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details, and would require no other motive but the free impulses of his own nature to obey
that law.
Now it is very remarkable, that among people in a very low stage of civilization, we find
some approach to such a perfect social state. I have lived with communities of savages in
South America and in the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of the
village freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any in-
fraction of those rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community, all are nearly
equal. There are none of those wide distinctions, of education and ignorance, wealth and
poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization; there is none of that
wide-spread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting
interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence, or for wealth, which
the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes
are thus wanting, and petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public opinion, but
chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his neighbour's right, which seems to be, in
some degree, inherent in every race of man.
Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage state in intellectual achieve-
ments, we have not advanced equally in morals. It is true that among those classes who have
no wants that cannot be easily supplied, and among whom public opinion has great influen-
ce, the rights of others are fully respected. It is true, also, that we have vastly extended the
sphere of those rights, and include within them all the brotherhood of man. But it is not too
much to say, that the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage
code of morals, and have in many cases sunk below it. A deficient morality is the great blot
of modern civilization, and the greatest hindrance to true progress.
During the last century, and especially in the last thirty years, our intellectual and material
advancement has been too quickly achieved for us to reap the full benefit of it. Our mastery
over the forces of nature has led to a rapid growth of population, and a vast accumulation of
wealth; but these have brought with them such an amount of poverty and crime, and have
fostered the growth of so much sordid feeling and so many fierce passions, that it may well
be questioned, whether the mental and moral status of our population has not on the average
been lowered, and whether the evil has not overbalanced the good. Compared with our won-
drous progress in physical science and its practical applications, our system of government,
of administering justice, of national education, and our whole social and moral organization,
remains in a state of barbarism.
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And if we continue to devote our chief energies to the util-
izing of our knowledge of the laws of nature with the view of still further extending our
