"A hundred years ago there were 160,000 Marquesans in these [South Sea]
Islands. To-day their total number does not reach 2,100." O'Brien
describes the bad effects of Christianity on these "savages." For he
says the so-called superstitions of these races had a great vitalising
influence. Their dancing, their tattooing, their religious rites, their
chanting and their warfare gave them a zest in life. But "to-day all
Polynesians from Hawaii to Tahiti are dying because of the suppression
of the play-instinct that had its expression in most of their customs
and occupations." And they are now "nothing but joyless machines" and
"tired of life."
+Failure of Our Civilisation+
For a searching comparison between our social conditions and those of
the many savage communities visited by him--and much to the general
advantage of the latter--_see_ A. R. Wallace's _Malay Archipelago_ (1st
ed. 1869), pp. 456, 7 (ed. 1894). And he ends the book by saying:
"Until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our
civilisation--resulting mainly from our neglect to train and develop
more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings and moral faculties of our
nature, and to allow them a larger share of influence in our
legislation, our commerce, and our whole social organisation--we shall
never, as regards the whole community, attain to any real or important
superiority over the better class of savages. This is the lesson I have
been taught by my observations of uncivilised man.
"I now bid my readers--Farewell!"