ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION--CONTINUED.
Definition of the term--Specific differences of
civilizations--Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman
civilizations--Universality of Chinese civilization--Superficiality
of ours--Picture of the social condition of France.
When a tribe, impelled by more vigorous instincts than its neighbors,
succeeds in collecting the hitherto scattered and isolated fragments
into a compact whole, the first impetus of progress is thus given, the
corner-stone of a civilization laid. But, to produce great and lasting
results, a mere political preponderance is not sufficient. The dominant
race must know how to lay hold of the feelings of the masses it has
aggregated, to assimilate their individual interests, and to concentrate
their energies to the same purposes. When the different elements
composing the nation are thus blended into a more or less homogeneous
mass, certain principles and modes of thinking become general, and form
the standard around which all rally. These principles and modes of
thinking, however, cannot be arbitrarily imposed, and must be resulting
from, and in the main consonant with, pre-existing sentiments and
desires.[102] They will be characterized by a utilitarian or a
speculative tendency, according to the degree in which either instinct
predominates in the constituent elements of the nation.
This harmony of views and interests is the first essential to
civilization; the second is stability, and is a natural consequence of
the first. The general principles upon which the political and social
system rests, being based upon instincts common to all, are by all
regarded with the most affectionate veneration, and firmly believed to
be perpetual. The purer a race remains, the more conservative will it be
in its institutions, for its instincts never change. But the admixture
of foreign blood produces proportionate modifications in the national
ideas. The new-comers introduce instincts and notions which were not
calculated upon in the social edifice. Alterations therefore become
necessary, and these are often wholesome, especially in the youthful
period of the society, when the new ethnical elements have not as yet
acquired an undue preponderance. But, as the empire increases, and
comprises elements more and more heterogeneous, the changes become more
radical, and are not always for the better. Finally, as the initiatory
and conservative element disappears, the different parts of the nation
are no longer united by common instincts and interests; the original
institutions are not adapted to their wants; sudden and total
transformations become common, and a vain phantom of stability is
pursued through endless experiments. But, while thus vacillating betwixt
conflicting interests, and changing its purpose every hour, the nation
imagines itself advancing to some imaginary goal of perfection. Firmly
convinced of its own perpetuity, it holds fast to the doctrine which its
daily acts disprove, that one of the principal features of a
civilization is God-like immutability. And though each day brings forth
new discontents and new changes equally futile, the apprehensions of the
day are quieted with the expectations of to-morrow.
I have said that the conditions necessary for the development of a
civilization are--the aggregation of large masses, and stable
institutions resulting from common views and interests. The sociable
inclinations of man, and the less noble attributes of his nature,
perform the rest. While the former bring him in intimate and varied
connections with his fellow-men, the latter give rise to continual
contests and emulation. In a large community, a strong fist is no longer
sufficient to insure protection and give distinction, and the resources
of the mind are applied and developed. Intellect continually seeks and
finds new fields for exertion, either in the regions of the abstract, or
in the material world. By its productions in either, we recognize an
advanced state of society. The most common source of error in judging
foreign nations, is that we are apt to look merely at the exterior
demonstrations of their civilization, and because, in this respect,
their civilization does not resemble ours, we hastily conclude that they
are barbarous, or, at least, greatly inferior to us. A conclusion, drawn
from such premises, must needs be very superficial, and therefore ought
to be received with caution.
I believe myself now prepared to express my idea of a civilization, by
defining it as
_A state of comparative stability, in which a large collection of
individuals strive, by peaceful means, to satisfy their wants, and
refine their intelligence and manners._
This definition includes, without exception, all the nations which I
have mentioned as being civilized. But, as these nations have few points
of resemblance, the question suggests itself: Do not, then, all
civilizations tend to the same results? I think not; for, as the nations
called to the noble task of accomplishing a civilization, are endowed
with the utilitarian and speculative tendencies in various degrees and
proportions, their paths must necessarily lie in very divergent
directions.
What are the material wants of the Hindoo? Rice and butter for his
nourishment, and a piece of cotton cloth for his garment. Nor can this
abstemiousness be accounted for by climate, for the native of Thibet,
under a much more rigorous sky, displays the same quality. In these
peoples, the imaginative faculty greatly predominates, their
intellectual efforts are directed to abstractions, and the fruits of
their civilization are therefore seldom of a practical or utilitarian
character. Magnificent temples are hewn out of mountains of solid rock
at an expense of labor and time that terrifies the imagination; gigantic
constructions are erected;--all this in honor of the gods, while nothing
is done for man's benefit, unless it be tombs. By the side of the
miracles wrought by the sculptor's chisel, we admire the finished
masterpieces of a literature full of vigor, and as ingenious and subtle
in theology and metaphysics, as beautiful in its variety: in speculative
efforts, human thought descends without trepidation to immeasurable
depths; its lyric poetry challenges the admiration of all mankind.
But if we leave the domain of idealistic reveries, and seek for
inventions of practical utility, and for the sciences that are their
theoretical basis, we find a deplorable deficiency. From a dazzling
height, we suddenly find ourselves descended to a profound and darksome
abyss. Useful inventions are scarce, of a petty character, and, being
neglected, remain barren of results. While the Chinese observed and
invented a great deal, the Hindoos invented but little, and of that
little took no care; the Greeks, also, have left us much information,
but little worthy of their genius; and the Romans, once arrived at the
culminating point of their history, could no longer make any real
progress, for the Asiatic admixture in which they were absorbed with
surprising rapidity, produced a population incapable of the patient and
toilsome investigation of stern realities. Their administrative genius,
however, their legislation, and the useful monuments with which they
provided the soil of their territories, attest sufficiently the
practical character which, at one time, so eminently characterized that
people; and prove that if the South of Europe had not been so rapidly
submerged with colonists from Asia and the North of Africa, positive
science would have been the gainer, and less would have been left to be
accomplished by the Germanic races, which afterward gave it a renewed
impulse.
