MORAL INFERIORITY OF SAVAGES. 465 



In fact, we may almost sum up this part of the question ia 

 a few words by saying, as the most general conclusion which 

 can be arrived at, that savages have the character of children 

 with the passions and strength of men. No doubt different 

 races of savages differ very much in character. An Esqui- 

 maux and a Feegeean, for instance, have little in common. 

 But after making every possible allowance for savages, it 

 must I think be admitted that they are inferior morally as 

 well as in other respects, to the more civilised races. There 

 is indeed no atrocious crime, no vice recorded by any tra- 

 veller, which might not be paralleled in Europe, but that 

 which is with us the exception, is with them the rule ; that 

 which with us is condemned by the general verdict of 

 society, and is confined to the uneducated and the vicious, is 

 among savages passed over almost without condemnation, and 

 often treated as a matter of course. Among the Feegeeans, 

 for instance, parricide is not a crime, but a custom, and other 

 similar cases have been already mentioned. 



If we now turn to the mental differences between civil- 

 ised and uncivilised races we shall find them very strongly 

 marked. Speaking of a Bushman tribe, Burchell observes 

 that " whether capable of reflection or not, these individuals 

 never exerted it,"* The Rev. T. Dove describes the Tas- 

 manians as distinguished " by the absence of all moral views 

 and impressions. Every idea bearing on our origin and des- 

 tination as rational beings seems to have been erased from 

 their breasts, "f It would be easy to fill a volume with the 

 evidence of excessive stupidity recorded by different travellers. 

 It might be perhaps thought that these were rather instances 

 of individual dulness, than any indication of a national. cha- 

 racteristic ; but in the nature and capacity of a language we 

 find a test and measure of the higher minds in a nation. 

 Unfortunately, however, travellers have found it difficult 

 * I.e. vol. i., p. 461. f Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, vol. i., p. 249. 



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