314 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. 



are specifically different beings. We, however, soon learn that 

 such a theory is not tenable on these grounds. 



We need not refer to the atrocities of the miserable Arnauts 

 in the war of Mohammed Ali, 1 nor to the Turko-Russian 

 war, and the late rebellion of the Hindoos against the English, 

 for, independently of the low degree of civilization of these na- 

 tions, the exasperation of the struggle may, to some extent, 

 excuse them. Let us grasp the life of the European apart from 

 such extraordinary impulses, and in a state where he is 

 not kept in bounds by the law. How the Russo-American 

 Company behaved to the Aleutes, and even their own people, 

 may be learned from Langsdorff; 2 the former were treated 

 much worse than slaves. Though sick, they were worked to 

 death; the moribund were put into damp huts, and provided nei- 

 ther with firewood nor proper victuals. The Europeans living 

 in Khartoum, on the Nile, belong to a variety of nations, and are 

 described as civilized ; but R/usseger, Brehm, and all other 

 travellers, unanimously describe them as the most worthless and 

 unscrupulous men in the world, living as slave dealers, without 

 any law, and given to all possible vices. 



The worst in such cases is, that with the decline of morality 

 the moral sense itself gradually degenerates. The frontier 

 peasants at the Cape find nothing morally wrong in the razzias 

 which, without any provocation, they undertake against the 

 Bosjesmans, though they would consider it a heinous sin thus 

 to treat Christians. 3 This reminds us of the Bosjesman who 

 knew nothing of the difference between good and bad actions, 

 adding, after some hesitation, that it was right in him to steal 

 the wives of other men, but wrong in others to steal his 

 own wife. The oft-praised pioneers of the West of North 

 America acted in a similar manner towards the Indians, and 

 their moral judgment in this respect was the same as that of 

 the Dutch peasants. The backwoodsmen of Old Kentucky are 

 brought up in the hatred of the natives, and shoot them down 



1 Werne, " Feldzug Von Sennaar nach Taka," p. 116, 1851. 



2 Vol. ii, pp. 63, 80. 



3 Thompson's " Travels and Adventures in South Africa," i, p. 396, 2nd 

 edit., 1827. 



