CHAPTER V.

APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE.

IT IS PRECEDED BY MARITIME DISCOVERY.

_Consideration of the definite Epochs of Social Life._

_Experimental Philosophy emerging in the Age of Faith._

_The Age of Reason ushered in by Maritime Discovery and the rise of

European Criticism._

MARITIME DISCOVERY.--_The three great Voyages._

COLUMBUS _discovers America_.--DE GAMA _doubles the Cape and reaches

India_.--MAGELLAN _circumnavigates the Earth.--The Material

andintellectual Results of each of these Voyages._

DIGRESSION ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF AMERICA.--_In isolated human

Societies the process of Thought and of Civilization is always the

same.--Man passes through a determinate succession of Ideas and embodies

them in determinate Institutions.--The state of Mexico and Peru proves

the influence of Law in the development of Man._

[Sidenote: Peculiarities of the Age of Reason.] I have arrived at the

last division of my work, the period in national life answering to

maturity in individual. The objects to be considered differ altogether

from those which have hitherto occupied our attention. We have now to

find human authority promoting intellectual advancement, and accepting

as its maxim that the lot of man will be ameliorated, and his power and

dignity increased, in proportion as he is able to comprehend the

mechanism of the world, the action of natural laws, and to apply

physical forces to his use.

[Sidenote: Natural periods merge into one another.] The date at which

this transition in European life was made will doubtless be differently

given according as the investigator changes his point of view. In truth,

there is not in national life any real epoch, because there is nothing

in reality abrupt. Events, however great or sudden, are consequences of

preparations long ago made. In this there is a perfect parity between

the course of national and that of individual life. In the individual,

one state merges by imperceptible degrees into another, each in its

beginning and end being altogether indistinct. No one can tell at what

moment he ceased to be a child and became a boy--at what moment he

ceased to be a youth and became a man. Each condition, examined at a

suitable interval, exhibits characteristics perfectly distinctive, but,

at their common point of contact, the two so overlap and blend that,

like the intermingling of shadow and light, the beginning of one and end

of the other may be very variously estimated.

[Sidenote: Artificial epochs.] In individual life, since no precise

natural epoch exists, society has found it expedient to establish an

artificial one, as, for example, the twenty-first year. The exigencies

of history may be satisfied by similar fictions. A classical critic

would probably be justified in selecting for his purpose the foundation

of Constantinople as the epoch of the commencement of the Age of Faith,

and its capture by the Turks as the close. It must be admitted that a

very large number of historical events stand in harmony with that

arrangement. [Sidenote: Origin and end of the Age of Faith.] A political

writer would perhaps be disposed to postpone the date of the latter

epoch to that of the treaty of Westphalia, for from that time

theological elements ceased to have a recognized force, Protestant,

Catholic, Mohammedan, consorting promiscuously together in alliance or

at war, according as temporary necessities might indicate. Besides these

other artificial epochs might be assigned, each doubtless having

advantages to recommend it to notice. But, after all, the chief

peculiarity is obvious enough. It is the gradual decline of a system

that had been in activity for many ages, and its gradual replacement by

another.

[Sidenote: Prelude to the Age of Reason.] As with the Age of Reason in

Greece, so with the Age of Reason in Europe, there is a prelude marked

by the gradual emergence of a sound philosophy; a true logic displaces

the supernatural; experiment supersedes speculation. It is very

interesting to trace the feeble beginnings of modern science in alchemy

and natural magic in countries where no one could understand the

writings of Alhazen or the Arabian philosophers. Out of many names of

those who took part in this movement that might be mentioned there are

some that deserve recollection.

[Sidenote: Albertus Magnus, the Dominican.] Albertus Magnus was born

A.D. 1193. It was said of him that "he was great in magic, greater in

philosophy, greatest in theology." By religious profession he was a

Dominican. Declining the temptations of ecclesiastical preferment, he

voluntarily resigned his bishopric, that he might lead in privacy a

purer life. As was not uncommon in those days, he was accused of illicit

commerce with Satan, and many idle stories were told of the miracles he

wrought. At a great banquet on a winter's day, he produced all the

beauties of spring--trees in full foliage, flowers in perfume, meadows

covered with grass; but, at a word, the phantom pageant was dissolved,

and succeeded by appropriate wastes of snow. This was an exaggeration of

an entertainment he gave, January 6th, 1259, in the hot-house of the

convent garden. He interested himself in the functions of plants, was

well acquainted with what is called the sleep of flowers, studied their

opening and closing. He understood that the sap is diminished in volume

by evaporation from the leaves. He was the first to use the word

"affinity" in its modern acceptation. His chemical studies present us

with some interesting details. He knew that the whitening of copper by

arsenic is not a transmutation, but only the production of an alloy,

since the arsenic can be expelled by heat. He speaks of potash as an

alkali; describes several acetates; and alludes to the blackening of the

skin with nitrate of silver.

[Sidenote: Roger Bacon, discoveries of.] Contemporary with him was Roger

Bacon, born A.D. 1214. His native country has never yet done him

justice, though his contemporaries truly spoke of him as "the Admirable

Doctor." The great friar of the thirteenth century has been eclipsed by

an unworthy namesake. His claims on posterity are enforced by his

sufferings and ten years' imprisonment for the cause of truth.

His history, so far as is known, may be briefly told. He was born at

Ilchester, in Somersetshire, and studied at the University of Oxford.

Thence he went to the University of Paris, where he took the degree of

doctor of theology. He was familiar with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and

Arabic. Of mathematics he truly says that "it is the first of all the

sciences; indeed, it precedes all others, and disposes us to them." In

advance of his age, he denied the authority of Aristotle, and tells us

that we must substitute that of experiment for it. Of his astronomical

acquirements we need no better proof than his recommendation to Pope

Clement IV. to rectify the Calendar in the manner actually done

subsequently. If to him be rightly attributed the invention of

spectacles, the human race is his debtor. He described the true theory

of telescopes and microscopes, saying that lenses may be ground and

arranged in such a way as to render it possible to read the smallest

letters at incredible distances, and to count grains of sand and dust,

because of the magnitude of the angle under which we may perceive such

objects. He foresaw the greatest of all inventions in practical

astronomy--the application of optical means to instruments for the

measurement of angles. He proposed the propulsion of ships through the

water and of carriages upon roads by merely mechanical means. He

speculated upon the possibility of making a flying-machine. Admitting

the truth of alchemy, he advised the experimenter to find out the method

by which Nature makes metals and then to imitate it. He knew that there

are different kinds of air, and tells us that there is one which will

extinguish flame. These are very clear views for an age which mistook

the gases for leather-eared ghosts. He warned us to be cautious how we

conclude that we have accomplished the transmutation of metals, quaintly

observing that the distance between whitened copper and pure silver is

very great. He showed that air is necessary for the support of fire, and

was the author of the well-known experiment illustrating that fact by

putting a lighted lamp under a bell-jar and observing its extinction.

[Sidenote: Is persecuted and imprisoned.] There is no little

significance in the expression of Friar Bacon that the ignorant mind

cannot sustain the truth. He was accused of magical practices and of a

commerce with Satan, though, during the life of Clement IV., who was his

friend, he escaped without public penalties. This pope had written to

him a request that he would furnish him an account of his various

inventions. In compliance therewith, Bacon sent him the "Opus Majus" and

other works, together with several mathematical instruments which he had

made with his own hands. But, under the pontificate of Nicolas III., the

accusation of magic, astrology, and selling himself to the Devil was

again pressed, one point being that he had proposed to construct

astronomical tables for the purpose of predicting future events.

Apprehending the worst, he tried to defend himself by his work "De

Nullitate Magiae." "Because these things are beyond your comprehension,

you call them the works of the Devil; your theologians and canonists

abhor them as the productions of magic, regarding them as unworthy of a

Christian." But it was in vain. His writings were condemned as

containing dangerous and suspected novelties, and he was committed to

prison. There he remained for ten years, until, broken in health, he was

released from punishment by the intercession of some powerful and

commiserating personages. He died at the age of seventy-eight. On his

death-bed he uttered the melancholy complaint, "I repent now that I have

given myself so much trouble for the love of science." If there be found

in his works sentiments that are more agreeable to the age in which he

lived than to ours, let us recollect what he says in his third letter to

Pope Clement: "It is on account of the ignorance of those with whom I

have had to deal that I have not been able to accomplish more."

