234 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



numberless institutions and observances and com- 

 plicated relations of civilised life, points of resem- 

 blance or discordance between different nations, even 

 of kindred race, become so numerous and so obvious 

 as to be at once remarked. Although the amount 

 of difference thus remarked may not be greater in 

 proportion to the whole mass of human relations in 

 the civilised than the savage state, yet as that mass 

 is much less in the latter than in the former, the 

 proportionate differences between its parts must also 

 be much less, and in the simplest conditions of 

 humanity run a chance of being altogether over- 

 looked.* Differences in laws, customs, and social 

 usages, in respect for rank, in form of government, 

 in the internal spirit or external forms of religion, 

 in agriculture or commerce, or in arts or sciences, 

 must be in vain sought for among people almost 

 entirely destitute of all these things, as for instance 

 the Australians and the Fuegians. Whenever 

 people in so simple a condition are placed under 

 circumstances at all approaching to similarity, it is 

 obvious that more points of resemblance will be 

 perceived between them, than of discordance, and a 

 hasty or superficial observer would be very likely 

 to be led into error in his conclusions respecting 

 them. 



* The difference between 1 and 2 is precisely the same in pro- 

 portion with that between 50 and 100, but as the amount of the 

 difference is in one case 1, and in the other 50, the former may 

 be much more easily overlooked than the latter. 



