Fbbbuary 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



31 



nine persons. Yet the huntci-s only do this to satisfy 

 their most urgent rcquiromonts. 



Despite uncortiiiuties and rrucl disappointments, the 

 chase holds and retains the savages, and if occasion- 

 ally necessity compels them to take one st^^p towards 

 tillage they do not persist in this effort, and return 

 with eagerness to the more attractive work of hunting. 



Property. — The forest theoretically belongs to every- 

 body because its products arc not the result of any work 

 bv man. The extent of commonage accessible to each 

 family is much more restricted than the steppes or the 

 sea. This limitation arises partly from the difhcultics 

 of locomotion, which confine the hunters to a relatively 

 limited district; partly from the nature of the spon- 

 taneous productions. As these are easily exhausted 

 the several families are obliged to energetically defend 

 their hunting grounds ag;uust the inroads of noigh- 

 boui's. 



If the hunting grounds are under the I'ule of the com- 

 munity this is not the case with the home and imple- 

 ments of work. These are pei-sonal property on account 

 of the division into isolated households. But we have 

 seen how restricted they are and how easy to make. 

 This property, therefore, contributes in only a very 

 feeble manner to devclojj habits of forethought and 

 economy. 



Thus the hunting savage is naturally improvident. 

 His true property consists in his skill and agility, which 

 he can neither sell nor bequeath. The grave question 

 of *he transmission of property does not exist for him. 

 No tie binds, even materially, the generations with 

 one another to induce solidanty. Individualism 

 triumphs. 



The Family. — The family cannot retain its members 

 at home, all the children successively separate as soon 

 as they can provide for themselves. The family 

 periodically dissolves, scattering to found new homes as 

 instable as the preceding. Such are the characteristic 

 traits of the instable family, which develop the spirit 

 of change. 



The spirit of change is manifested by the preponder- 

 ance acquired by the young, unless, as previously stated, 

 special precautions are taken to prevent it. The 

 youths, by reason of their premature emancipation and 

 comparative isolation are not permeated by the tra- 

 ditions of their ancestors or the sentiments, ideas, and 

 habits of their parents, except so far as they maintain 

 that conservative spirit which is so characteristic of 

 children and backward peoples. 



The chief of these small families forget the memory 

 of *^heir elders, and take no pains to transmit the re- 

 membrance of the great actions of the race to their 

 descendants. Verbal history, so prolix in sedentary 

 communities, is almost non-existent among nomadic 

 hunters. 



Magical practices may be developed, but true religion 

 — that is, the worship of a spirit or spirits — is in a very 

 primitive stage. 



Among the South American hunters not only is 

 there no respect for their progenitors, but they may 

 abandon and even eat their parents. The instable 

 family often leaves orphans, the sick, the aged — in other 

 words, the feeble and incapable — without refuge and 

 sustenance; there is no fixed home to act as a place of 

 refuge. 



Government. — It is necessary to be young, vigorous, 

 enterprising, if the home, children, and hunting grounds 

 are to be protected from the incessant attacks of neigh- 



bouring tiibes. Power belongs to the strongest, auJ 

 is thus not only despotic but cruel. 



Each tribe must be organised for defence, and for 

 attack — it n;ust always be on the alert. It is to the 

 interest of the families to group themselves under a 

 valiant chief capable of protecting them and their 

 possessions. Thus, this state of permanent war develops 

 a kind of personal authority ; the habits of the chase 

 render it arbitrary and cruel; the feebleness and in- 

 stability of the family permit to encroach , but the 

 authority is itself instable. Force makes chiefs, force 

 unmakes them. 



Primitive Gaul, as Le Play points out, w;is in a 

 ■similar condition; " obliged to struggle without cciising 

 in order to procure their living, and to defend the 

 game agaist the inroads of contiguous peoples, the early 

 Gauls approached in their habits the Indian hunters 

 whom one may still observe in the forests of America." 

 On their arrival the Romans found the Gauls divided 

 into a multitude of small tribes constantly at war. The 

 policy of Caisar consisted in setting one against another. 

 It was the internal weakness of the Gauls that made 

 them powerless against the Romans. 



Incapacity of the Hunters to Expand. — First, there 

 is an absence of the means of transport, being without 

 the horse or a seaworthy boat, for bark canoes and 

 simple dug-outs are quite unsuitcd for maritime navi- 

 gation. 



Secondly, owing to the isolation of the families there 

 is very little communication between them, and there 

 is a mai-ked lack of co-ordina*ion. Relatively small 

 bodies of men may temporarily combine, but large 

 enterprises are practically impossible, not only from the 

 lack of social education, but from the difficulty of ob- 

 taining sufficient food. 



Finally, the population is limited. The population 

 is diminished by epidemics, the abandonment and death 

 of those whom they cannot '^ransport, intertribal wars, 

 and cannibalism. Hunting peoples always multiply 

 very slowly, and they even tend to disappear. The 

 Indians of the Amazon diminish rapidly in contact with 

 the white man, and so also do the North American 

 Indians and the Australians. The Tasmanians have 

 entirely disappeared. 



POLARITY IN MAGIC SQUARES.-I. 



By E. D. Little. 

 Pythagoras found the secret of the Universe in 

 Number and Duality or Polarity, for Number is Law, 

 and Law divides all things into complementary pairs. 



The universal reign of law, the essential unity of 

 law, and yet the diversity of its operation, the Duality 

 or Polarity of its subject matter, all these receive abun- 

 dant illustration from the number-problem known as 

 the Magic Square, which has always had a singular 

 fascination for the Mystic and the Mathematician 

 alike. 



The object of this paper is to show how well the 

 least snd simplest of these figures will serve for the 

 purpose of this illustration, for although De minimis 

 Lex non curat may be Lawyer's Law, it is not the 

 Law of Nature. In Nature Law reigns as supreme in 

 Jhe^least as in the greatest, and it is in the least that it 

 is often best observed. 



In treating of a subject at all scientific in character 

 it is always well to begin with definition, and our first 

 care must be to define the nature or the note of the 

 Magic Square. A Magic Square then is a square of 



