In the social organisation of all these peoples there is thus originally a general congruity between the principle of local proximity and the principle of descent. On the one hand, all freemen, all true members of the society, who belong to the same local group, are at the same time kinsmen; on the other hand, all persons who are united by the tie of a common descent belong to the same or neighbouring local groups. The cause of this congruity is the universal prevalence of the paternal system of descent. Whether the case was different in prehistoric times is an open question. That the ancient Chinese reckoned kinship through the mother, not through the father, has been conjectured on philological grounds,132 as to the plausibility of which I can express no opinion. Several writers have also endeavoured to prove that the uterine line of descent prevailed among the primitive Aryans, but the evidence is far from being conclusive. I agree with Professor Leist that all so-called survivals of a system of maternal descent in the prehistoric antiquity of the “Aryan” races are doubtful, if not false.133 As regards the Teutons, much importance has been attributed to the specially close connection which, according to Tacitus, existed between a sister’s children and their mother’s brothers;134 but, as Professor Schrader remarks, in spite of the prominent position of the maternal uncle among Teutonic peoples, the patruus distinctly came before the avunculus, the agnates before the cognates, in testamentary succession.135 The existence of a custom which in some respect recognises uterine relationship does not prove the earlier prevalence of the full maternal system of descent, to the exclusion of the paternal.

Progress in civilisation is up to a certain point connected with social expansion. Among savages the largest permanent social unit is generally the tribe, and even the tribal bond is often very loose, if not entirely wanting. It is true that associations of tribes occur even among so low a race as the Australian aborigines, but unaccompanied by any kind of political organisation.136 At a somewhat higher stage we meet with the famous league of the Iroquois—a federation on republican principles of five distinct tribes, which could point to three centuries of uninterrupted domestic unity and peace137—and the kingdoms of various African potentates. Civilisation only thrives in states. From small beginnings round the lake of Mexico the Aztecs gradually succeeded, through conquest, in forming an empire which covered probably almost sixteen thousand square leagues. However, between the various tribes lay broad belts of uninhabited territory, which enabled them to keep up a shy and exclusive attitude towards each other; and at the time of the Spanish conquest the empire of Mexico was, in fact, little more than “a chain of intimidated Indian tribes, who, kept apart from each other under the influence of mutual timidity, were held down by dread of attacks from an unassailable robber-stronghold in their midst.”138 In South America, in a long course of ages, six nations inhabited the region which extends from the water-parting between the basins of the Huallaga and Ucayali to that between the basins of the Ucayali and Lake Titicaca. When increasing population brought them in contact with each other, a struggle for supremacy ended in the mastery of the fittest—the Incas; and the empire of the latter was subsequently extended by the subjugation of a variety of other nations or tribes.139 The extent of territory claimed for ancient China by the earliest records is more than double the size of modern France, and, though it was often divided into different states, the great dynasties ruled over the whole of it.140 The two crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were united at a very early date; and no less imposing was the great kingdom of Babylon and Assur. We may assume that all these empires were formed by an association, either voluntary or forcible, of different tribes, as was the case with those states with whose origin and early growth we are somewhat better acquainted. As late as the time of the Judges the tribes of Israel either stood each entirely alone or formed smaller groups, and there was no such thing as an Israelitish nation in a political sense until the unity of the people came into being under Samuel and the first kings.141 The Vedic people consisted of a great number of independent tribes, between which only temporary alliances were made for the sake of defence or attack. But gradually the alliances grew more permanent; war-kings united several tribes, surrounded themselves with a military nobility, and founded great kingdoms.142 In Greece and Italy the states grew out of forts which had been built on elevated places to serve as common strongholds or places of refuge in case of war. Several tribes united so as to be better able to resist dangerous enemies, and one of the fortified towns in time gained supremacy over all others in the neighbourhood, as Athens did in Attica and Alba Longa in Latium. Similar districts, ruled by a town, were called poleis or civitates.143 In historical times attempts were made to carry this process further by joining several of the small states under the rule of one. In this Sparta and Athens failed, whereas the efforts of Rome met with unequalled success.