[Sidenote: Minor alchemists of England, France, and Germany.] A number

of less conspicuous though not unknown names succeed to Bacon. There is

Raymond Lully, who was said to have been shut up in the Tower of London

and compelled to make gold for Edward II.; Guidon de Montanor, the

inventor of the philosopher's balm; Clopinel, the author of the "Romance

of the Rose;" Richard the Englishman, who makes the sensible remark that

he who does not join theory to practice is like an ass eating hay and

not reflecting on what he is doing; Master Ortholan, who describes very

prettily the making of nitric acid, and approaches to the preparation of

absolute alcohol under the title of the quintessence of wine; Bernard de

Treves, who obtained much reputation for the love-philters he prepared

for Charles V. of France, their efficacy having been ascertained by

experiments made on servant-girls; Bartholomew, the Englishman who first

described the method of crystallizing and purifying sugar; Eck de

Sulzbach, who teaches how metallic crystallizations, such as the tree of

Diana, a beautiful silvery vegetation, may be produced. He proved

experimentally that metals, when they oxidize, increase in weight; and

says that in the month of November, A.D. 1489, he found that six pounds

of an amalgam of silver heated for eight days augmented in weight three

pounds. The number is, of course, erroneous, but his explanation is very

surprising. "This augmentation of weight comes from this, that a spirit

is united with the metal; and what proves it is that this artificial

cinnabar, submitted to distillation, disengages that spirit." He was

within a hair's-breadth of anticipating Priestley and Lavoisier by three

hundred years.

[Sidenote: Augurelli, the poetical alchemist.] The alchemists of the

sixteenth century not only occupied themselves with experiment; some of

them, as Augurelli, aspired to poetry. He undertook to describe in Latin

verses the art of making gold. His book, entitled "Chrysopoeia," was

dedicated to Leo X., a fact which shows the existence of a greater

public liberality of sentiment than heretofore. It is said that the

author expected the Holy Father to make him a handsome recompense, but

the good-natured pope merely sent him a large empty sack, saying that he

who knew how to make gold so admirably only needed a purse to put it in.

[Sidenote: Basil Valentine introduces antimony.] The celebrated work of

Basil Valentine, entitled "Currus triumphalis Antimonii," introduced the

metal antimony into the practice of medicine. The attention of this

author was first directed to the therapeutical relations of the metal by

observing that some swine, to which a portion of it had been given, grew

fat with surprising rapidity. There were certain monks in his vicinity

who, during the season of Lent, had reduced themselves to the last

degree of attenuation by fasting and other mortifications of the flesh.

On these Basil was induced to try the powers of the metal. To his

surprise, instead of recovering their flesh and fatness, they were all

killed; hence the name popularly given to the metal, antimoine, because

it does not agree with the constitution of a monk. Up to this time it

had passed under the name of stibium. With a result not very different

was the application of antimony in the composition of printer's

type-metal. Administered internally or thus mechanically used, this

metal proved equally noxious to ecclesiastics.

[Sidenote: The new epoch.] It is scarcely necessary to continue the

relation of these scientific trifles. Enough has been said to illustrate

the quickly-spreading taste for experimental inquiry. I now hasten to

the description of more important things.

[Sidenote: Difficulty of treating it scientifically.] In the limited

space of this book I must treat these subjects, not as they should be

dealt with philosophically, but in the manner that circumstances permit.

Even with this imperfection, their description spontaneously assumes an

almost dramatic form, the facts offering themselves to all reflecting

men with an air of surpassing dignity. On one hand it is connected with

topics the most sublime, on the other it descends to incidents the most

familiar and useful; on one hand it elevates our minds to the relations

of suns and myriads of worlds, on the other it falls to the every-day

acts of our domestic and individual life; on one hand it turns our

thoughts to a vista of ages so infinite that the vanishing point is in

eternity, on the other it magnifies into importance the transitory

occupation of a passing hour. Knowing how great are the requirements for

the right treatment of such topics, I might shrink from this portion of

my book with a conviction of incapacity. I enter upon it with

hesitation, trusting rather to the considerate indulgence of the reader

than to any worthiness in the execution of the work.

In the history of the philosophical life of Greece, we have seen

(Chapter II.) how important were the influences of maritime discovery

and the rise of criticism. Conjointly they closed the Greek Age of

Faith. In the life of Europe, at the point we have now reached, they

came into action again. [Sidenote: Approach of the Age of Reason.] As on

this occasion the circumstances connected with them are numerous and

important, I shall consider them separately in this and the following

chapter. And, first, of maritime enterprise, which was the harbinger of

the Age of Reason in Europe. It gave rise to three great voyages--the

discovery of America, the doubling of the Cape, and the circumnavigation

of the earth.

[Sidenote: State of Mediterranean trade.] At the time of which we are

speaking, the commerce of the Mediterranean was chiefly in two

directions. The ports of the Black Sea furnished suitable depots for

produce brought down the Tanais and other rivers, and for a large

portion of the India trade that had come across the Caspian. The seat of

this commerce was Genoa.

The other direction was the south-east. The shortest course to India was

along the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, but the Red and Arabian seas

offered a cheaper and safer route. In the ports of Syria and Egypt were

therefore found the larger part of the commodities of India. This trade

centred in Venice. A vast development had been given to it through the

Crusades, the Venetians probably finding in the transport service of the

Holy Wars as great a source of profit as in the India trade.

[Sidenote: Rivalry of Genoa and Venice.] Toward the latter part of the

fourteenth century it became apparent that the commercial rivalry

between Venice and Genoa would terminate to the disadvantage of the

latter. The irruption of the Tartars and invasion of the Turks had

completely dislocated her Asiatic lines of trade. In the wars between

the two republics Genoa had suffered severely. Partly for this reason,

and partly through the advantageous treaties that Venice had made with

the sultans, giving her the privilege of consulates at Alexandria and

Damascus, this republic had at last attained a supremacy over all

competitors. The Genoese establishments on the Black Sea had become

worthless.

[Sidenote: Attempt to reach India by the west.] With ruin before them,

and unwilling to yield their Eastern connexions, the merchants of Genoa

had tried to retrieve their affairs by war; her practical sailors saw

that she might be re-established in another way. There were among them

some who were well acquainted with the globular form of the earth, and

with what had been done by the Mohammedan astronomers for determining

its circumference by the measurement of a degree on the shore of the Red

Sea. These men originated the attempt to reach India by sailing to the

west.

[Sidenote: Opposition to this scheme.] By two parties--the merchants and

the clergy--their suggestions were received with little favour. The

former gave no encouragement, perhaps because such schemes were unsuited

to their existing arrangements; the latter disliked them because of

their suspected irreligious nature. The globular form had been condemned

by such fathers as Lactantius and Augustine. In the Patristic Geography

the earth is a flat surface bordered by the waters of the sea, on the

yielding support of which rests the crystalline dome of the sky. These

doctrines were for the most part supported by passages from the Holy

Scriptures, perversely wrested from their proper meaning. Thus Cosmas

Indicopleustes, whose Patristic Geography had been an authority for

nearly eight hundred years, triumphantly disposed of the sphericity of

the earth by demanding of its advocates how in the day of judgment, men

on the other side of a globe could see the Lord descending through the

air!

Among the Genoese sailors seeking the welfare of their city was one

destined for immortality--Christopher Columbus.

[Sidenote: Columbus, early life of.] His father was a wool-comber, yet

not a man of the common sort. He procured for his son a knowledge of

arithmetic, drawing, painting; and Columbus is said to have written a

singularly beautiful hand. For a short time he was at the University of

Pavia, but he went to sea when he was only fourteen. After being engaged

in the Syrian trade for many years, he had made several voyages to

Guinea, occupying his time when not at sea in the construction of charts

for sale, thereby supporting not only himself, but also his aged father,

and finding means for the education of his brothers. Under these

circumstances he had obtained a competent knowledge of geography, and,

though the state of public opinion at the time did not permit such

doctrines to be openly avowed, he believed that the sea is everywhere

navigable, that the earth is round and not flat, that there are

antipodes, that the torrid zone is habitable, and that there is a

proportionate distribution of land in the northern and southern

hemispheres. [Sidenote: His argument for lands to the west.] Adopting

the Patristic logic when it suited his purpose, he reasoned that since

the earth is made for man, it is not likely that its surface is too

largely covered with water, and that, if there are lands, they must be

inhabited, since the command was renewed at the Flood that man should

replenish the earth. He asked, "Is it likely that the sun shines upon

nothing, and that the nightly watches of the stars are wasted on

trackless seas and desert lands?" But to this reasoning he added facts

that were more substantial. One Martin Vincent, who had sailed many

miles to the west of the Azores, related to him that he had found,

floating on the sea, a piece of timber evidently carved without iron.

Another sailor, Pedro Correa, his brother-in-law, had met with enormous

canes. On the coast of Flores the sea had cast up two dead men with

large faces, of a strange aspect. Columbus appears to have formed his

theory that the East Indies could be reached by sailing to the west

about A.D. 1474. He was at that time in correspondence with Toscanelli,

the Florentine astronomer, who held the same doctrine, and who sent him

a map or chart constructed on the travels of Marco Polo. He offered his

services first to his native city, then to Portugal, then to Spain, and,

through his brother, to England; his chief inducement in each instance

being that the riches of India might be thus secured. In Lisbon he had

married. While he lay sick near Belem an unknown voice whispered to him

in a dream, "God will cause thy name to be wonderfully resounded through

the earth, and will give thee the keys of the gates of the ocean, which

are closed with strong chains!" The death of his wife appears to have

broken the last link which held him to Portugal, where he had been since

1470. One evening, in the autumn of 1485, a man of majestic presence,

pale, care-worn, and, though in the meridian of life, with silver hair,

leading a little boy by the hand, asked alms at the gate of the

Franciscan convent near Palos--not for himself, but only a little bread

and water for his child. This was that Columbus destined to give to

Europe a new world.

