out of the way of the chief or priest, and the dead out of the way of the living.17

Let us consider very briefly some of the customs called "virtues" of primitive man as he has been pictured in the preceding chapters. Take first the "domestic virtues." The basis of all society is in the family, and true marriage is always present. Furthermore, it is often monogamous relationship. William Dean Howells said, "Man is imperfectly monogamous," and I am inclined to think that this imperfection is as great in modern society as it is among savages. But this is beside the point, as we are discussing the rules of established ethical conduct bearing on sex relations, and here we find monogamous marriage the commonest form. And polygyny itself, repelling to modern thought, does not necessarily carry with it any degradation of women as we find it in early society. We have seen the strictest rules regarding the choice of the wife, the descent, inheritance, and residence, all working out in a well regulated system. The co-operation of father and mother in rearing children and providing them with food and shelter comes full-born from the animal into the human world. Universal obedience and respect paid by youth to old age is a prominent feature in every primitive group, and one certainly cannot say the same thing of modern society. The instruction of the youth in the arts is almost like the apprentice system. Their ethical and religious training is seen in the puberty rite, cruel, but socially effective.

The relationship between kinsmen extends farther than with us. Emotionally and socially they form one brotherhood as seen in the clan. Blood revenge strengthens this

solidarity. Hospitality to strangers, the adoption of prisoners of war and other outsiders, are all common features of savage life.

The "political virtues" are often simply an enlargement of those of the domestic horizon with tribal solidarity and co-operation between groups by no means uncommon. Warfare is seldom endemic among primitive peoples, as one might be led to suppose. A democracy is the usual form of government, and prestige and leadership are the rewards for high endowment on the mental rather than on the physical side.

I have been discussing this subject from the objective side. Passing for a moment to the subjective view of morality, I feel that we have something to learn from the undeveloped peoples. We certainly have a great deal to regret in our dealings with the simpler populations. Savage society is on the wane. The "nature peoples" have suffered despoilment and extermination by the "triumphs of our modern civilization." They have succumbed partially at least to the destructive methods of civilized greed, but principally to alcoholism and the parasitic diseases of modern times. The carriers of this civilization are carriers of disease. These willing bear

ers are more or less inured to their own vices until they have acquired a loathsome sort of blunting to all that is natural and simple. The modern estimate of primitive man is usually based upon the contemporaneous savage with his characteristics, many of which have been acquired from the white man and are foreign to his ancestors. It is unfair to study him after he has been under the influences of the kind of civilization found around trading posts, railroad stations, and the wharves of island communities. He should be studied away from

these "uplifting tendencies" and before his "brutish and stultified régime" has been conquered by a "superior biological and ethical power."

The religion of primitive man embraces his every act, and there is no distinct category of religion divorced from daily conduct. In the same way, morality and religion are not so completely separated as is commonly supposed. The supernatural sanctions for action and divine retribution, often as a certain punishment for breaking the moral code, show the close relationship existing between religion and the laws of right living.

We find that certain acts have always been repugnant in all stages of society, such as murder, theft, and want of hospitality. The ideas regarding incest vary, but the crime is universally condemned by the savage, quite as much as by civilized man. Primitive man probably has quite as many inhibitions as we have today. His moral code lays down a definite line of behavior, and there are no shades of interpretation possible. It is either right to do a thing, or wrong. Mitigating circumstances are rarely allowed as excuses for breaking a tabu. Furthermore, there is never any difference between public opinion and the code of right conduct. There is, thus, little occasion for the savage to stand out against public opinion. In a homogeneous group there is not one belief for the majority and another for the minority, with the possibility of a selection of the right from the wrong. Public opinion is the code. 18

As Marett shows, one of the drawbacks of the ruder peoples is the lack of privacy, and "from a moral point of view, this lack of opportunity for private judgment is equivalent to a want of moral freedom. . . . Savage morality, then, is not rational in the sense of analysed,

but is, so to speak, impressionistic." 19 The moral sanction is external, not internal.

I have tried to show that there are certain fundamental aspects of moral nature which are changeless whether found in early or late society. Moral tradition is another thing. The test of ethical conduct is based upon the way in which man lives up to his particular tradition. The savage has a code, and his success in living up to it is probably as great, if not greater, than that of civilized man who tries to conform to the present standards of ethical conduct. The spectacle of a European or an American in an environment where the restraints of the moral code of his group have little hold is certainly not one which brings to his race any special credit as an ethical people. And this is, of course, the same line of conduct carried out by a savage under similar circumstances.

There is the story told of a traveller who, on returning from a visit to a savage tribe, wrote a book. In his section on "Customs and Manners" he had only these four words: "Customs, beastly; manners, none." This chapter and, in fact, this whole book are attempts to prove that this traveller was wrong. The same idea runs through the writings of many. The philosopher Hobbes, writing on primitive life, said it was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Even Spencer erred greatly in his description of many of the features of primitive life.

The great difficulty with the general point of view towards the savage is, as Dewey writes, that "the present civilized mind is virtually taken as a standard and the savage mind is measured off on this fixed scale. It is no wonder that the outcome is negative; that primitive

mind is described in terms of 'lack,' 'absence:' its traits are incapacities." 20 In an Elizabethan translation of the two first books of Herodotus there is a marginal note against a startling statement regarding Egyptian manners, "Observe ye Beastly Devices of ye Heathen." In this rapid survey of the social life of "the heathen" I have tried to give some of the customs, "beastly" and otherwise. Even the so-called "beastly" ones have a rational place in the social background of savage life.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings with regard to the nature of uncivilized man and of his institutions may be summarized as follows:

1. There is no present evidence, physical, psychological, or cultural, to prove that contemporaneous savages are fundamentally different in mind, body, or estate from the sophisticated human product of civilization. The savage is "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh." He is, in short, a "poor relation, but our own."

2. Either by common cultural invention or by independent invention, savages the world over have come to possess in some form every basic institution of civilized society. There is no reason to believe that they owe such social institutions to precept, example, or imitation of the so-called "Higher Cultures." On the contrary, these "Higher Cultures" owe much to the institutions from which they have been derived.

3. These institutions are not necessarily the nodes of a common growth, nor can they be arranged in an orderly series. The species and, often, the genus may vary greatly. The evolution of institutions may, like physical