124 Distinctive characteristics of the 



of the observer like the fragments of a vast ruin, to which the history 

 of the other nations of the earth furnishes no analogy. " This dis- 

 ruption of all the bands by which Society was anciently held to- 

 gether, accompanied by a Babylonish confusion of tongues, the rude 

 right of force, the never ending tacit warfare of all against all, 

 springing from that very disrupture, — appear to me the most essential, 

 and, as far as history is concerned, the most significant points in the 

 civil condition of the aboriginal population of America." 



It may be said that these features of the Indian character are 

 common to all mankind in the savage state : this is generally true ; 

 but in the American race they exist in a degree which will fairly 

 challenge a comparison with similar traits in any existing people ; 

 and if we consider also their habitual indolence and improvidence, 

 their indifference to private property, and the vague simplicity of 

 their religious observances, — which, for the most part, are devoid 

 of the specious aid of idolatry, — we must admit them to possess a 

 peculiar and eccentric moral constitution. 



If we turn now to the demi- civilized nations, we find the dawn of 

 refinement coupled with those barbarous usages which characterize 

 the Indian in his savage state. We see the Mexicans, like the later 

 Romans, encouraging the most bloody and cruel rites, and these too 

 in the name of religion, in order to inculcate hatred of their enemies, 

 familiarity with danger and contempt of death ; and the moral effect 

 of this system is manifest in their valorous, though unsuccessful, 

 resistance to their Spanish conquerors. 



Among the Peruvians, however, the case was different. The 

 inhabitants had been subjugated to the Incas by a combined moral 

 and physical influence. The Inca family were looked upon as beings 

 of divine origin. They assumed to be the messengers of heaven, 

 bearing rewards for the good, and punishment for the disobedient, 

 conjoined with the arts of peace and various social institutions. 

 History bears ample testimony that these specious pretences were 

 employed first to captivate the fancy and then to enslave the man. 

 The familiar adage that "knowledge is power/' was as well under- 

 stood by them as by us ; learning was artfully restricted to a privi- 

 leged class ; and the genius of the few soon controled the energies 

 of the many. Thus the policy of the Incas inculcated in their sub- 