[Sidenote: Is confuted by the Council of Salamanca.] In extreme poverty,

he was making his way to the Spanish court. After many wearisome delays

his suit was referred to a council at Salamanca, before which, however,

his doctrines were confuted from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the

Prophecies, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the writings of the

fathers--St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St.

Basil, St. Ambrose. Moreover, they were demonstrably inconsistent with

reason; since, if even he should depart from Spain, "the rotundity of

the earth would present a kind of mountain up which it was impossible

for him to sail, even with the fairest wind;" and so he could never get

back. The Grand Cardinal of Spain had also indicated their irreligious

nature, and Columbus began to fear that, instead of receiving aid as a

discoverer, he should fall into trouble as a heretic. [Sidenote: Queen

Isabella adopts his views.] However, after many years of mortification

and procrastination, he at length prevailed with Queen Isabella; and on

April 17, 1492, in the field before Granada, then just wrenched from the

Mohammedans by the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella, he received his

commission. With a nobleness of purpose, he desired no reward unless he

should succeed; but, in that case, stipulated that he should have the

title of Admiral and Viceroy, and that his perquisite should be one

tenth of all he should discover--conditions which show what manner of

man this great sailor was. [Sidenote: The expedition prepared.] He had

bound himself to contribute one-eighth to the expenses of the

expedition: this he accomplished through the Pinzons of Palos, an old

and wealthy seafaring family. These arrangements once ratified, he lost

not a moment in completing the preparations for his expedition. The

royal authority enabled him to take--forcibly, if necessary--both ships

and men. But even with that advantage he would hardly have succeeded if

the Pinzons had not joined heartily with him, personally sharing in the

dangers of the voyage.

[Sidenote: The voyage across the Atlantic.] The sun, by journeying to

the west, rises on India at last. On Friday, August 3, 1492, the weary

struggles and heart-sickness of eighteen years of supplication were

over, and, as the day was breaking, Columbus sailed with three little

ships from Palos, carrying with him charts constructed on the basis of

that which Toscanelli had formerly sent, and also a letter to the Grand

Khan of Tartary. On the 9th he saw the Canaries, being detained among

them three weeks by the provisioning and repairing of his ships. He left

them on September 6th, escaping the pursuit of some caravels sent out by

the Portuguese government to intercept him. He now steered due west.

Nothing of interest occurred until nightfall on September 13th, when he

remarked with surprise that the needle, which the day before had pointed

due north, was varying half a point to the west, the effect becoming

more and more marked as the expedition advanced. He was now beyond the

track of any former navigator, and with no sure guide but the stars; the

heaven was everywhere, and everywhere the sea. On Sunday, 16th, he

encountered many floating weeds, and picked up what was mistaken for a

live grasshopper. For some days the weeds increased in quantity, and

retarded the sailing of the ships. On the 19th two pelicans flew on

board. Thus far he had had an easterly wind; but on September 20th it

changed to south-west, and many little birds, "such as those that sing

in orchards," were seen. His men now became mutinous, and reproached the

king and queen for trusting to "this bold Italian, who wanted to make a

great lord of himself at the price of their lives."

On September 25th Pinzon reported to him that he thought he saw land;

but it proved to be only clouds. With great difficulty he kept down his

mutinous crew. On October 2nd he observed the seaweeds drifting from

east to west. Pinzon, in the Pinta, having seen a flight of parrots

going to the south-west, the course was altered on October 7th, and he

steered after them west-south-west; he had hitherto been on the parallel

26 deg. N. On the evening of October 11th the signs of land had become so

unmistakable that, after vesper hymn to the Virgin, he made an address

of congratulation to his crew, and commended watchfulness to them.

[Sidenote: Discovery of America.] His course was now due west. A little

before midnight, Columbus, on the fore-castle of his ship, saw a moving

light at a distance; and two hours after a signal-gun was fired from the

Pinta. A sailor, Rodrigo de Triana, had descried land. The ships were

laid to. As soon as day dawned they made it out to be a verdant island.

There were naked Indians upon the beach watching their movements. At

sunrise, October 12, 1492, the boats were manned and armed, and Columbus

was the first European to set foot on the new world.

[Sidenote: Events of the voyage.] The chief events of the voyage of

Columbus were, 1st. The discovery of the line of no magnetic variation,

which, as we shall see, eventually led to the circumnavigation of the

earth. 2nd. The navigability of the sea to the remote west, the weeds

not offering any insuperable obstruction. When the ships left Palos it

was universally believed that the final border or verge of the earth is

where the western sky rests upon the sea, and the air and clouds, fogs

and water, are commingled. Indeed, that boundary could not actually be

attained; for, long before it was possible to reach it, the sea was

laden with inextricable weeds, through which a ship could not pass. This

legend was perhaps derived from the stories of adventurous sailors, who

had been driven by stress of weather towards the Sargasso Sea, and seen

an island of weeds many hundreds of square miles in extent--green

meadows floating in the ocean. 3rd. As to the new continent, Columbus

never knew the nature of his own discovery. He died in the belief that

it was actually some part of Asia, and Americus Vespucius entertained

the same misconception. Their immediate successors supposed that Mexico

was the Quinsay, in China, of Marco Polo. For this reason I do not think

that the severe remark that the "name of America is a monument of human

injustice" is altogether merited. Had the true state of things been

known, doubtless the event would have been different. The name of

America first occurs in an edition of Ptolemy's Geography, on a map by

Hylacomylus.

[Sidenote: End of Patristic Geography.] Two other incidents of no little

interest followed this successful voyage: the first was the destruction

of Patristic Geography; the second the consequence of the flight of

Pinzon's parrots. Though, as we now know, the conclusion that India had

been reached was not warranted by the facts, it was on all sides

admitted that the old doctrine was overthrown, and that the admiral had

reached Asia by sailing to the west. This necessarily implied the

globular form of the earth. As to the second, never was an augury more

momentous than that flight of parrots. It has been well said that this

event determined the distribution of Latin and German Christianity in

the New World.

[Sidenote: Previous Scandinavian discovery.] The discovery of America by

Leif, the son of Eric the Red, A.D. 1000, cannot diminish the claims of

Columbus. The wandering Scandinavians had reached the shores of America

first in the vicinity of Nantucket, and had given the name of Vinland to

the region extending from beyond Boston to the south of New York. But

the memory of these voyages seems totally to have passed away, or the

lands were confounded with Greenland, to which Nicolas V. had appointed

a bishop A.D. 1448. Had these traditions been known to or respected by

Columbus, he would undoubtedly have steered his ships more to the north.

[Sidenote: The papal grant to Spain.] Immediately on the return of

Columbus, March 15, 1493, the King and Queen of Spain despatched an

ambassador to Pope Alexander VI. for the purpose of insuring their

rights to the new territories, on the same principle that Martin V. had

already given to the King of Portugal possession of all lands he might

discover between Cape Bojador and the East Indies, with plenary

indulgence for the souls of those who perished in the conquest. The

pontifical action was essentially based on the principle that pagans and

infidels have no lawful property in their lands and goods, but that the

children of God may rightfully take them away. The bull that was issued

bears date May, 1493. Its principle is, that all countries under the sun

are subject of right to papal disposal. It gives to Spain, in the

fulness of apostolic power, all lands west and south of a line drawn

from the Arctic to the Antarctic pole, one hundred leagues west of the

Azores. The donation includes, by the authority of Almighty God,

whatever there is toward India, but saves the existing rights of any

Christian princes. It forbids, under pain of excommunication, any one

trading in that direction, threatening the indignation of Almighty God

and his holy apostles Peter and Paul. It directs the barbarous nations

to be subdued, and no pains to be spared for reducing the Indians to

Christianity.

[Sidenote: The magnetic line of no variation.] This suggestion of the

line of no magnetic variation was due to Columbus, who fell into the

error of supposing it to be immovable. The infallibility of the pontiff

not extending to matters of science, he committed the same mistake. In a

few years it was discovered that the line of no variation was slowly

moving to the east. It coincided with the meridian of London in 1662.

