The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-02-17
AntagUn SIMS.

luoUcut VI patoSlitS ONCi 40 Va nv %O-
count, or else regarding as purely mis-
chievous, the superstitions of the
primitive man, we must inquire what
part they play in social evolution, and
must be prepared, if need be, to recog-
nize their usefulness. Already we have
seen that the belief which prompts the
savage to bury valuables with the corpse
and carry food to the grave, has natural
genesis; and the Precipitation OF plants
and animals, and the worship of stocks
and stones" are not a gratuitous absurd
tiles, and that slaves are sacrificed
funerals in pursuance OF an idea which
seems rational to uninstructed intelll-
gence. Presently we shall have to con-
slider in what way the ghost theory has
operated politically, and if We should
find reason to conclude that it has been
an indispensable aid to social evolution,
we must be ready to accept the
conclusion. knowledge of the miseries
that have for countless ages been every
where caused by the antagonisms OF So
cieties must not prevent us from recog-
nizing the all-impOrtant part which these
antagonisms have played in civilization
Shudtler as we must at the cannlballsm
which all over the world in early days
was sequence of war; shrink as we may
from the the thought of those immola-
tions of prisoners which have followed
battles between wild tribes; read as we
do with horror of the pyramids OF heads
and the whitening bones of slain peoples
left by barbarian invaders; hate as we
ought the militant spirit which is even
now among ourselves prompting base
treacheries and brutal aggressions, we
must not let our feelings blind us to the
proofs we meet with that intersocial con-
fiicts have furthered the development of
social structures. Moreover, dislikes to
governments of certain kinds must not
prevent us from seeing their fitness to
their circumstances. Though rejecting
the common idea of glory, and declining
to join soldiers and school-boys in APP
plying the epithet great to conquering
despots, we detest despotism; though we
regard their sacrifices of their own
peoples and of alien peoples in pursuit
of universal dominion as gigantic
crimes, we must yet recognize the bene-
fits occasionally arising from the social
consultations they achieve. Neither
the massacres of subjects which
Roman Emperors directed, nor
the assassinations of relatives habit
ual among potentates in the East,
nor the impoverishment of whole ma
tions by the excessive eXactioEs of
tyrants, must so prejudice us as to pre-
vent appreciation of the benefits which
have. under certain conditions, resulted
from the unlimited power of the supreme
man. Nor must the remembrances OF
torturing implements, and oubEettes,
and victims built into walls, shut out
from our minds the evidence that AFFECT
submission of the weak to the strong.
however unscrupulously enforced. has In
some times and places been necessary
So, too, with the associated ownership OF
man by man. Absolute condemnation
of slavery must be withheld, even If we
accept the tradition repeated by Herodo-
tus, that to build the great pyramid re-
laws of hundred thousand slaves toiled
for twenty years; or even if we find 1t
true that of the serfs compelled to work
at the building of St. Petersburg, more
than hundred thousand persisted.
Though aware that the unrecorded suf-
ferings of men ana women held in bond
age are beyond imagination, we must,
nevertheless, preserve mental state re-
ceptive of such evidence as there may be
that benefits have resulted. In brief,
Trustworthy interpretations of social ar
engagements imply an almost passionless
consciousness. Though feeling cannot
and ought not to be excluded from the
mind when otherwise contemplating
them. yet it ought to be excluded when
contemplating them as natural phenom-
ena to be understood in their causes and
Effects Herbert Spencer, in Fort
nightly Review.