THE ''nation" AS AN ELEMENT IN ANTHROPOLOGY. 597 



This is also true of his civil rights and tliose which refer to prop- 

 erty. Wherever the cousanguiiie theory is iu force, the communal idea 

 of property is also active. The land belongs iu part or iu whole to the 

 kith and kin, in the nature of common land, or is sublet by the heads 

 of the comnuiuity on longer or shorter tenures. Personal property is so 

 only in the sense that it belongs to the members of an immediate family 

 or subgens, not to an individual, and in many instances passes in the 

 female line. 



It is obvious that in such a condition of society uo idea of independ- 

 ent personal duty or individual morality could rise in the mind; and 

 should any such enter through foreign instigation, it Avould be con- 

 demned as false, destructive, and treasonable. 



Permit me to dwell on this point with some detail because of its 

 prime importance. Those considerations which establish in a commu- 

 nity its moral code, its ideal standard of what is right, of conscience, 

 and of duty, pronounce the final sentence on the fate of that commu- 

 nity. In all earlier conditions the preservation of the gens or tribe 

 rested more on measures of destruction than of protection. Hence, 

 toward the alien and the stranger justice and mercy were out of place 

 and actually prohibited. C?esar tells us of the ancient Germans, (and 

 Nordenskjold repeats the same of the modern Tchuktches of Siberia,) 

 that they respected no law of honesty in dealing with strangers or 

 those alien to their tribe. To cheat such in trade, to deceive and to 

 Ijlunder them, Avas actually meritorious. 



In such communities the stranger has no rights, and can claim no 

 protection as a fellow human being. He can only attain such through 

 some rite of adoption into the tribe, or through some ceremony by 

 which he can claim the privileges of hospitality — what German writers 

 call the Gastrecht. The gens, the clan, the tribe, is an isolated unit, in 

 natural antagonism to the race at large, and recognizes no sort of soli- 

 darity with its other members, nay, regards them as foes. 



How different is all this in the developed system of the state ? There 

 the individual man is held accountable for his own actions. He is con- 

 sidered responsible for the deeds he commits and, therefore, feels that 

 he is answerable to himself for the opinions and etliical tlieories which 

 lie at the basis of Ins life and direct his conduct. For the first time 

 in the histor}" of the race he learns the meaning of persoiialiti/, the 

 highest lesson which advancing civilization can impress on humanity. 

 He sees that by himself he must either stand or fall; that no vicarious 

 expiation can meet the demands of what is eternally right; that his 

 responsibility does not belong to another, nor can it be involved by the 

 actions of another, but ever centers in his own thoughts and actions. 

 Thus is he gradually euumcipated from that condition of tutelage and 

 hereditary bondage in which he was so long kept by the consanguine 

 theory of government. 



I can not too strongly impress upon you that this concept of person- 



