212 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very fine ducklings as 

 specimens, declared in the most solemn manner, c Oh, Mr. 

 Bynoe, much rain, snow, blow much.' This was evidently 

 a retributive punishment for wasting human food." 



Mr. Wallace gives the most interesting testimony, in his 

 " Malay Archipelago," to the existence of a very distinct, 

 and in some instances highly-developed moral sense in the 

 natives with whom he came in contact. In one case, 10 a 

 Papuan, who had been paid in advance for bird-skins, and 

 who had not been able to fulfil his contract before Mr. "Wal- 

 lace was on the point of starting, " came running down after 

 us holding up a bird, and saying with great satisfaction, 

 ' Now I owe you nothing ! ' " And this though he could 

 have withheld payment with complete impunity. 



Mr. Wallace's observations and opinions on this head 

 seem hardly to meet with due appreciation in Sir John Lub- 

 bock's recent work on Primitive Man. 11 But considering the 

 acute powers of observation and the industry of Mr. Wal- 

 lace, and especially considering the years he passed in fa- 

 miliar and uninterrupted intercourse with natives, his opin- 

 ion and testimony should surely carry with it great weight. 

 He has informed the author that he found a strongly-marked 

 and widely-diffused modesty, in sexual matters, among all 

 the tribes with which he came in contact. In the same way 

 Mr. Bonwick, in his work on the Tasmanians, testifies to 

 the modesty exhibited by the naked females of that race, 

 who by the decorum of their postures gave evidence of the 

 possession in germ of what under circumstances would be- 

 come the highest chastity and refinement. 



Hasty and incomplete observations and inductions are 

 prejudicial enough to physical science, but when their effect 

 is to degrade untruthfully our common humanity, there is 



10 " Malay Archipelago," vol. ii., p. 365. 



11 " The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man," 

 p. 261. Longmans, 1870. 



