HIS FUNCTIONAL RELATIONS. 97 



be his religion and the deeper his devotion. The 

 more also that man understands his relations to his 

 fellow-men, the higher his conceptions and the more 

 active his discharge of these moral obligations which 

 constitute the bond and union of all human brother- 

 hood. It may be that sin and suffering, vice and 

 misery, cold-hearted indifference and absolute cruelty, 

 are to be found among civilised as well as among 

 savage nations; but no unbiassed reasoner can gainsay 

 that personal liberty, right to property, respect to 

 hfe, domestic affection, truth, honour, and all the 

 other social virtues, find a wider recognition and 

 practice among the white than among the coloured 

 and inferior varieties of our race. If it were not so, 

 civilisation would be a delusion, and intellectual cul- 

 tivation not more to be coveted than savage ignorance 

 and brutal superstition. 



Nor let it be forgotten that the functional obliga- 

 tions of the man can never be superseded or com- 

 pounded for by those of the race ; and that no abstract 

 notions respecting the upward progress of the species 

 can interfere with the bounden efforts of the indivi- 

 dual. As no one can discharge for another the physical 

 functions of his animal nature, so no general arrange- 

 ment can ever relieve the individual of the responsi- 

 bility that attaches to the fulfilment of his own social 

 and moral duties. As the character of a society de- 

 H 



