globe, considered as the habitation of man, and as far as was necessary
for that object; and in this rapid sketch, I have endeavoured, as far as
was possible for a layman, to place in the clearest light the most
remarkable and best attested facts and discoveries of geology, with a
constant attention to the testimony of primitive and historical
tradition. No longer embarrassed by these physical discussions, we may
now proceed to meet the main question: "What relation hath man to this
his habitation--earth; what place doth he occupy therein; and what rank
doth he hold among the other creatures and co-habitants of this globe,
what is his proper destiny upon, and in relation to, the earth, and what
is it which really constitutes him Man?"
The absolute, and, for that reason, Pagan system of natural philosophy
spoken of above, has indeed in these latter times had the courage,
laudable perhaps in the perverse course which it had taken, to rank man
with the ape, as a peculiar species of the general kind. When in its
anatomical investigations, it has numbered the various characteristics
of this human ape, according to the number of its vertebrae, its toes,
&c. it concedes to man, as his distinguishing quality, not what we are
wont to call reason, perfectibility, or the faculty of speech, but "a
capacity for Constitutions!" Thus man would be a liberal ape! And so far
from disagreeing with the author of this opinion, we think man may
undoubtedly become so to a certain extent, although the idea that he was
originally nothing more than a nobler or better disciplined ape is alike
opposed to the voice of history, and the testimony of natural science.
If in the examination of man's nature we will confine our view
exclusively to the lower world of animals, I should say that the
possible contagion and communication of various diseases, and organic
properties and powers of animals, would prove in man rather a greater
sympathy and affinity of organic life and animal blood with the cow, the
sheep, the camel, the horse and the elephant, than with the ape. Even in
the venomous serpent and the mad dog, this deadly affinity of blood and
this fearful contact of internal life exist in a different and nearer
degree, than have yet been discovered in the ape. The docility too, of
the elephant and other generous animals, bears much stronger marks of
analogy with reason than the cunning of the ape, in which the native
sense of a sound, unprejudiced mind will always recognize an
unsuccessful and abortive imitation of man. The resemblance of
physiognomy and cast of countenance in the lion, the bull, and the
eagle, to the human face--a resemblance so celebrated in sculpture and
the imitative arts, and which was interwoven into the whole mythology
and symbolism of the ancients--this resemblance is founded on far deeper
and more spiritual ideas than any mere comparison of dead bones in an
animal skeleton can suggest.
The extremes of error, when it has reached the height of extravagance,
often accelerate the return to truth; and thus to the assertion that man
is nothing more than a liberalized ape, we may boldly answer that man,
on the contrary, was originally, and by the very constitution of his
being, designed to be the lord of creation, and, though in a subordinate
degree, the legitimate ruler of the earth and of the world around
him--the vice-gerent of God in nature. And if he no longer enjoys this
high prerogative to its full extent, as he might and ought to have done,
he has only himself to blame; if he exercises his empire over creatures
rather by indirect means and mechanical agency than by the immediate
power and native energy of his own intellectual pre-eminence, he still
is the lord of creation, and has retained much of the power and dignity
he once received, did he but always make a right use of that power.
The distinguishing characteristic of man, and the peculiar eminence of
his nature and his destiny, as these are universally felt and
acknowledged by mankind, are usually defined to consist, either in
reason, or in the faculty of speech. But this definition is defective in
this respect, that, on one hand, reason is a mere abstract faculty,
which to be judged, requires a psychological investigation or analysis;
and that on the other hand, the faculty of speech is a mere
potentiality, or a germ which must be unfolded before it can become a
real entity. We should therefore give a much more correct and
comprehensive definition, if, instead of this, we said: The peculiar
pre-eminence of man consists in this--that to him alone among all other
of earth's creatures, the word has been imparted and communicated. The
word actually delivered and really communicated is not a mere dead
faculty, but an historical reality and occurrence; and for that very
reason, the definition we have given stands much more fitly at the head
of history, than the other more abstract one.
In the idea of the word, considered as the basis of man's dignity and
peculiar destination, the internal light of consciousness and of our own
understanding, is undoubtedly first included--this word is not a mere
faculty of speech, but the fertile root whence the stately trunk of all
language has sprung. But the word is not confined to this only--it next
includes a living, working power--it is not merely an object and organ
of knowledge--an instrument of teaching and learning; but the medium of
affectionate union and conciliatory accommodation, judicial arbitrement
and efficacious command, or even creative productiveness, as our own
experience and life itself manifest each of those significations of the
word; and thus it embraces the whole plenitude of the excellencies and
qualities which characterize man.
