has been adequately fulfilled, a problem which offers no difficulties among most forms of life, has been found hard to solve by Man. At some places and periods it has been considered most merciful to put them to death; at others they have been almost or quite deified and allowed to regulate the whole lives of their descendants. Thus in New Caledonia aged parents, it is said by Mrs. Hadfield, were formerly taken up to a high mountain and left with enough food to last a few days; there was at the same time great regard for the aged, as also among the Hottentots who asked: “Can you see a parent or a relative shaking and freezing under a cold, dreary, heavy, useless old age, and not think, in pity of them, of putting an end to their misery?” It was generally the opinion of the parents themselves, but in some countries the parents have dominated and overawed their children to the time of their natural death and even beyond, up to the point of ancestor worship, as in China, where no man of any age can act for himself in the chief matters of life during his parents’ life-time, and to some extent in ancient Rome, whence an influence in this direction which still exists in the laws and customs of France.[1] Both extremes have proved compatible with a beautifully human life. To steer midway between them seems to-day, how-
- ↑ The varying customs of different peoples in this matter are set forth by Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Ch. XXV.
