POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 441 



tained superior positions, and those who have remained inferior. Un- 

 likenesses of status once initiated lead to unlikenesses of life, which, 

 by the constitutional changes they work, presently make the unlike- 

 nesses of status more difficult to alter. 



First there comes difference of diet and its effects. In the habit, 

 common among primitive tribes, of letting the women subsist on the 

 leavings of the men, and in the accompanying habit of denying to 

 the younger men certain choice viands which the older men eat, we 

 see exemplified the inevitable proclivity of the strong to feed them- 

 selves at the expense of the weak ; and, when there arise class-divisions, 

 there habitually results better nutrition of the superior than of the 

 inferior. Forster remarks that in the Society Islands the lower classes 

 often suffer from a scarcity of food which never extends to the upper 

 classes. In the Sandwich Islands the flesh of such animals as they 

 have is eaten principally by the chiefs. Of cannibalism among the 

 Feejeeans, Seeman says, " The common people throughout the group, as 

 well as women of all classes, were by custom debarred from it." These 

 instances sufficiently indicate the contrast that everywhere arises be- 

 tween the diets of the ruling few and of the subject many. And then 

 by such differences of diet, and accompanying differences in clothing, 

 shelter, and strain on the energies, are eventually produced physical 

 differenqes. Of the Feejeeans we read that " the chiefs are tall, well 

 made, and muscular ; while the lower orders manifest the meagerness 

 arising from laborious service and scanty nourishment." The chiefs 

 among the Sandwich-Islanders " are tall and stout, and their personal 

 appearance is so much superior to that of the common people that 

 some have imagined them a distinct race." Ellis, verifying Cook, says 

 of the Tahitians, that the chiefs are, " almost without exception, as 

 much superior to the peasantry ... in physical strength as they are 

 in rank and circumstances" ; and Erskine notes a parallel contrast 

 among the Tongans. That the like holds among the African races 

 may be inferred from Reade's remark that " the court lady is tall and 

 elegant ; her skin smooth and transparent ; her beauty has stamina 

 and longevity. The girl of the middle classes, so frequently pretty, is 

 very often short and coarse, and soon becomes a matron ; while, if you 

 descend to the lower classes, you will find good looks rare, and the 

 figure angular, stunted, sometimes almost deformed." * 



Simultaneously there arise, between the ruling and subject classes, 

 unlikenesses of bodily activity and skill. Occupied, as those of higher 

 rank commonly are, in the chase when not occupied in war, they have 

 a life-long discipline of a kind conducive to various physical superiori- 

 ties ; while, contrariwise, those occupied in agriculture, in carrying of 

 burdens, and in other drudgeries, partially lose what agility and ad- 



* While writing, I find in the recently issued " Transactions of the Anthropological 

 Institute " proof that, even now in England, the professional classes are both taller and 

 heavier than the artisan classes. 



