*6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from ourselves, the correlative fact that their sentiments and motives 

 cannot be rightly conceived by us, is one perpetually overlooked in 

 our sociological interpretations. Feeling, for instance, how natural it 

 is to take an easier course in place of a more laborious course, and to 

 adopt new methods that are proved to be better methods, we are 

 somewhat puzzled on finding the Chinese stick to their dim paper- 

 lamps, though they admire our bright argand-lamps, which they do 

 not use if given to them ; or on finding that the Hindoos prefer their 

 rough primitive tools after seeing that our greatly-improved tools do 

 more work with less eflbrt. And, on descending to races yet more 

 remote in civilization, we still oftener discover ourselves wrong when 

 we suppose that under given conditions they will act as we should act. 

 Here, then, is a subjective difficulty of a serious kind. Properly to 

 understand any fact in social evolution, we have to see it as resulting 

 from the joint actions of individuals having certain natures. We can- 

 not so understand it without understanding their natures ; and this, 

 even by care and effort, we are able to do but very imperfectly. Our 

 interpretations must be in a greater or less degree automorphic ; and 

 yet automorphism perpetually misleads us. 



One would hardly suppose, a priori, that untruthfulness would 

 habitually coexist with credulity. Rather our inference might be, 

 that, in virtue of the tendency above enlarged upon, people most given 

 to make false statements must be people most inclined to suspect state- 

 ments made by others. Yet somewhat anomalously, as it seems, ha- 

 bitual veracity very generally goes with inclination to doubt evidence ; 

 and extreme untrustworthiness of assertion often has, for its concomi- 

 tant, readiness to accept the greatest improbabilities on the slenderest 

 testimony. If you compare savage with civilized, or compare the suc- 

 cessive stages of civilization, you find untruthfulness and credulity de- 

 creasing together ; until you reach the modern man of science, who is 

 at once exact in his statements and critical respecting the evidence on 

 which facts are alleged. The converse relation to that which we see 

 in the man of science is even now very startlingly presented in the 

 East, where greediness in swallowing fictions goes along with superflu- 

 ous telling of falsehoods. An Egyptian prides himself in a clever lie, 

 uttered even without motive ; and a dyer will even ascribe the failure 

 in fixing one of his colors to the not having been successful in a decep- 

 tion. Yet so great is the readiness to believe improbabilities that Mr. 

 St. John, in his " Two Years' Residence in a Levantine Family," nar- 

 rates how, when the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments " was being 

 read aloud, and when he hinted that the stories must not be accepted 

 as true, there arose a strong protest against such skepticism the ques- 

 tion being asked, " Why should a man sit down and write so many 



lies ? " ' 



1 See pp. 79 and 127. 



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