Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
The character e-breve (e with a small curved line over) is represented
in the text by [)e].
The character m-macron is represented in the text by [|m].
Italics in the footnote citations were inconsistently applied by
the typesetter.
On page 43, a word is possibly missing in the phrase "we will pass
over third force, 'la race';"
In footnote 95, the citation for Herrera is missing a book name.
On the fold-out chart between pages 509 and 510, Clavigero, Month 10
may be "Xocohuetzl".
In footnote 638, a reference to Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, is
incomplete.
THE WORKS OF HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT.
VOLUME II.
THE NATIVE RACES.
VOL. II. CIVILIZED NATIONS.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1883.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the Year 1882, by
HUBERT H. BANCROFT,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
_All Rights Reserved._
CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION.
PAGE.
Definition of the Terms -- The Universal Soul of Progress --
Man the Instrument and not the Element of Progress -- Origin
of Progressional Phenomena -- The Agency of Evil -- Is
Civilization Conducive to Happiness? -- Objective and
Subjective Humanity -- Conditions Essential to Progress --
Continental Configurations -- Food and Climate -- Wealth and
Leisure -- Association -- War, Slavery, Religion, and
Government -- The Development of Progressional Law 1
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS.
The American Civilization of the Sixteenth Century -- Its
Disappearance -- The Past, a New Element -- Dividing line
between Savage and Civilized Tribes -- Bounds of American
Civilization -- Physical Features of the Country -- Maya and
Nahua Branches of Aboriginal Culture -- The Nahua
Civilization -- The Aztecs its Representatives -- Limits of
the Aztec Empire -- Ancient History of Anáhuac in Outline --
The Toltec Era -- The Chichimec Era -- The Aztec Era --
Extent of the Aztec Language -- Civilized Peoples outside of
Anáhuac -- Central American Nations -- The Maya Culture --
The Primitive Maya Empire -- Nahua Influence in the South --
Yucatan and the Mayas -- The Nations of Chiapas -- The
Quiché Empire in Guatemala -- The Nahuas in Nicaragua and
Salvador -- Etymology of Names 81
CHAPTER III.
GOVERNMENT OF THE NAHUA NATIONS.
System of Government -- The Aztec Confederacy -- Order of
Succession -- Election of Kings among the Mexicans -- Royal
Prerogatives -- Government and Laws of Succession among the
Toltecs, and in Michoacan, Tlascala, Cholula, Huexotzinco,
and Oajaca -- Magnificence of the Nahua Monarchs -- Ceremony
of Anointment -- Ascent to the Temple -- The Holy Unction --
Address of the High-Priest to the King -- Penance and
Fasting in the House called Tlacatecco -- Homage of the
Nobles -- General Rejoicing throughout the Kingdom --
Ceremony of Coronation -- The Procuring of Sacrifices --
Description of the Crown -- Coronation Feasts and
Entertainments -- Hospitality extended to Enemies --
Coronation Speech of Nezahualpilli, King of Tezcuco, to
Montezuma II. of Mexico -- Oration of a Noble to a Newly
elected King 133
CHAPTER IV.
PALACES AND HOUSEHOLDS OF THE NAHUA KINGS.
Extent and Interior of the Great Palace in Mexico -- The
Palace of Nezahualcoyotl, King of Tezcuco -- The Zoölogical
Collections of the Nahua Monarchs -- Montezuma's Oratory --
Royal Gardens and Pleasure-Grounds -- The Hill of
Chapultepec -- Nezahualcoyotl's Country Residence at
Tezcozinco -- Toltec Palaces -- The Royal Guard -- The
King's Meals -- An Aztec Cuisine -- The Audience Chamber --
After-dinner Amusements -- The Royal Wardrobe -- The King
Among his People -- Meeting of Montezuma II. and Cortés --
The King's Harem -- Revenues of the Royal Household --
Policy of Aztec Kings 158
CHAPTER V.
THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AMONG THE NAHUAS.
Titles of the Nobility and Gentry -- The Power of the Nobles
-- The Aristocracy of Tezcuco -- The Policy of King
Techotlalatzin -- Privileges of the Nobles -- Montezuma's
Policy -- Rivalry between Nobles and Commons -- The Knightly
Order of Tecuhtli -- Ceremony of Initiation -- Origin of the
Order -- The Nahua Priesthood -- The Priests of Mexico --
Dedication of Children -- Priestesses -- Priesthood of
Miztecapan -- The Pontiff of Yopaa -- Tradition of
Wixipecocha -- The Cave of Yopaa -- The Zapotec Priests --
Toltec Priests -- Totonac Priests -- Priests of Michoacan,
Puebla, and Tlascala 186
CHAPTER VI.
