king them, or struggling with the difficulties
of opposing evidence, the observer has to bear in mind,--first, that the
religious sentiment does everywhere exist, however low its tone, and
however uncouth its expression; secondly, that personal morals must
greatly depend on the low or high character of the religious sentiment;
and, thirdly, that the philosophy and morals of government accord with
both,--despotism of some sort being the natural rule where licentious
and ascetic religions prevail; and democratic government being possible
only under a moderate form of religion, where the use without the abuse
of all blessings is the spirit of the religion of the majority.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL MORAL NOTIONS.

"Une differente coutume donnera d'autres principes naturels. Cela
se voit par experience; et s'il y en a d'ineffacables a la coutume,
il y en a aussi de la coutume ineffacables a la nature."--PASCAL.

Next to the religion of a people, it is necessary to learn what are
their Ideas of Morals. In speaking of the popular notion of a Moral
Sense, it was mentioned that, so far from there being a general
agreement on the practice of morals, some things which are considered
eminently right in one age or country are considered eminently wrong in
another; while the people of each age or country, having grown up under
common influences, think and feel sufficiently alike to live together in
a general agreement as to right and wrong. It is the business of the
traveller to ascertain what this general agreement is in the society he
visits.

In one society, spiritual attainments will be the most highly honoured,
as in most religious communities. In another, the qualities attendant
upon intellectual eminence will be worshipped,--as now in countries
which are the most advanced in preparation for political
freedom,--France, Germany, and the United States. In others, the moral
qualities allied to physical or extrinsic power are chiefly
venerated,--as in all uncivilized countries, and all which lie under
feudal institutions.

The lower moral qualities which belong to the last class have been
characteristics of nations. The valour of the Spartans, the love of
glory of the Romans and the French, the pride of the Spaniards,--these
infantile moral qualities have belonged to a people as distinctly as to
an individual.--Those which are in alliance with intellectual eminence
are not so strikingly characteristic of ent