The Germanic conquerors of the fifth century were characterized by
instincts of a similar kind to those of the Chinese, but of a higher
order. While they possessed the utilitarian tendency as strongly, if not
stronger, they had, at the same time, a much greater endowment of the
speculative. Their disposition presented a happy blending of these two
mainsprings of activity. Where-ever the Teutonic blood predominates, the
utilitarian tendency, ennobled and refined by the speculative, is
unmistakable. In England, North America, and Holland, this tendency
governs and preponderates over all the other national instincts. It is
so, in a lesser degree, in Belgium, and even in the North of France,
where everything susceptible of practical application is understood with
marvellous facility. But as we advance further south, this
predisposition is less apparent, and, finally, disappears altogether. We
cannot attribute this to the action of the sun, for the Piedmontese
live in a much warmer climate than the Provençals and the inhabitants of
the Languedoc; it is the effect of blood.
The series of speculative races, or those rendered so by admixture,
occupies the greater portion of the globe, and this observation is
particularly applicable to Europe. With the exception of the Teutonic
family, and a portion of the Sclavonic, all other groups of our part of
the world are but slightly endowed with the faculty for the useful and
practical; or, having already acted their part in the world's history,
will not be able to recommence it. All these races, from the Gaul to the
Celtiberian, and thence to the variegated compounds of the Italian
populations, present a descending scale from a utilitarian point of
view. Not that they are devoid of all the aptitudes of that tendency,
but they are wanting in some of the most essential.
The union of the Germanic tribes with the races of the ancient world,
this engrafting of a vigorous utilitarian principle upon the ideas of
that variegated compound, produced our civilization; the richness,
diversity, and fecundity of our state of culture is the natural result
of that combination of so many different elements, which each
contributed their part, and which the practical vigor of our Germanic
ancestors, succeeded in blending into a more or less harmonious whole.
Wherever our state of civilization extends, it is characterized by two
traits; the first, that the population contains a greater or less
admixture of Teutonic blood; the other, that it is Christian. This last
feature, however, as I said before, though the most obvious and
striking, is by no means essential, because many nations are Christian,
and many more may become so, without participating in our civilization.
But the first feature is positive, decisive. Wherever the Germanic
element has not penetrated, our civilization cannot flourish.[103]
This leads me to the investigation of a serious and important question:
"Can it be asserted that all the European nations are really and
thoroughly civilized?" Do the ideas and facts which rise upon the
surface of our civilization, strike root in the basis of our social and
political structure, and derive their vitality from that source? Are the
results of these ideas and facts such as are conformable to the
instincts, the tendencies, of the masses? Or, in other words, have the
lowest strata of our populations the same direction of thought and
action as the highest--that direction which we may call the spirit or
genius of our progressive movement?
To arrive at a true and unbiassed solution of this question, let us
examine other civilizations, different from ours, and then institute a
comparison.
The similarity of views and ideas, the unity of purpose, which
characterized the whole body of citizens in the Grecian states, during
the brilliant period of their history, has been justly admired. Upon
every essential point, the opinions of every individual, though often
conflicting, were, nevertheless, derived from the same source, emanated
from the same general views and sentiments; individuals might differ in
politics, one wishing a more oligarchical, another a more democratic
government; or they might differ in religion, one worshipping, by
preference, the Eleusinian Ceres, another the Minerva of the Parthenon;
or in matters of taste, one might prefer Æschylus to Sophocles, Alceus
to Pindar. At the bottom, the disputants all participated in the same
views and ideas, ideas which might well be called national. The question
was one of degree, not of kind.[104]
Rome, previous to the Punic wars, presented the same spectacle; the
civilization of the country was uniform, and embraced all, from the
master to the slave.[105] All might not participate in it to the same
extent, but all participated in it and in no other.
But in Rome, after the Punic wars, and in Greece, soon after Pericles,
and especially after Philip of Macedon, this character of homogeneity
began to disappear. The greater mixture of nations produced a
corresponding mixture of civilizations, and the compound thus formed
exceeded in variety, elegance, refinement, and learning, the ancient
mode of culture. But it had this capital inconvenience, both in Hellas
and in Italy, that it belonged exclusively to the higher classes. Its
nature, its merits, its tendencies, were ignored by the sub-strata of
the population. Let us take the civilization of Rome after the Asiatic
wars. It was a grand, magnificent monument of human genius. It had a
cosmopolitan character: the rhetoricians of Greece contributed to it the
transcendental spirit, the jurists and publicists of Syria and
Alexandria gave it a code of atheistic, levelling, and monarchical
laws--each part of the empire furnished to the common store some portion
of its ideas, its sciences, and its character. But whom did this
civilization embrace? The men engaged in the public administration or in
great monetary enterprises, the people of wealth and of leisure. It was
merely submitted to, not adopted by the masses. The populations of
Europe understood nothing of those Asiatic and African contributions to
the civilization; the inhabitants of Egypt, Numidia, or Asia, were
equally uninterested in what came from Gaul and Spain, countries with
which they had nothing in common. But a small minority of the Roman
people stood on the pinnacle, and being in possession of the secret,
valued it. The rest, those not included in the aristocracy of wealth and
position, preserved the civilization peculiar to the land of their
birth, or, perhaps, had none at all. Here, then, we have an example of a
great and highly perfected civilization, dominating over untold
millions, but founding its reign not in their desires or convictions,
but in their exhaustion, their weakness, their listlessness.
