilty; and perhaps we shall be less severe.

As to a want of respect for human life, the white European race cannot reproach the most barbarous. Let us look back upon our own history, and recall some of those wars, those pages written in letters of blood in our own annals. Let us not, above all, forget our conduct towards our inferior brethren; the depopulation which marks every step through the world; the massacres committed in cold blood, and often for amusement; the man-hunts organized after the manner of stag-hunts; the extermination of entire populations to make room for European colonies, and we shall be forced to acknowledge that if respect for human life is a moral and universal law, no race has violated it oftener, or in a more terrible manner than our own.

V. Modesty and sense of honour are undoubtedly two of the principal manifestations of self-respect. Neither the one nor the other are wanting among savage peoples. But the former, especially, often shows itself in customs and practices widely opposed to our own, or bearing no resemblance whatever to them. This has given rise to many misconceptions, such as that which, among certain Polynesians, has been considered as a refinement of immodest sensuality, what in their opinion is only an act of elementary modesty.

I might multiply examples of this nature, but for what purpose? Is it not the same in matters of politeness? We rise and uncover the head before a stranger or a superior; in a similar case the Turk remains covered, and the Polynesian

sits down. Though differing so entirely in form, are they not inspired by the same sentiments? Is not the faculty by which they are called into play everywhere the same?

It is the same also with the sense of honour. Here, how. ever, more than in any other case, we meet with conceptions remarkably in accordance with our own. The history of savage nations abounds with traits of warlike heroism, and nothing is more common than to see savages prefer torture and death to shame. The Algonquin and the Iroquois challenge their executioners to invent fresh tortures. The Kaffir chief asks as a favour to be thrown to the crocodiles rather than lose the feather, which to him represents the epaulette, and serve as a common soldier after having been an officer. The duel of the Australian is more logical than ours, and always in earnest.

That which we call chivalrous generosity in speaking of Europeans, is by no means wanting in savages. In the struggles at Tahiti several officers owed their lives to this feeling. After peace had been concluded, Admiral Bruat asked a Tahitian chief, to whose fire he had been exposed for an hour while he bathed, why he had not fired: "I should have been dishonoured in the eyes of my people if I had killed such a chief as you, naked, and by surprise," replied the savage. Could the most civilized man have acted or spoken better?

We might quote various actions of Red-Skins and Australians, arising from sentiments of the same nature.

VI. In conclusion, if it is sad to be forced to recognise moral evil in races and in nations which have carried social civilization to the highest degree of perfection, it is consoling to acknowledge the good in the most backward tribes, and to find it there in its most elevated and refined form. fundamental identity of human nature is nowhere displayed in a more striking manner.

The

Does this assertion lead to the inference that all human groups are upon the same moral level? By no means. From this, as from the intellectual point of view, they may hold a

higher or lower position of the scale, without any of them falling to zero. It is precisely this moral inequality which has for the anthropologist an interest at once scientific and practical. The very development of the faculty, the acts which it inspires, the institutions of which it is the foundation, present differences sufficiently great to make it possible to discover characters in this order of facts.

CHAPTER XXXV.

RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS.

I. Ir scientific impartiality and calm judgment are necessary in the study of moral phenomena, they are much more indispensable when we have to account for facts depending upon religious feeling. Unfortunately this condition is too rarely fulfilled. Passion, with lamentable facility, becomes involved in whatever resembles a religious question. Many other causes, easy to mention, join passion in leading our judgment astray, and it is not difficult to explain how, under these several influences, it has been possible, honestly to ignore manifestations of religion in the more or less important divisions of mankind.

The most frequent cause of error to which I feel myself bound to call attention, has its origin in the high opinion which the European has of himself, in the habitual contempt which is the most striking feature of his relation with other populations, and especially to those which, with greater or less reason, he treats as barbarians or savages. For example, a traveller who, as a general rule, speaks the language of the country very badly, interrogates a few individuals upon the delicate questions of the Deity, future life, etc., and his interlocutors, not understanding him, make a few signs of doubt or denial, which have no reference to the questions asked. The European in his turn mistakes their meaning. Having, in the first instance, merely regarded them as beings of the lowest type, incapable of any conception however trifling, he concludes without hesitation that these peoples have no idea either of God or of another life; and his

assertion, soon repeated, is at once accepted as true by readers who share his opinions about populations unacquainted with our civilization. The history of travel would furnish us with many examples of this fact. Kaffirs, Hottentots, etc., have often been spoken of as atheists, while we now know that this is by no means the case.

Should the traveller, moreover, speak the language of the country with ease, he is still liable to fall into error. Religious belief forms part of the most hidden depths of our nature; the savage does not willingly expose his heart to a stranger whom he fears, whose superiority he feels, and whom he has often seen ready to ignore or ridicule what he has always regarded as most worthy of veneration. The difficulty which a Parisian experiences in France in understanding the superstitions of the Basque sailor, or of the Bas-Breton peasant, should make him able to appreciate those which he would find in giving an explanation of similar subjects in connection with Kaffirs or Australians. Campbell had great trouble in obtaining from Makoum the avowal that the Bosjesman admitted the existence of a male god and of a female god, of a good and evil principle. He left many other, and much more important discoveries to be made by MM. Arbousset and Daumas. Wallis, after a month's intimacy with the Tahitians, declared that they possessed no form of worship, whilst it entered, so to speak, into their most trivial actions. He had seen nothing beyond a cemetery in the Moraï, those venerated temples, of which no woman might even touch the sacred ground.

The lively faith of a missionary is, again, often a cause of error. Whatever the Christian communion may be to which he belongs, he generally arrives in the midst of the people whom he wishes to convert, with a hatred of their objects of belief, which are to him works of the devil. Too often he neither seeks to account for them, nor even to become acquainted with them; his sole endeavour is to destroy them. I could here mention one of these too zealous apostles, who sees nothing in the Brahminical religion but the utmost bar