whatever be the origin of the custom. Though customs are very frequently rooted in public sympathetic resentment or in public disinterested aversions, they may have a selfish and partial origin as well. At first the leading men of the society may have prohibited certain acts because they found them disadvantageous to themselves, or to those with whom they particularly sympathised. Where custom is an oppressor of women, this oppression may certainly be traced back to the selfishness of men. Where custom sanctions slavery, it is certainly not impartial to the slaves. Yet in the one case as in the other, I assume custom to be in the right, irrespectively of my own station, and I even expect the women and slaves themselves to be of the same opinion. Such an expectation is by no means a chimera. Under normal social conditions, largely owing to men's tendency to share sympathetically the resentment of their superiors, the customs of a society are willingly submitted to, and recognised as right, by the large majority of its members, whatever may be their station. Among the Rejangs of Sumatra, says Marsden, "a man without property, family, or connections, never, in the partiality of self-love, considers his own life as being of equal value with that of a man of substance."[33] However selfish, however partial a certain rule may be, it becomes a true custom, a moral rule, as soon as the selfishness or the partiality of its makers is lost sight of. [Footnote 31: Grey, _Journals of Expeditions in North-West and Western Australia_, ii. 217.] [Footnote 32: Tylor, 'Primitive Society,' in _Contemporary Review_, xxi. 706. _Idem_, _Anthropology_, p. 408 _sq._ Avebury, _Origin of Civilisation_, p. 466 _sqq._ Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions into Central Australia_, ii. 384, 385, 388. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 51. Mathew, 'Australian Aborigines,' in _Jour. and Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. Wales_, xxiii. 398. _Idem_, _Eaglehawk and Crow_, p. 93. Taplin, 'Narrinyeri,' in Woods, _Native Tribes of South Australia_, pp. 35, 136 _sq._ Hawtrey, 'Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxi. 292. Murdoch, 'Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 427 _sq._ (Point Barrow Eskimo). Holm, 'Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,' in _Meddelelser om Grönland_, x. 85. Nansen, _First Crossing of Greenland_, ii. 295. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 452. New, _Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa_, p. 110 (Wanika). Scott Robertson, _Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush_, p. 183 _sq._] [Footnote 33: Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 247.]