The fact that the human mind abhors a contradiction is an evidence of the
Godlike nature of man, and an objection to the old tenet of total
depravity; it is also the secret of the effort, upon the part of
errorists, to systematize. One assumption creates a demand for another,
and thus men who start wrong, in science or religion, labor under great
disadvantages. When an idea is once consecrated to science or religion in
the human heart it is hard to eradicate. When you find that you have made
a wrong start remember that it is the part of true manhood to make a frank
surrender, and start anew.
The assumption of the “evolution of species” lays all its advocates under
the necessity of assuming that a low state of barbarism lies behind the
civilization known in the history of the race as the primitive or first
condition of intellect. Now, as this is a question of fact, an examination
of the evidence pertaining to this second assumption is a matter of
primary importance. What are the facts bearing upon the question? With
Darwinians the “primeval savage” is a stereotyped idea, finding expression
in every-day language; and an idea that some scientists (rather sciolists)
never get tired of promulgating. With them primitive man was little
removed from the brute beasts, devoid of knowledge, art, and language—a
creature in a small degree above; and in a great degree below, the
anthropoid apes, from whom it is claimed he has descended by evolution. Is
there any proof of this primitive inferiority, or savagery, as opposed to
civilization? How does the voice of history speak? It doubtless shows many
instances of improvement, of an advance from a low condition to a higher
one; but what does the earliest history say as respects the _primitive
condition of mankind_? Waiving an examination of the Bible history, we
will at once proceed to other sources. In Egypt there are no indications
of an early period of barbarism. All authorities agree that we find no
rude or heathenish time in the far off history of Egypt out of which
civilization was evolved. The first king known in Egyptian history, Menes,
changes the channel of the river Nile, makes a great reservoir, and erects
the Temple of Phthah at Memphis. His son Athothis is known as the builder
of the Memphite Palace, and as a physician, who wrote books on anatomy.
The pyramid times are early in Egyptian history; the portrayed scenes in
the tombs of this early period reveal the same habits which existed in
after times. That writing had been long in use is demonstrated by the
hieroglyphics in the Great Pyramid. Go as far back as you may in Egyptian
history, you will find no primitive barbarous mode of life. Sir Charles
Lyell admitted, in “Antiquity of Man,” p. 90, that “we have no distinct
_geological evidence_ that the appearance of what are called the inferior
races of mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the
higher races.”
George Rawlinson says Mr. Pengelly made a similar confession at the
meeting of the British Association at Bristol, in August, 1875. So far as
this question of evolution is concerned, it is just as easy to establish
involution of civilization into barbarism as evolution of civilization out
of barbarism. Herodotus gives an account of the Geloni, a Greek people,
who were driven from the cities on the northern coast of the Euxine, and
retiring into the interior, lived in wooden huts, and used a language half
Scythian and half Greek. We follow this people down to the times of Mala
and find them fully barbarous, using the skins of those slain in battle as
coverings both for themselves and their horses. The Copts, of our times,
are degraded descendants of the ancient Egyptians. In North and South
America the descendants of the Spanish conquerers are poor representatives
of those Castilians who, under Pizarro and Cortez mastered the Peruvian
and Mexican kingdoms, and planted the civilization of the old world in the
new. Civilization is liable to decay, to wane, to deteriorate, to sink so
low that it may be a question whether it is any longer civilization. In
the cases we have alluded to we have a low degradation retaining evidences
of something higher. In comparative philology we have cases where it is
presumed by the best of critics that a higher state of civilization sank
to the lowest conceivable state of heathenism. The race existing in
Ceylon, known as the “Weddas,” is of this type. The language of the Weddas
is regarded as a base descendant of the most complete and first known form
of Aryan speech, the Sanskrit; and the Weddas are set down as descendants
of the Sanskritic Aryans, who conquered India. There are no savages of a
more debased type. They do not count beyond two or three; they have no
idea of letters; of all the animals the dog alone is domesticated; their
art consists in making bows and arrows and constructing rude huts; they
are dwindling and threaten to become extinct. See “Report of the British
Association for the advancement of science, for the Year 1875,” part 3, p.
175.
Civilization and barbarism are states between which men oscillate, passing
from one to the other with equal ease, according to the influences brought
to bear upon them.
The mythical traditions of almost all peoples place at the beginning of
the history of the race, a “golden age,” which is the opposite of savagery
and barbarism. The Chinese speak of a “first heaven,” an age of innocence
and a state of happiness, when “all was beautiful and good, and all beings
were perfect.” Mexican tradition speaks of the golden age of Tezcuco; and
Peruvian history commences with two “Children of the Sun,” who established
civilization on the borders of Lake Titicaca. The Greeks described their
golden age as follows:
“The immortal gods, that tread the courts of heaven,
First made a golden race of mortal men.
Like gods they lived, with happy, careless souls,
From toil and pain exempt; nor on them crept
Wretched old age, but all their life was passed
In feasting, and their limbs no changes knew.
Nought evil came them nigh; and, when they died,
’Twas but as if they were o’ercome by sleep.
All good things were their portion; the fat soil
Bare them its fruit spontaneous, fruit ungrudged
And plentiful; they, at their own sweet will,
Pursued in peace the tasks that seemed them good,
Laden with blessings, rich in flocks, and dear
To the great gods.”—_Hesiod._
Such is the light that shines from the region where myth and history meet
and wed. Can we go beyond this? There is no people, east or west,
characterized by an uninterrupted _progress_ from barbarism to
civilization. So the theory of time based upon such an idea is altogether
without foundation.