How to Observe: Morals and MannersMartineau, Harriet
Science
How to Observe: Morals and Manners
Martineau, Harriet
Manners and customs; Observation (Psychology); Social psychology -- Methodology
upon will instruct him, from an aqueduct to a punch-bowl, from a
penitentiary to an aviary, from the apparatus of a university to the
furniture of an alehouse or a nursery. When it was found that the chiefs
of the Red men could not be impressed with any notion of the
civilization of the Whites by all that many white men could say, they
were brought into the cities of the Whites. The exhibition of a ship was
enough for some. The warriors of the prairies were too proud to utter
their astonishment,--too noble to hint, even to one another, their fear;
but the perspiration stood on their brows as they dumbly gazed, and no
word of war passed their lips from that hour. Another, who could listen
with calmness to the tales of boastful traders in the wilderness, was
moved from his apathy by seeing a workman in a glasshouse put a handle
upon a pitcher. He was transported out of his silence and reserve: he
seized and grasped the hand of the workman, crying out that it was now
plain that he had had intercourse with the Great Spirit. By the evidence
of things these Indians had learned more of the manners of the Whites
than had ever been taught them by speech.--Which of us would not learn
more of the manners of the Pompeians by a morning's walk among the
relics of their abodes and public halls than by many a nightly
conference with certain of their ghosts?
The usual scholastic division of Morals is into personal, domestic, and
social or political morals. The three kinds are, however, so apt to run
into one another,--so practically inseparable,--that the traveller will
find the distinction less useful to him than some others which he can
either originate or adopt.
It appears to me that the Morals and Manners of a nation may be included
in the following departments of inquiry--the Religion of the people;
their prevalent Moral Notions; their Domestic State; their Idea of
Liberty; and their Progress, actual or in prospect.
CHAPTER I.
RELIGION.
"Dieu nous a dit, Peuples, je vous attends."
DE BERANGER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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