254 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 



brutality, superstition and sanity, honesty and 

 hypocrisy. But the savage recognises no moral 

 obligations to any being outside of his tribe, 

 clan, or family. Anthropology teaches nothing 

 more positively than this. Consanguinity and 

 self-interest are the only bases of savage friend- 

 ship. Outsiders are outlaws. They may be 

 attacked, robbed, deceived, murdered, eaten, or 

 enslaved, with perfect propriety. It was this 

 general hostility of foreigners that Cain feared 

 when he was turned out from his countrymen 

 after his crime upon Abel. He knew that he was 

 liable to be set upon by the first stranger that 

 came upon him. So the Lord is said to have set 

 a mark upon him, 'lest any finding him should 

 kill him/ 



' There was no brotherhood recognised by our 

 savage forefathers,' says Sir Henry Maine, in 

 speaking of the ancestors of the Aryan and 

 Semitic races, ' except actual consanguinity re- 

 garded as a fact. If a man was not of kin to 

 another, there was nothing between them. He 

 was an enemy to be hated, slain, or despoiled as 

 much as the wild beasts upon which the tribe 

 made war, as belonging, indeed, to the craftiest 

 and crudest of wild animals. It would scarcely 

 be too strong to assert that the dogs which 

 followed the camp had more in common with it 

 than the tribesmen of an alien and unrelated tribe ' 

 (2). Among some tribes of savage men the ethical 

 code is reversed in dealing with outsiders, and 

 enmity toward aliens is considered a duty. 



