_PRIMITIVE LIFE._
The scriptural narrative seems to establish:--(1.) That human society
did not commence with the fortuitous concurrence of individuals, but
that, though originating with a single pair, for the purposes of
practical inquiry it commences with a group of families--the family of
Noah and his sons, together with their families, and whose dispersion
in other families is subsequently recorded. (2.) That men were not
primitively in a state of savagery, barbarism, and ignorance of civil
life; but that, on the contrary, it is presumable that Noah and his
family brought with them out of the ark the traditions and experiences
of two thousand years, and, not to speak of special revelations, the
arts of civil life and acquaintance with cities. (3.) That, although
everything in the early state of mankind would have led to dispersion,
and although there is mention of one great and complete dispersion,
yet this dispersion of mankind was a dispersion of families and not of
individuals.
In all our speculations, therefore, as to society and government, it is
the family and not the individual whom we must regard as the elementary
constituent.
Moreover, so long as family government sufficed, there was nothing but
the family. The state would have existed only in germ (_vide infra_,
p. 341), and would have remained thus inchoate even during that
subsequent period when families were affiliated in tribal connection,
though not yet coalesced into tribal union. It is my impression, that
the period during which family government sufficed, continued much
longer than is generally supposed; for, until the world became peopled
and crowded, everything led to dispersion and the continuance of the
pastoral state of life. From the necessities of pastoral life, mankind
in early times could not have been gregarious--herds would have become
intermixed, keep would have become short, the broad plains were spread
out before them;[23] _e.g._ Gen. chap. xiii.--
"But Lot also, who was with Abraham, had flocks of sheep, and herds
and tents. 6. Neither was the land able to bear them, that they
might dwell together. 7. Whereupon there arose a strife between the
herdsmen of Abraham and Lot; and at that time the Canaanite and the
Perizzite dwelt in that country. 8. Abraham therefore said, Let
there be no quarrel. 9. Behold the whole land is before thee."[24]
[23] I indicated this view in a pamphlet, "Inviolability of
Property by the State, by an English Landlord." 1866.
[24] Again Esau and Jacob separated, after the death of the
patriarch Isaac, because their stock in herds and flocks had
so increased that, according to the scriptural phrase, "it
was more than they might dwell together," and further, "the
land would not bear them because of their cattle."--Gen. chap,
xxxvi.; _Vide_ "Pinkerton, Voy." i. 528.
Writing with reference to the Hamitic dynasty, founded at
Babylon by Nimrod (_vide_ Rawlinson, Anc. Mon.), and the
conquests of Kudur-Lagamer, identified by Rawlinson as
Chedor-Laomer, Mr Brace adds ("Ethnology," p. 28):--"This
at a period, as Professor Rawlinson remarks, when the kings
of Egypt had never ventured beyond their borders, and when
no monarch in Asia held dominion over more than a few petty
tribes and a few hundred miles of territory."--_Vide_ ch.
xiii. "A Golden Age."
It is scarcely to be believed, that in such a state of society there
would have been feuds, in the sense of inherited or hereditary
quarrels, but at most contentions for particular localities; in which
case the weaker or the discomfited party would have pushed on to other
ground. There was no long contest, because there was nothing worth
contesting. It has been noticed that only the highly civilised man, and
the savage who has tasted blood, love fighting for the mere sake and
ardour of the conflict. The simple barbarian does not fight until he is
attacked, neither do the wild animals of the desert; their ferocity is
limited and regulated by the necessity and the provocation. It is the
exception, rather than the rule, for animals to fight among themselves.
It is not in the nature of man or beast to fight without a reason.
Accordingly, there is no such fomenter of war as war. Carver notices
that the wars carried on between the Indian nations are principally on
motives of revenge, and, when not on motives of revenge, their reasons
for going to war are "in general more rational and just than such as
are fought by Europeans, &c."--_Carver's "Travels in North America,"_
pp. 351, 297.[25]
[25] Such seems, at a comparatively recent period (1762), to have
been the state of things at a widely different point among
the Samoides:--"The real spot where the habitations of the
Samoides begin,--if any case be pointed out among a people
which is continually changing residence,--is in the district
of Mozine, beyond the river of that name, three or four
hundred wersts from Archangel. The colony, which is actually
met with there, and which _lives dispersed_ according to
the usage of those people, _each family by itself_, without
forming villages and communities, does not consist of more
than three hundred families, or thereabouts, which are all
descended _from two different tribes_, the one called Laghe
and the other Wanonte--_distinctions carefully regarded by
them_."--_Vide_ "Pinkerton, Voy." i. 524. It is also said
(p. 582) of certain moral observances amongst them (_vide
infra_, p. 155):--"All these customs, religiously observed
among them, are no other than the fruits of tradition, handed
down to them from their ancestors; and this tradition, with
some reason, may be looked upon as law." It is a common idea
amongst us that the word _home_ is a peculiarly English word,
and, I confess, it was my own impression, but I am set musing
by finding among these same Samoides the word "_chome_"
as their word for their _tents_, to which they cling so
closely.--_Vide_ Pinkerton, i. 63.
"I visited four other villages or _goungs_, and there may be
as many more in Assam, each containing about three or four
hundred people. Every community is under the patriarchal
government of a chief, from whom the village takes its
name.... The chiefs of villages would combine against a
common enemy, but are as independent of each other as the
old Highland heads of clans.... I was curiously reminded
of the clan distinctions, by observing that the home-grown
cotton cloths differed in pattern in the different villages.
In all cases chequered patterns were worn, presenting as
various combinations of colours and stripes as our own
tartans, and each village possessed a pattern peculiar to
itself, generally, though not universally, affected by the
inhabitants."--_Travels in Northern Assam_, Field, i., 1870;
_vide also Hunter's "Rural Bengal,"_ 1868, p. 217.
The same tendencies, under similar circumstances, where the tribes
were not crowded or in fear of warlike neighbours, was noticed among
the Red Indians some forty years ago. Now, I suppose, instances would
be rare.
"When a nation of Indians becomes too numerous conveniently to
procure subsistence from its own hunting-grounds, it is no uncommon
occurrence for it to send out a colony, or, in other words, to
separate into tribes.... The tribe so separated maintains all
its relations independent of the parent nation, though the most
friendly intercourse is commonly maintained, and they are almost
uniformly allies. Separations sometimes take place from party
dissensions, growing generally out of the jealousies of the
principal chiefs, and, not unfrequently, out of petty quarrels.
