THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 



34i 



crime, but a glory." They kill the decrepit, maimed, and sick. While, 

 on the one hand, infanticide covers nearer two-thirds than one-half 

 of the births, on the other hand, " one of the first lessons taught the 

 infant is, to strike its mother : " anger and revenge are fostered. In- 

 feriors are killed for neglecting proper salutes ; slaves are buried alive 

 with the posts on which a king's house stands ; and ten or more men 

 are slaughtered on the decks of a newly-launched canoe, to baptize it 

 with their blood. A chief's wives, courtiers, and aides-de-camp, are 

 strangled at his death being thereby honored. Cannibalism is so 

 rampant that a chief, praising his deceased son, wound up his eulogy 

 by saying that he would " kill his own wives if they offended him, and 

 eat them afterward." Victims were sometimes roasted alive before 

 being eaten ; and Tanoa, one of their chiefs, cut off a cousin's arm, 

 drank the blood, cooked the arm and ate it in presence of the owner, 

 who was then cut to pieces. Their gods, described as having like 

 characters, commit like acts. They eat the souls of those who are de- 

 voured by men, having first " roasted " them (the " souls " being sim- 

 ply material duplicates). The Fiji gods " are proud and revengeful, 

 and make war, and kill and eat each other;" and among their names 

 are " the adulterer," " the woman-stealer," " the brain-eater," " the 

 murderer." Such being the account of the Samoans, and such the 

 account of the Fijians, let us ask what the Fijians think of the Samo- 

 ans. " The Feegeeans looked upon the Samoans with horror, because 

 they had no l-eligion, no belief in any such deities" (as the Feegeean), 

 " nor any of the sanguinary rites which prevailed in other islands" ' a 

 fact quite in harmony with that narrated by Jackson, who, having be- 

 haved disrespectfully to one of their gods, was angrily called by them 

 " the white infidel." 



Any one may read, while running, the lesson conveyed; and, with- 

 out stopping to consider much, may see its application to the beliefs 

 and sentiments of civilized races. The ferocious Fijian doubtless 

 thinks that, to devour a human victim in the name of one of his can- 

 nibal gods, is a meritorious act ; while he thinks that his Samoan 

 neighbor, who makes no sacrifices to these cannibal gods, but is just 

 and kind to his fellows, thereby shows that meanness goes along with 

 his shocking irreligion. Construing the facts in this way, the Fijian 

 can form no rational conception of Samoan society. With vices and 

 virtues interchanged in conformity with his creed, the benefits of cer- 

 tain social arrangements, if he thinks about them at all, must seem 

 evils and the evils benefits. 



Speaking generally, then, each system of dogmatic theology, with 

 the sentiments that gather round it, becomes an impediment in the 

 way of Social Science. The sympathies drawn out toward one creed 

 and the correlative antipathies aroused by other creeds, distort the in- 

 terpretations of all the associated facts. On these institutions and 



1 Lubbock's " Prehistoric Times," second edition, p. 442. 



