As Dr. Mouat held the position of Inspector-General of Gaols in Lower Bengal for 15 years, and as, during that period, he had under his control an average of 20,000 prisoners, it may, I think, be held that his experiences have been tolerably extensive, and that a system justified by such experiences is worthy of adoption. Unfortunately, however, men pooh-pooh those experiences which do not accord with their foregone conclusions.
I have occasionally vented the paradox that mankind go {191} right only when they have tried all possible ways of going wrong: intending it to be taken with some qualification. Of late, however, I have observed that in some respects this paradox falls short of the truth. Sundry instances have shown me that even when mankind have at length stumbled into the right course, they often deliberately return to the wrong.
{192}
THE ETHICS OF KANT.
[From the Fortnightly Review for July 1888. This essay was called forth by attacks on me made in essays published in preceding numbers of the Fortnightly Review—essays in which the Kantian system of ethics was lauded as immensely superior to the system of ethics defended by me. The last section now appears for the first time.]
If, before Kant uttered that often-quoted saying in which, with the stars of Heaven he coupled the conscience of Man, as being the two things that excited his awe, he had known more of Man than he did, he would probably have expressed himself somewhat otherwise. Not, indeed, that the conscience of Man is not wonderful enough, whatever be its supposed genesis; but the wonderfulness of it is of a different kind according as we assume it to have been supernaturally given or infer that it has been naturally evolved. The knowledge of Man in that large sense which Anthropology expresses, had made, in Kant’s day, but small advances. The books of travel were relatively few, and the facts which they contained concerning the human mind as existing in different races, had not been gathered together and generalized. In our days the conscience of Man, as inductively known, has none of that universality of presence and unity of nature, which Kant’s saying tacitly assumes. Sir John Lubbock writes:—
“In fact, I believe that the lower races of men may be said to be deficient {193} in the idea of right. . . . . That there should be any races of men so deficient in moral feeling, was altogether opposed to the preconceived ideas with which I commenced the study of savage life, and I have arrived at the conviction by slow degrees, and even with reluctance.”—Origin of Civilization, 1882, pp. 404–5.
But now let us look at the evidence from which this impression is derived, as we find it in the testimonies of travellers and missionaries.
Praising his deceased son, Tui Thakau, a Fijian Chief, concluded “by speaking of his daring spirit and consummate cruelty, as he could kill his own wives if they offended him, and eat them afterwards.”—Western Pacific. J. E. Erskine, p. 248.
“Shedding of blood is to him no crime, but a glory . . . . to be somehow an acknowledged murderer is the object of the Fijian’s restless ambition.”—Fiji and the Fijians. Rev. T. Williams, i., p. 112.
“It is a melancholy fact that when they [the Zulu boys] have arrived at a very early age, should their mothers attempt to chastise them, such is the law, that these lads are at the moment allowed to kill their mothers.”—Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa. G. Thompson, ii., p. 418.
“Murther, adultery, thievery, and all other such like crimes, are here [Gold Coast] accounted no sins.”—Description of the Coast of Guinea. W. Bosman, p. 130.
“The accusing conscience is unknown to him [the East African]. His only fear after committing a treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the dead.”—Lake Regions of Central Africa. R. F. Burton, ii., p. 336.
“I never could make them [East Africans] understand the existence of good principle.”—The Albert N’Yanza. S. W. Baker, i., pp. 241.
“The Damaras kill useless and worn-out people; even sons smother their sick fathers.”—Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa. F. Galton, p. 112.
The Damaras “seem to have no perceptible notion of right and wrong.”—Ibid. p. 72.
Against these we may set some converse facts. At the other extreme we have a few Eastern tribes—pagans they are called—who practise the virtues which Western nations—Christians they are called—do but teach. While Europeans thirst for blood-revenge in much the same way as the lowest savages, there are some simple peoples of the Indian Hills, as the Lepchas, who “are singularly forgiving of injuries;”[9] and Campbell exemplifies “the effect of a {194} very strong sense of duty on this savage.”[10] That character which the creed of Christendom is supposed to foster is exhibited in high degree by the Arafuras (Papuans) who live in “peace and brotherly love with one another”[11] to such extent that government is but nominal. And concerning various of the Indian Hill-tribes, as the Santáls, Sowrahs, Marias, Lepchas, Bodo and Dhimáls, different observers testify of them severally that “they were the most truthful set of men I ever met,”[12] “crime and criminal officers are almost unknown,”[13] “a pleasing feature in their character is their complete truthfulness,”[14] “they bear a singular character for truthfulness and honesty,”[15] they are “wonderfully honest,”[16] “honest and truthful in deed and word.”[17] Irrespective of race, we find these traits in men who are, and have long been, absolutely peaceful (the uniform antecedent), be they the Jakuns of the South Malayan Peninsula, who “are never known to steal anything, not even the most insignificant trifle,”[18] or be it in the Hos of the Himalaya, among whom “a reflection on a man’s honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send him to self-destruction.”[19] So that in respect of conscience these uncivilized people are as superior to average Europeans, as average Europeans are superior to the brutal savages previously described.