PLEBEIANS, SLAVES, TENURE OF LANDS, AND TAXATION.
Influence of the Commoners -- Oppression by Nobles --
Deprived of Office by Montezuma II. -- Classes of Slaves --
Penal Slaves -- Voluntary Slavery -- Slave Market at
Azcapuzalco -- Punishment and Privileges of Slaves --
Division of Lands -- Crown Lands -- Lands of the Nobles --
Municipal Property -- Property of the Temples -- Tenure of
Lands in Zapotecapan, Miztecapan, Michoacan, Tlascala,
Cholula, and Huexotzinco -- Similarity to Feudal System of
Europe -- System of Taxation -- Municipal Taxes -- Lice
Tribute -- Tribute from Conquered Provinces -- Revenue
Officers -- Injustice of Montezuma II. 216
CHAPTER VII.
EDUCATION, MARRIAGE, CONCUBINAGE, CHILDBIRTH, AND BAPTISM.
Education of the Nahua Youth -- Manner of Punishment --
Marriage Preliminaries -- Nuptial Ceremony -- Observance
after Marriage -- Mazatec, Otomí, Chichimec, and Toltec
Marriages -- Divorce -- Concubinage -- Ceremonies
Preliminary to Childbirth -- Treatment of Pregnant Women --
Proceedings of Midwife -- Superstitions with regard to Women
who Died in Childbed -- Abortion -- Baptism -- Speeches of
Midwife -- Naming of Children -- Baptism among the
Tlascaltecs, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs -- Circumcision and
Scarification of Infants 240
CHAPTER VIII.
NAHUA FEASTS AND AMUSEMENTS.
Excessive Fondness for Feasts -- Manner of Giving Feasts --
Serving the Meal -- Professional Jesters -- Parting Presents
to Guests -- Royal Banquets -- Tobacco Smoking -- Public
Dances -- Manner of Singing and Dancing -- The Neteteliztli
-- The Drama among the Nahuas -- Music and Musical
Instruments -- Nahua Poetry -- Acrobatic Feats -- The
Netololiztli, or 'Bird Dance' -- Professional Runners -- The
Game of Tlactli -- Games of Chance -- The Patoliztli, or
'Bean Game' -- Totoloque, Montezuma's Favorite Game 283
CHAPTER IX.
PUBLIC FESTIVALS.
Frequent Occurrence of Religious Feasts -- Human Sacrifices
-- Feasts of the Fourth Year -- Monthly Festivals --
Sacrifice of Children -- Feast of Xipe -- Manner of
Sacrifice -- Feasts of Camaxtli, of the Flower Dealers, of
Centeotl, of Tezcatlipoca, and of Huitzilopochtli --
Festival of the Salt Makers -- The Sacrifice by Fire --
Feast of the Dead -- The Coming of the Gods -- The
Footprints on the Mat -- Hunting Feast -- The Month of Love
-- Hard Times -- Nahua Lupercalia -- Feasts of the Sun, of
the Winter Solstice -- Harvest and Eight-Year Festivals --
The Binding of the Sheaf 302
CHAPTER X.
FOOD OF THE NAHUA NATIONS.
Origin of Agriculture -- Floating Gardens -- Agricultural
Products -- Manner of preparing the Soil -- Description of
Agricultural Implements -- Irrigation -- Granaries --
Gardens -- The Harvest Feast -- Manner of Hunting -- Fishing
-- Methods of procuring Salt -- Nahua Cookery -- Various
kinds of Bread -- Beans -- Pepper -- Fruit -- Tamales --
Miscellaneous Articles of Food -- Eating of Human Flesh --
Manufacture of Pulque -- Preparation of Chocolatl -- Other
Beverages -- Intoxicating Drinks -- Drunkenness -- Time and
Manner of Taking Meals 342
CHAPTER XI.
DRESS OF THE NAHUA NATIONS.
Progress in Dress -- Dress of the Pre-Aztec Nations --
Garments of the Chichimecs and Toltecs -- Introduction of
Cotton -- The Maxtli -- The Tilmatli -- Dress of the
Acolhuas -- Origin of the Tarascan Costume -- Dress of the
Zapotecs and Tabascans -- Dress of Women -- The Huipil and
Cueitl -- Sandals -- Manner of Wearing the Hair -- Painting
and Tattooing -- Ornaments used by the Nahuas -- Gorgeous
Dress of the Nobles -- Dress of the Royal Attendants --
Names of the Various Mantles -- The Royal Diadem -- The
Royal Wardrobe -- Costly Decorations 363
CHAPTER XII.
