Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of ContentsLord, John
Philosophy
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of Contents
Lord, John
History
"escaped during the night, and, swimming across the river, and
presenting herself to her own people, insisted upon the completion of
the sacrifice which she had in a moment of weakness reluctantly
consented to forego." Another foreign observer tells of a Fijian woman
who loaded her rescuer "with abuse, and ever afterwards manifested the
most deadly hatred towards him." In England and on the Continent the
religious prohibition of theft and the legal punishment of it are joined
with a strong social reprobation, so that the offence of a thief is
never condoned. In Beloochistan, on the other hand, quite contrary ideas
and feelings are current. There "a favorite couplet is to the effect
that the Biloch who steals and murders, secures Heaven to seven
generations of ancestors." In England and the United States reprobation
of untruthfulness is strongly expressed, alike by the gentleman and the
laborer. In many parts of the world it is not so. In Blantyre, for
example, according to MacDonald, "to be called a liar is rather a
compliment." Once more: English sentiment is such that the mere
suspicion of incontinence on the part of a woman is enough to blight her
life; but there are peoples whose sentiments entail no such effect, and,
in some cases, a reverse effect is produced: "Unchastity is, with the
Wetyaks, a virtue." It seems, then, that in respect of all the leading
divisions of human conduct, different races of men, and the same races
at different stages, entertain opposite beliefs, and display
opposite feelings.
In Mr. Spencer's opinion, the evidence here brought to a focus ought to
dissipate once for all the belief in a moral sense, as commonly
entertained. A long experience of mankind, however, prevents him from
indulging in such an expectation. Among men at large, lifelong
convictions are not to be destroyed either by conclusive arguments or
multitudinous facts. Only to those who are not by creed or cherished
theory committed to the hypothesis of a supernaturally created human
species will the evidence above summed up prove that the human mind has
no originally implanted conscience. Mr. Spencer himself at one time
espoused the doctrine of the intuitive moralists, but it has gradually
become clear to him that the qualifications required practically
obliterate the doctrine as enunciated by them. It has become clear to
him, in other words, that if among civilized folk the current belief is
that a man who robs and does not repent will be eternally damned, while
an accepted proverb among the Bilochs is, that "God will not favor a man
who does not steal and rob," it is impossible to hold that men have in
common an innate perception of right and wrong.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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