768 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



revenge, private as well as publicj becomes a duty, is well shown at 

 the present time among the Montenegrins a people who have been at 

 war with the Turks for centuries. " Dans le Montenegro," says Boue, 

 " on dira d'un homrae d'une natrie [clan] ayant tue un individu d'une 

 autre : Cette natrie nous doit une tete, et il faut que cette dette soit 

 acquitte, car qui ne se venge pas ne ce sancitie pas." 



Where activity in destroying enemies is chronic, destruction will 

 become a source of pleasure ; where success in subduing fellow-men is 

 above all things honored, there will arise delight in the forcible exer- 

 cise of mastery ; and, with pride in spoiling the vanquished, will go 

 disregard for the rights of property at large. As it is incredible that 

 men should be courageous in face of foes and cowardly in face of 

 friends, so it is incredible that the other feelings fostered by perpetual 

 conflicts abroad should not come into play at home. We have just 

 seen that, with the pursuit of vengeance outside the society, there goes 

 the pursuit of vengeance inside the society ; and whatever other hab- 

 its of thought and action constant war necessitates must show their 

 effects in the social life at large. Facts from various places and times 

 prove that in militant societies the claims of life, liberty, and prop- 

 erty are little regarded. The Dahomans, warlike to the extent that 

 both sexes are warriors, and by whom slave-hunting invasions are, or 

 were, annually undertaken " to furnish funds for the royal exchequer," 

 show their blood-thirstiness by their annual " customs," at which mul- 

 titudinous victims are publicly slaughtered for the popular gratifica- 

 tion. The Feejeeans, again, highly militant in their activities and type 

 of organization, who display their recklessness of life not only by 

 killing their own people for cannibal feasts, but by destroying im- 

 mense numbers of their infants and by sacrificing victims on trivial 

 occasions, such as launching a new canoe, so much applaud ferocity 

 that to commit a murder is a glory. Early records of Asiatics and 

 Europeans show us the like relation. What accounts there are of the 

 primitive Mongols, who, when united, massacred Western peoples whole- 

 sale, show us a chronic reign of violence, both within and without 

 their tribes ; while domestic assassinations, which from the beginning 

 have characterized the militant Turks, continue to characterize them 

 down to our own day ! In proof that it was so with the Greek and 

 Latin races, it sufiices to instance the slaughter of the two thousand 

 Helots by the Spartans, whose brutality was habitual, and the murder 

 of large numbers of suspected citizens by jealous Roman emperors, 

 who also, like their subjects, manifested their love of bloodshed in 

 their arenas. That where life is little regarded there can be but little 

 regard for liberty, follows necessarily : those who do not hesitate to 

 end another's activities by killing him will still less hesitate to restrain 

 his activities by holding him in bondage. Militant savages, whose 

 captives, when not eaten, are enslaved, habitually show us this absence 

 of regard for fellow-men's freedom, which characterizes the members 