[Sidenote: Patristic ethnical ideas.] The obstacles that Patristic

Geography had thrown in the way of maritime adventure were thus finally

removed, but Patristic Ethnology led to a fearful tragedy. With a

critical innocence that seems to have overlooked physical

impossibilities and social difficulties, it had been the practice to

refer the peopling of nations to legendary heroes or to the patriarchs

of Scripture. The French were descended from Francus, the son of Hector;

the Britons from Brutus, the son of Aeneas; the genealogy of the Saxon

kings could be given up to Adam; but it may excite our mirthful surprise

that the conscientious Spanish chronicles could rise no higher than to

Tubal, the grandson of Noah. The divisions of the Old World, Asia,

Africa, and Europe, were assigned to the three sons of Noah--Shem, Ham,

and Japheth; and the parentage of those continents was given to those

patriarchs respectively. In this manner all mankind were brought into a

family relationship, all equally the descendants of Adam, equally

participators in his sin and fall. As long as it was supposed that the

lands of Columbus were a part of Asia there was no difficulty; but when

the true position and relations of the American continent were

discovered, that it was separated from Asia by a waste of waters of many

thousand miles, how did the matter stand with the new-comers thus

suddenly obtruded on the scene? [Sidenote: Denial that the Indians are

men.] The voice of the fathers was altogether against the possibility of

their Adamic descent. St. Augustine had denied the globular form and the

existence of Antipodes; for it was impossible that there should be

people on what was thus vainly asserted to be the other side of the

earth, since none such are mentioned in the Scriptures. The lust for

gold was only too ready to find its justification in the obvious

conclusion; and the Spaniards, with appalling atrocity, proceeded to act

toward these unfortunates as though they did not belong to the human

race. Already their lands and goods had been taken from them by

apostolic authority. [Sidenote: The American tragedy.] Their persons

were next seized, under the text that the heathen are given as an

inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. It

was one unspeakable outrage, one unutterable ruin, with out

discrimination of age or sex. Those who died not under the lash in a

tropical sun died in the darkness of the mine. From sequestered

sand-banks, where the red flamingo fishes in the grey of the morning;

from fever-stricken mangrove thickets, and the gloom of impenetrable

forests; from hiding-places in the clefts of rocks, and the solitude of

invisible caves; from the eternal snows of the Andes, where there was no

witness but the all-seeing Sun, there went up to God a cry of human

despair. By millions upon millions, whole races and nations were

remorselessly cut off. The Bishop of Chiapa affirms that more than

fifteen millions were exterminated in his time! [Sidenote: The crime of

Spain.] From Mexico and Peru a civilization that might have instructed

Europe was crushed out. Is it for nothing that Spain has been made a

hideous skeleton among living nations, a warning spectacle to the world?

Had not her punishment overtaken her, men would have surely said, "There

is no retribution, there is no God!" It has been her evil destiny to

ruin two civilizations, Oriental and Occidental, and to be ruined

thereby herself. With circumstances of dreadful barbarity she expelled

the Moors, who had become children of her soil by as long a residence as

the Normans have had in England from William the Conqueror to our time.

In America she destroyed races more civilized than herself. Expulsion

and emigration have deprived her of her best blood, her great cities

have sunk into insignificance, and towns that once had more than a

million of inhabitants can now only show a few scanty thousands.

The discovery of America agitated Europe to its deepest foundations. All

classes of men were affected. The populace at once went wild with a lust

of gold and a love of adventure. Well might Pomponius Laetus, under

process for his philosophical opinions in Rome, shed tears of joy when

tidings of the great event reached him; well might Leo X., a few years

later, sit up till far in the night reading to his sister and his

cardinals the "Oceanica" of Anghiera.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Vasco de Gama. African coasting voyages.]

If Columbus failed in his attempt to reach India by sailing to the west,

Vasco de Gama succeeded by sailing to the south. He doubled the Cape of

Good Hope, and retraced the track of the ships of Pharaoh Necho, which

had accomplished the same undertaking two thousand years previously. The

Portuguese had been for long engaged in an examination of the coast of

Africa under the bull of Martin V., which recognised the possibility of

reaching India by passing round that continent. It is an amusing

instance of making scientific discoveries by contract, that King

Alphonso made a bargain with Ferdinand Gomez, of Lisbon, for the

exploration of the African coast, the stipulation being that he should

discover not less than three hundred miles every year, and that the

starting-point should be Sierra Leone.

[Sidenote: Papal confines of Spain and Portugal.] We have seen that a

belief in the immobility of the line of no magnetic variation had led

Pope Alexander VI. to establish a perpetual boundary between the Spanish

and Portuguese possessions and fields of adventure. That line he

considered to be the natural boundary between the eastern and western

hemispheres. An accurate determination of longitude was therefore a

national as well as a nautical question. Columbus had relied on

astronomical methods; Gilbert at a subsequent period proposed to

determine it by magnetical observations. The variation itself could not

be accounted for on the doctrine vulgarly received, that magnetism is an

effluvium issuing forth from the root of the tail of the Little Bear,

but was scientifically, though erroneously, explained by Gilbert's

hypothesis that earthy substance is attractive--that a needle

approaching a continent will incline toward it; and hence that in the

midst of the Atlantic, being equally disturbed by Europe and America, it

will point evenly between both.

[Sidenote: News that Africa might be doubled.] Pedro de Covilho had sent

word to King John II., from Cairo, by two Jews, Rabbi Abraham and Rabbi

Joseph, that there was a south cape of Africa which could be doubled.

They brought with them an Arabic map of the African coast. This was

about the time that Bartholomew Diaz had reached the Cape in two little

pinnaces of fifty tons apiece. He sailed August, 1486, and returned

December, 1487, with an account of his discovery. Covilho had learned

from the Arabian mariners, who were perfectly familiar with the east

coast, that they had frequently been at the south of Africa, and that

there was no difficulty in passing round the continent that way.

[Sidenote: De Gama's successful voyage. He reaches India.] A voyage to

the south is even more full of portents than one to the west. The

accustomed heavens seem to sink away, and new stars are nightly

approached. Vasco de Gama set sail July 9, 1497, with three ships and

160 men, having with him the Arab map. King John had employed his Jewish

physicians, Roderigo and Joseph, to devise what help they could from the

stars. They applied the astrolabe to marine use, and constructed tables.

These were the same doctors who had told him that Columbus would

certainly succeed in reaching India, and advised him to send out a

secret expedition in anticipation, which was actually done, though it

failed through want of resolution in its captain. Encountering the usual

difficulties, tempestuous weather, and a mutinous crew, who conspired to

put him to death, De Gama succeeded, November 20, in doubling the Cape.

On March 1st he met seven small Arab vessels, and was surprised to find

that they used the compass, quadrants, sea-charts, and "had divers

maritime mysteries not short of the Portugals." With joy he soon after

recovered sight of the northern stars, so long unseen. He now bore away

to the north-east, and on May 19, 1498, reached Calicut, on the Malabar

coast.

[Sidenote: A commercial revolution the result.] The consequences of this

voyage were to the last degree important. The commercial arrangements of

Europe were completely dislocated; Venice was deprived of her mercantile

supremacy; the hatred of Genoa was gratified; prosperity left the

Italian towns; Egypt, hitherto supposed to possess a pre-eminent

advantage as offering the best avenue to India, suddenly lost her

position; the commercial monopolies so long in the hands of the European

Jews were broken down. The discovery of America and passage of the Cape

were the first steps of that prodigious maritime development soon

exhibited by Western Europe. And since commercial prosperity is

forthwith followed by the production of men and concentration of wealth,

and moreover implies an energetic intellectual condition, it appeared

before long that the three centres of population, of wealth, of

intellect were shifting westwardly. The front of Europe was suddenly

changed; the British islands, hitherto in a sequestered and eccentric

position, were all at once put in the van of the new movement.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Ferdinand Magellan enters the Spanish service.] Commercial

rivalry had thus passed from Venice and Genoa to Spain and Portugal. The

circumnavigation of the earth originated in a dispute between these

kingdoms respecting the Molucca Islands, from which nutmegs, cloves, and

mace were obtained. Ferdinand Magellan had been in the service of the

King of Portugal; but an application he had made for an increase of half

a ducat a month in his stipend having been refused, he passed into the

service of the King of Spain along with one Ruy Falero, a friend of his,

who, among the vulgar, bore the reputation of a conjurer or magician,

but who really possessed considerable astronomical attainments, devoting

himself to the discovery of improved means for finding the place of a

ship at sea. Magellan persuaded the Spanish government that the Spice

Islands could be reached by sailing to the west, the Portuguese having

previously reached them by sailing to the east, and, if this were

accomplished, Spain would have as good a title to them, under the bull

of Alexander VI., as Portugal. [Sidenote: His great voyage commenced.]

Five ships, carrying 237 men, were accordingly equipped, and on August

10, 1519, Magellan sailed from Seville. The Trinitie was the admiral's

ship, but the San Vittoria was destined for immortality. He struck

boldly for the south-west, not crossing the trough of the Atlantic as

Columbus had done, but passing down the length of it, his aim being to

find some cleft or passage in the American Continent through which he

might sail into the Great South Sea. For seventy days he was becalmed

under the line. He then lost sight of the north star, but courageously

held on toward the "pole antartike." He nearly foundered in a storm,

"which did not abate till the three fires called St. Helen, St.

Nicholas, and St. Clare appeared playing in the rigging of the ships."

In a new land, to which he gave the name of Patagoni, he found giants

"of good corporature" clad in skins; one of them, a very pleasant and

tractable giant, was terrified at his own visage in a looking-glass.