COMMERCE OF THE NAHUA NATIONS.
The Main Features of Nahua Commerce -- Commerce in Pre-Aztec
Times -- Outrages Committed by Aztec Merchants -- Privileges
of the Merchants of Tlatelulco -- Jealousy between Merchants
and Nobles -- Articles used as Currency -- The Markets of
Anáhuac -- Arrangement and Regulations of the Market-Places
-- Number of Buyers and Sellers -- Transportation of Wares
-- Traveling Merchants -- Commercial Routes -- Setting out
on a Journey -- Caravans of Traders -- The Return -- Customs
and Feasts of the Merchants -- Nahua Boats and Navigation 378
CHAPTER XIII.
WAR-CUSTOMS OF THE NAHUAS.
Importance of the Military Profession -- Indications of Rank
-- Education of Warriors -- Rewards for Valor -- Military
Orders and their Dress -- Gorgeous War-Dresses of Montezuma
and the Aztec Nobility -- Dress of the Common Soldiers --
Armor and Defensive Weapons -- Offensive Weapons --
Standards -- Ambassadors and Couriers -- Fortifications --
The Military Council -- Articles of War -- Declaration of
War -- Spies -- Order of March and Battle -- War Customs of
the Tlascaltecs and Tarascos -- Return of the Conquering
Army -- Celebration of Feats of Arms 400
CHAPTER XIV.
NAHUA LAWS AND LAW COURTS.
General Remarks -- the Cihuacoatl, or Supreme Judge -- the
Court of the Tlacatecatl -- Jurisdiction of the Tecuhtlis --
the Centectlapixques and Topillis -- Law Courts and Judges
of Tezcuco -- Eighty-Day Council -- Tribunal of the King --
Court Proceedings -- Lawyers -- Witnesses -- Remuneration of
Judges -- Justice of King Nezahualpilli -- He orders his
Son's Execution -- Montezuma and the Farmer -- Jails -- Laws
against Theft, Murder, Treason, Kidnapping, Drunkenness,
Witchcraft, Adultery, Incest, Sodomy, Fornication, and other
Crimes -- Story of Nezahualcoyotl and the Boy 433
CHAPTER XV.
NAHUA ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
Metals Used and Manner of Obtaining Them -- Working of Gold
and Silver -- Wonderful Skill in Imitating Gilding and
Plating -- Working in Stone -- Lapidary Work -- Wood Carving
-- Manufacture of Pottery -- Various Kinds of Cloth --
Manufacture of Paper and Leather -- Preparation of Dyes and
Paints -- The Art of Painting -- Feather Mosaic Work --
Leaf-Mats -- Manner of Kindling Fire -- Torches -- Soap --
Council of Arts in Tezcuco -- Oratory and Poetry --
Nezahualcoyotl's Odes on the Mutability of Life, and the
Tyrant Tezozomoc -- Aztec Arithmetical System 473
CHAPTER XVI.
THE AZTEC CALENDAR.
Astronomical Knowledge of the Aztecs -- Contradictions of
Authors respecting the Calendar -- Value of the Researches
of Various Writers -- The First Regular Calendar -- The
Mexican Cycle -- The Civil Year -- The Aztec Months -- Names
of the Days and their Signification -- The Commencement of
the Aztec Year -- The Ritual Calendar -- Gama's Arrangement
of the Months -- The Calendar-Stone -- The Four Destructions
of the World -- The Calendar of Michoacan -- Reckoning of
the Zapotecs 502
CHAPTER XVII.
THE AZTEC PICTURE-WRITING.
Hieroglyphic Records -- The Native Books -- Authorities --
Destruction of the Native Archives by Zumárraga and his
Confrères -- Picture-Writings used after the Conquest for
Confession and Law-Suits -- Value of the Records --
Documents sent to Spain in the Sixteenth Century -- European
Collections -- Lord Kingsborough's Work -- Picture-Writings
retained in Mexico -- Collections of Ixtlilxochitl,
Sigüenza, Gemelli Careri, Boturini, Veytia, Leon y Gama,
Pichardo, Aubin, and the National Museum of Mexico --
Process of Hieroglyphic Development -- Representative,
Symbolic, and Phonetic Picture-Writing -- Origin of Modern
Alphabets -- The Aztec System -- Specimen from the Codex
Mendoza -- Specimen from Gemelli Careri -- Specimen from the
Boturini Collection -- Probable future Success of
Interpreters -- The Nepohualtzitzin 523
CHAPTER XVIII.
ARCHITECTURE AND DWELLINGS OF THE NAHUAS.