The development of the State tended to weaken or destroy the smaller units of which it was composed. The central power, hostile to separatism, naturally endeavoured to appropriate the authority invested in the latter, and in a well-governed state these on their part had little reason to resist. The main object of the clan, phratry, and tribe was to protect their respective members; hence they became superfluous in the presence of a powerful national government which unselfishly and impartially looked after the interests of its various subjects. Adam Smith contrasts the strong clan-feeling which still in the eighteenth century prevailed among the Scotch Highlanders with the little regard felt for remote relatives by the English, and observes that in countries where the authority of the law is not sufficiently strong to give security to every member of the State the different branches of the same family choose to live in the neighbourhood of one another, their association being frequently necessary for their common defence; whereas in a country like England, where the authority of the law was well established, “the descendants of the same family, having no such motive for keeping together, naturally separate and disperse, as interest or inclination may direct.”144 It seems also probable that the persistency of the village community or the gentile system among the Hindus and Slavs has been largely due to the weakness of the State or to the badness of the government.

As the larger units, so the family also was influenced by the rise of the State, but originally in quite the opposite direction. Whilst the former dwindled away, the family grew in importance. Nowhere do we find the family-tie stronger, nowhere does the father or eldest male ascendant possess greater power than in the archaic State. In a previous chapter I have already tried to explain this singular fact. I pointed out that in early society there seems to be a certain antagonism between the family and the clan, that the family was strengthened because the clan was weakened, that the father became a patriarch only as the inheritor of the authority which formerly belonged to the clan. But we have also noticed that at a higher stage the family again lost in importance.145

It seems that the tribes which united into one nation or state were normally, in the first instance, branches of the same stock, living in the same neighbourhood and speaking the same language, though with dialectic differences. Like the smaller units, such a state was no doubt frequently adulterated by the amalgamation of aliens, but here again fictions were substituted for realities, and the foreign extraction was forgotten. The case was different, however, when the commonwealth was formed or aggrandised by the subjugation of a strange race. Instead of being adopted into the circle of the conquerors, the subdued people were treated as their inferiors in blood, civic rights were denied to them, and in many cases they were kept in servitude; thus even here the principle of a common origin as the base of citizenship was preserved, the conquerors being the only citizens in the full sense of the term. But however strong and durable similar barriers may be, they are not imperishable. The different races inhabiting the same country under the same government tend to draw nearer each other, the inferior race is incorporated with the nation, and local proximity instead of descent at last becomes the basis of community in political functions. This change, however, was neither so radical nor so startling as it has been represented to be;146 fictions on a large scale still formed a bridge between ancient and modern ideas. Sir Henry Maine says that we cannot now hope to understand the good faith of the fiction by which in early times the incoming population were assumed to be descended from the same stock as the people on whom they were engrafted.147 But is this good faith more astonishing than the readiness with which a common language, in spite of the most obvious facts to the contrary, is even now constantly taken as the sign of a common origin? Though identity of language, even in the case of whole peoples, proves nothing more than contact or neighbourhood, a person’s mother-tongue popularly decides his race, and language and nationality are regarded almost as synonymous. Genealogical fictions, then, are not merely a thing of the past, nor have they ceased to influence political ideas. The modern theory of nationalism vindicates the right of the strongest nationality to absorb the other nationalities living within the same state by a method of compulsory engraftment, and this can be effected only by their accepting its language. But this theory is not so much concerned with language as such, as with language as an emblem of nationality. At the bottom of it is the narrow feeling of racial intolerance, quite ready however to be appeased by a fiction. The doctrine of nationalism is the spectre of the same political principle—the principle of a common descent, either real or fictitious—on which states were founded and governed when civilisation was in its cradle.

Like the smaller units, the archaic State was not only a political but at the same time a religious community. Over and above all separate cults there was one religion common to all its citizens. In ancient Mexico and Peru it was the religion of the dominant people, the worship of the god of war or of the sun; and the sovereigns themselves were regarded as incarnations or children of this god.148 In other cases the state religion arose by a fusion of different cults. The gods of the communities which united into a state not only continued to receive the worship of their old believers, but were elevated to the rank of national deities, and formed together a heavenly commonwealth to which the earthly commonwealth jointly paid its homage. In this way, it seems, the Roman,149 Egyptian,150 Assyrian, and Babylonian151 pantheons were recruited; whilst the Greeks went a step further and, already in prehistoric times, constructed a Pan-Hellenic Olympus.152 Sometimes also, as Professor Robertson Smith points out, different gods were themselves fused into one, as when the mass of the Israelites in their local worship of Yahveh identified him with the Baalim of the Canaanite high places, and carried over into his worship the ritual of the Canaanite shrines, not deeming that in so doing they were less truly Yahveh-worshippers than before.153