A very different spectacle is presented in China. The boundless extent
of that empire includes, indeed, several races markedly distinct, but I
shall speak at present only of the national race, the Chinese proper.
One spirit animates the whole of this immense multitude, which is
counted by hundreds of millions. Whatever we think of their
civilization, whether we admire or censure the principles upon which it
is based, the results which it has produced, and the direction which it
takes; we cannot deny that it pervades all ranks, that every individual
takes in it a definite and intelligent part. And this is not because the
country is free, in our sense of the word: there is no democratic
principle which secures, by law, to every one the position which his
efforts may attain, and thus spurs him on to exertions. No; I discard
all Utopian pictures. The peasant and the man of the middle classes, in
the Celestial Empire, are no better assured of rising by their own merit
only, than they are elsewhere. It is true that, in theory, public honors
are solely the reward of merit, and every one is permitted to offer
himself as a candidate;[106] but it is well known that, in reality, the
families of great functionaries monopolize all lucrative offices, and
that the scholastic diplomas often cost more money than efforts of
study. But disappointed or hopeless ambition never leads the possessor
to imagine a different system; the aim of the reformer is to remedy the
abuses of the established organization, not to substitute another. The
masses may groan under ills and abuses, but the fault is charged, not to
the social and political system, which to them is an object of
unqualified admiration, but to the persons to whose care the performance
of its duties is committed. The head of the government, or his
functionaries, may become unpopular, but the form itself, the
government, never. A very remarkable feature of the Chinese is that
among them primary instruction is so universal; it reaches classes whom
we hardly imagine to have any need of it. The cheapness of books, the
immense number and low price of the schools, enable even the poorest to
acquire the elements of knowledge, reading and writing.[107] The laws,
their spirit and tendency, are well known and understood by all classes,
and the government prides itself upon facilitating the study of this
useful science.[108] The instinct of the masses is decidedly averse to
all political convulsions. Mr. Davis, who was commissioner of H. B.
Majesty in China, and who studied its affairs with the assiduity of a
man who is interested in understanding them well, says that the
character of the people cannot be better expressed than by calling them
"a nation of steady conservatives."[109]
Here, then, we have a most striking contrast to the civilization of Rome
in her latter days, when governmental changes occurred in fearfully
rapid succession, until the arrival of the nations of the north. In
every portion of that vast empire, there were whole populations that had
no interest in the preservation of established order, and were ever
ready to second the maddest schemes, to embark in any enterprise that
seemed to promise advantage, or that was represented in seductive colors
by some ambitious demagogue. During that long period of several
centuries, no scheme was left untried: property, religion, the sanctity
of family relations, were all called in question, and innovators in
every portion of the empire, found multitudes ever disposed to carry
their theories into practice by force. Nothing in the Greco-Roman world
rested on a solid basis, not even the imperial unity, so indispensable,
it would seem, to the mere self-preservation of such a state of
society. It was not only the armies, with their swarm of _improvisto_
Cæsars, that undertook the task of shaking this palladium of national
safety; the emperors themselves, beginning with Diocletian, had so
little faith in monarchy, that they willingly made the experiment of
dualism in the government, and finally found four at a time not too many
for governing the empire.[110] I repeat it, not one institution, not one
principle, was stable in that wretched state of society, which continued
to preserve some outward form, merely from the physical impossibility of
assuming any others, until the men of the north came to assist in its
demolition.
Between these two great societies, then, the Roman empire, and that of
China, we perceive the most complete contrast. By the side of the
civilization of Eastern Asia, I may mention that of India, Thibet, and
other portions of Central Asia, which is equally universal, and diffused
among all ranks and classes. As in China there is a certain level of
information to which all attain, so in Hindostan, every one is animated
by the same spirit; each individual knows precisely what his caste
requires him to learn, to think, to believe. Among the Buddhists of
Thibet, and the table-lands of Asia, nothing is rarer than to find a
peasant who cannot read, and there everybody has the same convictions
upon important subjects.
Do we find this homogeneity in European nations? It is scarce worth
while to put the question. Not even the Greco-Roman empire presents
incongruities so strange, or contrasts so striking, as are to be found
among us; not only among the various nationalities of Europe, but in the
bosom of the same sovereignty. I shall not speak of Russia, and the
states that form the Austrian empire; the demonstration of my position
would there be too facile. Let us turn to Germany; to Italy, Southern
Italy in particular; to Spain, which, though in a less degree, presents
a similar picture; or to France.