Architecture of the Ancient Nations -- General Features of
Nahua Architecture -- The Arch -- Exterior and Interior
Decorations -- Method of Building -- Inclined Planes --
Scaffolds -- The use of the Plummet -- Building Materials --
Position and Fortification of Towns -- Mexico Tenochtitlan
-- The Great Causeways -- Quarters and Wards of Mexico --
The Market Place -- Fountains and Aqueducts -- Light-houses
and Street-work -- City of Tezcuco -- Dwellings -- Aztec
Gardens -- Temple of Huitzilopochtli -- Temple of Mexico --
Other Temples -- Teocalli at Cholula and Tezcuco 553
CHAPTER XIX.
MEDICINE AND FUNERAL RITES AMONG THE NAHUAS.
Mexican Contributions to Medical Science -- The Botanical
Gardens -- Longevity -- Prevalent Diseases -- Introduction
of Small-Pox and Syphilis -- Medical Treatment -- The
Temazcalli -- Aboriginal Physicians -- The Aztec Faculty --
Standard Remedies -- Surgery -- Superstitious Ceremonies in
Healing -- Funeral Rites of Aztecs -- Cremation -- Royal
Obsequies -- Embalming -- The Funeral Pyre -- Human
Sacrifice -- Disposal of the Ashes and Ornaments -- Mourners
-- Funeral Ceremonies of the People -- Certain Classes
Buried -- Rites for the Slain in Battle -- Burial among the
Teo-Chichimecs and Tabascans -- Cremation Ceremonies in
Michoacan -- Burial by the Miztecs in Oajaca 591
CHAPTER XX.
GOVERNMENT, SOCIAL CLASSES, PROPERTY, AND LAWS OF THE MAYA
NATIONS.
Introductory Remarks -- Votan's Empire -- Zamná's Reign --
The Royal Families of Yucatan, Cocomes, Tutul Xius, Itzas,
and Cheles -- Titles and Order of Succession -- Classes of
Nobles -- The Quiché-Cakchiquel Empire in Guatemala -- The
Ahau Ahpop and Succession to the Throne -- Privileged
Classes -- Government of the Provinces -- The Royal Council
-- The Chiapanecs -- The Pipiles -- Nations of Nicaragua --
The Maya Priesthood -- Plebeian Classes -- Slaves -- Tenure
of Lands -- Inheritance of Property -- Taxation -- Debtors
and Creditor -- Laws and the Administration of Justice 630
CHAPTER XXI.
EDUCATION AND FAMILY MATTERS AMONG THE MAYAS.
Education of Youth -- Public Schools of Guatemala --
Branches of Study in Yucatan -- Marrying-Age -- Degrees of
Consanguinity allowed in Marriage -- Preliminaries of
Marriage -- Marriage Ceremonies -- The Custom of the Droit
du Seigneur in Nicaragua -- Widows -- Monogamy --
Concubinage -- Divorce -- Laws Concerning Adultery --
Fornication -- Rape -- Prostitution -- Unnatural Crimes --
Desire for Children -- Childbirth Ceremonies -- Rite of
Circumcision -- Manner of Naming Children -- Baptismal
Ceremonies 661
CHAPTER XXII.
FEASTS AND AMUSEMENTS OF THE MAYAS.
Special Observances -- Fixed Feasts -- Sacrifice of Slaves
-- Monthly Feasts of the Yucatecs -- Renewal of the Idols --
Feast of the Chacs -- Hunting Festival -- The Tuppkak --
Feast of the Cacao-Planters -- War Feast -- The Maya New
Year's Day -- Feasts of the Hunters, Fishers, and Apiarists
-- Ceremonies in honor of Cukulcan -- Feast of the Month of
Mol -- Feasts of the Years Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac --
Yucatec Sacrifices -- The Pit of Chichen -- Sacrifices of
the Pipiles -- Feast of Victory -- Feasts and Sacrifices in
Nicaragua -- Banquets -- Dances -- Musical Instruments --
Games 687
CHAPTER XXIII.
FOOD, DRESS, COMMERCE, AND WAR CUSTOMS OF THE MAYAS.
Introduction of Agriculture -- Quiché Tradition of the
Discovery of Maize -- Maize Culture -- Superstitions of
Farmers -- Hunting and Fishing -- Domestic Animals, Fowl,
and Bees -- Preservation and Cooking of Food -- Meals --
Drinks and Drinking -- Habits -- Cannibalism -- Dress of the
Mayas -- Maxtlis, Mantles, and Sandals -- Dress of Kings and
Priests -- Women's Dress -- Hair and Beard -- Personal
Decoration -- Head-Flattening, Perforation, Tattooing, and
Painting -- Personal Habits -- Commerce -- Currency --
Markets -- Superstitions of Travelers -- Canoes and Balsas
-- War -- Military Leaders -- Insignia -- Armor -- Weapons
-- Fortifications -- Battles -- Treatment of Captives 715
CHAPTER XXIV.
