Harding. — On Unwritten Literature. 441 



we are considering. This is not easy. We are, as a people, 

 so vain of our material and external advantages, of our sup- 

 posed moral, religious, scientific, and intellectual superiority, 

 that we are apt to regard " savages " as on a different plane, 

 and almost to overlook the fact of their common humanity. 

 It must be as difficult for the primitive man to realise our 

 superiority. It is quite possible that, regarding modern society 

 critically, he would find what he might deem savagery in the 

 relations, say, between labour and capital ; he might even 

 detect a want of decorum in the proceedings of our legislative 

 and deliberative assemblies that would shock his sense of 

 etiquette ; while his finer feelings might be outraged by our 

 contempt for objects and usages which in his eyes are ex- 

 tremely sacred. Though he learn to speak and read our lan- 

 guage with some facility, we can scarcely expect him to appre- 

 ciate the beauties of "Paradise Lost." And, though we may 

 have some superficial acquaintance with his native tongue, we 

 may be equally unfit to criticize, and be equally blind to the 

 force and beauty of, the traditional lore, poetical and didactic, 

 which embodies the wisdom and the religion of his race. 



In fact, to institute a fair comparison, it is necessary to 

 exclude all such literary and other growths on our side as are 

 due to difference of environment. If we do this, our claims as 

 a people to intellectual superiority must be greatly reduced, 

 and in some respects we may even find ourselves at a dis- 

 advantage. The man who is always surrounded with books 

 has not the same incentive to cultivate his memory, or to 

 master details, as he who has no such external resource. Few 

 writers can quote correctly, even from their favourite authors, 

 without reference. The " bad memory " of the civilised man 

 is, like colour-blindness or myopia, a defect largely due to his 

 artificial habits, and from which the unlettered islander is 

 exempt. A man with such a verbal memory as was possessed 

 by Scott or Macaulay is to us a marvel : in the case of the 

 bookless Polynesian he is not the exception, but the rule. 



There have been rare cases in which a man has been able 

 to repeat the entire text of the Scriptures. In the most cele- 

 brated case of the kind the development of this faculty of 

 memory was at the expense of the other mental qualities. 

 But a capacity of memory equal to this must have been quite 

 a common thing among the Polynesians. The parallel holds 

 good not only as to the quantity of lore stored in the memory, 

 but to a great extent as to its form and quality. Within the 

 compass of the Scriptures we find every kind of literature — 

 traditional, historical, genealogical, philosophical, proverbial, 

 moral, and devotional. The large section of our modern books, 

 which are unrepresented there — such as treatises on the exact 

 sciences, natural philosophy, and theoretic science — do not 