I select France. The difference of manners, in various parts of this
country, has struck even the most superficial observer, and it has long
since been observed that Paris is separated from the rest of France by a
line of demarcation so decided and accurately defined, that at the very
gates of the capital, a nation is found, utterly different from that
within the walls. Nothing can be more true: those who attach to our
political unity the idea of similarity of thoughts, of character--in
fine, of nationality, are laboring under a great delusion. There is not
one principle that governs society and is connected with our
civilization, which is understood in the same manner in all our
departments. I do not speak here merely of the peculiarities that
characterize the native of Normandy, of Brittany, Angevin, Limousin,
Gascony, Provence. Every one knows how little alike these various
populations are,[111] and how they differ in their tendencies and modes
of thinking. I wish to draw attention to the fact, that while in China,
Thibet, India, the most essential ideas upon which the civilization is
based, are common to all classes, participated in by all, it is by no
means so among us. The very rudiments of our knowledge, the most
elementary and most generally accessible portion of it, remain an
impenetrable mystery to our rural populations, among whom but few
individuals are found acquainted with reading and writing. This is not
for want of opportunities--it is because no value is attached to these
acquisitions, because their utility is not perceived. I speak from my
own observation, and that of persons who had ample facilities, and
brought extensive information and great judgment to the task of
investigation. Government has made the most praiseworthy efforts to
remedy the evil, to raise the peasantry from the sink of ignorance in
which they vegetate. But the wisest laws, and the most carefully
calculated institutions have proved abortive. The smallest village
affords ample opportunities for common education; even the adult, when
conscription forces him into the army, finds in the regimental schools
every facility for acquiring the most necessary branches of knowledge.
Compulsion is resorted to--every one who has lived in the provinces
knows with what success. Parents send their children to school with
undisguised repugnance, for they regret the time thus spent as wasted,
and, therefore, eagerly seize the most trifling pretext for withdrawing
them, and never suffer them to exceed the legal term of attendance. So
soon as the young man leaves school, or the soldier has served his time,
they hasten to forget what they were compelled to learn, and what they
are heartily ashamed of. They return forever after to the local
_patois_[112] of their birthplace, and pretend to have forgotten the
French language, which, indeed, is but too often true. It is a painful
conclusion, but one which many and careful observations have forced upon
me, that all the generous private and public endeavors to instruct our
rural population, are absolutely futile, and can tend no further than to
enforce an outward compliance. They care not for the knowledge we wish
to give them--they will not have it, and this not from mere negligence
or apathy, but from a feeling of positive hostility to our
civilization. This is a startling assertion, but I have not yet adduced
all the proofs in support of it.
In those parts of the country where the laboring classes are employed in
manufactures principally, and in the great cities, the workmen are
easily induced to learn to read and write. The circumstances with which
they are surrounded, leave them no doubt as to the practical advantages
accruing to them from these acquisitions. But so soon as these men have
sufficiently mastered the first elements of knowledge, to what use do
they, for the most part, apply them? To imbibe or give vent to ideas and
sentiments the most subversive of all social order. The instinctive, but
passive hostility to our civilization, is superseded by a bitter and
active enmity, often productive of the most fearful calamities. It is
among these classes that the projectors of the wildest, most incendiary
schemes readily recruit their partisans; that the advocates of
socialism, community of goods and wives, all, in fact, who, under the
pretext of removing the ills and abuses that afflict the social system,
propose to tear it down, find ready listeners and zealous believers.
There are, however, portions of the country to which this picture does
not apply; and these exceptions furnish me with another proof in favor
of my proposition. Among the agricultural and manufacturing populations
of the north and northeast, information is general; it is readily
received, and, once received, retained and productive of good fruits.
These people are intelligent, well-informed, and orderly, like their
neighbors in Belgium and the whole of the Netherlands. And these, also,
are the populations most closely akin to the Teutonic race, the race
which, as I said in another place, gave the initiative to our
civilization.
The aversion to our civilization, of which I spoke, is not the only
singular feature in the character of our rural populations. If we
penetrate into the privacy of their thoughts and beliefs, we make
discoveries equally striking and startling. The bishops and parish
clergy have to this day, as they had one, five, or fifteen centuries
ago, to battle with mysterious superstitions, or hereditary tendencies,
some of which are the more formidable as they are seldom openly avowed,
and can, therefore, be neither attacked nor conquered. There is no
enlightened priest, that has the care of his flock at heart, but knows
from experience with what deep cunning the peasant, however devout,
knows how to conceal in his own bosom some fondly cherished traditional
idea or belief, which reveals itself only at long intervals, and
without his knowledge. If he is spoken to about it, he denies or evades
the discussion, but remains unshaken in his convictions. He has
unbounded confidence in his pastor, unbounded except upon this one
subject, that might not inappropriately be called his secret religion.
Hence that taciturnity and reserve which, in all our provinces, is the
most marked characteristic of the peasant, and which he never for a
moment lays aside towards the class he calls _bourgeois_; that
impassable barrier between him and even the most popular and
well-intentioned landed proprietor of his district.
It must not be supposed that this results merely from rudeness and
ignorance. Were it so, we might console ourselves with the hope that
they will gradually improve and assimilate with the more enlightened
classes. But these people are precisely like certain savages; at a
superficial glance they appear unreflecting and brutish, because their
exterior is humble, and their character requires to be studied. But so
soon as we penetrate, however little, into their own circle of ideas,
the feelings that govern their private life, we discover that in their
obstinate isolation from our civilization, they are not actuated by a
feeling of degradation. Their affections and antipathies do not arise
from mere accidental circumstances, but, on the contrary, are in
accordance with logical reasoning based upon well-defined and clearly
conceived ideas.[113] In speaking of their religious notions awhile
ago, I should have remarked what an immense distance there is between
our doctrines of morals and those of the peasantry, how widely different
are their ideas from those which we attach to the same word.[114] With
what pertinacious obstinacy they continue to look upon every one not
peasant like themselves, as the people of remote antiquity looked upon a
foreigner. It is true they do not kill him, thanks to the singular and
mysterious terror which the laws, in the making of which they have no
part, inspire them; but they hate him cordially, distrust him, and if
they can do so without too great a risk, fleece him without scruple and
with immense satisfaction. Yet they are not wicked or ill-disposed.
