_Society._—One of the most interesting features of savage and barbaric life is the existence of an unwritten code of moral conduct, by which families and tribes are practically held together. There may be no laws to punish crime, and the local religion may no more concern itself directly with men’s behaviour to one another than it did in the South Sea Islands. But among the roughest people there is family affection, and some degree of mutual help and trust, without which, indeed, it is obvious that society would break up, perhaps in general slaughter. Considering the importance of this primitive morality in the history of mankind, it is unfortunate that the attention of travellers has been so little drawn to it, that our information is most meagre as to how far family affection among rude tribes may be taken to be instinctive, like that of the lower animals, or how far morality is produced by public opinion favouring such conduct as is for the public good, but blaming acts which do harm to the tribe. It is desirable to inquire what conduct is sanctioned by custom among any people, whether, for instance, infanticide is thought right or wrong, what freedom of behaviour is approved in youths and girls, and so on. For though breaches of custom may not be actually punishable, experience will soon convince any explorer among any rude tribe that custom acts in regulating their life even more strictly than among ourselves. The notion of even savages leading a free and unrestrained life is contradicted by those who know them best; in fact, they are bound in every act by ancestral custom. While each tribe thus has its moral standard of right and wrong, this differs much in different tribes, and one must become intimately acquainted with any people to ascertain what are really their ruling principles of life. Accounts have been often given of the natural virtue and happiness of rude tribes, as in the forests of Guiana or the hills of Bengal, where the simple native life is marked by truthfulness, honesty, cheerfulness, and kindness, which contrast in a striking way with the habits of low-class Europeans. There are few phenomena in the world more instructive than morality thus existing in practical independence either of law or religion. It may still be possible to observe it for a few years before it is altered by contact with civilisation, which, whether it raises or lowers on the whole the native level, must supersede in great measure this simple family morality.