Nobody will deny that the common religion added strength to the State, but it seems that its national importance has often been overrated. On the one hand, the political fusion between different communities took place before the religious fusion and was obviously the cause of it; on the other hand, the mere tie of a common religion has never proved sufficient to bind together neighbouring tribes or peoples so as to form one nation. The Greek states had both the same religion and the same language, but nevertheless remained distinct states. Professor Seeley’s assertion that “in the East to this day nationality and religion are almost convertible terms,”154 is very far from the truth. Wallin, who had exceptional opportunities to study the feelings of different Muhammedan nationalities, observes that “every Oriental people has a certain national aversion to every other, and even the inhabitants of one province to those of another. The Turk does not readily tolerate the Arab, nor the Persian, and these feel similarly towards the Turk; the Arab does not get on well with the Persian, nor the Persian with the Arab; the Syrian does not like the Egyptian, whom he calls inhuman, and the latter does not willingly associate with the Syrian, whom he calls simple-minded and stupid; and the son of the desert condemns both.”155 It sometimes seems as if the national spirit of a people rather influenced its religion than was influenced by it. Patriotism has even succeeded in nationalising the greatest enemy of nationalities, Christianity, and has well nigh revived the old notion of a national god, whose chief business is to look after his own people and, especially, to fight its battles.

It is obvious that the various aspects of social development which we have now considered have exercised much influence upon the altruistic sentiment. The combination of local proximity and political unity, the notion of a common descent, and the fellowship of a common religion, tend to engender friendly feelings between the members of each respective group. Hence, when the political unit grew larger, when the idea of kinship developed into that of racial affinity, and when the same religion became common to all the citizens of the State, or, as happened in several cases, extended beyond the limits of any particular country or nation, the altruistic sentiment underwent a corresponding expansion—unless, of course, it was checked by some rival influence. The increasing coherence of the political aggregate, again, added to the strength of this sentiment; and so did the antagonism towards foreign communities and the natural antipathy or hatred to their members. As people like that to which they are used or which is their own, they dislike that which is strange or unfamiliar. Among ourselves we notice this particularly in children156 and uneducated persons, whose anger may be aroused by the sight of a black skin or an oriental dress or the sounds of a strange language. Antipathies of this kind have directly influenced the moral valuation of conduct towards foreigners; but at the same time they have also strengthened the feelings of mutual goodwill between tribesmen or compatriots. For likes and dislikes are increased by the contrast; to hate a thing makes us better love its opposite. So also the competition and enmity which prevail between different communities tend within each community to intensify its members’ devotion to the common goal and their friendly feelings towards one another.

But the altruistic sentiment has not necessarily reference only to individuals belonging to the same social unit. Gregarious animals may be kindly disposed to any member of their species which is not an object of their anger or their fear. Savages have shown themselves capable of tender feelings towards suffering and harmless strangers.157 The sensibility of little children sometimes goes beyond the circle of the family; Madame Manacéine tells us of a girl two years old who, in the Zoological Gardens at St. Petersburg, began to cry bitterly when she saw an elephant walking over the keeper’s body, although the other spectators were quietly watching the trick.158 In mankind altruism has been narrowed by social isolation, by differences in race, language, habits, and customs, by enmity and suspicion. But increased intercourse has gradually led to conditions favourable to its expansion. As Buckle remarks, ignorance is the most powerful of all the causes of national hatred; “when you increase the contact, you remove the ignorance, and thus you diminish the hatred.”159 People of different nationalities feel that in spite of all dissimilarities between them there is much that they have in common; and frequent intercourse makes the differences less marked, or obliterates many of them altogether. There can be no doubt that this process will go on in the future. And equally certain it is that similar causes will produce similar effects—that altruism will continue to expand, and that the notion of a human brotherhood will receive more support from the actual feelings of mankind than it does at present.

