98 LESSONS FKOM NATUKE. [CHAP. V. 



hasty and careless misinterpretations of unsk ille d observers 

 and inaccurate narrators. Sir John Luobock him- 

 2ST self observes :* We all know how difficult it is to 

 judge an individual, and it must be much more so to j* 

 1 nation. In fact, whether any given wnter prases or blames 

 I particular race, depends at least as much on the character 

 /the writer as on that of the people.&quot; Again, we mus t be 

 careful not to apply to savage tribes standards applicable only 

 to higher races. The essence of morality being the con 

 formity of acts to an ethical ideal, neither the worst any 

 more than the best moral development, whatever be the 

 concrete acts, can co-exist with an undeveloped intellectual 

 condition If any tribes are intellectually in a puerile con 

 dition, puerile also must be their moral state. Here we may 

 again quote Sir John Lubbock with approval, 

 (p. 340) :- 



&quot;The lowest moral and the lowest intellectual condition are not 

 only in my opinion, not inseparable, they are not even compatible. 

 The lower races of men may be, and are, vicious; but allowances 

 must be made for them. On the contrary (corrupt* optimi pessimaest), 

 Z highe the mental power, the more splendid the intellectual endow 

 ment, the deeper is the moral degradation of him who wastes the one 

 and abuses the other.&quot; 



Now one of the clearest ethical judgments is that as to 

 Examples of justice &quot; and &quot;injustice;&quot; and by common con- 

 vages ym sent the native Australians are admitted to be at 

 about the lowest level of existing social development, while 

 as we have seen, the Esquimaux are deemed by some to be 

 surviving specimens of the (up to the present time hypo 

 thetical) &quot; miocene men.&quot; 



Concerning the first of these races, the Australians, , 

 John Lubbock tells us : 



The amount of legal revenge, if I may so call it, is often strictly 

 regulated, even where we should least expect to find such limitations 

 Thus in Australia, crimes may be compounded for by the criminal 

 appearing and submitting himself to the ordeal of having spears 



1 Origin of Civilisation, p. 259. 