Among themselves they are kind-hearted, charitable, and obliging. But
then they regard themselves as a distinct race--a race, they tell
you--that is weak, oppressed, and that must resort to cunning and
stratagem to gain their due, but which, nevertheless, preserves its
pride and contempt for all others. In many of our provinces, the laborer
believes himself of much better stock than his former lord or present
employer. The family pride of many of our peasants is, to say the least,
as great as that of the nobility during the Middle Ages.[115]
It cannot be doubted that the lower strata of the population of France
have few features in common with the higher. Our civilization penetrates
but little below the surface. The great mass is indifferent--nay,
positively hostile to it. The most tragic events have stained the
country with torrents of blood, unparalleled convulsions have destroyed
every ancient fabric, both social and political. Yet the agricultural
populations have never been roused from their apathetic
indifference,[116] have never taken any other part but that to which
they were forced. When their own personal and immediate interests were
not at stake, they allowed the tempests to blow by without concern,
without even passive sympathy on one side or the other. Many persons,
frightened and scandalized at this spectacle, have declared the
peasantry as irreclaimably perverse. This is at the same time an
injustice, and a very false appreciation of their character. The
peasants regard us almost as their enemies. They comprehend nothing of
our civilization, contribute nothing to it of their own accord, and they
think themselves authorized to profit by its disasters, whenever they
can. Apart from this antagonism, which sometimes displays itself in an
active, but oftener in a passive manner, it cannot be doubted that they
possess moral qualities of a high order, though often singularly
applied.
Such is the state of civilization in France. It may be asserted that of
a population of thirty-six millions, ten participate in the ideas and
mode of thinking upon which our civilization is based, while the
remaining twenty-six altogether ignore them, are indifferent and even
hostile to them, and this computation would, I think, be even more
flattering than the real truth. Nor is France an exception in this
respect. The picture I have given applies to the greater part of Europe.
Our civilization is suspended, as it were, over an unfathomable gulf, at
the bottom of which there slumber elements which may, one day, be roused
and prove fearfully, irresistibly destructive. This is an awful, an
ominous truth. Upon its ultimate consequences it is painful to reflect.
Wisdom may, perhaps, foresee the storm, but can do little to avert it.
But ignored, despised, or hated as it is by the greater number of those
over whom it extends its dominion, our civilization is, nevertheless,
one of the grandest, most glorious monuments of the human mind. In the
inventive, initiatory quality it does not surpass, or even equal some
of its predecessors, but in comprehensiveness it surpasses all. From
this comprehensiveness arise its powers of appropriation, of conquest;
for, to comprehend is to seize, to possess. It has appropriated all
their acquisitions, and has remodelled, reconstructed them. It did not
create the exact sciences, but it has given them their exactitude, and
has disembarrassed them from the divagations from which, by a singular
paradox, they were anciently less free than any other branch of
knowledge. Thanks to its discoveries, the material world is better known
than at any other epoch. The laws by which nature is governed, it has,
in a great measure, succeeded in unveiling, and it has applied them so
as to produce results truly wonderful. Gradually, and by the clearness
and correctness of its induction, it has reconstructed immense fragments
of history, of which the ancients had no knowledge; and as it recedes
from the primitive ages of the world, it penetrates further into the
mist that obscures them. These are great points of superiority, and
which cannot be contested.
But these being admitted, are we authorized to conclude--as is so
generally assumed as a matter of course--that the characteristics of our
civilization are such as to entitle it to the pre-eminence among all
others? Let us examine what are its peculiar excellencies. Thanks to the
prodigious number of various elements that contributed to its formation,
it has an eclectic character which none of its predecessors or
contemporaries possess. It unites and combines so many various qualities
and faculties, that its progress is equally facile in all directions;
and it has powers of analysis and generalization so great, that it can
embrace and appropriate all things, and, what is more, apply them to
practical purposes. In other words, it advances at once in a number of
different directions, and makes valuable conquests in all, but it cannot
be said that it advances at the same time _furthest_ in all. Variety,
perhaps, rather than great intensity, is its characteristic. If we
compare its progress in any one direction with what has been done by
others in the same, we shall find that in few, indeed, can our
civilization claim pre-eminence. I shall select three of the most
striking features of every civilization; the art of government, the
state of the fine arts, and refinement of manners.
In the art of government, the civilization of Europe has arrived at no
positive result. In this respect, it has been unable to assume a
definite character. It has laid down no principles. In every country
over which its dominion extends, it is subservient to the exigencies of
the various races which it has aggregated, but not united. In England,
Holland, Naples, and Russia, political forms are still in a state of
comparative stability, because either the whole population, or the
dominant portion of it, is composed of the same or homogeneous elements.
