too, among
civilized peoples the individualities of women are so far recognized
that the life and liberty of a wife are not supposed to be bound up with
those of her husband; and she now, having obtained a right to exclusive
possession of property, contends for complete independence, domestic and
political. It is, or was, otherwise in Fiji. The wives of the Fijian
chiefs consider it a sacred duty to suffer strangulation on the deaths
of their husbands. A woman who had been rescued by an Englishman
"escaped during the night, and, swimming across the river, and
presenting herself to her own people, insisted upon the completion of
the sacrifice which she had in a moment of weakness reluctantly
consented to forego." Another foreign observer tells of a Fijian woman
who loaded her rescuer "with abuse, and ever afterwards manifested the
most deadly hatred towards him." In England and on the Continent the
religious prohibition of theft and the legal punishment of it are joined
with a strong social reprobation, so that the offence of a thief is
never condoned. In Beloochistan, on the other hand, quite contrary ideas
and feelings are current. There "a favorite couplet is to the effect
that the Biloch who steals and murders, secures Heaven to seven
generations of ancestors." In England and the United States reprobation
of untruthfulness is strongly expressed, alike by the gentleman and the
laborer. In many parts of the world it is not so. In Blantyre, for
example, according to MacDonald, "to be called a liar is rather a
compliment." Once more: English sentiment is such that the mere
suspicion of incontinence on the part of a woman is enough to blight her
life; but there are peoples whose sentiments entail no such effect, and,
in some cases, a reverse effect is produced: "Unchastity is, with the
Wetyaks, a virtue." It seems, then, that in respect of all the leading
divisions of human conduct, different races of men, and the same races
at different stages, entertain opposite beliefs, and display
opposite feelings.

In Mr. Spencer's opinion, the evidence here brought to a focus ought to
dissipate once for all the belief in a moral sense, as commonly
entertained. A long experience of mankind, however, prevents him from
indulging in such an expectation. Among men at large, lifelong
convictions are not to be destroyed either by conclusive arguments or
multitudinous facts. Only to those who are not by creed or cherished
theory committed