[Sidenote: He penetrates the American continent.] Among the sailors,

alarmed at the distance they had come, mutiny broke out, requiring the

most unflinching resolution in the commander for its suppression. In

spite of his watchfulness, one ship deserted him and stole back to

Spain. His perseverance and resolution were at last rewarded by the

discovery of the strait named by him San Vittoria, in affectionate

honour of his ship, but which, with a worthy sentiment, other sailors

soon changed to "the Strait of Magellan." [Sidenote: Reaches the Pacific

Ocean.] On November 28, 1520, after a year and a quarter of struggling,

he issued forth from its western portals and entered the Great South

Sea, shedding tears of joy, as Pigafetti, an eye-witness, relates, when

he recognized its infinite expanse--tears of stern joy that it had

pleased God to bring him at length where he might grapple with its

unknown dangers. Admiring its illimitable but placid surface, and

exulting in the meditation of its secret perils soon to be tried, he

courteously imposed on it the name it is for ever to bear, "the Pacific

Ocean." While baffling for an entry into it, he observed with surprise

that in the month of October the nights are only four hours long, and

"considered, in this his navigation, that the pole antartike hath no

notable star like the pole artike, but that there be two clouds of

little stars somewhat dark in the middest, also a cross of fine clear

stars, but that here the needle becomes so sluggish that it needs must

be moved with a bit of loadstone before it will rightly point."

[Sidenote: The Pacific Ocean crossed.] And now the great sailor, having

burst through the barrier of the American continent, steered for the

north-west, attempting to regain the equator. For three months and

twenty days he sailed on the Pacific, and never saw inhabited land. He

was compelled by famine to strip off the pieces of skin and leather

wherewith his rigging was here and there bound, to soak them in the sea

and then soften them with warm water, so as to make a wretched food; to

eat the sweepings of the ship and other loathsome matter; to drink water

that had become putrid by keeping; and yet he resolutely held on his

course, though his men were dying daily. As is quaintly observed, "their

gums grew over their teeth, and so they could not eat." He estimated

that he sailed over this unfathomable sea not less than 12,000 miles.

In the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that

exceeds, if indeed there is anything that equals, this voyage of

Magellan's. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a

display of superhuman courage, superhuman perseverance--a display of

resolution not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive or any

suffering, but inflexibly persisting to its end. Well might his

despairing sailors come to the conclusion that they had entered on a

trackless waste of waters, endless before them and hopeless in a return.

"But, though the Church hath evermore from Holy Writ affirmed that the

earth should be a wide-spread plain bordered by the waters, yet he

comforted himself when he considered that in the eclipses of the moon

the shadow cast of the earth is round; and as is the shadow, such, in

like manner, is the substance." It was a stout heart--a heart of triple

brass--which could thus, against such authority, extract unyielding

faith from a shadow.

[Sidenote: Succeeds in his attempt, and dies.] This unparalleled

resolution met its reward at last. Magellan reached a group of islands

north of the equator--the Ladrones. In a few days more he became aware

that his labours had been successful; he met with adventurers from

Sumatra. But, though he had thus grandly accomplished his object, it was

not given to him to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. At an

island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was killed, either, as has been

variously related, in a mutiny of his men, or as they declared--in a

conflict with the savages, or insidiously by poison. "The general," they

said, "was a very brave man, and received his death wound in his front;

nor would the savages yield up his body for any ransom." Through treason

and revenge it is not unlikely that he fell, for he was a stern man; no

one but a very stern man could have accomplished so daring a deed.

Hardly was he gone when his crew learned that they were actually in the

vicinity of the Moluccas, and that the object of their voyage was

accomplished. On the morning of November 8, 1521, having been at sea two

years and three months, as the sun was rising they entered Tidore, the

chief port of the Spice Islands. The King of Tidore swore upon the Koran

alliance to the King of Spain.

[Sidenote: Circumnavigation of the earth.] I need not allude to the

wonderful objects--destined soon to become common to voyagers in the

Indian Archipelago--that greeted their eyes: elephants in trappings;

vases, and vessels of porcelain; birds of Paradise, "that fly not, but

be blown by the wind;" exhaustless stores of the coveted spices,

nutmegs, mace, cloves. And now they prepared to bring the news of their

success back to Spain. Magellan's lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano,

directed his course for the Cape of Good Hope, again encountering the

most fearful hardships. Out of his slender crew he lost twenty-one men.

He doubled the Cape at last; and on September 7, 1522, in the port of

St. Lucar, near Seville, under his orders, the good ship San Vittoria

came safely to an anchor. She had accomplished the greatest achievement

in the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated the earth.

[Sidenote: Elcano, the lieutenant of Magellan.] Magellan thus lost his

life in his enterprise, and yet he made an enviable exchange. Doubly

immortal, and thrice happy! for he impressed his name indelibly on the

earth and the sky, on the strait that connects the two great oceans, and

on those clouds of starry worlds seen in the southern heavens. He also

imposed a designation on the largest portion of the surface of the

globe. His lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano, received such honours as

kings can give. Of all armorial bearings ever granted for the

accomplishment of a great and daring deed, his were the proudest and

noblest--the globe of the earth belted with the inscription, "Primus

circumdedisti me!"

[Sidenote: Results of the circumnavigation.] If the circumnavigation of

the earth by Magellan did not lead to such splendid material results as

the discovery of America and the doubling of the Cape, its moral effects

were far more important. Columbus had been opposed in obtaining means

for his expedition because it was suspected to be of an irreligious

nature. Unfortunately, the Church, satisfying instincts impressed upon

her as far back as the time of Constantine, had asserted herself to be

the final arbitress in all philosophical questions, and especially in

this of the figure of the earth had committed herself against its being

globular. Infallibility can never correct itself--indeed, it can never

be wrong. Rome never retracts anything; and, no matter what the

consequences, never recedes. It was thus that a theological

dogma--infallibility--came to be mixed up with a geographical problem,

and that problem liable at any moment to receive a decisive solution. So

long as it rested in a speculative position, or could be hedged round

with mystification, the real state of the case might be concealed from

all except the more intelligent class of men; but after the

circumnavigation had actually been accomplished, and was known to every

one, there was, of course, nothing more to be said. It had now become

altogether useless to bring forward the authority of Lactantius, of St.

Augustine, or of other fathers, that the globular form is impious and

heretical. Henceforth the fact was strong enough to overpower all

authority, an exercise of which could have no other result than to

injure itself. It remained only to permit the dispute to pass into

oblivion; but even this could not occur without those who were observant

being impressed with the fact that physical science was beginning to

display a fearful advantage over Patristicism, and presenting

unmistakable tokens that ere long she would destroy her ancient

antagonist.

[Sidenote: Minor voyages and travels.] In the midst of these immortal

works it is hardly worth while to speak of minor things. Two centuries

had wrought a mighty change in the geographical ideas of Western Europe.

The travels of Marco Polo, A.D. 1295, had first given some glimmering of

the remote East, the interest in which was doubtless enhanced by the

irruption of the Moguls. Sir John Mandeville had spent many years in the

interior of Asia before the middle of the next century. Conti had

travelled in Persia and India, between 1419 and 1444. Cadamosto, a

Venetian, in 1455 had explored the west coast of Africa. Sebastian Cabot

had re-discovered Newfoundland, and, persisting in the attempt to find a

north-west passage to China, had forced his way into the ice to 67 deg.

30' N. By 1525 the American coast-line had been determined from Terra del

Fuego to Labrador. New Guinea and part of Australia, had been

discovered. The fleet of Cabral, attempting to double the Cape of Good

Hope in 1500, was driven to Brazil. A ship was sent back to Portugal

with the news. Hence, had not Columbus sailed when he did, the discovery

of America could not have been long postponed. Balboa saw the Great

South Sea September 25th, 1513. Wading up to his knees in the water,

with his sword in one hand and the Spanish flag in the other, he claimed

that vast ocean for Castile. Nothing could now prevent the geography of

the earth from being completed.

[Sidenote: Participation of other nations in these events.] I cannot

close these descriptions of maritime adventure without observing that

they are given from the European point of view. The Western nations have

complacently supposed that whatever was unknown to them was therefore

altogether unknown. We have seen that the Arabs were practically and

perfectly familiar with the fact that Africa might be circumnavigated;

the East Indian geography was thoroughly understood by the Buddhist

priesthood, who had, on an extensive scale, carried forward their

propagandism for twenty-five hundred years in those regions. But

doubtless the most perfect geographical knowledge existed among the

Jews, those cosmopolite traders who conducted mercantile transactions

from the Azores to the interior of China, from the Baltic to the coast

of Mozambique. It was actually through them that the existence of the

Cape of Good Hope was first made known in Europe. Five hundred years

before Columbus, the Scandinavian adventurers had discovered America,

but so low was the state of intelligence in Europe that the very memory

of these voyages had been altogether lost. The circumnavigation of the

earth is, however, strictly the achievement of the West. I have been led

to make the remarks in this paragraph, since they apply again on another

occasion--the introduction of what is called the Baconian philosophy,

the principles of which were not only understood, but carried into

practice in the East eighteen hundred years before Bacon was born.

* * * * *

It is scarcely necessary that I should offer any excuse for devoting a

few pages to a digression on the state of affairs in Mexico and Peru.