In such instances, in order to prevent the unnecessary and wanton
effusion of blood, and consequent enfeebling of the nation, the
weaker party moves off usually without the observance of much
ceremony."[26]
[26] "Hunter's Memoir of his Captivity (from childhood to the age
of nineteen) among the Indians," p. 180, 181. He also adds (p.
307):--"The Indians do not pretend to any correct knowledge of
the tumuli or mounds that are occasionally met with in their
country.... One tradition of the Quapaws states that a nation
differing very much from themselves inhabited the country many
hundred snows ago, when game was so plenty that it required
only slight efforts to procure subsistence, and when there
_existed no hostile neighbours to render the pursuit of war
necessary_." And Stephen's "Central America" (i. 142) notices
the absence of all weapons of war from the representations in
sculpture at Copan, and says:--"In other countries, battle
scenes, warriors, and weapons of war, are among the most
prominent subjects of sculpture; and from the entire absence
of them here, there is reason to believe that the people were
not warlike, but peaceable, and easily subdued."
Mr Grote in his "Plato"[27] says--
"There existed," even "in his (Plato's) time, a great variety of
distinct communities--some in the simplest, most patriarchal,
cyclopian condition, _nothing more than families_; some highly
advanced in civilisation, with its accompanying good and evil, some
in each intermediate stage between these two extremes. Each little
family or sept exists at first separately, with a patriarch whom
all implicitly obey, and peculiar customs of its own. Several of
these septs gradually coalesce together into a community, choosing
one or a few lawgivers to adjust and modify their respective
customs into harmonious order."[28]
[27] III., ch. xxxvii. Leges, 337.
[28] I find incidental corroboration of this view in "The
Archæology of Prehistoric Annals" of Scotland, by Dr
Wilson--"The infancy of all written history is necessarily
involved in fable. Long ere _scattered families_ had
_conjoined_ their _patriarchal unions into tribes_, and
clans acknowledging some common chief, and submitting their
differences to the rude legislation of the arch-priest or
civil head of the commonwealth, treacherous tradition has
converted the story of their birth into the wildest admixture
of myth and legendary fable."--_Introd._, p. 12.
Even in the plain of Sennaar (Shinar) we see something of this
fusion of tribes--"Besides these two main constituents of the
Chaldæan race there is reason to believe that both a Semitic
and Aryan element existed.... The subjects of the early kings
are continually designated in the inscriptions by the title
of 'Kiprat-arbat,' which is interpreted to mean 'the four
nations' or 'tongues'" (Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," i.
p. 69). Professor Rawlinson is also of opinion, that "the
league of the four kings in Abraham's time seems correspondent
to a four-fold ethnic division."
Does not the above also correspond to the four-fold ethnic
division of the Vedas?--_Vide infra_, p. 39. Compare also
the four-fold division of the world or of Peru, according
to various Indian traditions, between Manco Capac and his
brothers.--_Vide_ Hakluyt Society's edition of Garcilasso de
la Vega, i. 71-75. If these are not traditions of fusions
of races, they can only be diluvian traditions of the four
couples who came out of the ark, which was the conjecture of
the Spaniards in the case of Manco Capac.
In the situations, however, where the more powerful families had
seized the vantage-ground, or established themselves in the richest
and most coveted valleys, the tendency to consolidation and permanent
settlement would have more rapidly manifested itself. As the tendency
to family dispersion became restrained, and its scope restricted,
disputes as to _meum_ and _tuum_ would have become more frequent
as between families, some more central authority than the family
headship would have been demanded for the protection, discrimination,
and regulation of property. _In these_ instances the state may be
said to have arisen out of the expansion of the family into the
tribes--the families, probably, never having ceased to dwell together
in semi-aggregation; and, when greater concentration was required, they
simply had to fall back upon the patriarchal chieftain. We seem to see
a tradition of this in the Anax Andron.
But equally as regards the rest there must inevitably have come a time
when, as the world became crowded, the same necessity of defending
their possessions, would have caused families, among whom there was no
affinity of race, to coalesce, intermix, succumb, and form communities
and states.
These two modes of settlement into communities and states were,
however, essentially dissimilar, and the basis thus laid would have
remained permanently different. The one was the basis of custom, the
other of contract; the one the settlement of the East, the other of
the West; and it will be seen, I think, that whilst the one was more
favourable to the conservation of traditions of religion and history,
the other would have better preserved the tradition of right. These are
points to which I shall return in a subsequent chapter, when I shall
avail myself of the investigations of Sir Henry Maine.
This simple outline, however, of human history, conformable, as I
believe it to be, with the scriptural narrative, conflicts with
at least three theories now much in vogue. The first, which is
substantially that of Sir John Lubbock, Mr Mill,[29] and Mr B. Gould,
is thus conveniently summarised by Mr Hepworth Dixon.[30]
"Every one who has read the annals of our race--a page of nature
with its counterfoil in the history of everything having life--is
aware that, in our progress from the savage to the civilised state,
man has had to pass through three grand stages, corresponding,
as it were, to his childhood, to his youth, and to his manhood.
In the first stage of his career he is a hunter, living mainly
by the chase; in the second, he is a herdsman; ... in the third
stage, he is a husbandman.... Then these conditions of human life
may be considered as finding their purest types in such races as
the Iroquois, the Arabian, the Gothic, in their present stage;
but each condition is, in itself and for itself, _an affair of
development and not of race_. The Arab, who is now a shepherd, was
once a hunter. The Saxon, who is now a cultivator of the soil, was
first a hunter, then a herdsman, before he became a husbandman.
Man's progress from stage to stage is _continuous_ in its course,
_obeying the laws of physical and moral change_. It is slow, it
is _uniform_, it is silent, it is unseen. In one word, it is
_growth_.... These three stages in our progress upward are strongly
marked; the interval dividing an Iroquois from an Arab being as
wide as that which separates an Arab from a Saxon."
[29] This view will be found in the first chapter of Mr J. S.
Mill's "Principles of Political Economy," ch. i. p. 6. "There
is perhaps no people or community now existing which subsist
entirely on the spontaneous produce of vegetation." [Whether
mankind ever lived "entirely on," &c., may be questioned,
but it is implied in Gen. ix. 3 that man did not subsist on
animal food until after the Deluge, a fact which lies at
the foundation of Porphyry's work, "De Abstinentia."] "But
many tribes still live exclusively, or almost exclusively,
on wild animals, the produce of hunting or fishing.... The
first _great advance beyond this state_ consists in the
domestication of the more useful animals: giving rise to the
_the pastoral or nomad state.... From this state of society
to the agricultural_, the transition is not indeed easy (for
no great change in the habits of mankind is otherwise than
difficult, and in general either painful or very slow), but it
lies in what may be called the spontaneous course of events."
