Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/178

 account of their speculative opinions; for as a knowledge of these subjects can only be obtained by means of a language but little understood, the truth is apt to be distorted—like a ray of light passing through an imperfect medium; and as it is not my desire to mislead, I wish what I have said to be received with this allowance. The subject itself is one full of interest, as exhibiting to us not merely a picture of life in its simplest state, and society under its rudest form, but opening a retrospect through which, as through a vista, one may see in shadowy perspective a succession of countless generations, varying but little in habits or customs from the time of the first great dispersion of mankind. Many persons who entertain overwrought ideas of the evils of civilization, and who feel a lurking attachment for the state "when wild in woods the noble savage ran," may feel disappointed at the by no means flattering picture which I have drawn of this mode of life, as presented by the Australian savage. It may appear a paradox, but in my opinion a state of nature (as it is called) is not the state natural to man. Perfection in his physical, far less in his social attributes, is not to be attained without the control of reason, and the exercise of self-denial. True it is that a low state of civilization, such as existed among the ancient Germans, and the modern North American Indians, is highly favourable to the development of the former: self-control and restraint were however the leading characteristics of their education. But wherever we examine the social position of man, either in a low state of civilization, or in that of absolute barbarism, we find his actions