MAYA ARTS, CALENDAR, AND HIEROGLYPHICS.
Scarcity of Information -- Use of Metals -- Gold and
Precious Stones -- Implements of Stone -- Sculpture --
Pottery -- Manufacture of Cloth -- Dyeing -- System of
Numeration -- Maya Calendar in Yucatan -- Days, Weeks,
Months, and Years -- Indictions and Katunes -- Perez' System
of Ahau Katunes -- Statements of Landa and Cogolludo --
Intercalary Days and Years -- Days and Months in Guatemala,
Chiapas, and Soconusco -- Maya Hieroglyphic System --
Testimony of Early Writers on the Use of Picture-Writing --
Destruction of Documents -- Specimens which have Survived --
The Dresden Codex -- Manuscript Troano -- Tablets of
Palenque, Copan, and Yucatan -- Bishop Landa's Key --
Brasseur de Bourbourg's Interpretation 748
CHAPTER XXV.
BUILDINGS, MEDICINE, BURIAL, PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES, AND
CHARACTER OF THE MAYAS.
Scanty Information given by the Early Voyagers -- Private
Houses of the Mayas -- Interior Arrangement, Decoration, and
Furniture -- Maya Cities -- Description of Utatlan --
Patinamit, the Cakchiquel Capital -- Cities of Nicaragua --
Maya Roads -- Temples at Chichen Itza and Cozumel -- Temples
of Nicaragua and Guatemala -- Diseases of the Mayas --
Medicines used -- Treatment of the Sick -- Propitiatory
Offerings and Vows -- Superstitions -- Dreams -- Omens --
Witchcraft -- Snake-Charmers -- Funeral Rites and Ceremonies
-- Physical Peculiarities -- Character 783
[Illustration: NATIVE RACES OF THE PACIFIC STATES SHOWING THE LOCATION
OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS]
THE NATIVE RACES
OF THE
PACIFIC STATES.
CIVILIZED NATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION.
DEFINITION OF THE TERMS -- FORCE AND NATURE -- THE UNIVERSAL
SOUL OF PROGRESS -- MAN THE INSTRUMENT AND NOT THE ELEMENT
OF PROGRESS -- ORIGIN OF PROGRESSIONAL PHENOMENA -- THE
AGENCY OF EVIL -- IS CIVILIZATION CONDUCIVE TO HAPPINESS? --
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE HUMANITY -- CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO
PROGRESS -- CONTINENTAL CONFIGURATIONS -- FOOD AND CLIMATE
-- WEALTH AND LEISURE -- ASSOCIATION -- WAR, SLAVERY,
RELIGION, AND GOVERNMENT -- MORALITY AND FASHION -- THE
DEVELOPMENT OF PROGRESSIONAL LAW.
The terms Savage and Civilized, as applied to races of men, are
relative and not absolute terms. At best these words mark only broad
shifting stages in human progress; the one near the point of
departure, the other farther on toward the unattainable end. This
progress is one and universal, though of varying rapidity and extent;
there are degrees in savagism and there are degrees in civilization;
indeed, though placed in opposition, the one is but a degree of the
other. The Haidah, whom we call savage, is as much superior to the
Shoshone, the lowest of Americans, as the Aztec is superior to the
Haidah, or the European to the Aztec. Looking back some thousands of
ages, we of to-day are civilized; looking forward through the same
duration of time, we are savages.
Nor is it, in the absence of fixed conditions, and amidst the many
shades of difference presented by the nations along our western
seaboard, an easy matter to tell where even comparative savagism ends
and civilization begins. In the common acceptation of these terms, we
may safely call the Central Californians savage, and the Quichés of
Guatemala civilized; but between these two extremes are hundreds of
peoples, each of which presents some claim for both distinctions.
Thus, if the domestication of ruminants, or some knowledge of arts and
metals, constitute civilization, then are the ingenious but
half-torpid Hyperboreans civilized, for the Eskimos tame reindeer, and
the Thlinkeets are skillful carvers and make use of copper; if the
cultivation of the soil, the building of substantial houses of adobe,
wood, and stone, with the manufacture of cloth and pottery, denote an
exodus from savagism, then are the Pueblos of New Mexico no longer
savages; yet in both these instances enough may be seen, either of
stupidity or brutishness, to forbid our ranking them with the more
advanced Aztecs, Mayas, and Quichés.