Nature too, has her mute language and her symbolical writing; but she
requires a discerning intellect to gain the key to her secrets, to
unravel her profound enigmas; and, piercing through her mysteries,
interpret the hidden sense of her word, and thus reveal the fulness of
her glory. But he, to whom alone among all earth's creatures, the word
has been imparted has been for that reason constituted the lord and
ruler of the earth. As soon, however, as he abandons that divine
principle implanted in his breast; as soon as he loses that word of life
which had been communicated and confided to him; he sinks down to a
level with nature, and, from her lord, becomes her vassal; and here
commences the history of man.
END OF LECTURE I.
LECTURE II.
ON THE DISPUTE IN PRIMITIVE HISTORY, AND ON THE DIVISION OF THE HUMAN
RACE.
"In the beginning man had the word, and that word was from God."
Thus the divine, Promethean spark in the human breast, when more
accurately described and expressed in less figurative language, springs
from the word originally communicated or intrusted to man, as that
wherein consist his peculiar nature, his intellectual dignity and his
high destination.--The pregnant expression borrowed above from the New
Testament, on the mystery and internal nature of God, may with some
variation, and bating, as is evident, the immense distance between the
creature and the Creator, be applied to man and his primitive condition;
and may serve as a superscription or introduction to primitive history
in the following terms: "In the beginning man had the word, and that
word was from God--and out of the living power communicated to man in
and by that word, came the light of his existence."--This is at least
the divine foundation of all history--it falls not properly within the
domain of history, but is anterior to it.--To this position the _state
of nature_ among savages forms no valid objection; for that this was the
really original condition of mankind is by no means proved, and is
arbitrarily assumed; nay, on the contrary, the savage state must be
looked upon as a state of degeneracy and degradation--consequently not
as the first, but as the second, phenomenon in human history--as
something which, as it has resulted from this second step in man's
progress, must be regarded as of a later origin.
In history, as in all science and in life itself the principal point on
which every thing turns, and the all-deciding problem, is whether all
things should be deduced from God, and God himself should be considered
the first, nature the second, existence--the latter holding undoubtedly
a very important place;--or, whether, in the inverse order, the
precedency should be given to nature, and, as invariably happens in such
cases, all things should be deduced from nature only, whereby the deity,
though not by express, unequivocal words, yet in fact is indirectly set
aside, or remains at least unknown. This question cannot be settled, nor
brought to a conclusion, by mere dialectic strife, which rarely leads to
its object. It is the will which here mostly decides; and, according to
the nature and leaning of his character, leads the individual to choose
between the two opposite paths, the one he would follow in speculation
and in science, in faith and in life.
Thus much at least we may say, in reference to the science of history,
that they who in that department will consider nature only, and view man
but with the eye of a naturalist (specious and plausible as their
reasons may at first sight appear), will never rightly comprehend the
world and reality of history, and never obtain an adequate conception,
nor exhibit an intelligible representation of its phenomena.--On the
other hand, if we proceed not solely and exclusively from nature, but
first from God and that beginning of nature appointed by God, so this is
by no means a degradation or misapprehension of nature; nor does it
imply any hostility towards nature--an hostility which could arise only
from a very defective, erroneous, or narrow-minded conception of
historical philosophy. On the contrary, experience has proved that by
this course of speculation we are led more thoroughly to comprehend the
glory of God in nature, and the magnificence of nature herself--a course
of speculation quite consistent with the full recognition of nature's
rights, and the share due to her in the history and progress of man.
Regarded in an historical point of view, man was created free--there lay
two paths before him--he had to choose between the one, conducting to
the realms above, and the other, leading to the regions below;--and thus
at least he was endowed with the faculty of two different wills. Had he
remained steadfast in his first will--that pure emanation of the
deity--had he remained true to the word which God had communicated to
him--he would have had but one will. He would, however, have still been
free; but his freedom would have resembled that of the heavenly spirits,
whom we must not imagine to be devoid of freedom because they are no
longer in a state of trial, and can never be separated from God. We
should, besides, greatly err, if we figured to ourselves the Paradisaic
state of the first man as one of happy indolence; for, in truth, it was
far otherwise designed, and it is clearly and expressly said that our
first parent was placed in the garden of the earth to guard and to
cultivate it. "To guard," because an enemy was to be at hand, against
whom it behoved to watch and to contend. "To cultivate," possibly in a
very different manner, yet still with labour, though, doubtless, a
labour blessed with far richer and more abundant recompense than
afterwards when, on man's account, the earth was charged with
malediction.