[30] Mr Hepworth Dixon's "New America," vol. i. p. 113.
Now, in the first place, I must remark that the Iroquois and the Arab
have never progressed;[31] neither does the Arab at the present show
any signs of a transition to the third stage of necessary growth, nor
does Mr Hepworth Dixon, although he gives some sound practical advice
as to the best mode in which the red man is to be restrained, venture
to suggest any mode by which he is to be reclaimed from the first to
the third stage, either with or without a transition through the second
stage of development. The conclusion therefore, one would think, would
be inevitable that it is an affair _of race_ and _not_ of development.
The Arab and the Iroquois, after the lapse of so many centuries, are
still found with the evidences of primitive life strong upon them; and
so, I imagine, we shall find it wherever we come upon a pure race of
homogeneous origin. On the contrary, we shall find that mixed races,
by the very law and reason of their admixture, have shown the greatest
adaptibility, and, whenever circumstances were favourable, very rapid
growth. Again, I very much question whether the three stages, or rather
three phases of life were ever, as a rule, progressive; and whether,
in the cases in which they might chance to have been successive,
anything occurred in the transition at all resembling an uniform law
of growth. It is very much more probable that the three were from
the earliest period contemporaneous[32]--"and Abel was a shepherd,
and Cain an husbandman" (Gen. iv.)--the determination of the sons to
the avocations of shepherd, husbandman, and hunter respectively (the
latter most probably being the last selected), being influenced by
taste, character, and the division of the inheritance, the authority
of the father, the geographical conditions of the route, and chance
circumstances.
[31] _Vide_ Sir S. Baker; _vide_ note, ch. xiii., _Noah_.
[32] The following passage, _inter alia_, from Herodotus seems to
sustain this--"To the eastward _of those Scythians_, who apply
themselves to _the culture of the land_, and on the other side
of the river Panticapes, the country is inhabited by Scythians
who _neither plough nor sow_, but are employed in _keeping
cattle_."--_Herod._, iv., Mel.
And this is the more confirmed when we consider that when once the
hunter started on his career, he would have determined their avocation
also for his posterity. At his death he would not have had herds of
cattle to apportion to any one of his sons, and thus the taste for
wild life, necessarily perpetuated, would be bred in the bone, as an
indomitable characteristic of race, and the first hunter by choice
would inevitably come to be the progenitor of generations of hunters by
instinct and necessity.
The second theory depicts the opening scene of human existence as a
state of conflict, which, it must be allowed, is perfectly consistent
with the theory that it was one of savagery. The theory I am now
combating was originally the theory of Hobbes; and I might have
regarded it as now obsolete, were it not that it has cropped up quite
recently in a most respectable quarter. Mr Hunter, in his charming
work, "The Annals of Rural Bengal," has a passage which, as I think,
has been taken for more than it intends, though not for more than it
expresses. Mr Hunter says, p. 89--
"The inquiry leads us back to that far-off time which we love to
associate with patriarchal stillness. Yet the echoes of ancient
life in India little resemble a Sicilian idyl or the strains of
Pan's pipe, but strike the ear rather as the cries of oppressed and
wandering nations, of people in constant motion and pain. Early
Indian researches, however, while they make havoc of the pastoral
landscapes of Genesis and Job, have a consolation peculiarly suited
to this age. They plainly tell us, that as in Europe so in Asia,
the primitive state of mankind was a state of unrest; and that
civilisation, despite its exactions and nervous city life, is a
state of repose."
It is plain that there is here question of restlessness rather than
of violence; but grant that there was violence too, the account of
Mr. Hunter when examined, so far from conflicting with, appears to me
to fall exactly into, the lines I have indicated. Is not the scene,
from before which Mr. Hunter lifts the curtain, the scene of that age
following the dispersion (of which, p. 452, there is such distinct
tradition in his pages), which is traditionally known to us as the iron
age? The error, then, of Mr. Hunter is to confound the patriarchal with
the iron age. It need not therefore cause surprise that in early Indian
history we should hear of conflict, for it is just at the period and
under the circumstances when we should consider the collision probable.
Mr. Hunter, indeed, speaks of the aboriginal races as mysterious in
their origin. But from the point of view of Genesis, there seems to
be no greater mystery about them than about their conquerors the
Aryans. One representative, at least, of the aboriginal race, the
Santals, retain to this day the most vivid traditions of the Flood
and the Dispersion[33] (pp. 151, 452). Now, if there had existed any
race anterior to the Santals, I think we should have heard of them.
On this point we may consider Mr. Hunter's negative testimony as
conclusive, both on account of his extensive knowledge of the subject,
and his evident predisposition (p. 109) to have discovered a prior
race, if it had existed; and there is nothing to show that the same
line of argument would not have applied to it if its existence had
been demonstrated. It must be mentioned that besides their tradition
of the dispersion, the Santals retain dim recollections--borne out
by comparative evidence--of having travelled to their present homes
from the north-east, whereas the Aryans came unmistakeably from the
north-west.
[33] These legends, shown to be aboriginal, are very curious. They
are, however, too long to be extracted here. They would repay
perusal.
Here, then, just as might have been predicted _à priori_, these rival
currents of the dispersion met from opposite points, and ran into a
_cul de sac_, from which, as there was no egress, there necessarily
ensued a struggle for mastery.
Let us now regard the two people more closely.
"Our earliest glimpses of the human family in India, disclose two
tribes of widely different origin, struggling for the mastery. In
the primitive time, which lies on the horizon even of inductive
history, a tall, fair-complexioned race passed the Himalaya. They
came of a conquering stock. They had _known the safety_ and the
_plenty_ which can only be enjoyed in regular communities.[34]
_They brought with them a store of legends_ and devotional strains;
and chief of all they were at the time of their migration southward
through Bengal, if not at their first arrival in India, imbued
with that high sense of nationality, which burns in the heart
of a people who believe themselves the _depositary of a divine
revelation_. There is no record of the newcomers' first struggle
for life with the people of the land."--_Hunter's Annals_, p. 90.
