354 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PAET II. 



exist a slow and steady transformation of the mode of life from 

 an irregular and changeable activity to more uniform industry, 

 agriculture requires a special condition if it is to reach that 

 extent and regularity, by which alone it becomes the basis of 

 civilization. 



Social conditions favour agriculture by establishing the rela- 

 tions of master and servant, and so does slavery, which is a 

 usual consequence of war. Peoples who have no agriculture, 

 or consider it only as a secondary affair, generally kill their 

 prisoners of war, or more rarely adopt them in their own 

 tribes ; such, however, as cultivate the soil make their prisoners 

 work. Slavery thus spreads with agriculture, whether it has 

 originated from war or not, and agriculture gains in extent 

 and regularity, so that it becomes in time the chief means of 

 subsistence for the people. Since all the work is performed 

 by others, it gives to the free people that leisure which is re- 

 quisite to secure for them a comfortable existence. 



This latter circumstance is, in some respect, rather an impe- 

 diment than a help to civilization, for, however true it is 

 that leisure is requisite for intellectual development, still in 

 that leisure itself there is for the primitive man no impulse to 

 serious mental activity. The promotion of civilization by agri- 

 culture lies rather in the circumstance that it accustoms to 

 regular labour, renders the people less inclined to war, produces 

 an attachment to a fixed habitation, and a settled mental dis- 

 position differing from indolence. 



The important influence which agriculture, however imper- 

 fect, exercises upon the national character, is shown in many in- 

 stances. The Indians of the Cordilleras in South America, 

 who like agriculture, are peaceable and timid ; those of the 

 plains bold and enterprising, finding pleasure in the dangers of 

 hunting the jaguar and the wild bull, or taming the horse. 1 The 

 greater capacity for progress in the agriculturist is shown by 

 comparing him with the hunter : the former sees his inferiority 

 to the white man, and is more easily induced to improve his con- 

 dition ; whilst the latter despises the arts of the European, and, 



1 Mollien, loc. cit., ii, p. 168. 



