into an animal or bird head. When the mat maker had forced her needle and bark thread through the tule stocks or softer leaves, thus fastening them together side by side until she made

STONE MAT PRESS.

WOOD MAT PRESS.

a mat many feet long, she used the grooved under face of this tool to press the tule fibre flat and even with the rest of her work. I have one black slate and many wooden presses in my collection.

STONE IMAGES.

Many stone images are found along the Columbia river, and the Kunzie collection possesses some rare specimens. Many implements are ornamented by the natives of Puget Sound with animals and bird heads, and frequently the human features are carved in wood and whale bone, but stone images are rare. The State University has one large specimen from Sumas prairie, near the British Columbia line: it is a human figure, roughly outlined on a large stone, and very nearly resembles the figure of the small one from Neah Bay in my collection. The Sumas figure must be three feet or more in length, and weighs several hundred pounds.

In a collection of Neah Bay workmanship, brought down to illustrate the fishery industry among the Makah Indians at our Inter-State Fair, some years ago, was the stone image figured here. It is carved out of a soft sandstone, and seems to be the outline figure of a human being, with a flattened head and folded arms, in a squatting position. The image was given to me, and I learned its history, which may be of interest to those who see an object of worship in every image made by uncivilized man. It seems that the Indians of Cape Flattery visit the halibut banks off the Cape, as they have done from time immemorial, and that at least one man had "poor luck"; to secure better results he made this image, and upon reaching the fishing ground he lowered this "good-luck" stone near his hooks, and the inevitable result was a greater catch of

D

STONE IMAGE.

halibut. At his death this stone with his baskets and fishing

tackle was placed on his grave, from whence it came to the Inter-State Fair. The image is ten inches long and weighs five or six pounds.

If, now, it be conceded that the artizans of Puget Sound were deficient as stone workers, yet they must be given the highest praise as workers in wood. They felt little necessity. for stone tools or implements, and were possessed of more wealth and comforts than the tribes east of the mountains, who exhibited such skill as lapidaries.

Pestles and adze blades are quite numerously found, but all other stone implements are very rare on Puget Sound. All kinds of woodenware and basket work of the finest variety were common to every family. I know of but one stone axe, four stone images, and four stone war clubs found so far-they will always be rare, as compared with the Columbia river region.

THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF ETHICAL IDEAS.

BY C. W. SUPER.

In a former article I tried to show briefly that the development of ethical ideas is intimately connected with the experience of the race, especially the experience gained by living in a more of less organized society. In the present, it is proposed to examine certain terms that embody this experience, with a view to ascertaining what light they throw on the moral history of mankind.

All modern languages contain a considerable number of words that have been in use for ages with but little change of form, but of which the ethical significance differs widely from that which it originally had. Even in the case of a language whose history is so brief as that of the English, the unwary translator is in constant danger of reading into a modern word a meaning which its ancestor of a few generations ago did not embody. The danger is doubtless the greatest with the English words of Latin origin, where similarity of form suggests identity of content. Because such terms as virtus, conscientia, humanitas, honor, and many more are evidently the progenitors of virtue, conscience, humanity, and honor, why not translate the former series of words by the latter? Yet every person, who has studied Latin with any care, knows that the process is rarely so simple. Words that have a more or less abstract meaning are interpreted by their users in the light of their environment. How widely do persons differ as to the meaning of so common a word as "religion!" Again, if I were to ask the first score of individuals whom I might chance to meet to give me a definition of a "good man," I am sure I should find a considerable difference of opinion, though there might be some essential qualities in which they would all agree. If then the definition of a familiar expression at the same date in

the same community shows such a diversity of views, it follows as a matter of course that similar divergences in the same class would be found if we took different periods in the history of the same community or the same social group.

It seems certain that some peoples are incapable of raising themselves by their own unaided efforts above a certain level of progress, while others again seem unable to do so with the assistance of superior races. The attempt to elevate them has resulted in their extermination. We see the same thing in the case of individuals. Some will "get along" no matter how adverse the conditions under which they begin life; while others again come to a standstill as soon as the elevating and instructive forces are withdrawn. It is related of a certain chief on one of the islands of the Pacific, who had two wives, but who had been taught by a missionary that it was wrong for him to have more than one, that he came to his instructor one day to inform him that he had only one wife now. When asked what had become of the other, he replied that he had eaten her. The anecdote, whether true or not, illustrates the workings of the uncivilized mind. The ideas of right and wrong are so circumscribed that their whole content can not be comprehended at once. The same characteristics may be noted in children. They will yield to their avaricious instincts and take what does not belong to them. When charged with theft, they will lie to clear themselves, even when they are not under the fear of punishment. In like manner we find men whose comimercial integrity is beyond question indulging in breaches of the law against chastity or profanity. The idea of moral obligation is circumscribed, further, by the nearness of the person with whom it comes into relations. In the primitive state this idea of obligation does not extend beyond the family or clan. The Latin language, though far from being primitive, has the same word for stranger and enemy. By many persons it is not regarded as a crime to steal from a member of another tribe, or to kill or belie him, whose fidelity to a friend is unimpeachable. This feeling was very strong among the ancient Jews, and the early Apostles had great difficulty in persuading their brethren that the new religion recognized no difference of race, condition, or class.

