148 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
peace and various social institutions. History bears ample 
testimony that these specious pretences were employed first 
to captivate the fancy and then to enslave the man. The 
familiar adage that “ knowledge is power,” was as well un- 
derstood by them as by us; learning was artfully restricted 
toa privileged class ; and the genius of the few soon controlled 
the energies of the many. Thus the policy of the Incas in- 
culeated in their subjects an abject obedience which knew no 
limit. They endeavoured to eradicate the feeling of indivi- 
duality ; or, in other words, to unite the minds of the plebeian 
multitude in a common will, which was that of their master. 
Thus when Pizarro made his first attack on the defenceless 
Peruvians in the presence of their Inca, the latter was borne 
in a throne on the shoulders of four men; and we are told by 
Herrera that while the Spaniards spared the sovereign, they 
aimed their deadly blows at his bearers, who, however, 
never shrunk from their sacred trust; for when one of their 
number fell, another immediately took his place; and the 
historian declares that if the whole day had been spent in 
killing them, others would still have come forward to the 
passive support of their master. In fact, what has been 
called the paternal government of the Incas was strictly 
such ; for their subjects were children, who neither thought 
nor acted except at the dictation of another. Thus it was 
that a people whose moral impulses are known to have dif- 
fered in little or nothing from those of the barbarous tribes, 
were reduced, partly by persuasion, partly by force, to a 
state of effeminate vassalage not unlike that of the modern 
Hindoos. Like the latter, too, they made good soldiers in 
their native wars, not from any principle of valour, but from 
the sentiment of passive obedience to their superiors; and 
hence, when they saw their monarch bound and imprisoned 
by the Spaniards, their conventional courage at once forsook 
them ; and we behold the singular spectacle of an entire 
nation prostrated at a blow, like a strong man whose energies 
yield to a seemingly trivial but rankling wound. 
After the Inca power was destroyed, however, the dormant 
spirit of the people was again aroused in all the moral yehe- 
mence of their race, and the gentle and unoffending Peruvian 