Here we see the more intellectual, the more spiritual (p. 116),
monotheistic (p. 115) Aryan race overpowering the black race which had
earliest pre-occupied the ground, and which was already tainted with
demon worship. This contrast invites further inquiry; but first let me
clear up and direct the immediate drift of my argument.
[34] Mr Max Müller also says ("Chips," ii. p. 41)--"It should be
observed that most of the terms connected with the chase and
warfare differ in each of the Aryan dialects, while words
connected with more peaceful occupations belong, generally,
to the common heirloom of the Aryan language," which proves
"that all the Aryan nations had led _a long life of peace
before they separated_, and that their language acquired
individuality and nationality, as each colony started in
search of new homes,--new generations forming new terms
connected with the warlike and adventurous life of their
onward migrations. Hence it is that _not only Greek and Latin,
but all Aryan_ languages have their peaceful words in common."
Also _vide_ p. 28, 29.
If we estimate--taking the minimum or the maximum either according to
the Hebrew or Septuagint version--the time it would have taken these
populations, according to the slow progress of the dispersion, to have
arrived at their destinations from the plain of Sennaar (Mesopotamia),
the period may be equally conjectured to correspond with that which
tradition marks as the commencement of the iron age, when the world
was becoming overcrowded, and the increasing populations came into
collision.
Neither is it a difficulty,[35] it rather appears to me in accordance
with tradition, that if this surmise be correct, the earliest arrival
in the Indian Peninsula should have been of those who took the longest
route. For it is natural to suppose that the proscribed and weakest
races, _e.g._ the Canaanitish, would have been the first to depart, and
to depart by the north-east and west, the more powerful families having
passed down and closed the south-east exit by way of the lower valleys
of the Euphrates. These latter would have spread themselves out in the
direction of India leisurely and at a subsequent period.
[35] I find this conjecture confirmed in the pages of the most
recent authority on the subject, Mr Brace, "Ethnology," p. 13,
14--"On the continent of Asia the Turanians were probably the
first who figured as nations in the ante-historical period.
Their emigrations began long before the wanderings of the
Aryans and Semites, who, wherever they went, always discovered
a previous population, apparently of Turanian origin, which
they either expelled or subdued." According to Max Müller's
hypothesis there were two migrations, one northern and one
southern [corresponding to the migration as above], "the
_latter_ settling on the rivers Meikong, Meinam, _Irrawaddy_,
and _Bramapootra_," ... "a third to the south [probably an
advance of the previous one], is believed to tend toward
Thibet and India, and in later times pours its hordes _through
the Himalaya_, and forms the _original population of India_."
Analogy may be discovered in "the two streams or lines of
Celtic migration," which, says Bunsen ("Philosophy of Univ.
Hist." i. 148) "we may distinguish by the names of the Western
and Eastern stream, the _former_, although the _less direct_,
seems to be historically the more ancient, and to have reached
this country (Britain) _several centuries_ before _the other_."
Following these lines of migration, the Aryan at some period came upon
the black Turanian race (_vide infra_, Chap. v.); and Mr Hunter (p.
110) records the embittered feelings with which the recollection of
the strife remained in tradition. Why should this have been? It might
suffice to say, in consistency with what has already been advanced,
that this was their first encounter, the first check in their advance.
Another solution seems to me equally ready to hand, and to solve so
much more. But first, how does Mr Hunter account for this bitter
feeling? He suggests contempt for their "uncouth talk," "their gross
habits of eating," and, what comes near to the truth, as I apprehend
it, their blackness and their paganism. Suppose, then, we go a step
further, and say that the highly intellectual Japhetic race met thus
suddenly and unexpectedly the outcast Canaanitish race, with the curse
upon them, recognisable in their colour and deficiencies, and of whom
they would have remembered that it had been said, "that they should be
the servants of their brethren"--will not this explain something of
their animosity?
I must here remark that although scientific inquiry takes designations
of its own, in order the more conveniently to express its distinctions,
yet whether we accept the ethnological or philological demarcations of
mankind, it is curious how inevitably, as I think De Maistre remarked,
we are led back to Shem, Ham, and Japhet. And this is as true now after
a half century of scientific progress, as it was when De Maistre wrote.
Without asserting that the divisions may ever be distinctly traced with
the minuteness of Bochart in his "Geog. Sacra," I still say, that the
broad lines of the traditional apportionment of the world, and the
three-fold or four-fold division of the race indicated in Scripture,
is seen behind the ultimate divisions into which science is brought
to separate mankind, whether into Caucasian, Ethiopian, Mongol, with
two intermediate varieties, as by Blumenbach; or into Australioid,
Negroid, Mongoloid, and Xanthochroic, as by Huxley; or into Brace's
division into Aryan, Semitic, Turanian, and Hamitic. Behind these
various systems, as behind a grill, we seem to see the forms and faces
of the progenitors of the human race discernible, but their existence
not capable of contact and actual demonstration, because of the
intercepting bars and lattice work.[36]
[36] I am throughout assuming acquaintance, on the part of my
readers, with the third and fourth of Cardinal Wiseman's
"Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion;" for although
my argument is distinct from that of the Cardinal, yet I
everywhere regard his argument as the background and support
of my position; and it is, moreover, part of the aim and
intention of this work to show that the general ground and
framework (this is, in fact, understating the truth) of
Cardinal Wiseman's argument remains intact. There is, I think,
somewhere in the Cardinal's works, a passage to the above
effect, but I have not been able to recover it.
I have spoken above of a three-fold and four-fold division as equally
indicated in Scripture, and I think, from non-observance of this, the
close approximation of these systems to Genesis is not sufficiently
recognised. I refer to the three progenital races, and the Canaanite
marked off and distinguished from the rest by a curse. I shall enlarge
upon this point in another chapter (Chap. v).
I will only observe now that I do not venture to say that the Canaanite
is co-extensive with the Turanian, which is more a philological than
an ethnological division of mankind, or that their characteristics in
all respects correspond.[37] I limit my argument now to indicating the
correspondence between the Canaanite and the aboriginal tribes in India.
[37] If space allowed, I think the traditional lines might be
indicated as plainly from the philological as from the
ethnological point of view.
This correspondence I find not only in the features already
noted--their blackness and their intellectual inferiority--but in their
enslavement to the superior races of mankind whenever they came into
contact and collision with them. Is not this everywhere also the mark
of the Turanian race? are not these conflicts in primitive life always
with the Turanian race? and are they not in Asia, as in Africa, in a
state of subjugation or dependence?