But everywhere else, especially in France, Central Italy, and Germany,
where the ethnical diversity is boundless, governmental theories have
never risen to the dignity of recognized truth; political science
consisted in an endless series of experiments. Our civilization,
therefore, being unable to assume a definite political feature, is
devoid, in this respect, of that stability which I comprised as an
essential feature in my definition of a civilization. This impotency is
not found in many other civilizations which we deem inferior. In the
Celestial Empire, in the Buddhistic and Brahminical societies, the
political feature of the civilization is clearly enounced, and clearly
understood by each individual member. In matters of politics all think
alike; under a wise administration, when the secular institutions
produce beneficent fruits, all rejoice; when in unskilled or malignant
hands, they endanger the public welfare, it is a misfortune to be
regretted as we regret our own faults; but no circumstance can abate
the respect and admiration with which they are regarded. It may be
desirable to correct abuses that have crept into them, but never to
replace them by others. It cannot be denied that these civilizations,
therefore, whatever we may think of them in other respects, enjoy a
guarantee of durability, of longevity, in which ours is sadly wanting.
With regard to the arts, our civilization is decidedly inferior to
others. Whether we aim at the grand or the beautiful, we cannot rival
either the imposing grandeur of the civilization of Egypt, of India, or
even of the ancient American empires, nor the elegant beauty of that of
Greece. Centuries hence--when the span of time allotted to us shall have
been consumed, when our civilization, like all that preceded it, shall
have sunk in the dim shades of the past, and have become a matter of
inquiry only to the historical student--some future traveller may wander
among the forests and marshes on the banks of the Thames, the Seine, or
the Rhine, but he will find no glorious monuments of our grandeur; no
sumptuous or gigantic ruins like those of Philæ, of Nineveh, of Athens,
of Salsetta, or of Tenochtitlan. A remote posterity may venerate our
memory as their preceptors in exact sciences. They may admire our
ingenuity, our patience, the perfection to which we have carried
inductive reasoning--not so our conquests in the regions of the
abstract. In poesy we can bequeath them nothing. The boundless
admiration which we bestow upon the productions of foreign civilizations
both past and present, is a positive proof of our own inferiority in
this respect.[117]
Perhaps the most striking features of a civilization, though not a true
standard of its merit, is the degree of refinement which it has
attained. By refinement I mean all the luxuries and amenities of life,
the regulations of social intercourse, delicacy of habits and tastes. It
cannot be denied that in all these we do not surpass, nor even equal,
many former as well as contemporaneous civilizations. We cannot rival
the magnificence of the latter days of Rome, or of the Byzantine empire;
we can but imagine the gorgeous luxury of Eastern civilizations; and in
our own past history we find periods when the modes of living were more
sumptuous, polished intercourse regulated by a higher and more exacting
standard, when taste was more cultivated, and habits more refined. It is
true, that we are amply compensated by a greater and more general
diffusion of the comforts of life; but in its exterior manifestations,
our civilization compares unfavorably with many others, and might almost
be called shabby.
* * * * *
Before concluding this digression upon civilization, which has already
extended perhaps too far, it may not be unnecessary to reiterate the
principal ideas which I wished to present to the mind of the reader. I
have endeavored to show that every civilization derives its peculiar
character from the race which gave the initiatory impulse. The
alteration of this initiatory principle produces corresponding
modifications, and even total changes, in the character of the
civilization. Thus our civilization owes its origin to the Teutonic
race, whose leading characteristic was an elevated utilitarianism. But
as these races ingrafted their mode of culture upon stocks essentially
different, the character of the civilization has been variously modified
according to the elements which it combined and amalgamated. The
civilization of a nation, therefore, exhibits the kind and degree of
their capabilities. It is the mirror in which they reflect their
individuality.
I shall now return to the natural order of my deductions, the series of
which is yet far from being complete. I commenced by enouncing the truth
that the existence and annihilation of human societies depended upon
immutable and uniform laws. I have proved the insufficiency of
adventitious circumstances to produce these phenomena, and have traced
their causes to the various capabilities of different human groups; in
other words, to the moral and intellectual diversity of races. Logic,
then, demands that I should determine the meaning and bearing of the
word race, and this will be the object of the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] See a quotation from De Tocqueville to the same effect, p. 77.
[103] One striking observation, in connection with this fact, Mr.
Gobineau has omitted to make, probably not because it escaped his
sagacity, but because he is himself a Roman Catholic. Wherever the
Teutonic element in the population is predominant, as in Denmark,
Sweden, Holland, England, Scotland, Northern Germany, and the United
States, Protestantism prevails; wherever, on the contrary, the Germanic
element is subordinate, as in portions of Ireland, in South America, and
the South of Europe, Roman Catholicism finds an impregnable fortress in
the hearts of the people. An ethnographical chart, carefully made out,
would indicate the boundaries of each in Christendom. I do not here mean
to assert that the Christian religion is accessible only to certain
races, having already emphatically expressed my opinion to the contrary.
I feel firmly convinced that a Roman Catholic may be as good and pious a
Christian as a member of any other Christian Church whatever, but I see
in this fact the demonstration of that leading characteristic of the
Germanic races--independence of thought, which incites them to seek for
truth, even in religion, for themselves; to investigate everything, and
take nothing upon trust.
I have, moreover, in favor of my position, the high authority of Mr.
Macaulay: "The Reformation," says that distinguished essayist and
historian, "was a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been not
only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but _also an
insurrection of the great German race against an alien domination_. It
is a most significant circumstance, that no large society of which the
tongue is not Teutonic, has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a
language derived from ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of modern
Rome to this day prevails." (_Hist. of England_, vol. i. p. 53.)--H.
