ere they cannot
stand alone, so that if left entirely to their own devices they would
lapse back into barbarism, is not, I agree, open to doubt. But would not
the same fate overtake any nation or community, regardless of race, if
it were completely cut off from all outside help and influence. The
civilised Romans who conquered Britain in the early Christian era, no
doubt, looked upon the primitive Britons as a feeble folk when compared
with themselves, but the erstwhile slaves have since demonstrated their
capacity for developing a civilisation utterly beyond the imagination of
their foreign masters. Rome was not built in a day. The rearing of
Western civilisation required many centuries, and it can hardly be
doubted that if the early builders of the great cultures had been left
in isolation instead of being stimulated continually from without
through foreign learning and influence neither Ancient Rome nor Modern
Europe would have come into being. Isolation has always and everywhere
been followed by stagnation and regression and there is no reason for
expecting the Natives of South Africa to furnish an exception to the
universal rule.

That the average Native is lazy no one who knows him will deny. He is
certainly no less lazy than the average European work-man who must be
compelled by economic pressure to do hard labour. The rough and menial
work of the world has always been done through some sort of compulsion,
either slavery or some kind of economic coaction, for it is not in human
nature, white or black, to work hard at uncongenial tasks unless
superior force in some shape or other supplies the driving power. The
manual workers of Europe are forced by the economic conditions under
which they live to do the heavy and rough work that has to be
done--there are very few, even among white men, who like rough work for
its own sake--and when we consider how small are the wants of the
average South African Native we are often surprised that he works as
hard as he does. The common expression "As lazy as a kaffir" is
counterbalanced by the equally common saying used about a white man who
works hard at anything "He works like a nigger," which suggests that
there is not much difference between the two races in this respect.

Nevertheless the mental attitude of the average Native undoubtedly
enables him to enjoy laziness more than the average European whose early
habits have been formed by different influences. Primitive man is