Nothing illustrates more strikingly the doctrine which it is the object

of this book to teach.

[Sidenote: Progress of man in the New World the same as in the Old.] The

social condition of America at its discovery demonstrates that similar

ideas and similar usages make their appearance spontaneously in the

progress of civilization of different countries, showing how little they

depend on accident, how closely they are connected with the

organization, and, therefore, with the necessities of man. From

important ideas and great institutions down to the most trifling

incidents of domestic life, so striking is the parallel between the

American aborigines and Europeans that with difficulty do we divest

ourselves of the impression that there must have been some

intercommunication. Each was, however, pursuing an isolated and

spontaneous progress; and yet how closely does the picture of life in

the New World answer to that in the Old. [Sidenote: Mexico, its

political system.] The monarch of Mexico lived in barbaric pomp, wore a

golden crown resplendent with gems; was aided in his duties by a privy

council; the great lords held their lands of him by the obligation of

military service. In him resided the legislative power, yet he was

subject to the laws of the realm. The judges held their office

independently of him, and were not liable to removal by him. The laws

were reduced to writing, which, though only a system of hieroglyphics,

served its purpose so well that the Spaniards were obliged to admit its

validity in their courts, and to found a professorship for perpetuating

a knowledge of it. Marriage was regarded as an important social

engagement. Divorces were granted with difficulty. Slavery was

recognized in the case of prisoners of war, debtors, and criminals, but

no man could be born a slave in Mexico. No distinction of castes was

permitted. The government mandates and public intelligence were

transmitted by a well-organized postal service of couriers able to make

two hundred miles a day. The profession of arms was the recognized

avocation of the nobility; the military establishments, whether in

active service in the field, or as garrisons in large towns, being

supported by taxation on produce or manufactures. The armies were

divided into corps of 10,000, and these again into regiments of 400.

Standards and banners were used; the troops executed their evolutions to

military music, and were provided with hospitals, army surgeons, and a

medical staff. In the human hives of Europe, Asia, and America, the bees

were marshalled in the same way, and were instinctively building their

combs alike.

[Sidenote: Its religion, priesthood, and ceremonies.] The religious

state is a reflexion of that of Europe and Asia. The worship was an

imposing ceremonial. The common people had a mythology of many gods, but

the higher classes were strictly Unitarian, acknowledging one almighty,

invisible Creator. Of the popular deities, the god of war was the chief.

He was born of a virgin, and conceived by mysterious conception of a

ball of bright-coloured feathers floating on the air. The priests

administered a rite of baptism to infants for the purpose of washing

away their sins, and taught that there are rewards and punishments in a

life to come--a paradise for the good, a hell of darkness for the

wicked. The hierarchy descended by due degrees from the chief priests,

who were almost equal to the sovereign in authority, down to the humble

ecclesiastical servitors. Marriage was permitted to the clergy. They had

monastic institutions, the inmates praying thrice a day and once at

night. They practised ablutions, vigils, penance by flagellation or

pricking with aloe thorns. They compelled the people to auricular

confession, required of them penance, gave absolution. Their

ecclesiastical system had reached a strength which was never attained in

Europe, since absolution by the priest for civil offences was an

acquittal in the eye of the law. It was the received doctrine that men

do not sin of their own free will, but because they are impelled thereto

by planetary influences. With sedulous zeal, the clergy engrossed the

duty of public education, thereby keeping society in their grasp.

[Sidenote: Its literary condition.] Their writing was on cotton cloth or

skins, or on papyrus made of the aloe. At the conquest immense

collections of this kind of literature were in existence, but the first

Archbishop of Mexico burnt, as was affirmed, a mountain of such

manuscripts in the market-place, stigmatizing them as magic scrolls.

About the same time, and under similar circumstances, Cardinal Ximenes

burnt a vast number of Arabic manuscripts in Granada.

[Sidenote: Divisions of time: the week, month, year.] The condition of

astronomy in Mexico is illustrated as it is in Egypt by the calendar.

The year was of eighteen months, each month of twenty days, five

complementary ones being added to make up the three hundred and

sixty-five. The month had four weeks, the week five days; the last day,

instead of being for religious purposes, was market day. To provide for

the six additional hours of the year, they intercalated twelve and a

half days every fifty-two years. At the conquest the Mexican calendar

was in a better condition than the Spanish. As in some other countries,

the clergy had for ecclesiastical purposes a lunar division of time. The

day had sixteen hours, commencing at sunrise. They had sun-dials for

determining the hour, and also instruments for the solstices and

equinoxes. They had ascertained the globular form of the earth and the

obliquity of the ecliptic. The close of the fifty-second year was

celebrated with grand religious ceremonials; all the fires were suffered

to go out, and new ones kindled by the friction of sticks. [Sidenote:

Private life, mechanical arts, trade.] Their agriculture was superior to

that of Europe; there was nothing in the Old World to compare with the

menageries and botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapultepec, Istapalapan,

and Tezcuco. They practised with no inconsiderable skill the more

delicate mechanical arts, such as those of the jeweller and enameller.

From the aloe they obtained pins and needles, thread, cord, paper, food,

and an intoxicating drink. They made earthenware, knew how to lacquer

wood, employed cochineal as a scarlet dye. They were skilful weavers of

fine cloth, and excelled in the production of feather-work, their

gorgeous humming-birds furnishing material for that purpose. In

metallurgy they were behind the Old World, not having the use of iron;

but, as the Old World had formerly done, they employed bronze in its

stead. They knew how to move immense masses of rock; their great

calendar stone, of porphyry, weighed more than fifty tons, and was

brought a distance of many miles. Their trade was carried on, not in

shops, but by markets or fairs held on the fifth day. They employed a

currency of gold dust, pieces of tin, and bags of cacao. [Sidenote:

Luxury of the higher classes.] In their domestic economy, though

polygamy was permitted, it was in practice confined to the wealthy. The

women did not work abroad, but occupied themselves in spinning,

embroidering, feather-work, music. Ablution was resorted to both before

and after meals; perfumes were used at the toilet. The Mexicans gave to

Europe tobacco, snuff, the turkey, chocolate, cochineal. Like us, they

had in their entertainments solid dishes, with suitable condiments,

gravies, sauces, and desserts of pastries, confections, fruits, both

fresh and preserved. They had chafing-dishes of silver or gold. Like us,

they knew the use of intoxicating drinks; like us, they not unfrequently

took them to excess; like us, they heightened their festivities with

dancing and music. They had theatrical and pantomimic shows. At Tezcuco

there was a council of music, which, moreover, exercised a censorship on

philosophical works, as those of astronomy and history. In that city

North American civilization reached its height. The king's palace was a

wonderful work of art. It was said that 200,000 men were employed in its

construction. Its harem was adorned with magnificent tapestries of

feather-work; in its garden were fountains, cascades, baths, statues,

alabasters, cedar groves, forests, and a wilderness of flowers. In

conspicuous retirement in one part of the city was a temple, with a dome

of polished black marble, studded with stars of gold, in imitation of

the sky. It was dedicated to the omnipotent, invisible God. In this no

sacrifices were offered, but only sweet-scented flowers and gums.

[Sidenote: Their monotheism and philosophical sentiments.] The

prevailing religious feeling is expressed by the sentiments of one of

the kings, many of whom had prided themselves in their poetical skill:

"Let us," he says, "aspire to that heaven where all is eternal, and

where corruption never comes." He taught his children not to confide in

idols, but only to conform to the outward worship of them in deference

to public opinion.

[Sidenote: Peru--unknown to Mexico.] To the preceding description of the

social condition of Mexico I shall add a similar brief account of that

of Peru, for the conclusions to be drawn from a comparison of the

spontaneous process of civilization in these two countries with the

process in Europe is of importance to the attainment of a just idea of

the development of mankind. The most competent authorities declare that

the Mexicans and Peruvians were ignorant of each other's existence.

[Sidenote: Its geographical peculiarities.] In one particular especially

is the position of Peru interesting. It presents an analogy to Upper

Egypt, that cradle of the civilization of the Old World, in this, that

its sandy coast is a rainless district. This sandy-coast region is about

sixty miles in width, hemmed in on the east by grand mountain ranges,

which diminish in size on approaching the Isthmus of Panama; the entire

length of the Peruvian empire having been nearly 2,400 miles, it reached

from the north of the equator to what is now known as Chili. In breadth

it varied at different points. [Sidenote: A rainless country like

Egypt.] The east wind, which has crossed the Atlantic, and is therefore

charged with humidity, being forced by the elevation of the South

American continent, and especially by the range of the Andes, upward, is

compelled to surrender most of its moisture, which finds its way back to

the Atlantic in those prodigious rivers that make the country east of

the Andes the best watered region of the world; but as soon as that wind

has crossed the mountain ridge and descends on the western slope, it

becomes a dry and rainless wind, and hence the district intervening to

the Pacific has but a few insignificant streams. [Sidenote: Its system

of agriculture.] The sides of this great mountain range might seem

altogether unadapted to the pursuit of agriculture, but the state of

Peruvian civilization is at once demonstrated when it is said that these

mountain slopes had become a garden, immense terraces having been

constructed wherever required, and irrigation on a grander scale than

that of Egypt carried on by gigantic canals and aqueducts. Advantage was

taken of the different mean annual temperatures at different altitudes

to pursue the cultivation of various products, for difference in height

topographically answers to difference in latitude geographically, and

thus, in a narrow space, the Peruvians had every variety of temperature,

from that corresponding to the hottest portions of Southern Europe to

that of Lapland. In the mountains of Peru, as has been graphically said,

man sees "all the stars of the heavens and all the families of plants."