We know what savages are; how, like wild animals, they depend for food
and raiment upon the spontaneous products of nature, migrating with
the beasts and birds and fishes, burrowing beneath the ground, hiding
in caves, or throwing over themselves a shelter of bark or skins or
branches or boards, eating or starving as food is abundant or scarce;
nevertheless, all of them have made some advancement from their
original naked, helpless condition, and have acquired some aids in the
procurement of their poor necessities. Primeval man, the only real
point of departure, and hence the only true savage, nowhere exists on
the globe to-day. Be the animal man never so low--lower in skill and
wisdom than the brute, less active in obtaining food, less ingenious
in building his den--the first step out of his houseless, comfortless
condition, the first fashioning of a tool, the first attempt to cover
nakedness and wall out the wind, if this endeavor spring from
intellect and not from instinct, is the first step toward
civilization. Hence the modern savage is not the pre-historic or
primitive man; nor is it among the barbarous nations of to-day that we
must look for the rudest barbarism.
[Sidenote: DEFINITION OF THE TERMS.]
Often is the question asked, What is civilization? and the answer
comes, The act of civilizing; the state of being civilized. What is
the act of civilizing? To reclaim from a savage or barbarous state; to
educate; to refine. What is a savage or barbarous state? A wild
uncultivated state; a state of nature. Thus far the dictionaries. The
term civilization, then, popularly implies both the transition from a
natural to an artificial state, and the artificial condition attained.
The derivation of the word civilization, from _civis_, citizen,
_civitas_, city, and originally from _coetus_, union, seems to
indicate that culture which, in feudal times, distinguished the
occupants of cities from the ill-mannered boors of the country. The
word savage, on the other hand, from _silva_, a wood, points to man
primeval; _silvestres homines_, men of the forest, not necessarily
ferocious or brutal, but children of nature. From these simple
beginnings both words have gradually acquired a broader significance,
until by one is understood a state of comfort, intelligence, and
refinement; and by the other, humanity wild and bestial.
Guizot defines civilization as an "improved condition of man resulting
from the establishment of social order in place of the individual
independence and lawlessness of the savage or barbarous life;" Buckle
as "the triumph of mind over external agents;" Virey as "the
development more or less absolute of the moral and intellectual
faculties of man united in society;" Burke as the exponent of two
principles, "the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion."
"Whatever be the characteristics of what we call savage life," says
John Stuart Mill, "the contrary of these, or the qualities which
society puts on as it throws off these, constitute civilization;" and,
remarks Emerson, "a nation that has no clothing, no iron, no alphabet,
no marriage, no arts of peace, no abstract thought, we call
barbarous."
Men talk of civilization and call it liberty, religion, government,
morality. Now liberty is no more a sign of civilization than tyranny;
for the lowest savages are the least governed of all people. Civilized
liberty, it is true, marks a more advanced stage than savage liberty,
but between these two extremes of liberty there is a necessary age of
tyranny, no less significant of an advance on primitive liberty than
is constitutional liberty an advance on tyranny. Nor is religion
civilization, except in so far as the form and machinery of sacerdotal
rites, and the abandonment of fetichism for monotheism become
significant of intenser thought and expansion of intellect. No nation
ever practiced grosser immorality, or what we of the present day hold
to be immorality, than Greece during the height of her intellectual
refinement. Peace is no more civilization than war, virtue than vice,
good than evil. All these are the incidents, not the essence, of
civilization.
That which we commonly call civilization is not an adjunct nor an
acquirement of man; it is neither a creed nor a polity, neither
science nor philosophy nor industry; it is rather the measure of
progressional force implanted in man, the general fund of the nation's
wealth, learning, and refinement, the storehouse of accumulated
results, the essence of all best worth preserving from the
distillations of good and the distillations of evil. It is a something
between men, no less than a something within them; for neither an
isolated man nor an association of brutes can by any possibility
become civilized.
[Sidenote: CIVILIZATION A WORKING PRINCIPLE.]
Further than this, civilization is not only the measure of aggregated
human experiences, but it is a living working principle. It is a
social transition; a moving forward rather than an end attained; a
developing vitality rather than a fixed entity; it is the effort or
aim at refinement rather than refinement itself; it is labor with a
view to improvement and not improvement consummated, although it may
be and is the metre of such improvement. And this accords with
latter-day teachings. Although in its infancy, and, moreover, unable
to explain things unexplainable, the science of evolution thus far has
proved that the normal condition of the human race, as well as that of
physical nature, is progressional; that the plant in a congenial soil
is not more sure to grow than is humanity with favorable surroundings
certain to advance. Nay, more, we speak of the progress of
civilization as of something that moves on of its own accord; we may,
if we will, recognize in this onward movement, the same principle of
life manifest in nature and in the individual man.
