IN THE SHETLANDS 293 
we must ask ourselves if, where it can and does exist 
amongst the latter, it is not of a more spontaneous 
and vigorous character, and if there is not more real 
sympathy attached to it. Where, for instance, can 
such perfect combination be found as amongst social 
insects—bees, wasps, ants, etc.—the conditions of 
whose existence are far simpler and more uniform 
than ours? And in what deep feelings of sympathy 
—or, aS we may say, oneness—must blood-feuds 
have had their origin? If it is true that the sym- 
pathies of some civilised men have become widened 
so as to embrace humanity at large, and even the 
lower animals, is it not equally true that @// civilised 
men stand more cut off from their immediate neigh- 
bours than do savages, because, owing to an increased 
diversity of individual character, consequent upon 
more diverse and complex conditions, they less 
resemble them? If so, though in one sense man 
may be said to sympathise more and more as he 
advances in culture, in another sense, and perhaps 
the truer one, he does so less and less; for as the 
river has widened it has become less deep, and the 
current less strong. Heine makes this same com- 
parison in some interesting remarks upon the inhabi- 
tants of the Isle of Nordeney, which, as they exactly 
and felicitously express my meaning, I will here quote, 
albeit in a clumsy translation: ‘“‘ What links these 
men so fastly and inwardly together is not so much a 
mystic bond of love, as habit, the daily necessary 
living in each other’s life, a common shared simplicity. 