At any rate, this is the condition in which we find the Turanian in
India, so fully expressed in their name of "Sudras."[38]
[38] "According to the sacred law-book, entitled the Ordinances of
Menu, the Creator, that the human race might be multiplied,
caused the Brahmin, Cshatriya, the Vaisya, and the _Sudra_ (so
named from Scripture, protection, wealth, and _labour_), to
proceed from his mouth, arm, thigh, and foot."--_Brit. Ency._
The "Fatimala," a Sanskrit work on Hindu castes, says, "the
other, _i.e._, the Sudra, should voluntarily serve the three
other tribes, and therefore he became a Sudra; he _should_
humble himself at their feet."
Against this literal fulfilment of Gen. ix. 25--"Cursed be Canaan, a
servant of servants shall he be to his brethren"--as regards the Indian
Sudra, the text in Gen. x. 19--"And the limits of Chanaan were from
Sidon ... to Gaza ... even to Sesa"--may be objected. But I construe
this text only to refer to Chanaan proper, and to be spoken rather with
reference to the limits of the Promised Land and the Hebrews, than
to the allocation of the tribes of Chanaan; for the text immediately
preceding seems to me to have its significance--viz. Gen. x. 18,[39]
where it is said in a marked manner, and of the descendants of Chanaan
alone, "The families of the Canaanites were spread abroad." But if
we are to suppose the whole descent of Chanaan to have been confined
between the limits of Sidon and Sesa, it could hardly have been said to
have had the diffusion of the other Hamitic races, and the _families_
of the Chanaanites will not have been "spread abroad" in any noticeable
or striking manner. It appears to me, also, that it may be proved in
another way. St Paul, Acts xiii. 19, says that God destroyed _seven_
nations in the land of Chanaan, whereas Gen. x. enumerates eleven.
[39] Homer's expression (Od. i. 23, 24), that the Ethiopians
divided in twain, were the _most remote_ of men--
[Greek: "Athiopas, toi dichtha dedaiatai eschatoi andrôn,
Hoi men dysomenoi Yperionos oi d' aniontos,"]
approximates to the scriptural phrase, and seems to imply a wider
dispersion than is suggested by Professor Rawlinson, i. 59.
Again, Kalisch ("Hist. and Crit. Com. on Old Testament," trans. 1858)
makes it a difficulty against Gen. ix. that "Canaan _should_ not only
fall into the hands of Shem, _i.e._ the people of Israel, but also of
_Japhet_" (i. 226).
A remote fulfilment of the prediction may be seen in the Median
conquest of Phoenicia, and the Roman destruction of Carthage; but if
I have truly indicated the order of events, it will be seen that it had
already come about in the earliest times.
The text, indeed, of Gen. ix. 27--"May God enlarge Japhet, and may he
dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan be his servant"--is so clear as
almost to require some such fulfilment.
But the fulfilment is seen, not only in the degradation of Chanaan, but
in the prosperity of Japhet;[40] and this is so correlative, that I
shall still be enforcing the argument whilst connecting a link which
may appear to be wanting, viz. the identity of Japhet with the more
favoured nations of the world. The identity of the Indo-Germanic races
with the descendants of Japhet may almost be said to be a truth "_qui
saute aux yeux_," but it may still be worth while to collect the links
of tradition which establish it.
[40] Tylor ("Primitive Culture," i. p. 44) says, "The Semitic
family, which represents one of the oldest known civilizations
of the world, includes Arabs, Jews, Phoenicians (?),
Syrians, &c., and may have an older as well as a newer
connection in North Africa. This family takes in some rude
tribes, but _none which would be classed as savages_. The
Aryan family has existed in Asia and Europe certainly for
several thousand years, and there are well known and marked
traces of early barbaric condition, which has perhaps survived
with least change among secluded tribes in the valleys of the
Hindu Kush and Himalaya." [_Query_, What is the nature of the
evidence that they have survived, and have not degenerated?]
Mr Tylor continues, "There seems, again, _no known case of
any full Aryan tribe having become savage_. The gipsies and
other outcasts are, no doubt, partly Aryan in blood, but
_their degraded condition_ is not _savagery_. In India there
are tribes Aryan by language, but whose physique is rather of
indigenous type, and whose ancestry is mainly from indigenous
stocks, with more or less mixture of the dominant Hindu."
Compare _infra_, ch. v., and De Maistre, p. 272.
In truth, it appears to us a self-evident proposition, simply because
tradition has familiarised us with the belief that Europe was peopled
by the descendants of Japhet, and because philology has recently
demonstrated the Indo-Germanic race to include this demarcation
(together with Central and Western Asia); but I think that if we
exclude the testimony of tradition, we should have difficulty in
establishing the point either upon the text of Gen. x. 5, or from the
evidence of philology.
That the race of Japhet spread themselves over the islands, and
colonised the coasts of the Mediterranean, is the traditional
interpretation of that text; and it receives confirmation, in the first
place, in the tradition that "Japetus being the father of Prometheus,
was regarded by the Greeks as the ancestor of the human race."--Smith's
"Myth. Dict." We have, I think, become familiar with such
transpositions as "Deucalion the son of Prometheus," and "Prometheus
the son of Deucalion," &c. Certainly Prometheus (_vide_ Appendix to
Chap. viii. p. 180, and Chap. x. p. 232), supposing Prometheus to be
Adam,[41] would naturally stand at the head of every genealogy; but
Japetus, supposing him to be identified with Japhet as the particular
founder of the race (after so distinct and definite a starting-point
as the Deluge), would also, in his way, have claims to be placed at
the head of their genealogy; and probably about the time that he began
to be called "old Japetus," and to be typical of antiquity, his claims
would have been regarded as paramount, and Prometheus would have been
accordingly displaced in his favour. This is conjectural, but must be
taken as one link.
[41] Just as Hercules (_vide_ Hercules, p. 180), who embodied
in another line the tradition of Adam, is said by Mr Grote,
"Hist. of Greece," i. p. 128-9, "to have been the most
renowned and most ubiquitous of all the semi-divine personages
worshipped by the Hellenes," so that "distinguished families
are _everywhere_ to be traced who have his patronymic, and
glory in the belief that they are his descendants." To whom
would they trace back more naturally than to Adam?
