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



ality is a totally ditt'ereut cDuditiou from that of the isolated primitive 

 man. We may ima<;iiie such an one, living alone with his one wife, his 

 cliildren around him, his household goods and gods all within his lonely 

 lodge. That man's monogamy, his sense of [»roi)erty, his feelings of 

 duty and responsibility, of association and independence, can in no 

 way he assimilated to those of the man who is the free product of the 

 state, developed through countless generations of gradual culture. 

 To the scientitic anthroi)ologist the one is the complete contrast to the 

 other; they have nothing in common but their external membershij) of 

 the same species and a vague resemblance of external coiulitions. 



The individual is indeed the true purpose of the state. Its aim dis- 

 tinctly is that he, or she, as au individual, shall be provided with, and 

 protected in, the greatest possible amount of personal liberty; in this 

 being in the utmost contrast to consanguine governments, where the 

 individual is nothing, the tribe everything. 



The value of personal liberty is as a means toward the accpiisition of 

 personal happiness, and hence we are willing to accept the definition of 

 the modern idea of justice as advanced by the enn"nent French anthro 

 l)ologist, Andre Lefevre — that it is the respect for every interest which 

 contributes to the highest general happiness of humanity; and we can 

 not refuse to accept the definition of morality which Ho\elac(]ue and 

 Herve offer, as the only one which anthropologists can recognize; that 

 it is tlie i>rinciple of organization for the purpose of satisfying the phys- 

 ical and intellectual needs of all men; a princii)le which they justly 

 add, can only be carried out successfully by guaranteeing to the indi- 

 vidual the highest degree of personal liberty in every direction, limited 

 by no other barrier than the enjoyment of similar liberty by every other 

 individual. 



It is obvious on very slight reflection that the state as an element in 

 anthropology has by no means worked out its full destiny in modifying 

 the physical and psychical nature of man. As a form of government 

 it is far from covering the whole of the earth's surface, and where it is 

 nominally present it is still further in many instances from that per- 

 fected condition in which it has thrown aside the clogs and fetters of 

 the consanguine system to which it succeeded. 



Take the vast Emj)ire of China for instance. It is ruled by a foreign 

 dynasty on general principles of statecraft. But throug-hout all the 

 really ( 'hinese portions of the empire the details of the family system 

 are retained with wonderful tenacity. 



But we need not go so far for examples. Wherever we find a system of 

 castes orof privileged classes, au hereditary nobility, or a state church, 

 a transmissible community of property, whether real or personal, any 

 inequality in the rights and responsibilities of sane adult individuals 

 before the law, any concessions which relieve classes, or i)ersons, or 

 sects, or societies, or sexes of their full measure of liability, or confer 

 upon them privileges or deny them rights enjoyed by others, there we 



