These examples show how dangerous it is to reason from any particular cause,or even from many in a single group.I have in my eye an able and amiable pamphlet by the Rev.S.E.Bishop:'Why are the Hawaiians Dying Out?'Any one interested in the subject ought to read this tract,which contains real information;and yet Mr.Bishop's views would have been changed by an acquaintance with other groups.Samoa is,for the moment,the main and the most instructive exception to the rule.The people are the most chaste and one of the most temperate of island peoples.They have never been tried and depressed with any grave pestilence.Their clothing has scarce been tampered with;at the simple and becoming tabard of the girls,Tartuffe,in many another island,would have cried out;for the cool,healthy,and modest lava-lava or kilt,Tartuffe has managed in many another island to substitute stifling and inconvenient trousers.Lastly,and perhaps chiefly,so far from their amusements having been curtailed,I think they have been,upon the whole,extended.The Polynesian falls easily into despondency:bereavement,disappointment,the fear of novel visitations,the decay or proscription of ancient pleasures,easily incline him to be sad;and sadness detaches him from life.The melancholy of the Hawaiian and the emptiness of his new life are striking;and the remark is yet more apposite to the Marquesas.In Samoa,on the other hand,perpetual song and dance,perpetual games,journeys,and pleasures,make an animated and a smiling picture of the island life.And the Samoans are to-day the gayest and the best entertained inhabitants of our planet.The importance of this can scarcely be exaggerated.In a climate and upon a soil where a livelihood can be had for the stooping,entertainment is a prime necessity.It is otherwise with us,where life presents us with a daily problem,and there is a serious interest,and some of the heat of conflict,in the mere continuing to be.So,in certain atolls,where there is no great gaiety,but man must bestir himself with some vigour for his daily bread,public health and the population are maintained;but in the lotos islands,with the decay of pleasures,life itself decays.It is from this point of view that we may instance,among other causes of depression,the decay of war.We have been so long used in Europe to that dreary business of war on the great scale,trailing epidemics and leaving pestilential corpses in its train,that we have almost forgotten its original,the most healthful,if not the most humane,of all field sports -hedge-warfare.From this,as well as from the rest of his amusements and interests,the islander,upon a hundred islands,has been recently cut off.And to this,as well as to so many others,the Samoan still makes good a special title.
第15章 DEPOPULATION(3)（1 / 3）