ETHICS AND ALTRUISM 253 



and moral as we are in following the monogamic laws 

 of civilization. 



Righteousness is that state of social, and individual 

 relationship in which, the material welfare of each and 

 all is best promoted. It means, that the right thing 

 shall be done, at the right time, to the right person, 

 and in the right way. All these terms are relative, 

 and these "rights" are determined by the aggregate 

 community, according to its intellect; and the test of 

 them is, the experience of their pragmatic working. It 

 would be a state of righteousness, that cannot exist in 

 a monarchy, nor in slavery; nor where the laws are 

 unjust, and unequal, though under such conditions 

 some individuals may be called righteous. 



Unless the people themselves are free, unless they 

 are their own rulers, and law makers, as they were 

 in the primitive gens, there must be unrighteousness 

 as a whole. In short, the ideal state of righteousness is, 

 in a broad sense, freedom, governed by only self- 

 imposed law, such as theoretically exists in a republic, 

 or democracy. 



In primitive barbarism, custom was based on 

 mythology, because men's brains could not conceive 

 any other basis. That was natural to their stage of 

 evolution. 



Franz Boas says : ' ' The dislike of that which deviates 

 from the custom of the land" (in primitive life) "is 

 even more strongly marked than in our civilization." 



* * * * "I think we are justified in concluding 

 from our own experience, that as among ourselves, so 

 among primitive tribes, the resistance to a deviation, 

 from firmly established customs, is due to an emotional 

 reaction, not to conscious reasoning. " 



In a community of scientists, every problem of 