To things we do not understand we give names, with which by frequent
use we become familiar, when we fancy that we know all about the
things themselves. At the first glance civilization appears to be a
simple matter; to be well clad, well housed, and well fed, to be
intelligent and cultured are better than nakedness and ignorance;
therefore it is a good thing, a thing that men do well to strive
for,--and that is all. But once attempt to go below this placid
surface, and investigate the nature of progressional phenomena, and we
find ourselves launched upon an eternity of ocean, and in pursuit of
the same occult Cause, which has been sought alike by philosophic and
barbaric of every age and nation; we find ourselves face to face with
a great mystery, to which we stand in the same relation as to other
great mysteries, such as the origin of things, the principle of life,
the soul-nature. When such questions are answered as What is
attraction, heat, electricity; what instinct, intellect, soul? Why are
plants forced to grow and molecules to conglomerate and go whirling
in huge masses through space?--then we may know why society moves ever
onward like a river in channels predetermined. At present, these
phenomena we may understand in their action partially, in their
essence not at all; we may mark effects, we may recognize the same
principle under widely different conditions though we may not be able
to discover what that principle is. Science tells us that these things
are so; that certain combinations of certain elements are inevitably
followed by certain results, but science does not attempt to explain
why they are so. Nevertheless, a summary of such few simple thoughts
as I have been able to gather upon the subject, may be not wholly
valueless.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FORCE AND MATTER.]
And first, to assist our reflections, let us look for a moment at some
of the primal principles in nature, not with a view to instruct in
that direction, but rather to compare some of the energies of the
material world with the intellectual or progressional energy in man;
and of these I will mention such only as are currently accepted by
latter-day science.
Within the confines of the conceivable universe one element alone is
all-potential, all-pervading,--Force. Throughout the realms of space,
in and round all forms of matter, binding minutest atoms, balancing
systems of worlds, rioting in life, rotting in death, under its
various aspects mechanical and chemical, attractive and repulsive,
this mighty power is manifest; a unifying, coalescing, and flowing
power, older than time, quicker than thought, saturating all suns and
planets and filling to repletion all molecules and masses. Worlds and
systems of worlds are sent whirling, worlds round worlds and systems
round systems, in a mazy planetary dance, wherein the slightest
tripping, the least excess of momentum or inertia, of tension or
traction, in any part, and chaos were come again. Every conceivable
entity, ponderable and imponderable, material and immaterial, is
replete with force. By it all moving bodies are set in motion, all
motionless bodies held at rest; by it the infinitesimal atom is held
an atom and the mass is held concrete, vapory moisture overspreads the
land, light and heat animate senseless substance; by it forms of
matter change, rocks grow and dissolve, mountains are made and unmade,
the ocean heaves and swells, the eternal hills pulsate, the
foundations of the deep rise up, and seas displace continents.
One other thing we know, which with the first comprises all our
knowledge,--Matter. Now force and matter are interdependent, one
cannot exist without the other; as for example, all substance, unless
held together--which term obviously implies force--would speedily
dissolve into inconceivable nothingness. But no less force is required
to annihilate substance than to create it; force, therefore, is alike
necessary to the existence or non-existence of matter, which reduces
the idea of a possible absence of either force or matter to an
absurdity; or, in other words, it is impossible for the human mind to
conceive of a state of things wherein there is no matter, and
consequently no force.
Force has been called the soul of nature, and matter the body, for by
force matter lives and moves and has its being.
Force like matter, is divisible, infinitely so, as far as human
experience goes; for, though ultimates may exist, they have never yet
been reached; and it would seem that all physical phenomena, endlessly
varied and bewildering as they may appear, spring from a few simple
incomprehensible forces, the bases of which are attraction and
repulsion; which may yet, indeed, derive their origin from One Only
Source. In the morphological and geometrical displays of matter these
phenomena assume a multitude of phases; all are interactive and
interdependent, few are original or primary,--for example, heat and
electricity are the offspring of motion which is the result of
attractive and repulsive force.
