The pastoral condition allows the formation of more numerous societies; but it also involves the existence of vast tracts entirely given up to grazing. Like the chase, therefore, though in a less degree, it enforces sub-divisions.
The culture of the soil permits the development of a population at once dense and continuous.
The hunter, as a natural consequence of his warlike habits, is inevitably a warrior; war is, in fact, nothing more than a “man-hunt.” Any discussion about a hunting-ground may easily result in war, as the subsistence of the hunter is in question. This war would be conducted without mercy, for every prisoner would not only be useless, but an incumbrance to the conqueror; another mouth to feed. The hunter would kill him, and however little may be due to passion on the one hand, and pride on the other, he will put him to death with torments endured with heroic firmness.
The shepherd also will often be involved in armed conflict, for he must defend his pastures and his flocks. But, in his case, war will be less bitter; the prisoner may be useful to him. He can be forced to attend to the flocks, and, in return, be fed without involving any sacrifice: he can be a slave.
Were it not for the necessity of mutual destruction, which seems to be innate in man, and which, as yet, civilization has not been able to extirpate, agricultural tribes would have no cause to make war upon each other; indeed, it would be much more to their interests to avoid it. All that can be said, however, is that in their case it becomes by degrees less cruel. Here, again, the prisoner can be utilized. He is first reduced to slavery. Then it becomes evident that a certain amount of liberty might be profitable to the master, so he passes from the condition of a slave to that of a serf.
The three conditions which I have just described still exist upon the globe; and in each of the three great types of mankind, examples may still be pointed out at the present day. The White tribes of the north-west coast of America are fishers; some Arab tribes are still in the pastoral state, through which the Aryans, the progenitors of the present Indians, who are so essentially agricultural, have passed. Among the Yellows, the Tunguses of Daouria, are perhaps the most perfect type of a hunting people, as the hordes of Central Asia are of a shepherd people, and the Chinese of an agricultural people. Finally, among the Negroes, the Tasmanians were exclusively hunters and fishers, the Kaffirs are essentially shepherds, and the natives of Guinea agriculturalists.
Thus the fundamental nature of the social condition is not a character of race. The three physical types present the three social types.
From this fact alone we might conclude that between the three human types, regarded from the point of view of civilization, there are none of those radical differences which have been admitted, à priori, by some authors.
This conclusion can only be distinctly shown by a detailed study of the races. I can here merely state it, insisting upon this point that, in spite of the assertions of M. de Gobineau to the contrary, there still exist Whites in a distinctly savage state. We need only read the details given by Cook, La Pérouse, Meares, Marchand, Dixon, Dr. Scouler, and others, upon some Kolushes, and we shall be forced to recognise these fishers, whose women besmear themselves with grease and soot, and wear a girdle, as both true Whites and true savages, who in many respects must rank below the Negro of Ardra or Juida.