

CLAN MORALITY. 447 



enemies if they did not. But they are not in reality 

 good men. They have no conscience outside their 

 clan. Their virtue after all is only a kind of honour 

 amongst thieves. They resemble those illustrious 

 criminals who were excellent husbands and fathers, 

 and whose biographies cannot be read without a shud- 

 der. Yet it is from these people that our minds and 

 our morals are descended. The history of morals is 

 the extension of the reciprocal or selfish virtues from the 

 clan to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, from 

 the nation to all communities living under the same 

 government, civil or religious, then to people of the 

 same colour, and finally to all mankind. 



In the primitive period, the males contended at the 

 courting season for the possession of the females ; poly- 

 gamy prevailed, and thus the strongest and most cour- 

 ageous males were the fathers of all the children that 

 were born ; the males of the second class died old 

 maids. The weakly members of the herd were also un- 

 able to obtain their share of food. But when the period 

 of brute force was succeeded by the period of Law, it 

 was found that the men of sickly frames were often 

 the most intelligent, and that they could make 

 themselves useful to the clan by inventing weapons 

 and traps, or at least by manufacturing them. 



In return for their sedentary labour, they were 

 given food ; and as they were too weak to obtain wives 

 by force, females also were given them ; the system of 

 love-duels was abolished ; the women belonged to the 

 community, and were divided fairly, like the food. 

 The existence of the clan depended on the number of 

 its fighting men, and therefore on the number of 

 children that were born. The birth of a male child 

 •was a matter of rejoicing : the mother was honoured 