On plateaus at a great elevation above the sea there were villages and

even cities. Thus the plain upon which Quito stands, under the equator,

is nearly ten thousand feet high. So great was their industry that the

Peruvians had gardens and orchards above the clouds, and on ranges still

higher flocks of lamas, in regions bordering on the limit of perpetual

snow.

[Sidenote: Its great roads and engineering,] Through the entire length

of the empire two great military roads were built, one on the plateau,

the other on the shore. The former, for nearly two thousand miles,

crossed sierras covered with snow, was thrown over ravines, or went

through tunnels in the rocks; it scaled the more difficult precipices by

means of stairways. Where it was possible, it was carried over the

mountain clefts by filling them with masonry, or, where that could not

be done, suspension bridges were used, the cables being made of osiers

or maguey fibres. Some of these cables are said to have been as thick as

a man, and two hundred feet long. Where such bridges could not be thrown

across, and a stream flowed in the bottom of the mountain valley, the

passage was made by ferry-boats or rafts. As to the road itself, it was

about twenty feet in width, faced with flags covered with bitumen, and

had mile-stones. Our admiration at this splendid engineering is enhanced

when we remember that it was accomplished without iron and gunpowder.

The shore road was built on an embankment, with a clay parapet on each

side, and shade trees. Where circumstances called for it, piles were

used. [Sidenote: and expresses by couriers.] Every five miles there was

a post-house. The public couriers, as in Mexico, could make, if

necessary, two hundred miles a day. Of these roads Humboldt says that

they were among the most useful and most stupendous executed by the hand

of man. The reader need scarcely be told that there were no such

triumphs of skill in Spain. From the circumstance that there were no

swift animals, as the horse or dromedary, the width of these roads was

sufficient, since they were necessarily used for foot passage alone.

[Sidenote: Cuzco--the military centre.] In Cuzco, the metropolis, was

the imperial residence of the Inca and the Temple of the Sun. It

contained edifices which excited the amazement of the Spanish

adventurers themselves--streets, squares, bridges, fortresses surrounded

by turreted walls, subterranean galleries by which the garrison could

reach important parts of the town. Indeed, the great roads we have

spoken of might be regarded as portions of an immense system of military

works spread all over the country, and having their centre at Cuzco.

[Sidenote: The Inca--the Lord of the Empire.] The imperial dignity was

hereditary, descending from father to son. As in Egypt, the monarch not

unfrequently had his sisters for wives. His diadem consisted of a

scarlet tasseled fringe round his brow, adorned with two feathers. He

wore earrings of great weight. His dress of lama-wool was dyed scarlet,

inwoven with gold and studded with gems. Whoever approached him bore a

light burden on the shoulder as a badge of servitude, and was barefoot.

The Inca was not only the representative of the temporal, but also of

the spiritual power. He was more than supreme pontiff, for he was a

descendant of the Sun, the god of the nation. He made laws, imposed

taxes, raised armies, appointed or removed judges at his pleasure. He

travelled in a sedan ornamented with gold and emeralds; the roads were

swept before him, strewn with flowers, and perfumed. [Sidenote: The

national palace.] His palace at Yucay was described by the Spaniards as

a fairy scene. It was filled with works of Indian art; images of animals

and plants decorated the niches of its walls; it had an endless

labyrinth of gorgeous chambers, and here and there shady crypts for

quiet retirement. Its baths were great golden bowls. It was embosomed in

artificial forests. The imperial ladies and concubines spent their time

in beautifully furnished chambers, or in gardens, with cascades and

fountains, grottoes and bowers. It was in what few countries can boast

of, a temperate region in the torrid zone.

[Sidenote: Religion of Peru, its establishments and ceremonial.] The

Peruvian religion ostensibly consisted of a worship of the Sun, but the

higher classes had already become emancipated from such a material

association, and recognized the existence of one almighty, invisible

God. They expected the resurrection of the body and the continuance of

the soul in a future life. It was their belief that in the world to come

our occupations will resemble those we have followed here. Like the

Egyptians, who had arrived at similar ideas, the Peruvians practised

embalming, the mummies of their Incas being placed in the Temple of the

Sun at Cuzco, the kings on the right, the queens on the left, clad in

their robes of state, and with their hands crossed on their bosoms,

seated in golden chairs, waiting for the day when the soul will return

to reanimate the body. The mummies of distinguished personages were

buried in a sitting posture under tumuli of earth. To the Supreme Being

but one temple was dedicated. It was in a sacred valley, to which

pilgrimages were made. In the Peruvian mythology, heaven was above the

sky, hell in the interior of the earth--it was the realm of an evil

spirit called Cupay. The general resemblance of these to Egyptian

doctrines may forcibly impress upon us that they are ideas with which

the human mind necessarily occupies itself in its process of

intellectual development. As in all other countries, the educated

classes were greatly in advance of the common people, who were only just

emerging from fetichism, and engrossed in the follies of idolatry and

man-worship. Nevertheless, the government found it expedient to

countenance the vulgar delusion; indeed, the political system was

actually founded upon it. But the Peruvians were in advance of the

Europeans in this respect, that they practised no persecutions upon

those who had become mentally emancipated. Besides the sun, the visible

god, other celestial bodies were worshipped in a subordinate way. It was

supposed that there were spirits in the wind, lightning, thunder; genii

in the mountains, rivers, springs, and grottoes. In the great Temple of

the Sun at Cuzco an image of that deity was placed so as to receive the

rays of the luminary at his rising; a like artifice had been practised

in the Serapion at Alexandria. There was also a sanctuary dedicated to

the Sun in the island of Titicaca, and, it is said, between three and

four hundred temples of a subordinate kind in Cuzco. To the great temple

were attached not fewer than four thousand priests and fifteen hundred

vestal virgins, the latter being intrusted with the care of the sacred

fire, and from them the most beautiful were chosen to pass into the

Inca's seraglio. The popular faith had a ritual and a splendid

ceremonial, the great national festival being at the summer solstice.

The rays of the sun were then collected by a concave mirror, and fire

rekindled thereby, or by the friction of wood.

[Sidenote: Social system--the nobility, the people.] As to their social

system, polygamy was permitted, but practically it was confined to the

higher classes. Social subordination was thoroughly understood. The Inca

Tupac Yupanqui says, "Knowledge was never intended for the people, but

only for those of generous blood." The nobility were of two orders, the

polygamic descendants of the Incas, who were the main support of the

state, and the adopted nobles of nations that have been conquered. As to

the people, nowhere else in the whole world was such an extraordinary

policy of supervision practised. They were divided into groups of ten,

fifty, one hundred, five hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, and over

the last an Inca noble was placed. Through this system a rigid

centralization was insured, the Inca being the pivot upon which all the

national affairs turned, it was an absolutism worthy of the admiration

of many existing European nations. [Sidenote: Organization of Labour.]

The entire territory was divided into three parts; one belonged to the

Sun, one to the Inca, one to the people. As a matter of form, the

subdivision was annually made; in practice, however, as perhaps must

always be the result of such agrarianism, the allotments were

continually renewed. All the land was cultivated by the people, and in

the following order: first, that of the Sun, then that of the destitute

and infirm, then that of the people, and, lastly, that of the Inca. The

Sun and the Inca owned all the sheep, which were sheared and their wool

distributed to the people, or cotton furnished in its stead. The Inca's

officers saw that it was all woven, and that no one was idle. An annual

survey of the country, its farming and mineral products, was made, the

inventory being transmitted to the government. A register was kept of

births and deaths; periodically a general census was taken. The Inca, at

once emperor and pope, was enabled, in that double capacity, to exert a

rigorous patriarchal rule over his people, who were treated like mere

children--not suffered to be oppressed, but compelled to be occupied;

for, with a worldly wisdom which no other nation presents, labour was

here acknowledged not only as a means, but also as an end. In Peru a man

could not improve his social state; by these refinements of legislation

he was brought into an absolutely stationary condition. He could become

neither richer nor poorer; but it was the boast of the system that every

one lived exempt from social suffering--that all enjoyed competence.

[Sidenote: Military system; warlike resources.] The army consisted of

200,000 men. Their weapons were bows, lances, slings, battle-axes,

swords; their means of defence, shields, bucklers, helmets, and coats of

quilted cotton. Each regiment had its own banner, but the imperial

standard, the national emblem, was a rainbow, the offspring of the Sun.

