Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/92

74 than was Philadelphia when the foundations of the Capitol were laid. What is to prevent republics from growing, so long as intelligence keeps pace with extension? The general of an army may now sit before his maps, and man&oelig;uvre half a score of armies a hundred or a thousand miles apart, know hourly the situation of every division, the success of every battle, order an advance or a retreat, lay plots and make combinations, with more exactness than was once possible in the conduct of an ordinary campaign.

A few words about morals, manners, and fashion, will further illustrate how man is played upon by his environment, which here takes the shape of habit. In their bearing on civilization, these phenomena all come under the same category; and this, without regard to the rival theories of intuition and utility in morals. Experience teaches, blindly at first yet daily with clearer vision, that right conduct is beneficial, and wrong conduct detrimental; that the consequences of sin invariably rest on the evil-doer; that for an unjust act, though the knowledge of it be forever locked in the bosom of the offender, punishment is sure to follow; yet there are those who question the existence of innate moral perceptions, and call it all custom and training. And if we look alone to primitive people for innate ideas of morality and justice I fear we shall meet with disappointment. Some we find who value female chastity only before marriage, others only after marriage,&mdash;that is, after the woman and her chastity both alike become the tangible property of somebody. Some kindly kill their aged parents, others their female infants; the successful Apache horse-thief is the darling of his mother, and the hero of the tribe; often these American Arabs will remain from home half-starved for weeks, rather than suffer the ignominy of returning empty-handed. Good, in the mind of the savage, is when he steals wives; bad, is when his own wives are stolen. Where it is that inherent