Well, the (Indian) Aryans also, according to Mr Hunter ("Rural Bengal,"
103), "held (Book of Manu and the Vishnu Purana) that the Greeks
and Persians were sprung from errant Kshatryas, who had lost their
caste"--_i.e._ from their own race. They are called in the same books
_Yavanas_ and Pahlavas. Now no one, I think, will call it a forced
analogy to see in Yavana the name of Javan, the son of Japhet.[42] This
I may call link the second.
[42] This must be taken in connection with what I have said, ch. x.
But the Aryans, as we have seen, are one of the three or four primitive
races to which both philology and ethnology lead us back. They are
contrasted, on the one side, with the Semitic, and, on the other, with
the Hamitic or Turanian race. We will assume, then, on the strength of
the philological and scriptural lines being so nearly conterminous,
that at least, looking from the point of view of Scripture, the Aryan
may be identified with great probability as the Japhetic race. If,
then, the Aryan is the Japhetic race in its elder branch--to which its
later migration would seem to testify--we should exactly expect that it
would designate a kindred but collateral race, not by the name of their
common ancestor, but by the name of the progenitor from whom they were
more immediately descended--not as from Japhet, but from Javan. Thus
the links seem to join; and here I leave them, till there may chance
to come some one who will gather up all the links in the chain of
tradition, dislocated and dispersed by the catastrophes which have been
consequent upon the derelictions of mankind.
The third view to which I wish to advert, is that put forward by Mr
John F. M'Lennan in his "Primitive Marriage," 1865, which also revives
the theory of a savage state, and moreover professes to discover
primitive mankind living in a state of promiscuity, little, if at all,
elevated above the brute, and this during the long period which was
required to develop 1. the tribe; 2. the gens; 3. the family.
It will be difficult for any one, who comes fresh from the perusal of
Genesis, to realise the possibility of such a view being held; but, in
truth, there is no view too grotesque for men in whose survey mankind
appear originally on the scene as a mass of units coming into the
world, no one knows how, like locusts rising above the horizon, or
covering the earth perhaps like toads after a shower!
Yet Mr M'Lennan's theory is virtually endorsed (_vide infra_) by Sir J.
Lubbock, who refers to it (p. 60, note), as "Mr M'Lennan's masterly
work." If, then, we must discuss the theory upon its merits, the
objection which I should take, _in limine_, is that it is a partial
generalisation from facts, irrespective of the historical evidence as
a whole. There stands against it, of course, the direct evidence of
the Bible, also there stands against it the researches of oriental
archaeology, and, again, what Mr M'Lennan calls the "so-called
revelation of philology," which shows that mankind, in the period
previous to their dispersion, "had marriage laws regulating the rights
and obligations of husbands and wives, of parents and children." This
evidence he rejects because "the preface of general history _must
be_ compiled from the materials presented by barbarism" (p. 9), thus
_assuming_ barbarism to have been the primitive state.
Mr M'Lennan struggles vainly for universal facts on which to build,
and seems to find one in what he has termed exogamy (_i.e._ marriage
outside the tribe), combined with the capture of wives and the
infanticide of female children within the tribe. Impossible! If this
state of things had been _universal_, the human race would have
exterminated itself long before "the historic period!" The theory
necessarily supposes that some tribes were addicted to these practices,
whilst others were not. Exogamy, therefore, is not a universal fact;
but neither could endogamy have been, _for "the conversion of an
endogamous tribe into an exogamous tribe is inconceivable,"_ p. 146.
But as Mr M'Lennan is as much constrained to choose between exogamy and
endogamy as was Mons. Jourdain between poetry and prose, he apparently
elects in favour of the universal primitive prevalence of exogamy,
_i.e._ he supposes mankind to have commenced under conditions which
would have ensured its proximate extinction.
Mr M'Lennan (p. 144) says, "the two types of organisation (viz.
exogamy and endogamy) may be equally archaic;" but it is evident that
he inclines to the opinion that exogamy is the more archaic; and
his analysis at p. 142, commencing with "Exogamy Pure, No. 1, and
continuing on to ... Endogamy Pure, No. 6," is "the analysis of a
series of phenomena which appears to form a progression" (141).
Moreover, the difficulties which I have just urged will immediately
recur if we allow "the two types to have been equally archaic."
The supposed exogamous tribes, according to the theory, enforcing the
infanticide of female children, and not permitting marriage within
the tribe, must have been wholly dependent upon the endogamous groups
for their women. These latter groups must either have succumbed,
and so have become speedily extinguished through the loss of their
women (for they could not have acquired others who were not of their
stock, without ceasing to be endogamous); or they must have resisted
successfully, and even if the matter went no farther, the exogamous
tribes must have died out or abandoned exogamy; or the endogamous
tribes must have resisted and retaliated, in which case we should have
this further complication that they themselves would have ceased to be
endogamous, and without any reason or necessity for becoming exogamous;
for with the seizure of the females of the exogamous tribes, or even,
under the special circumstances, with the recovery of their own, the
element of "heterogeneity" would have been introduced, and the system
of endogamy would have been no longer true in theory, or possible in
fact. All these results must have been immediately consequent upon the
first collision, which from the very conditions of exogamy, must have
occurred at the outset! Postulating exogamy, it must therefore rapidly
have extirpated or absorbed every other system, and yet it could never
have stood alone.
Mr M'Lennan himself allows that wherever "kinship through females,
the most ancient system in which the idea of blood relationship was
embodied" (148) was known, there would have been a tendency among the
exogamous groups to become heterogeneous, and that thus "the system
of capturing wives would have been superseded."[43] In other words,
exogamy would have become extinct. But if "kinship through females" was
not discovered by the first children of the first mothers, how was it
subsequently discovered? We are given no clue except that "the order of
nature is progressive!"
[43] At p. 88, Mr M'Lennan sees evidence of the "form of capture"
and the fact of capture among the Jews; but he will at least
allow the appeal to be made to the Scriptures, as their most
authentic history. What do we find at the commencement? In
the first marriage contract recorded, _i.e._ of Isaac and
Rebecca? Why, the reverse of capture. Genesis xxvi. 8, "But if
the woman will not follow thee thou shalt not be bound by the
oath." Also v. 39, 40.
Mr M'Lennan (p. 29), with reference to the hurling "stones and
bamboos at the head of the devoted bridegroom in Khondistan,"
says, "_the hurling of old shoes_ after the bridegroom among
ourselves _may be_ a relic of a similar custom." But this
custom would seem to be much more directly traced to the
custom among the Jews of taking the shoes from the man who
refused to marry his brother's widow (Deuteronomy), and which
is more generally stated in Ruth iv. 7, as a token of _cession
of right_--"the man _put off his shoe_, and gave it to his
neighbour, _this was the testimony of a cession of right in
Israel_" (Ruth iv. 7).
