There is nothing more difficult for us to realise, civilised as we are, than the mental state of the man far behind us in cultivation as regards what we call _par excellence_ “morality.” It is not indecency; it is simply an animal absence of modesty. Acts which are undeniably quite natural, since they are the expression of a primordial need, essential to the duration of the species, but which a long ancestral and individual education has trained us to subject to a rigorous restraint, and to the accomplishment of which, consequently, we cannot help attaching a certain shame, do not in the least shock the still imperfect conscience of the primitive man. On this point facts are eloquent and abundant; I will quote a few of them. In Tasmania it way thought an honour for women to prostitute themselves to Europeans, who were ennobled in the eyes of the natives by the prestige of their superiority.[113] The Australians, who were a little more developed than the Tasmanians, willingly lent or hired out their women--at least those that were their own property--to their friends.[114] The women were not less bestial than their males. They often engaged, says Peltier, in furious combats, fighting with spears, for the possession of a man. This is a peculiar case, and is an entirely human instance of that _law of battle_ of which I have spoken in regard to animals. Like the females of animals also the Australian women adored strength, and when the men of their own horde were beaten in battle they sometimes went over to the camp of the conquerors of their own accord (Mitchell).[115] In these facts there is nothing exceptional, and we may change the country without changing the customs. Thus the Bochimans treat their wives as simple domestic animals, and offer them willingly to strangers,[116] as do also the Australians. In the Andaman Islands and elsewhere the women give themselves up before marriage--that is, before becoming the property of one man--to the most unbridled prostitution,[117] and yet the most innocent, according to the morality of the country.