[104] Thus Sparta and Athens, respectively, stood at the head of the
oligarchic and democratic parties, and the alternate preponderance of
either of the two often inundated each state with blood. Yet Sparta and
Athens, and the partisans of each in every state, possessed the spirit
of liberty and independence in an equal degree. Themistocles and
Aristides, the two great party leaders of Athens, vied with each other
in patriotism.
This uniformity of general views and purpose, Mr. De Tocqueville found
in the United States, and he correctly deduces from it the conclusion
that "though the citizens are divided into 24 (31) distinct
sovereignties, they, nevertheless, constitute a single nation, and form
more truly a state of society, than many peoples of Europe, living under
the same legislation, and the same prince." (Vol. i. p. 425.) This is an
observation which Europeans make last, because they do not find it at
home; and in return, it prevents the American from acquiring a clear
conception of the state of Europe, because he thinks the disputes there
involve no deeper questions than the disputes around him. In certain
fundamental principles, all Americans agree, to whatever party they may
belong; certain general characteristics belong to them all, whatever be
the differences of taste, and individual preferences; it is not so in
Europe--England, perhaps, excepted, and Sweden and Denmark. But I will
not anticipate the author.--H.
[105] It is well known that, in both Greece and Rome, the education of
the children of wealthy families was very generally intrusted to slaves.
Some of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece were bondsmen.--H.
[106] China has no hereditary nobility. The class of mandarins is
composed of those who have received diplomas in the great colleges with
which the country abounds. A decree of the Emperor JIN-TSOUNG, who
reigned from 1023 to 1063, regulated the modes of examination, to which
all, indiscriminately, are admitted. The candidates are examined more
than once, and every precaution is taken to prevent frauds. Thus, the
son of the poorest peasant may become a mandarin, but, as he afterwards
is dependent on the emperor for office or employment, this dignity is
often of but little practical value. Still, there are numerous instances
on record, in the history of China, of men who have risen from the
lowest ranks to the first offices of the State, and even to the imperial
dignity. (See _Pauthier's Histoire de la Chine_.)--H.
[107] John F. Davis, _The Chinese_. London, 1840, p. 274. "Three or four
volumes of any ordinary work of the octavo size and shape, may be had
for a sum equivalent to two shillings. A Canton bookseller's manuscript
catalogue marked the price of the four books of Confucius, including the
commentary, at a price rather under half a crown. The cheapness of their
common literature is occasioned partly by the mode of printing, but
partly also by the low price of paper."
These are Canton prices; in the interior of the empire, books are still
cheaper, even in proportion to the value of money in China. Their
classic works are sold at a proportionably lower price than the very
refuse of our literature. A pamphlet, or small tale, may be bought for a
sapeck, about the seventeenth part of a cent; an ordinary novel, for a
little more or less than one cent.--H.
[108] There are certain offences for which the punishment is remitted,
if the culprit is able to explain lucidly the nature and object of the
law respecting them. (See _Huc's Trav. in China_, vol. ii. p. 252.) In
the same place, Mr. Huc bears witness to the correctness of our author's
assertion. "Measures are taken," says he, "not only to enable the
magistrates to understand perfectly the laws they are called upon to
apply, but also to diffuse a knowledge of them among the people at
large. All persons in the employment of the government, are ordered to
make the code their particular study; and a special enactment provides,
that at certain periods, all officers, in all localities, shall be
examined upon their knowledge of the laws by their respective superiors;
and if their answers are not satisfactory, they are punished, the high
officials by the retention of a month's pay; the inferior ones by forty
strokes of the bamboo." It must not be imagined that Mr. Huc speaks of
the Chinese in the spirit of a panegyrist. Any one who reads this highly
instructive and amusing book (now accessible to English readers by a
translation), will soon be convinced of the contrary. He seldom speaks
of them to praise them.--H.
[109] Op. cit., p. 100.
[110] The reader will remember that DIOCLETIAN, who, the son of a slave,
rose from the rank of a common soldier, to the throne of the empire of
the world, associated with himself in the government, his friend
MAXIMIAN, A. D. 286. After six years of this joint reign, they took two
other partners, GALERIUS and CONSTANTIUS. Thus, the empire, though
nominally one sovereignty, had in reality four supreme heads. Under
Constantine the Great, the imperial unity was restored; but at his
decease, the purple was again parcelled out among his sons and nephews.
A permanent division of the empire, however, was not effected until the
death of Theodosius the Great, who for sixteen years had enjoyed
undivided power.
[111] It is not universally known that the various populations of France
differ, not only in character, but in physical appearance. The native of
the southern departments is easily known from the native of the central
and northern. The average stature in the north is said to be an inch and
a half more than in the south. This difference is easily perceptible in
the regiments drawn from either.--H.
[112] Many of these patois bear but little resemblance to the French
language: the inhabitants of the Landes, for example, speak a tongue of
their own, which, I believe, has roots entirely different. For the most
part, they are unintelligible to those who have not studied them. Over a
million and a half of the population of France speak German or German
dialects.--H.