This compels the remark that if Mr M'Lennan fails to prove that exogamy
was universal, as a stage of human progress, or, to use a phrase of
his own, "on such a scale as to entitle it to rank among the normal
phenomena of human development," there is nothing to exclude the
likelihood of its being much more satisfactorily and directly traced
as the result of degeneracy. Mr M'Lennan should clear his ground by
demonstrating that the circumstances exclude the possibility of this
conjecture.
On the contrary, and on his own showing, they would appear much more
certainly to affirm it. Although exogamy is the earliest fact which
he believes to be demonstrable by evidence, he assumes an initial
promiscuity; and seems to see his way out of this initial promiscuity
through the system of "rude polyandry" (when one woman was common to a
determinate number of men unrelated) as distinguished from "regulated
polyandry" (where one woman was common to several brothers). It must
be noted that before these polyandrous families, if we may so call
them, at first necessarily limited, could theoretically or in fact have
become the tribal exogamous groups, many difficulties must be disposed
of, and many stages traced, of which we are told nothing more than that
we are "forced to regard all the exogamous races as having originally
been polyandrous" (p. 226). That these families, if it is not an abuse
of terms to call them so, could not have become tribal by grouping, Mr
M'Lennan himself maintains, p. 232.
The two systems which Mr M'Lennan distinguishes as "rude" and
"regulated polyandry," are so essentially different that I fail to
trace the possibility of progression from one to the other. "Rude
polyandry" is barely distinguishable from promiscuity, and not at
all if we regard it as only promiscuity, necessarily limited through
infanticide, or other causes destroying the balance of the sexes. The
latter has peculiar features--arising in some way out of, and fixed
in the idea of the relationship of brothers--an idea which it is just
conceivable might arise directly out of a state of promiscuity--where
theoretically the children might be supposed to be in contact with the
mother only, but which the system of "rude polyandry," by introducing
conflicting and complicated claims, would immediately tend to weaken
and obliterate.
Let us see, then, if we can trace the custom better on the lines of
degeneracy.
If we start with the belief in the existence of many primitive
ceremonies and regulations we may then suppose that in the downward
progression to promiscuity, the stages of the descent will be traceable
in the corruptions of these customs. Such surmises at least are as
good as the contrary surmises of Mr M'Lennan.
Now, we have already seen[44] that Mr M'Lennan alludes to the law
of Deuteronomy, which imposed the obligation of the younger brother
marrying the widow of the elder--and it will, moreover, be seen (Mr
M'Lennan, p. 219) that this was also prescribed in the law of Menu.
[44] "Dr Latham would invert the order of development by producing
the ruder fact--polyandry--from the less rude obligation. But
clearly this is an inversion of the order of nature, _which is
progressive_," &c.--_M'Lennan_, "_Prim. Marriage_," p. 206.
Whatever may be the true solution of this coincidence the least likely
account would seem to be that they had both, under different conditions
(different at any rate from the point of divergence, be it exogamy
or polyandry), advanced to it independently and by similar stages.
Such fortuitous coincidences would imply not merely a succession of
similar developments, but also a corresponding succession of accidental
circumstances.
If, however, the custom of the younger brother marrying the widow of
the elder was of primitive institution (compare Genesis xxxviii. and
the Code of Menu), the corruption of this custom into polyandry, in
circumstances which may at any time have disturbed the balance of the
sexes in the overcrowded East, though it revolts will not absolutely
astonish us; whereas the converse, _i.e._ restriction to successive
appropriation contingent upon widowhood, from a state of virtual
promiscuity, is so uphill a reform and so contrary to probability that
it requires some internal evidence of the stages, and some warrant in
modern observation to make it plausible. None are given. For the fact
that we find both the "rude" and the "regulated" form existing side by
side cuts both ways;[45] and the discovery of a form of capture--the
Rakshasa, among the eight forms sanctioned by the code of Menu,
enforces our argument--it would exactly correspond to the military
exemption among the Jews (Mr M'Lennan, p. 82), supposing we were able
to read Deuteronomy xx. 10-14 in the same sense as Mr M'Lennan. In that
case, therefore, it would be a departure from or relaxation of a rule
laid down--a view which is confirmed when we find that the authority
quoted (Dr Muir, "Sanscrit Texts," the Ramayana) tells that "Ravana,
the most terrible of all the Rakshasas, is stigmatised as a _destroyer
of religious duties_, and ravisher of the _wives_ of others" (Prim.
Mar. p. 309), which testifies to degeneracy at some period; whereas if
Mr M'Lennan's view is true, this hero must be relegated to a time when
the conception of "religious duties," and even of other men's "wives"
were unknown.
[45] It seems to me that Turner's account of polyandry in Tibet,
quoted by Mr M'Lennan, p. 193, gives plain evidence of
the transition from the Jewish custom to the "regulated"
polyandry. It is said "that _the choice_ of a _wife_ is the
_privilege_ of the _elder brother_."
We have seen (_supra_, 46), that when mankind had got, we know not
how, into tribal exogamous groups, "kinship through females would
have a tendency," and a moment's consideration will show an immediate
tendency, "to render the exogamous groups heterogeneous, and thus to
supersede the system of capturing wives." We ask why did they capture
wives? Mr M'Lennan implies that their ideas of _incest_ forbade
marriage within the tribe.[46] Apparently, then, the groups must have
been exogamous[47] previously to the time when they had attained to
the knowledge of "kinship through females," else "kinship through
females" would from the first have operated to produce a state of
things which would have rendered exogamy unnecessary and inexplicable.
The corollary is curious; they must, therefore, have had the idea of
incest before they had the idea of kinship through females!
[46] "Instead of endogamy we might, after some explanations, have
used the word caste. But caste connotes several ideas besides
that on which we desire to fix attention. On _the other hand,
the rule which declares_ the union of persons of the same
blood _to be incest_ has been _hitherto unnamed_" (p. 49),
and he terms it _exogamy_; and (p. 130) he says, "in all the
modern instances in which the symbol of capture is most marked
we have found that _marriage within the tribe_ is prohibited
as _incest_."
