TIUNSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 179 



In the second, lie showed that overwhelming e\adence demonstrated that the Xew- 

 Zealanders were one race, the few exceptions noticeable not being of any real 

 moment. 



In the third, he proved by a careful examination of the chief Polynesian dialects, 

 the Maori, the Tonga, the Hawaii (Sandwich), the Tahiti (Otaheite), and the 

 Samoan (Navigator's Islands), that all these peoples must once have had a com- 

 mon origin, the difference between the existing dialects being hardly as much as 

 between that of Yorkshire and Somersetshire at the present day, and by no means 

 as great as those between the popular dialects of Venice and Naples. The author 

 had no doubt that they all came at some remote period from Central Asia — in 

 other words, were Turanians ; but the route they took, he thought, could not now 

 be traced with any certainty. 



On the Predatory Races of Asia and Europe ; a Chapter in Morals. 

 By C. SiANiLAUD Wake, V.-P.L.A.S. 



Notwithstanding the practice by peoples such as the Afghans, the Bedouins, the 

 Slavonians of Southern Europe, and the ancient peoples of North-western Eixrope, 

 classed together by the author as "predatory," of the right of blood-revenge, such 

 peoples are not without certain important moral characteristics. Among all of them 

 that right has come to be usually given up in return for a compensation, pecuniary 

 or otherwise, fixed by arbitration or by the person iinjm-ed or his relations. More- 

 over, although towards strangers their conduct is governed by no sense of moral 

 obligation, yet as between themselves the ordinary rides of the moral law required 

 for the internal peace and prosperity of the state are recognized. In general con- 

 duct the predatory peoples show a great superiority over less cultured races. The 

 practice of hospitality has become a virtue and a sacred tie of friendship. Marriage 

 has ceased to be a matter of mere bargain and sale, and woman has become the 

 wife instead pf the slave of her husband. The whole character of the predatory 

 peoples has, indeed, acqim-ed a higher moral tone. Partly owing to the influence 

 accjuired by woman and her power of moulding the character of her children, but 

 chiefly owing to the recognition of the true position of the father as the head of 

 the family, in substitution for the primitive notion of relationship to the clan 

 through the mother, the feeling of "manliness" is developed to a great degree. 

 This was noticeable in the character of the ancient Germans and Scandinavians 

 no less than in that of the modern predatory peoples of Asia. With them " man- 

 liness " springs from an intense self-consciousness, and it shows its influence in the 

 dignity, self-control, and magnanimity for which those peoples are distinguished. 

 Those characteristics are accompanied by a sense of personal honour which is essen- 

 tial to a true idea of moral obligation ; although moral strength rather than moral 

 goodness is the special attribute of the predatory peoples. We see the same thing 

 among the ancient Eomans, who possessed the quality of " manliness " in a high 

 degree. This quality was to them the sum of all morality, to which, indeed, they 

 gave the name of " virtue," meaning strength, as applied to conduct. The " virtue" 

 of the Romans and of the ancient peoples of Europe was thus originally the same 

 quality, and it possessed with each the possibility of acquiring a true ethical sense. 



Tlie Cycle of Development. By Hoddek M. Wesxeopp. 



The object of the author is to trace and bring into prominence the cycle of 

 development, an invariable law which, in his opinion, presides over all that has 

 growth and progress, in man and in natm-e. All progress and growth is in suc- 

 cessive stages, which form a cycle, the stages proceeding in an ascending scale and 

 in a descending scale — those in the ascending scale being rise, progress, matuiity j 

 in the descending, decline, decay, and extinction. 



