Bijfpon's Explanation of Indian Chaeactekistics. 247 
the organs of reproduction are small and weak : the beard and passionate 
love for the wife is wanting. More adroit through his nomadic life than 
the European, the latter is nevertlioless stronger and more powerful. 
Tlie savages' sensations likewise are all less vivid, except those of fear 
and cowardice: he possesses no vivacity, none of that sprightliness of 
intellect: his every movement does not arise from any inward impulse 
for action, hut has to l)e six'cially forced on him hy need and want: des- 
troy the impulse for alleviating hunger and thirst and his activities have 
lost their motive: sitting or lying in Iiis hammock he remains all day 
long in dull indolent rest. The' reason for the aimless life of these people, 
their aversion to associate with their fellow-men is quickly discovered. 
The most beautiful spark of Nature's fire does not fall to their lot: they 
have no passionate love for woman, and hence no love for mankind in 
itself. Ignorant of the most beautiful and tenderest of the affections, ali 
their sensations of this nature remain cold and dull : love for their 
children and elders is weak. All family ties are loose: no family feels 
itself bound up with the others. Hence also a union, a republic, a social 
state can never be formed out of them. Lust alone is the basis of the 
morality of their customs. The women are the slaves, the beasts of 
burden, of the men who pitilessly load them with the harvest of the 
chase, who force them to work without mercy, whose very strength is 
often far overtaxed. They trouble themselves equally as little over the 
few children which they possess.. All the above must be ascribed to this 
same absence of love for mankind. They are indifTerent because they are 
physically weak, and this indifference towards the woman is the inherent 
blot that vitiates nature, and helps to hinder propagation, and so under 
mines the basis of society at the same time that it destroys the germs 
of life, with the result that man does not rise above what was said of 
him above. IVature denied him the full exercise of love, and thereby 
treated him worse and prejudiced him to a greater extcut than the lu'uto 
beast." 
n04. The whole of fliis characteristic is based upon theory, and not 
upon iexperience: — my descri]ition of this peo]de which T mean to be 
exempt from all theorising and philosophising, will confirm this state- 
ment of urine and refute every one of the charges of the great naturalist. 
50,^. If polygamy is indigenous among almost all remaining tribes of 
Guiana, it is only very rarely met with amongst the Macusis, and it 
was on this account suriiriising to me to meet among them not alone 
generally small families but also many cou])les without any children at 
all, so as almost to leud testimony to the view that in many cases women 
seek artificial means to ])reveut the progress of pregnancy. But when 
Biiffon believes that the al»sence of children is accounted for by the 
want of passionate and amorous love ]>etween the parents, he makes a 
mistake. The husband loves his wife, and she her husband just as ten- 
derly as can be the case among civilised folk, only that the former con- 
siders it indecent and effeminate to show this in the presence of another, 
on which account he despises tliose Paranaghieris who do not restrain 
their feelings in the presence of others. In front of strangers, especially 
Europeans, the Indian will simulate an almost icy indifference towards 
