Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/546

528 to three chief principles: Respect for property, respect for the life of others, and respect for one's self.

I. Respect for Property.—It has been said that the notion of property does not exist among savage people. This is an error. With them, arms, utensils, instruments, are strictly personal property, as with us; but some travelers have been deceived by the existence, among hunting-tribes, of another kind of property, communal property, if I may so speak. Among these people the ground does not belong to the individual but to the entire tribe. Under this relation the property is so well known that war is the consequence of the least violation of the hunting limits.

Certain races have been accused of being essentially thievish. This reproach is brought particularly upon the negroes of the Gulf of Guinea, and upon the Polynesians. They have been accused of stealing even the nails of the ship. But let me remind you what iron is for people who do not have it. It is more precious to them than gold. Well, suppose there should arrive among us a ship, gold clad and nailed with diamonds and rubies. Do you believe it would go out intact from our ports? Remark further, that, among the negroes of Guinea and Polynesia, those who steal of their comrade are dishonored and punished as they would be with us. They have the idea of respect for property the same as ourselves.

II. Respect for Life.—Everywhere the life of man is sacred; everywhere the murderer is punished; but, with ourselves, circumstances determine the nature of the act. Nobody would treat as an assassin him who beats fairly in a duel; the soldier who has killed with his hand a great number of enemies is decorated; very far from being punished, he is recompensed. With savages the formula is still more elastic. For him the stranger is always an enemy; besides, vengeance is in his eyes a virtue, and when he has a murder to avenge he cares little to strike the murderer himself. Provided he furnishes a member of his family or his tribe, his vengeance is satisfied; whence results the bad blood between European travelers and the Polynesians in particular. These people have too often complained of violence exercised by Europeans, who have left without being punished. The savage watches for those who come after the really guilty, sets a trap for them, and massacres the innocents. He applies his moral law, and we find the theory horrible. But forget not our middle age; we have got the start a little, but, in our day, if the vendetta were not abolished in Corsica; it would be the same, as it was the same in Scotland between clan and clan.

For the rest, gentlemen, the question of respect for the life of others is one of those that I least like to enter upon, because I cannot speak without blushing for the white race. You know that it rules everywhere, but some of you do not know, perhaps, that everywhere devastation and massacre have marked its steps round the world. It seems