The swords and many of the domestic implements were of bronze; the

arrows were tipped with quartz or bone, or points of gold and silver. A

strict discipline was maintained on marching, granaries and depots being

established at suitable distances on the roads. With a policy inflexibly

persisted in, the gods of conquered countries were transported to Cuzco,

and the vanquished compelled to worship the Sun; their children were

obliged to learn the Peruvian language, the government providing them

teachers for that purpose. As an incitement, this knowledge was

absolutely required as a condition for public office. To amalgamate the

conquered districts thoroughly, their inhabitants were taken away by ten

thousand, transported to distant parts of the empire, not, as in the Old

World, to be worked to death as slaves, but to be made into Peruvians;

an equal number of natives were sent in their stead, to whom, as a

recompense for their removal, extraordinary privileges were given. It

was the immemorial policy of the empire to maintain profound

tranquillity in the interior and perpetual war on the frontiers.

The philosophical advancement of the Peruvians was much retarded by

their imperfect method of writing--a method greatly inferior to that of

Egypt. [Sidenote: Peruvian literature--the quipus.] A cord of coloured

threads, called quipus, was only indifferently suited to the purposes of

enumeration, and by no means equal to hieroglyphics as a method of

expressing general facts. But it was their only system. Notwithstanding

this drawback, they had a literature consisting of poetry, dramatic

compositions, and the like. Their scientific attainments were inferior

to the Mexican. Their year was divided into months, their months into

weeks. They had gnomons to indicate the solstices. One, in the form of

an obelisk, in the centre of a circle, on which was marked an east and

west line, indicated the equinox. These gnomons were destroyed by the

Spaniards in the belief that they were for idolatrous purposes, for on

the national festivals it was customary to decorate them with leaves and

flowers. As the national religion consisted in the worship of the Sun,

it was not without reason that Quito was regarded as a holy place, from

its position upon the equator.

[Sidenote: Agriculture carried to perfection.] In their extraordinary

provisions for agriculture, the national pursuit, the skill of the

Peruvians is well seen. A rapid elevation from the sea-level to the

heights of the mountains gave them, in a small compass, every variety of

climate, and they availed themselves of it. They terraced the mountain

sides, filling the terraces with rich earth. They excavated pits in the

sand, surrounded them with adobe walls, and filled them with manured

soil. On the low level they cultivated bananas and cassava; on the

terraces above, maize and quinoa; still higher, tobacco; and above that

the potato. From a comparatively limited surface, they raised great

crops by judiciously using manures, employing for that purpose fish, and

especially guano. Their example has led to the use of the latter

substance for a like purpose in our own times in Europe. The whole

civilized world has followed them in the cultivation of the potato. The

Peruvian bark is one of the most invaluable remedies. Large tracts of

North America would be almost uninhabitable without the use of its

active alkaloid quinine, which actually, in no insignificant manner,

reduces the percentage mortality throughout the United States.

[Sidenote: The great aqueduct of Condesuya.] Indispensably necessary to

their agricultural system were their great water-works. In Spain there

was nothing worthy of being compared with them. The aqueduct of

Condesuya was nearly 500 miles long. Its engineers had overcome

difficulties in a manner that might well strike modern times with

admiration. Its water was distributed as prescribed by law; there were

officers to see to its proper use. From these great water-works and from

their roads it may be judged that the architectural skill of the

Peruvians was far from insignificant. They constructed edifices of

porphyry, granite, brick; but their buildings were for the most part

low, and suitable to an earthquake country.

[Sidenote: The stages of human development always the same.] I have

dwelt at some length on the domestic history of Mexico and Peru because

it is intimately connected with one of the philosophical principles

which it is the object of this book to teach, viz., that human progress

takes place under an unvarying law, and therefore in a definite way. The

trivial incidents mentioned in the preceding paragraphs may perhaps have

seemed insignificant or wearisome, but it is their very commonness,

their very familiarity, that gives them, when rightly considered, a

surprising interest. There is nothing in these minute details but what

we find to be perfectly natural from the European point of view. They

might be, for that matter, instead of reminiscences of the spontaneous

evolution of a people shut out from the rest of the world by impassable

oceans, a relation of the progress of some European or Asiatic nation.

The man of America advanced in his course of civilization as did the man

of the Old World, devising the same institutions, guided by the same

intentions, constrained by the same desires. From the great features of

his social system down to the little details of his domestic life, there

is a sameness with what was done in Asia, Africa, Europe. But similar

results imply a similar cause. What, then, is there possessed in common

by the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, the European, the American?

Surely not climate, nor equal necessities, nor equal opportunity. Simply

nothing but this--corporeal organization! As automatons constructed in

the same way will do the same things, so, in organic forms, sameness of

structure will give rise to identity of function and similarity of acts.

The same common sense guides men all over the world. Common sense is a

function of common organization. All natural history is full of

illustrations. [Sidenote: Analogy between societies of men and societies

of animals.] It may be offensive to our pride, but it is none the less

true, that in his social progress, the free-will of which man so boasts

himself in his individual capacity disappears as an active influence,

and the domination of general and inflexible laws becomes manifest. The

free-will of the individual is supplanted by instinct and automatism in

the race. To each individual bee the career is open; he may taste of

this flower and avoid that; he may be industrious in the garden, or idle

away his time in the air; but the history of one hive is the history of

another hive; there will be a predestined organization--the queen, the

drones, the workers. In the midst of a thousand unforeseen,

uncalculated, variable acts, a definite result, with unerring certainty,

emerges; the combs are built in a pre-ordained way, and filled with

honey at last. From bees, and wasps, and ants, and birds--from all that

low animal life on which he looks with such supercilious contempt, man

is destined one day to learn what in truth he really is.

[Sidenote: The crime of Spain in America.] For a second reason, also, I

have dwelt on these details. The enormous crime of Spain in destroying

this civilization has never yet been appreciated in Europe. After an

attentive consideration of the facts of the case, I agree in the

conclusion of Carli, that at the time of the conquest the moral man in

Peru was superior to the European, and I will add, the intellectual man

also. Was there in Spain, or even in all Europe, a political system

carried out into the practical details of actual life, and expressed in

great public works, as its outward visible and enduring sign, which

could at all compare with that of Peru? Its only competitor was the

Italian system, but that for long had been actively used to repress the

intellectual advancement of man. [Sidenote: The Spaniard and the

American.] In vain the Spaniards excuse their atrocities on the plea

that a nation like the Mexican, which permitted cannibalism, should not

be regarded as having emerged from the barbarous state, and that one

which, like Peru, sacrificed human hecatombs at the funeral solemnities

of great men, must have been savage. Let it be remembered that there is

no civilized nation whose popular practices do not lag behind its

intelligence; let it be remembered that in this respect Spain herself

also was guilty. In America, human sacrifice was part of a religious

solemnity, unstained by passion. The auto da fe of Europe was a dreadful

cruelty; not an offering to heaven, but a gratification of spite,

hatred, fear, vengeance--the most malignant passions of earth.

[Sidenote: European and American human sacrifice.] There was no

spectacle on the American continent at which a just man might so deeply

blush for his race as that presented in Western Europe when the heretic

from whom confession had been wrung by torture passed to his stake in a

sleeveless garment, with flames of fire and effigies of an abominable

import depicted upon it. Let it be remembered that by the Inquisition,

from 1481 to 1808, 340,000 persons had been punished, and of these

nearly 32,000 burnt. Let what was done in the south of France be

remembered. Let it be also remembered that, considering the

worthlessness of the body of man, and that, at the best, it is at last

food for the worm--considering the infinite value of his immortal soul,

for the redemption of which the agony and death of the Son of God were

not too great a price to pay--indignities offered to the body are less

wicked than indignities offered to the soul. It would be well for him

who comes forward as an accuser of Mexico and Peru in their sin to

dispose of the fact that at that period the entire authority of Europe

was directed to the perversion, and even total repression of thought--to

an enslaving of the mind, and making that noblest creation of Heaven a

worthless machine. To taste of human flesh is less criminal in the eye

of God than to stifle human thought.

[Sidenote: Antiquity of American civilization.] Lastly, there is another

point to which I will with brevity allude. It has been widely asserted

that Mexican and Peruvian civilization was altogether a recent affair,

dating at most only two or three centuries before the conquest. It would

be just as well to say that there was no civilization in India before

the time of the Macedonian invasion because there exist no historic

documents in that country anterior to that event. The Mexicans and

Peruvians were not heroes of a romance to whom wonderful events were of

common occurrence, whose lives were regulated by laws not applying to

the rest of the human race, who could produce results in a day for which

elsewhere a thousand years are required. They were men and women like

ourselves, slowly and painfully, and with many failures, working out

their civilization. The summary manner in which they have been disposed

of reminds us of the amusing way in which the popular chronology deals

with the hoary annals of Egypt and China. Putting aside the imperfect

methods of recording events practised by the autochthons of the Western

world, he who estimates rightly the slowness with which man passes

forward in his process of civilization, and collates therewith the

prodigious works of art left by those two nations--an enduring evidence

of the point to which they had attained--will find himself constrained

to cast aside such idle assertions as altogether unworthy of

confutation, or even of attention.