The case was not different with the Greeks. They held that all men who were not of themselves were barbarians, however high their civilization might be in same respects. The word barbarian did not, it is true, originally convey the stigma now contained in it; nevertheless, it implies the notion of interiority, On the other hand some of the more thoughtful among the early Hebrews had arrived at the conviction that God is no respecter of persons; that who does right is acceptable to Him, no matter where born or wherce descended. But the doctrine gained ground very slowly. So, too, among the Greeks, Socrates taught that moral obligation and the laws of right conduct are of universal validity, yet few of his country

men accepted his teachings. In general, their recognition of obligations did not extend beyond the narrow limits of their own territory, or their real or imaginary kindred. We see the same moral myopia in the doctrine that faith need not be kept with heretics. Even now there are few persons who are ready to admit that, man for man, a foreigner is just as good as one of their own countrymen. To the majority outlandish is synonymous with barbarous. The same statement is true, or has been true until lately, of the attitude of the various religious denominations toward each other. Identity or similarity of creed has sometimes bridged the chasm that separated nationalities from each other, thongh it has often been powerless when stronger passions were excited. Jew has fought against Jew; Romanist against Romanist; Protestant against Protestant; nevertheless it is perhaps not doing violence to the etymology of the word religion to connect it with obligation, and to assume that originally it served as a bond among men that were separated by tribal lines.

It must be plain to every one that the experience of the race has constantly operated to enlarge the sphere of moral obligation. It has followed slowly, very slowly, indeed, the course pointed out by many of the moral philosophers ages ago. In this great work the state has been on the whole a potent agent. If we no longer hold that faith must be kept with friends, but need not be kept with heretics or foreigners or enemies, it is because the ever-widening sphere of states and their relations with each other have taught men by experience that "honesty is the best policy." The commercial integrity of the most advanced nations is the highest. What the most enlightened philosophers could not have taught men by argument, they have learned in the school of practical life. We not care to have dealings with men who can not be trusted; and if we are constrained thereto by the exigencies of circumstances we call upon the law, that is, crystalized public opinion, to aid us.

Most children have by nature the evil propensities of savages, but experience soon teaches them that it is often inexpedient to indulge these propensities because of the penalties which the law inflicts on convicted transgressors. It is neither prudent nor wise to act in contravention of usage. Neither can we conceive of man as living in isolation. He is not only a social, but a political animal. It is the political instinct that raises him far above gregarious brutes.

Albeit, while the state is a promoter of morality in a large way, there is a sphere within which it can not and does not attempt to regulate man's conduct. It may be able to make him pay a note, but it can not and does not try to make him keep a verbal promise. It punishes the slayer of a fellow man by direct means, when the crime has been dected and proven, but it attaches no penalty to murder by various indirect means, such as criminal neglect and the infliction of mental anguish.

The law is in truth a clumsy device, but until some method is discovered for laying bare the hearts and motives of men, there can be no better. The highest private morality is always in advance of the public standard. The intrinsically good man is always a law to himself. History furnishes many examples of men whose zeal for what they felt to be right carried them beyond the limits set by their fellows and brought upon them great sufferings.

The most general term for moral excellence is our word virtue. In modern English it is rarely applied to a material object, but in the older language its use was more general. Its ancestor, the Latin virtus, did not necessarily, or even generally, mean moral goodness, at least as we now understand it. In the second and third odes of the Second Book, Horace has clearly in mind two types of virtues, one of which has the modern signification, the other the ancient meaning, which may be translated courage or fortitude. The Greek correlate is åper In Homer this word has only a faintly discernible moral content. It has regard solely to what has value in the eyes of men in a comparatively low stage of civilization. Some of the commentators on certain passages of Thucydides are at a loss to understand why this author should use the term as applicable to such men as Peisistratus and Antiphon. But there is nothing surprising in this to the student who is careful not to read into ancient writers what they did not intend to put into their text. A man may be aper which is the attribute corresponding to dyados from the standpoint of his clique or party, and yet from a more general point of view be a bad man. This truth may be illustrated by the case of the Jesuits.

We have not yet ceased to make a distinction between personal and public virtue. In popular opinion a man may be patriotic, that is, devoted to the welfare of his country, and to this extent a good man; yet he may at the same time be profane or vulgar in speech, unchaste, careless of pecuniary obligations, and more things of the same sort. The German word Tugend corresponds to the Greek ȧpery. It is probably derived from taugen, to be efficient, and expresses the idea of ̧ Tuechtigkeit, closely connected with which is tuechtig, and the English word doughty. The course of its development is almost exactly paralled by that of virtue.

The poet says, "An honest man's the noblest work of God." Let us examine somewhat closely this word honest. It is directly derived from the Latin honestas, a word that rarely if ever means honest in the modern sense. Its close relation to honor is evident. But honor in Latin means a public office. It seems clear that a man was in remote times regarded as honestus when honored with a public office; with a position where the real of supposed interests of the clan or tribe could be most effectively served. This was the highest mark of esteem that could be conferred on a man. In Germany we find the corresponding term Ehre, from which is derived