The Evolution of Morality. 257 



most superficial dissimilarities produce a pro 

 found impression, while the great body of com 

 mon morals escapes notice. This want of per 

 spective is manifest alike in the oral and written 

 descriptions of travellers, as everyone will have 

 felt who has tried to digest their information and 

 arrange it into a distinct system. When I first 

 inquired of the missionary, already referred to, 

 into the moral condition of the natives of the 

 New Hebrides, he described them as a gross, 

 debased people with scarcely any sense of mo 

 rality. This is the popular view of the North 

 American Indians, though it is certainly errone 

 ous ; and the reader of Parkrnan s brilliant vol 

 umes may suspect that one great social evil the 

 condition of the poor they disposed of with 

 more compassionate equity and with more success 

 than their later civilized maligners. I found, too, 

 on going into details with my missionary friend, 

 that the New Hebridean natives, among whom 

 he had spent many years, were, in their deal 

 ings with one another -, severely just, scrupulously 

 truthful, compassionate toward the wretched 

 and unfortunate, so honest that an individual on 

 going off to pay a visit of some weeks would 

 leave his tent, containing all his possessions, open 

 and untenanted, without any fear of theft, and 

 17 