[47] Mr M'Lennan (p. 148) says, "We shall endeavour to establish
the following propositions:--1. That the _most ancient_ system
in which the idea of blood relationship was embodied, was
the system of _kinship through females only_. 2. That the
primitive groups were, or were assumed to be homogeneous. 3.
That the system of kinship _through females only, tended to
render_ the _exogamous_ groups _heterogeneous_, and _thus to
supersede_ the system of capturing wives."
That some tribes should have arrived at some such state through a
perverted traditional notion of incest, would, on the other hand,
perfectly fit into the theory of degeneracy.
I had intended to have pursued this subject, but the chapter has
already run to too great length. As allusion however, has been made to
Sir John Lubbock, I append an extract (see p. 47) from which it will
be seen that his view, although equally remote from historical truth,
has a greater _à priori_ probability. Indeed, if we could only consent
to start on the assumption of "an initial state of hetairism," nothing
would be more complete than the following theory:--
"For reasons to be given shortly, I believe that communal marriage
was gradually superseded by individual marriages founded on
capture, and that this led firstly to exogamy, and then to female
infanticide; thus reversing M'Lennan's order of sequence. Endogamy
and regulated polyandry, though frequent, I regard as exceptional,
and as not entering into the normal progress of development.
Like M'Lennan and Bachojen, I believe that our present social
relations have arisen from an initial stage of hetairism or
communal marriage. It is obvious, however, that even under communal
marriage, a warrior who had captured a beautiful girl in some
marauding expedition, would claim a peculiar right to her, and,
when possible, would set custom at defiance. We have already seen
that there are other cases of the existence of marriage, under two
forms, side by side in one country, and that there is, therefore,
no real difficulty in assuming the co-existence of communal and
individual marriage. It is true that, under a communal marriage
system, no man could appropriate a girl entirely to himself,
without infringing the rights of the whole tribe.... A war-captive,
however, was in a peculiar position, the tribe had no right to her;
her capturer might have killed her if he chose; ... he did as he
liked, the tribe was no sufferer."--_Sir J. Lubbock's "Origin of
Civilisation,"_ pp. 70, 71.
I will only ask one question. At what period does Sir J. Lubbock
suppose the custom of inheritance through females arose? This as
nearly approaches a universal fact as any which Sir J. Lubbock adduces
(_vide_ p. 105, _et seq._); and, on the point of its having been a
prevalent custom, I can have no difficulty. Whenever through degeneracy
man arrived at the state of promiscuity or communal marriages, such
inheritance as there might be, in such a community, would only be
claimed through females, as the paternity would always be uncertain
(_vide infra_, p. 129). If, however, mankind commenced
with communal marriages, inheritance and relationship through females
would also have been from the commencement.
Let us now turn to Sir J. Lubbock's theory, as expressed in the
extract above, in which he shows us how marriage by capture would
quite naturally have arisen out of the state of communal marriage. But
if natural, it would have been natural from the commencement, _quid
vetat_? There must then have been a system also in operation from the
commencement, the inevitable tendency of which, by making paternity
distinct and recognisable, would have been to substitute inheritance
through males; and this system, by introducing a more robust posterity,
would rapidly have gained upon the other system. Male inheritance, it
would then appear, commenced and established itself at the outset, and
to the displacement of inheritance through females. How, then, do we
find traces of the latter custom so prevalent? From this point of view
the more instances Sir J. Lubbock accumulates, the more he will excite
our incredulity and surprise.
This theory again, equally with Mr M'Lennan's, supposes mankind
originally in a state of hetairism, in which case it is futile to talk
of tribes and of marriage out of the tribe; for how did they emerge
into this tribal separation out of the state of promiscuity? The
difficulty gets more complicated since, _ex hypothesi_, after emerging
from, they still remain within the tribal limits, in the state of
hetairism. These preliminaries must be settled before the argument can
be carried further.
The usual philosophic formula is, of course, at hand--these changes
must have required an indefinite lapse of ages! Into this swamp we
shall see one philosopher after another disappear, leaving a delusive
light behind him! If we could only, Dante like, recall one of these
philosophers to life, after he has passed into his state of Nirvana,
we would ask, as in this instance, why, supposing the state of
promiscuity, it would require an indefinite lapse of ages to pass from
it, according to the conditions of Sir John Lubbock's argument (_i.e._
to the state of exogamy); considering that, _vide supra_, "it is
obvious that, even under communal marriage, a warrior who had captured,
&c., would claim a peculiar right to her, and, when possible, would set
custom at defiance." Clearly, then, it only required the man and the
opportunity.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.
The view at p. 26 substantially coincides with the lines laid down
by Blackstone (compare Plato; Grote's Plato, iii. 337), which are the
subject of Bentham's attack, and to which the recent contributions of
Sir Henry Maine to our knowledge in these matters would seem to run
counter. Blackstone, "Comm." i. 47, said--
"This notion, of an actually existing unconnected state of nature,
is too wild to be seriously admitted: and, besides, it is plainly
contradictory to the revealed accounts of the primitive origin of
mankind and their preservation two thousand years afterwards, both
which were effected by the means of single families. These formed the
first society among themselves, which every day extended its limits;
and when it grew too large to subsist with convenience in that pastoral
state wherein the Patriarchs appear to have lived, it necessarily
subdivided itself by various migrations into more. Afterwards, as
agriculture increased, which employs and can maintain a much greater
number of hands, migrations became less frequent, and various tribes,
which had formerly separated, reunited again, sometimes by compulsion
and conquest, sometimes by accident, and sometimes, perhaps, by
compact.... And this is what we mean by the original contract of
society, which, though perhaps in no instance it has ever been formally
expressed at the first institution of a state, yet, in nature, reason
must always be understood and implied in the very act of associating
together.... When society is once formed, government results, of
course, as necessary to preserve and to keep that society in order ...
unless some superior were constituted ... they would still remain in a
state of nature."
Bentham says of this passage from Blackstone, that "'_society_,' in one
place, means the same thing as a '_state of nature_' does: in another
place, it means the same as '_government_.' Here we are required to
believe there _never was_ such a state as a state of nature: then we
are given to understand there _has been_. In like manner, with respect
to an original contract, we are given to understand that such a thing
never existed, that the notion of it is even ridiculous; at the same
time, that there is no speaking nor stirring without supposing that
there was one."--_Bentham's "Fragment on Government,"_ p. 9 (London,
1823).
The previous and subsequent chapters (ii., xiii.), will be found to
meet these strictures of Bentham, although not originally written with
reference to them.