Next to this I should place Government, understanding this word in its widest sense, as embracing the terms on which man agrees to live with his fellow man and with woman, family, therefore, as well as society ties. This includes the legal standards of duty, the rules of relationship and descent, the rights of property and the customs of commerce, the institutions of castes, classes and rulers, and those international relations on which depend war and peace. I need not enlarge on the profound impress which these exert on the traits of the people.[10-2] After these I should name Religion, though some brilliant scholars, such as Schelling and Max Mueller,[10-3] have claimed for it the first place as a formative influence on ethnic character. No one will deny the prominent rank it holds in the earlier stages of human culture. It is scarcely too much to say that most of the waking hours of the males of some tribes are taken up with religious ceremonies. Religion is, however, essentially "divinatory," that is, its chief end and aim is toward the future, not the present, and therefore the impress it leaves on national character is far less permanent, much more ephemeral, than either government or language. This is constantly seen in daily life. Persons change their religion with facility, but adhere resolutely to the laws which protect their property. The mighty empire of Rome secured ethnic unity to a degree never since equalled in parallel circumstances, and its plan was to tolerate all religions--as, indeed, do all enlightened states to-day--but to insist on the adoption of the Roman law, and, in official intercourse, the Latin language. I have not forgotten the converse example of the Jews, which some attribute to their religion; but the Romany, who have no religion worth mentioning, have been just as tenacious of their traits under similar adverse circumstances. The Arts, those of Utility, such as pottery, building, agriculture and the domestication of animals, and those of Pleasure, such as music, painting and sculpture, must come in for a full share of the ethnologist's attention. They represent, however, stadia of culture rather than national character. They influence the latter materially and are influenced by it, and different peoples have toward them widely different endowments; but their action is generally indirect and unequally distributed throughout the social unit. These four fields, Language, Government, Religion and the Arts, are those which the ethnologist explores when he would render himself acquainted with a nation's character; and now a few words about the methods of study he adopts, and the aims, near or remote, which he keeps in view.