Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/646

Rh 624 ETHNOGRAPHY as old, and even of the same covey as those of the Greeks. His narrations were gems of elegant simplicity, and their success caused them to be followed by many similar pro ductions, which were enjoyed as light literature, their scientific import being little suspected, until the brothers Grimm collected the Deutsche Hausmarchen, one of the most popular books published in this century. These savants opened a most fertile field of investigation by their discovery that many German popular tales had for their sub stratum German mythology. Adalbert Kiihne s Ilerabkunft des Feuers marked a new step. He showed most clearly that our tales have the same relation- with the old A 7 edan mythology as our languages with the Sanskrit. Benfey proved by other considerations the same thesis. Following them, M. Bre&quot;al gave in his Mi/the de CaciiK a model of science made clear and pleasant. A host of diligent searchers, mostly Germans, for the Germans have taken the lead in this department, devoted themselves to collecting, translating, commenting upon popular tales, songs, and mythology. Folklore now constitutes quite a special litera ture. We have already legends from all five parts of the world, legends from nearly every important country, and in some countries from almost every province. The immense task of sifting and reconstructing prehistoric mythology has next to be commenced. IX. Justice and Morals. Law is anterior to justice. The lower races, says Lubbock, are deficient in any idea of right, though quite familiar with that of law. In fact, civil law, in its origin, is a custom and nothing else, a custom meeting some particular want. Therefore laws will not last if they be arbitrary, if they be founded on the caprice of a legislator, and do not subserve the interests of the majority. True laws are the expression of the people s will ; legislature and magistracy are delegations of the people s authority. In primitive communities such delega tion is often uncalled for ; the community acts directly as judge and law-giver, its resolutions being guided not by abstract principles of justice, but by self-interest and a desire for self-preservation, seldom, if ever, by unselfish considerations. &quot; Salus populi suprema lex.&quot; As the community enlarges this feeling widens and becomes generalized; by degrees the idea of justice is evolved out of common convenience. Absorbed by their petty local interests, early tribes could scarcely realize the idea of absolute justice, which is inseparable from the idea of mankind at large. Both ideas are of a recent origin ; they seem contemporaneous with the rise of the Roman empire, when it strove to take possession of the whole world, and when the positive principles of jurisprudence were set forth with a logic, a vigour, and a lucidity not surpassed, not even equalled since. Our civilized countries have enriched them selves with a ponderous apparatus of written laws, which are, or are affirmed to be, the outgrowth of customary laws, and an accepted fiction sets forth that every citizen knows and understands perfectly that immense miscellany of rules and statutes. Criminal law has a similar origin ; it is the part of justice evolved out of vengeance, which, from being with some animals and the lowest tribes a boundless passion, was by degrees restrained, acquired a definite form, and became the law of retaliation, &quot; an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.&quot; From that principle men were sure to infer, &quot; Do not to others what thou wouldst not like to be done to thyself,&quot; the negative side of a principle which was far sooner understood than its positive side, &quot; Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you.&quot; The abandonment of vendetta is one of the steps which lead from semi-civilization towards civiliza tion^ But its adoption by primitive communities had in its time heralded an improved state of things. Its prin ciple is that all the members of a geus are bound to avenge the death or the hurt of any individual member. Thereby the gentiles were involved in continual troubles. By degrees they came to find out that the surest way to minimize the troubles arising out of vendetta was to avoid its causes. This led to the softening of manners. The next step was for the gens to impose upon its affiliates the obligation to resort directly to its tribunal in case of offences. Thus by degrees redress came to be substituted for revenge, and justice taken at one s own hand to be re garded as fit only for barbarians. Like the tribe, the gens was for its members an enlarged self, and its motto was One for all, all for one, an ideal motto among brothers in a brotherhood, but one fit also to promote strifes of brotherhood against brotherhood. Friendship, honesty, justice, and even self-sacrifice within the circle of kinship ; cunning, violence, murder, ruthless brutality outside. The gentile stood by the gentile for weal or woe, for wrong or right. Men s minds and hearts are now so far enlarged that they can embrace the idea of a whole country, their own. But have we gone really much further ? X. Progress. Ethnology, in its actual state, centres upon the theory of progress. It has not only to prove the exist ence of progress, it has to demonstrate how it operates, and to measure the amount of its work in the different periods. Progress, put in question in all the branches of human development, is nowhere more fiercely discussed than in its relation to justice and morals. This is the most import ant, the most interesting, and also the most perplexing theme. It is the easiest to discourse upon, as there are no external standards by which to measure internal phenomena, no fixed canon by which to compute the ever-shifting corre lations between the two great principles of social order and individual liberty custom and progress, which, far fivm working harmoniously together, clash so often one against the other. This question is not merely a theoretical one : it has very practical bearings, now that our civilization is about to take possession of all the world, now that repre sentatives of our culture invade in so many places the soil occupied by less advanced communities. Before the last remainders of ancient ages be destroyed, it is certainly worthwhile to pause and to consider, Are we right in doing away with them, and will the world at large be a gainer by it 1 The United States, the colonial administrations, are constantly called on to deal with native reserves, native wars, and, alas ! with native extermination. We cannot forget that the landing of Columbus at Guanahani cost the lives of many millions of American and African aborigines, and that the last Tasmanian, the last Guancho, the last Beothus, have been &quot; improved &quot; off the face of earth. We can hardly regard with unmixed feelings the prospect that the whole of the African continent will soon be open to &quot;European enterprise.&quot; We will give an epitome of the debates which are carried on, striking off many arguments for the sake of brevity. It will be but fair to give the first word to a friend of the attacked and (must we say 1) the doomed races. Mr &quot;Wallace, after having given a charming picture of some Malay communities which he had visited, tells us :. . . &quot; It is very remarkable that among people in a very low stage of civilization we find some approach to such a perfect social state. Each im scrupu lously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of theso rights rarely or never takes place. In such community all are nearly equal. There are none of these wide distinctions, of educa tion and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization ; there is not that severe compe tition and struggle for existence or for wealth which the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates. . . It is not too much to say that the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in many cases sunk below it.&quot;