[113] Mr. Gobineau's remarks apply with equal, and, in some cases, with
greater force, to other portions of Europe, as I had myself ample means
for observing. I have always considered the character of the European
peasantry as the most difficult problem in the social system of those
countries. Institutions cannot in all cases account for it. In Germany,
for instance, education is general and even compulsory: I have never met
a man under thirty that could not read and write. Yet, each place has
its local _patois_, which no rustic abandons, for it would be deemed by
his companions a most insufferable affectation. I have heard ministers
in the pulpit use local dialects, of which there are over five hundred
in Germany alone, and most of them widely different. Together with their
_patois_, the rustics preserve their local costumes, which mostly date
from the Middle Ages. But the peculiarity of their manners, customs, and
modes of thinking, is still more striking. Their superstitions are often
of the darkest, and, at best, of the most pitiable nature. I have seen
hundreds of poor creatures, males and females, on their pilgrimage to
some far distant shrine in expiation of their own sins or those of
others who pay them to go in their place. On these expeditions they
start in great numbers, chanting _Aves_ on the way the whole day long,
so that you can hear a large band of them for miles. Each carries a bag
on the back or head, containing their whole stock of provisions for a
journey of generally from one to two weeks. At night, they sleep in
barns, or on stacks of hay in the fields. If you converse with them, you
will find them imbued with superstitions absolutely idolatrous. Yet they
all know how to read and write. The perfect isolation in which these
creatures live from the world, despite that knowledge, is altogether
inconceivable to an American. As Mr. Gobineau says of the French
peasants, they believe themselves a distinct race. There is little or no
discontent among them; the revolutionary fire finds but scanty fuel
among these rural populations. But they look upon those who govern and
make the laws as upon different beings, created especially for that
purpose; the principles which regulate their private conduct, the whole
sphere of their ideas, are peculiar to themselves. In one word, they
form, not a class, but a caste, with lines of demarcation as clearly
defined as the castes of India. I have said before that this is not from
want of education; nor can any other explanation of the mystery be
found. It is not poverty, for among these rustics there are many wealthy
people, and, in general, they are not so poor as the lower classes in
cities. Nor do the laws restrain them within the limits of a caste. In
Germany, hereditary aristocracy is almost obsolete. The ranks of the
actual aristocracy are daily recruited from the burgher classes. The
highest offices of the various states are often found in possession of
untitled men, or men with newly created titles. The colleges and
universities are open to all, and great facilities are afforded even to
the poorest. Yet these differences between various parts of the
population remain, and this generally in those localities which the
ethnographer describes as strongly tinctured with non-Teutonic
elements.--H.
[114] A nurse from Tours had put a bird into the hands of her little
ward, and was teaching him to pull out the feathers and wings of the
poor creature. When the parents reproached her for giving him this
lesson of wickedness, she answered: "C'est pour le rendre _fier_."--(It
is to make him fierce or high-spirited.) This answer of 1847 is in
strict accordance with the most approved maxims of education of the
nurse's ancestors in the times of Vercingetorix.
[115] A few years ago, a church-warden was to be elected in a very small
and very obscure parish of French Brittany, that part of the former
province which the real Britons used to call the _pays Gallais_, or
Gallic land. The electors, who were all peasants, deliberated two days
without being able to agree upon a selection, because the candidate, a
very honest, wealthy, and highly respected man and a good Christian, was
a _foreigner_. Now, this _foreigner_ was born in the locality, and his
father had resided there before him, and had also been born there, but
it was recollected that his grandfather, who had been dead many years,
and whom no one in the assembly had known, came from somewhere else.
[116] This is no exaggeration, as every one acquainted with French
history knows. In the great revolution of the last century, the
peasantry of France took no interest and no part. In the Vendée, indeed,
they fought, and fought bravely, for the ancient forms, their king, and
their feudatory lords. Everywhere else, the rural districts remained in
perfect apathy. The revolutions since then have been decided in Paris.
The _émeutes_ seldom extended beyond the walls of the great cities. It
is a well-known fact, that in many of the rural districts, the peasants
did not hear of the expulsion of the Bourbon dynasty, until years
afterwards, and even then had no conception of the nature of the change.
Bourbon, Orleans, Republic, are words, to them, of no definite meaning.
The only name that can rouse them from their apathy, is "Napoleon." At
that sound, the Gallic heart thrills with enthusiasm and thirst for
glory. Hence the unparalleled success with which the present emperor has
appealed to universal suffrage.--H.
[117] It is not generally appreciated how much we are indebted to
Oriental civilizations for our lighter and more graceful literature. Our
first works of fiction were translations or paraphrases of Eastern tales
introduced into Western Europe by the returning crusaders. The songs of
the troubadour, the many-tomed romances of the Middle Ages--those
ponderous sires of modern novels--all emanated from that source. The
works of Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Boccacio, and nearer home, of Chaucer
and Spenser, are incontestable proofs of this fact. Even Milton himself
drew from the inexhaustible stores of Eastern legends and romances. Our
fairy tales, and almost all of our most graceful lyric poesy, that is
not borrowed from Greece, is of Persian origin. Almost every popular
poet of England and the continent has invoked the Oriental muse, none
more successfully than Southey and Moore. It would be useless to allude
to the immense popularity of acknowledged versions of Oriental
literature, such as the _Thousand and One Nights_, the Apologues,
Allegories, &c. What we do not owe to the East, we have taken from the
Greeks. Even to this day, Grecian mythology is the never-failing
resource of the lyric poet, and so familiar has that graceful imagery
become to us, that we introduce it, often _mal-à-propos_, even in our
colloquial language.
In metaphysics, also, we have confessedly done little more than revive
the labors of the Greeks.--H.