This first divine law of nature, if we may so speak, by virtue of which
labour and struggle became from the beginning the destiny of man, has
retained its full force through all succeeding ages, and is applicable
alike to every class, and every nation, to each individual as well as to
mankind in general, to the most important, as to the most insignificant,
relations of society. He who weakly shrinks from the struggle, who will
offer no resistance, who will endure no labour nor fatigue, can neither
fulfil his own vocation, whatever it be, nor contribute aught to the
general welfare of mankind.--But since man hath been the prey of
discord, two different wills have contended within him for the
mastery--a divine and a natural will. Even his freedom is no longer that
happy freedom of celestial peace--the freedom of one who hath conquered
and triumphed--but a freedom, as we now see it--the freedom of
undetermined choice--of arduous, still undecided, struggle. To return to
the divine will, or the one conformable to God--to restore harmony
between the natural and the divine will, and to convert and transform
more and more the lower, earthly and natural will into the higher, and
divine one, is the great task of mankind in general, as of each
individual in particular. And this return--this restoration--this
transformation--all the endeavours after such--the progress or
retrogressions in this path--constitute an essential part of universal
history, so far as this embraces the moral development and intellectual
march of humanity.--But the fact that man, so soon as he loses the
internal sheet-anchor of truth and life--so soon as he abandons the
eternal law of divine ordinance, falls immediately under the dominion of
nature, and becomes her bondsman, each individual may learn from his own
interior, his own experience, and a survey of life; since the violent,
disorderly might of passion herself is only a blind power of nature
acting within us. Although this fact is historical, and indeed the first
of all historical facts, yet as it belongs to all mankind, and recurs in
each individual, it may be regarded as a psychological fact and
phenomenon of human consciousness. And on this very account it does not
precisely fall within the limits of history, and it precedes all
history; but all the consequences or possible consequences of this fact,
all the consequences that have really occurred, are within the essential
province of history.
The next consequence which, after this internal discord had broken out
in the consciousness and life of man, flowed from the developement of
this principle, was the division of the single race of man into a
plurality of nations, and the consequent diversity of languages. As long
as the internal harmony of the soul was undisturbed and unbroken, and
the light of the mind unclouded by sin, language could be nought else
than the simple and beautiful copy or expression of internal serenity;
and consequently there could be but one speech. But after the internal
word, which had been communicated by God to man, had become obscured;
after man's connection with his Creator had been broken; even outward
language necessarily fell into disorder and confusion. The simple and
divine truth was overlaid with various and sensual fictions, buried
under illusive symbols, and at last perverted into a horrible phantom.
Even Nature, that, like a clear mirror of God's creation, had originally
lain revealed and transparent to the unclouded eye of man, became now
more and more unintelligible, strange and fearful; once fallen away from
his God, man fell more and more into a state of internal conflict and
confusion.--Thus there sprang up a multitude of languages, alien one
from the other, and varying with every climate, in proportion as mankind
became morally disunited, geographically divided and dispersed, and even
distinguished by an organic diversity of form;--for when man had once
fallen under the power and dominion of nature, his physical conformation
changed with every climate. As a plant or animal indigenous to Africa or
America has a totally different form and constitution in Asia, so it is
with man; and the races of mankind form so many specific variations of
the same kind, from the negro to the copper-coloured American and the
savage islander of the south sea.--The expression _races_, however,
applied to man, involves something abhorrent from his high uplifted
spirit, and debasing to its native dignity.--This diversity of races
among men no one ought to exaggerate in a manner so as to raise doubts
as to the identity of their origin, for, according to a general organic
law, which indeed is allowed to hold good in the natural history of
animals, races capable of a prolific union must be considered of the
same origin, and as constituting the same species.--Even the apparent
chaos of different languages may be classed into kindred families, which
though separated by the distance of half the globe, seem still very
closely allied. Of these different families of tongues, the first and
most eminent are those which by their internal beauty, and by the noble
spirit breathing through them and apparent in their whole construction,
denote for the most part a higher origin and divine inspiration; and,
much as all these languages differ from each other, they appear, after
all, to be merely branches of one common stem.
The American tribes appeared indeed to be singularly strange, and to
stand at a fearful distance from the rest of mankind; yet the European
writer[39] most deeply conversant with those nations and their languages
has found in their traditions and tongues, and even in their manners and
customs, many positive and incontestable points of analogy with eastern
Asia and its inhabitants.
When man had once fallen from virtue, no determinable limit could be
assigned to his degradation; nor how far he might descend by degrees,
and approximate even to the level of the brute; for, as from his origin
he was a being essentially free, he was in consequence capable of
change, and even in his organic powers most flexible.
