3 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



settlement, now in small areas and now in larger areas uniting them, 

 there was scarcely any of the regulation which developed civil gov- 

 ernment brings ; but there was insistance on allegiance humbly ex- 

 pressed. While each man was left to guard himself, and blood-feudc 

 between families were unchecked by the central power while the 

 right of private vengeance was so well recognized that the Salic law 

 made it penal to carry off enemies' heads from the stakes on which 

 they were exhibited near the dwellings of those who had killed them ; 

 there was a rigorous demanding of oaths of fidelity to political supe- 

 riors and periodic manifestations of loyalty. Simple homage, grow- 

 ing presently into liege homage, was paid by smaller rulers to great- 

 er; and the vassal who, kneeling ungirt and swordless before his 

 suzerain, professed his subjection and then entered on possession of 

 his lands, was little interfered with so long as he continued to display 

 his vassalage in court and in camp. Refusal to go through the re- 

 quired observances was tantamount to rebellion ; as at the present 

 time in China, where disregard of the forms of behavior prescribed 

 toward each grade of officers "is considered to be nearly equivalent 

 to a rejection of their authority." Among peoples in lower stages this 

 connection of social traits is still better shown. Referring to the 

 extreme ceremoniousness of the Tahitians, Ellis writes : " This pecu- 

 liarity appears to have accompanied them to the temples, to have dis- 

 tinguished the homage and the service they rendered to their gods, 

 to have marked their affairs of state, and the carriage of the people 

 toward their rulers, to have pervaded the whole of their social inter- 

 course." Meanwhile, he says, they were destitute " of even oral laws 

 and institutes : " so verifying the statement of Cook that there was no 

 public administration of justice. Again, from Mariner we learn that 

 if any one in Tonga were to neglect the proper salutation in presence 

 of a superior noble, some calamity from the gods would be expected 

 as a punishment for the omission ; and his list of Tongan virtues com- 

 mences with " paying respect to the gods, nobles, and aged persons." 

 When to this we add his statement that many actions reprobated by 

 the Tongans are not thought intrinsically wrong, but are wrong 

 merely if done against gods or nobles, we get proof that, along with 

 high development of ceremonial control, the sentiments, ideas, and 

 usages, out of which civil government comes, were but feebly devel- 

 oped. Similarly in the ancient American states. The laws of the 

 Mexican king, Montezuma I., mostly related to the intercourse of, and 

 the distinctions between, classes. In Peru, "the most common pun- 

 ishment was death, for they said that a culprit was not punished for 

 the delinquencies he had committed, but for having broken the com- 

 mandment of the Ynca." There had not been reached the stage in 

 which the transgressions of man against man are the wrongs to be 

 redressed, and in which there is consequently a proportioning of pen- 

 alties to injuries ; but the real crime was insubordination: implying 



