THE EARLY DISCIPLINE OF MANKIND. 131 



tions. A large part, a very large part, of the world seems to be ready- 

 to advance to something good to have prepared all the means to ad- 

 vance to something good and then to have stopped, and not advanced. 

 India, Japan, China, almost every sort of Oriental civilization, though 

 differing in nearly all other things, are in this alike. They look as if 

 they had paused when there was no reason for pausing when a mere 

 observer from without would say they were likely not to pause. 



The reason is, that only those nations can progress which preserve 

 and use the fundamental peculiarity which was given by Nature to 

 man's organism as to all other organisms. By a law of which we 

 know no reason, but which is among the first by which Providence 

 guides and governs the world, there is a tendency in descendants to 

 be like their progenitors, and yet a tendency also in descendants to 

 differ from their progenitors. The work of Nature in making genera- 

 tions is a patchwork part resemblance, part contrast. In certain re- 

 spects each born generation is not like the last born; and in certain 

 other respects it is like the last. But the peculiarity of arrested civ- 

 ilization is to kill out varieties at birth almost ; that is, in early child- 

 hood, and before they can develop. The fixed custom which public 

 opinion alone tolerates is imposed on all minds, whether it suits them 

 or not. In that case the community feel that this custom is the only 

 shelter from bare tyranny, and the only security for what they value. 

 Most Oriental communities live on land which in theory is the prop- 

 erty of a despotic sovereign, and neither they nor their families could 

 have the elements of decent existence unless they held the land upon 

 some sort of fixed terms. Land in that state of society is (for all but 

 a petty skilled minority) a necessary of life, and, all the unincreasable 

 land being occupied, a man who is turned out of his holding is turned 

 out of this world, and must die. And our notion of written leases is 

 as out of place in a world without writing and without reading as a 

 House of Commons among Andaman-Islanders. Only one check, one 

 sole shield for life and good, is then possible usage. And it is but 

 too plain how in such places and periods men cling to customs because 

 customs alone stand between them and starvation. 



A still more powerful cause cooperated, if a cause more powerful 

 can be imagined. Dryden had a dream of an early age, " when wild 

 in woods the noble savage ran ; " but " when lone in woods the cring- 

 ing savage crept " wovdd have been more like all we know of that 

 early, bare, painful period. Not only had they no comfort, no conven- 

 ience, not the very beginnings of an epicurean life, but their mind 

 within was as painful to them as the world without. It was full of 

 fear. So far as the vestiges inform us, they were afraid of every thing ; 

 they were afraid of animals, of certain attacks by near tribes, and of 

 possible inroads from far tribes. But, above all things, they were 

 frightened of " the world ; " the spectacle of Nature filled them with 

 awe and dread. They fancied there were powers behind it which must 



