[The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russell Wallace]@TWC D-Link book
The Malay Archipelago

CHAPTER XL
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I have lived with communities of savages in South America and in the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of the village freely expressed.

Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place.
In such a community, all are nearly equal.

There are cone of those wide distinctions, of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization; there is none of that wide-spread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, products also conflicting interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence, or for wealth, which the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates.

All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting, and petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his neighbour's right, which seems to be, in some degree, inherent in every race of man.
Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage state in intellectual achievements, we have not advanced equally in morals.

It is true that among those classes who have no wants that cannot be easily supplied, and among whom public opinion has great influence; the rights of others are fully respected.


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