INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTERISTICS     s^S

which  can  be  arrived  at,  that  savages  have  the  character
of  children  with  the  passions  and  strength  of  men.  No
doubt  different  races  of  savages  differ  very  much  in
character.  An  Esquimaux  and  a  Fijian,  for  instance,
have  little  in  common.  But  after  making  every  possible
allowance  for  savages,  it  must  I  think  be  admitted  that
they  are  inferior,  morally  as  well  as  in  other  respects,  to
the  more  civilized  races.  There  is  indeed  no  atrocious
crime,  no  vice  recorded  by  any  traveller,  which  might  not
be  paralleled  in  Europe.  But  that  which  is  with  us  the
exception,  is  with  them  the  rule  ;  that  which  with  us  is
condemned  by  the  general  verdict  of  society,  and  is
confined  to  the  uneducated  and  vicious,  is  among  savages
passed  over  almost  without  condemnation,  and  treated  as
a  mere  matter  of  course.  In  Tahiti,  for  instance,  the
missionaries  considered  that  "  not  less  than  two-thirds  of
the  children  were  murdered  by  their  parents."

If  we  now  turn  to  the  mental  differences  between
civilized  and  uncivilized  races,  we  shall  find  them  very
strongly  marked.  Speaking  of  a  Bushman  tribe,  Burchell
observes  that  "whether  capable  of  reflection  or  not,  these
individuals  never  exerted  it."  ^  The  Rev.  T,  Dove  de-
scribes the  Tasmanians  as  distinguished  "  by  the  absence
of  all  moral  views  and  impressions.  Every  idea  bearing
on  our  origin  and  destination  as  rational  beings  seems  to
have  been  erased  from  their  breasts."  ^  It  would  be  easy
to  fill  a  volume  with  the  evidence  of  excessive  stupidity
recorded  by  different  travellers.  It  may  be  perhaps
thought  that  these  were  rather  instances  of  individual
dulness,  than  any  indication  of  a  national  characteristic  ;
but  in  the  nature  and  capacity  of  a  language  we  find  a
test  and  measure  of  the  higher  minds  in  a  nation.  Un-
fortunately, however,  travellers  have  found  it  difficult
enough  to  obtain  vocabularies  of  the  words  in  use  ;  and
it  is  far  less  easy  to  collect  information  as  to  those  which
they  do  not  possess.  Yet  there  are  not  a  few  cases  in
which  this  has  been  done.     I  have  already  mentioned  the

'  L.C.,  vol.  i.  p.  461.
