558 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The golden rule of conduct, " Do unto others as ye would that 

 they should do unto you," is strictly analogous to a mathematical 

 definition ; or, rather, it is the translation of such a definition into the 

 language of morals. It is not only the formula of an equation, but it 

 is precisely equivalent to the definition that we give of a right line 

 when we say that only one such line can be drawn between two 

 given points, and that to attempt to project another in reverse direc- 

 tion is only to repeat the first. It simply states the recognition of a 

 corresponding fact namely, that the line of right conduct projected 

 from ray " self" to another " self," which I have cognized, is such that 

 no different line can be projected from that other self to me. What 

 the line of right as projected to me from my fellow is, I am taught 

 by my consciousness of the demands that exist in my own being. 



In this way men first acquired, perhaps, the notions of right which 

 produced a certain imperfect respect for life and liberty among them, 

 and also a certain respect for property, according to the primitive 

 idea of property, which was a narrow one. But, of course, these 

 notions were restricted to the small social range within which the re- 

 lations of human fellowship had become even indistinctly recognized. 

 How limited that range was at the beginning, it is impossible to say ; 

 but our earliest knowledge of the human race finds it everywhere 

 bounded by associations of kinship. The patriarchal family, the clan, 

 the gens^ the tribe, seem to have always, at a certain stage in the 

 development of humanity, circumscribed for each man his recognition 

 of other men as human fellows, and his perception of the relations 

 which he sustains to them as such. Within that close circle of recog- 

 nized relationships, however, we can find in the primitive states of 

 society almost as perfect a determination of moral rights and obliga- 

 tions, so far as many particulars of conduct are concerned, as we find 

 in the civilized communities of the present day. We know that, 

 among the Indian savages of our own time, theft and murder within 

 the membership of a tribe are condemned as distinctly, almost, as 

 they are among ourselves; but as between tribe and tribe, or between 

 Indian and white man, neither killing nor stealing connects itself with 

 any apparent sense of wrong. The fact seems to have been the same 

 in all the earlier tribal forms of society, and when the succeeding 

 Ibrm was reached, in the organization of the political state, the larger 

 boundaries of that social corporation still circumscribed the moral 

 notions of its citizens just as rigorously. 



In the ancient Gentoo laws of India, which show admirable no- 

 tions of honesty as between the subjects of the laws, we find pre- 

 scriptions for dividing the booty of robbers who had plundered any 

 contiguous but alien people. "If any thieves," says the ordinance, 

 "by the command of the magistrate, and with his assistance, have 

 committed depredations upon and brought booty from another ^jro'O- 

 ince, the magistrate shall receive a share of one-sixth of the whole," etc. 