We must adopt this principle as the only clue to guide us in our
enquiries, from the negro who, as well from his bodily strength and
agility as from his docile and in general excellent character, is far
from occupying the lowest grade in the scale of humanity, down to the
monstrous Patagonian, the almost imbecile Peshwerais, and the horrible
cannibal of New Zealand, whose very portrait excites a shudder in the
beholder. How, even in the midst of civilization, man may degenerate
into the savage state; to what a pitch of moral degradation he may
descend, those can attest who have had opportunities of investigating
more closely the criminal history of great culprits, and even, at some
periods, the history of whole nations. In fact, every revolution is a
transient period of barbarism, in which man, while he displays partial
examples of the most heroic virtue and generous self-devotion, is often
half a savage. Nay, a war conducted with great animosity and protracted
to extremities, may easily degenerate into such a state of savage
ferocity: hence it is the highest glory of truly civilized nations to
repress and subdue by the sentiment of honour, by a system of severe
discipline, and by a generous code of warfare, respected alike by all
belligerent parties, that tendency and proneness to cruelty and
barbarity inherent in man.
Among the different tribes of savages, there are many indeed that appear
to be of a character incomparably better and more noble than those above
mentioned; yet, after the first ever so favourable impression, a closer
investigation will almost always discover in them very bad traits of
character and manners.--So far from seeking with Rousseau and his
disciples for the true origin of mankind, and the proper foundation of
the social compact, in the condition even of the best and noblest
savages; and so little disposed are we to remodel society upon this
boasted ideal of a pretended state of nature, that we regard it, on the
contrary, as a state of degeneracy and degradation. Thus in his origin,
and by nature, man is no savage:--he may indeed at any time and in any
place, and even at the present day, become one easily and rapidly, but
in general, not by a sudden fall, but by a slow and gradual declension;
and we the more willingly adopt this view as there are many historical
grounds of probability that, in the origin of mankind, this second fall
of man was not immediate and total, but slow and gradual, and that
consequently all those tribes which we call savage are of the same
origin with the noblest and most civilized nations, and have only by
degrees descended to their present state of brutish degradation.
Even the division of the human race into a plurality of nations, and the
chaotic diversity of human tongues, appear, from historical tradition,
to have become general and complete only at a more advanced period; for,
in the beginning, mention is made but of one separation of mankind into
two races or hostile classes. I use the general expression historical
tradition; for the brief and almost enigmatical, but very significant
and pregnant, words, in which the first great outward discord, or
conflict of mankind in primitive history, is represented in the Mosaic
narrative, are corroborated in a very remarkable degree by the Sagas of
other nations, among which I may instance in particular those of the
Greeks and the Indians. Although this primitive conflict, or opposition
among men, is represented in these traditions under various local
colours, and not without some admixture of poetical embellishment, yet
this circumstance serves only for the better confirmation of the
fundamental truth, if we separate the essential matter from the
adventitious details. Before I attempt to place in a clearer light this
first great historical event, which indeed constitutes the main subject
of all primitive history, by showing the strong concurrence of the many
and various authorities attesting it; it may be proper to call your
attention to a third fundamental canon of historical criticism, which
indeed requires no lengthened demonstration, and is merely this, that in
all enquiries, particularly into ancient and primitive history, we must
not reject as impossible or improbable whatever strikes us at first as
strange or marvellous. For it often happens that a closer investigation
and a deeper knowledge of a subject proves those things precisely to be
true, which at the first view or impression, appeared to us as the most
singular; while on the other hand, if we persist in estimating truth and
probability by the sole standard of objects vulgar and familiar to
ourselves; and if we will apply this exclusive standard to a world and
to ages so totally different, and so widely remote from our own, we
shall be certainly led into the most violent, and most erroneous
hypotheses.
In entering on this subject we must observe that, in the Mosaic account,
primitive and, what we call, universal history, does not properly
commence with the first man, his creation or ulterior destiny, but with
Cain--the fratricide and curse of Cain. The preceding part of the sacred
narrative regards, if we may so speak, only the private life of Adam,
which however will always retain a deep significacy for all the
descendants of the first progenitor.
The origin of discord in man, and the transmission of that mischief to
all ages and all generations, is indeed the first historical fact; but
on account of its universality, it forms, at the same time, as I have
before observed, a psychological phenomenon; and while, in this first
section of sacred history, everything points and refers to the mysteries
of religion; the fratricide of Cain on the other hand, and the flight of
that restless criminal to Eastern Asia, are the first events and
circumstances which properly belong to the province of history. In this
account we see first the foundation of the most ancient city, by which
undoubtedly we must understand a great, or at least an old and
celebrated city of Eastern Asia; and secondly, the origin of various
hereditary classes, trades and arts; especially of those connected with
the first knowledge and use of metals, and which doubtless hold the
first place in the history of human arts and discoveries.