ABSTRACT
The first abstract generalization made by Europeans in regard to the American aborigines was that the less civilized tribes had no government. * Europe was far enough from that condition to be struck with astonishment. The fact gave rise to the myth of the Noble Savage, which now seems like a gratuitous fabrication because it was translated into poetic and pictorial form. The Noble Savage was a syllogism, a logical construction from the premises of the European theory of government. Secular authority resided in society, which was an entity; and men were born in subjection to it. It was assumed that without government every man’s hand must be against his neighbor, and every kind of crime would be committed by everyone. Possibly the memory of the barbarian invasions entered into this conviction; while the doctrine of original sin, if taken by itself, could be construed to support it. And since plenty of crimes certainly were committed, it was arguable that more would be if individuals were allowed leeway. How or why a society composed of individuals eager to do murder should restrain its members by force may appear incomprehensible, especially when the church exercised an authority superior to that of the secular organization by appealing to the conscience of the individual, intervening in armed disputes with moral injunctions. But the discrepancy was accounted for by the divine mission entrusted to the church. The order of secular society made it necessary to tie men to a given locality and class, and 64therefore to prescribe what they must and must not do, say, write, or think. Both exile and “preventive arrest,” imprisonment without trial (as by lettre de cachet) are the ultimate extension of this theory.
