of those who have learned to place no value on their own?

Every account we have received of barbarous society is decisive in its statement of the fact, that there is very little protection for person or property. So much, indeed, is this the case, that in many instances it would seem as if total isolation were a preferable condition. This furnishes an additional argument against those who believe society to be a mere human institution, for the advantages of society are not perceptible in what have been called its earliest stages; they are only developed when society has considerably advanced.

Nobody has described slavery as a natural condition of society; its origin is usually ascribed either to progress, or to a corrective principle applied to a superinduced evil. Slaves were probably at first captives taken in war, and their services were deemed a ransom given for life. This was certainly an improvement on indiscriminate massacre, but it was an improvement which suggested making war for the sake of obtaining captives, and this naturally led to piracy and kidnapping. Though there are no natural principles in humanity which lead to barbarism, we shall find that men have the power of so perverting natural principles as to derive from them the very opposite of the purposes for which they were implanted. The love of power is not necessarily bad in its origin; it is connected with the desire or urgency of action which is inherent in our nature, and which, like the love of acquisition, urges man to individualize the objects by which he is surrounded, and to stamp on the external world the imprint of himself. The difference between men is not about the end, but the means. In the anecdote already quoted, of the father who said to his son, "Take your physic, master Tommy, and you shall VOL. I.

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have the dog to kick," is embodied all the sophistry with which tyrants, whether in wide or contracted spheres, have deluded their supporters, since the creation of the world. Master Tommy was tempted by an opportunity for exercising his love of activity; his anxiety to act, to produce, to exert his faculties-in short, to display power. The father's error was not the giving an opportunity for the exercise of power, but it was the direction of the power to an improper object: had he promised a top to spin, instead of a dog to kick, the bribe would, in all probability, have been equally effectual.

There can be no doubt that barbarism has a tendency to generate a state of slavery; for we find such a condition among all uncivilized nations, save where it is limited by the difficulty of procuring subsistence; for it is the essential attribute of power that, if unchecked, it will continue to increase. Civilization alone supplies the check, and, consequently, civilization is necessary, not merely to the enjoyment, but even to the possession of freedom. Liberty arises out of the development of society; it is indeed a natural principle, but then it is a principle which requires both sanction and protection. Like property, it has been acknowledged, in some form or other, from the earliest ages; as civilization advanced it became more clearly defined, more distinctly recognised in the various spheres of human activity and enterprise,-spheres which could not have existed or been maintained without civilization.

CHAPTER VI.

STATE OF NATURE-WAR.

ONE of the strangest, and at the same time one of the most common misrepresentations respecting a state of barbarism is, that it is a scene of universal love and harmony. The dreamers who have published their visions of an original condition of ignorance and innocence, averred that the union which bound man to man under such circumstances, was a spirit of spontaneous love, leading each to delight in the brotherhood of his kind, and thus gathering together all the members of the tribe into one affectionate and harmonious family. A close examination of savage life has reversed the picture; instead of being a state of universal love and harmony, it is commonly one of perpetual discord and violence. We have shown that the feeling of right is natural to man, and that the efficacy of civilization is most sensibly experienced in defining, strengthening, and securing the rights both of the individual and the community; but where rights are unsettled and undefined, wrongs must be frequent, and recourse must be had to violence, for that redress which no law exists to afford.

When the right of redressing his own wrongs is left to every individual, injuries are felt most deeply, and revenge is sought with unrelenting rancour. In civilized life we too frequently see the fatal influence of such a principle; the worst outrages are usually perpetrated by those who "take the law into their own hands,"-a servile war, a

Jacquerie, or an agrarian insurrection, are far more to be dreaded than plague, pestilence, and famine. But these horrors, which are found occasionally in civilized states, constitute almost the entire history of savage existence : no time can obliterate the memory of an offence, and no expiation can be received for injury but the blood of the offender. It is not altogether to the encroachments of the Whites that we must attribute the rapid disappearance of the Red men from America; at least as destructive a cause is the inveterate passion of the Indians for war, and their insatiate thirst for vengeance. In a future chapter we shall see that there is strong evidence to prove that depopulation had commenced among the aborigines of North America long before the New World was visited by Europeans, and since that period, tribes have disappeared from the interior, which never were brought into contact with the white intruders.

Mr. Kolff, in his recent examination of the Indian Archipelago, found the islanders invariably engaged in war, and, conscious of the mutual sufferings they inflicted on themselves, most of them expressed anxiety that the Dutch would establish their supremacy over all parties, and become umpires in their quarrels. One example will show from what trifling causes a series of sanguinary feuds may arise and be perpetuated. The following is his account of the enmity which had arisen against the people of the Romian, in the Tenimber islands:

"The people of Romian happened to have more success in the Trepang fishery than the people of the other villages during two successive years, which gave rise to an envious feeling on the part of their neighbours, which was increased by a Chinese vessel having remained at Romian to trade, while only one of the China-men belonging

to her proceeded to Ewena to barter with the inhabitants. These circumstances gave rise to distrust and estrangement, and the people of both villages began to avoid each other, though without coming to an open rupture.

"A third accidental circumstance which occurred, tended to enlarge the breach. While the children belonging to the two villages were playing with small bows and arrows, a child from Ewena happened to wound slightly one of those from Romian. The inhabitants of the latter place, viewing the accident as an intentional offence, demanded satisfaction, and whenever parties from each village met, they proceeded from words to blows, and at length broke out into open war with each other. Each party robbed the other of their women, destroyed their fisheries, and put a stop to their agriculture, becoming more embittered at the occurrence of every deed, until at length, a few weeks before my arrival, a downright skirmish ensued, in which the people of Ewena had one man killed and nine wounded, while ten belonging to the other party were wounded also.

"The people of Ewena being the less powerful of the two, demanded assistance from the inhabitants of Aweer. The parties now became so exasperated, that there existed no possibility of those who had not entered into the quarrel being able to pacify them, and the strife soon extended to Larrat, and even to the more distant Serra, where individuals influenced by family connexions took up the cause of one or the other party."

The New Zealanders, in many respects the most remarkable barbarous nation with which we are acquainted, do not yield to any other in savage ferocity; their wars are incessant, and frequently arise from the most trivial causes. A feud, which Mr. Marsden had the good fortune