CHAPTER XXXV

SUICIDE

Suicide, or intentional self-destruction, has often been represented as a fruit of a higher civilisation; Dr. Steinmetz, on the other hand, in his essay on ‘Suicide among Primitive Peoples,’ thinks it probable that “there is a greater propensity to suicide among savage than among civilised peoples.”1 The former view is obviously erroneous; the latter probably holds good of certain savages as compared with certain peoples of culture, but cannot claim general validity.

Among several uncivilised races suicide is said to be unknown.2 To these belong some of the lower savages—the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego,3 the Andaman Islanders,4 and various Australian tribes;5 whilst as regards most other tribes at about the same stage of culture information seems to be wanting. Of the natives in Western and Central Australia Sir G. Grey writes, “Whenever I have interrogated them on this point, they have invariably laughed at me, and treated my question as a joke.”6 When a Caroline Islander was told of suicides committed by Europeans, he thought that he had not grasped what was said to him, as he never in his life had heard of anything so ridiculous.7 The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, though they have no intense fear of death, cannot understand suicide; “the idea of a man killing himself strikes them as inexplicable.”8

Among many savages and barbarians suicide is stated to be very rare,9 or to occur only occasionally;10 whereas among others it is represented as either common or extremely prevalent.11 Of the Kamchadales we are told that the least apprehension of danger drives them to despair, and that they fly to suicide as a relief, not only from present, but even from imaginary evil; “not only those who are confined for some offence, but such as are discontented with their lot, prefer a voluntary death to an uneasy life, and the pains of disease.”12 Among the Hos, an Indian hill tribe, suicide is reported to be so frightfully prevalent as to afford no parallel in any known country:—“If a girl appears mortified by anything that has been said, it is not safe to let her go away till she is soothed. A reflection on a man’s honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send him to self-destruction. In a recent case, a young woman attempted to poison herself because her uncle would not partake of the food she had cooked for him.”13 Among the Karens of Burma suicide is likewise very common where Christianity has not been introduced. If a man has some incurable or painful disease, he says in a matter-of-fact way that he will hang himself, and he does as he says; if a girl’s parents compel her to marry the man she does not love, she hangs herself; wives sometimes hang themselves through jealousy, sometimes because they quarrel with their husbands, and sometimes out of mere chagrin, because they are subject to depreciating comparisons; and it is a favourite threat with a wife or daughter, when not allowed to have her own way, that she will hang herself.14 Among some uncivilised peoples suicide is frequently practised by women, though rarely by men.15

The causes which, among savages, lead to suicide are manifold:—disappointed love or jealousy;16 illness17 or old age;18 grief over the death of a child,19 a husband,20 or a wife;21 fear of punishment;22 slavery23 or brutal treatment by a husband;24 remorse,25 shame or wounded pride, anger or revenge.26 In various cases an offended person kills himself for the express purpose of taking revenge upon the offender.27 Thus among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, “should a person commit suicide, and before so doing attribute the act to the conduct of another person, that other person is required by native law to undergo a like fate. The practice is termed killing oneself upon the head of another, and the person whose conduct is supposed to have driven the suicide to commit the rash act is visited with a death of an exactly similar nature”—unless, indeed, the family of the suicide be pacified with a money compensation.28 With reference to the Savage Islanders, who especially in heathen times were much addicted to suicide, we are told that, “like angry children, they are tempted to avenge themselves by picturing the trouble that they will bring upon the friends who have offended them.”29 Among the Thlinkets an offended person who is unable to take revenge in any other way commits suicide in order to expose the person who gave the offence to the vengeance of his surviving relatives and friends.30 Among the Chuvashes it was formerly the custom for enraged persons to hang themselves at the doors of their enemies.31 A similar method of taking revenge is still not infrequently resorted to by the Votyaks, who believe that the ghost of the deceased will then persecute the offender.32 Sometimes a suicide has the character of a human sacrifice.33 In the times of epidemics or great calamities the Chukchi sacrifice their own lives in order to appease evil spirits and the souls of departed relatives.34 Among some savages it is common for a woman, especially if married to a man of importance, to commit suicide on the death of her husband,35 or to demand to be buried with him;36 and many Brazilian Indians killed themselves on the graves of their chiefs.37