What is force and what matter, whether the one is the essence of a
self-conscious Creator and the other his handiwork, or whether both
are the offspring of a blind chance or fate--which latter hypothesis
is simply unthinkable--it is not my purpose here to consider. I
propose in this analysis to take things as I find them, to study the
operations rather than the origin of phenomena, to determine what man
does rather than what he ought to do, and to drop the subject at the
confines of transcendentalism. When, therefore, I speak of force as
the life of matter, it no more implies a self-existant materialism in
man, than the soul of man implies a pantheistic self-existant soul in
nature. Omnipotence can as easily create and sustain a universe
through the media of antagonistic and interdependent forces as through
any other means, can as easily place nature and man under the
governance of fixed laws as to hold all under varying arbitrary
dispensations, and can reconcile these laws with man's volition. Wells
of bitterness are dug by disputants under meaningless words;
scientists are charged with materialism and religionists with
fanaticism, in their vain attempts to fathom the ways of the Almighty
and restrict his powers to the limits of our weak understanding.
It has been said that, in the beginning, the sixty and odd supposed
several elements of matter were in a chaotic state; that matter and
force were poised in equilibrium or rioted at random throughout space,
that out of this condition of things sprang form and development;
regular motion and time began; matter condensed into revolving masses
and marked off the days, and months, and years; organization and
organisms were initiated and intellectual design became manifest. The
infinitesimal molecules, balanced by universal equilibrium of forces,
which before motion and time were but chaotic matter and force, were
finally supposed to have been each endowed with an innate
individuality. However this may be, we now see every atom in the
universe athrill with force, and possessed of chemical virtues, and,
under conditions, with the faculty of activity. As to the Force behind
force, or how or by what means this innate energy was or is implanted
in molecules, we have here nothing to do. It is sufficient for our
purpose that we find it there; yet, the teachings of philosophy imply
that this innate force is neither self-implanted nor self-operative;
that whether, in pre-stellar times, infinitesimal particles of matter
floated in space as nebulous fluid or objectless vapor without form or
consistence, or whether all matter was united in one mass which was
set revolving, and became broken into fragments, which were sent
whirling as suns and planets in every direction; that in either case,
or in any other conceivable case, matter, whether as molecules or
masses, was primordially, and is, endowed and actuated by a Creative
Intelligence, which implanting force, vitality, intellect, soul,
progress, is ever acting, moving, mixing, unfolding, and this in every
part and in all the multitudinous combinations of matter; and that all
forces and vitalities must have co-existed in the mass, innate in and
around every atom.
[Sidenote: THEORIES OF NEWTON AND LAPLACE.]
Thus, in his great theory of the projectile impulse given to heavenly
bodies in counteraction of the attractive impulse, Sir Isaac Newton
assumes that both impulses were given from without; that some power
foreign to themselves projected into space these heavenly bodies and
holds them there. So, too, when Laplace promulgated the idea that in
pre-planetary times space was filled with particles and vapors, solar
systems existing only in a nebulous state and this nebula set
revolving in one mass upon its own axis from west to east, and that as
the velocity of this mass increased suns and planets were, by
centrifugal force, thrown off and condensed into habitable but still
whirling worlds, some impulse foreign to the revolving mass setting it
in motion is implied.
With organization and motion, the phases of force, called heat, light,
electricity and magnetism, hitherto held dormant in molecules are
engendered; composition and decomposition ensue; matter assumes new
and varying forms; a progressional development, which is nothing but
intelligently directed motion, is initiated, and motion becomes
eternal.
It is a well-established principle of physics that force cannot be
created or lost. The conservation of force is not affected by the
action or energies of moving bodies. Force is not created to set a
body in motion, nor when expended, as we say, is it lost. The sum of
all potential energies throughout the universe is always the same,
whether matter is at rest or in motion. It is evident that so long as
every molecule is charged with attractive force no atom can drop out
into the depths of unoccupied and absolute space and become lost or
annihilated; and so long as force is dependent on matter for its
perceivable existence, force cannot escape beyond the confines of
space and become lost in absolute void.
Not only are forces interdependent, but they are capable of being
metamorphosed one into another. Thus intellectual energy invents a
machine which drives a steamship across the ocean. This invention or
creation of the mind is nothing else than a vitalization or setting at
liberty of mechanical forces, and without this vitalization or applied
intellectual force such mechanical force lies dormant as in so-called
dead matter. Gravitation is employed to turn a water-wheel, caloric to
drive a steam-engine, by means of either of which weights may be
raised, heat, electricity, and light produced, and these new-created
forces husbanded and made to produce still other forces or turned back
into their original channels. And so in chemical and capillary action,
the correlation of forces everywhere is found.
[Sidenote: INTIMACY OF MIND AND MATTER.]
Between mind and matter there exists the most intimate relationship.
Immateriality, in its various phases of force, life, intellect, so far
as human consciousness can grasp it, is inseparable from materiality.
The body is but part of the soil on which it treads, and the mind can
receive no impressions except through the organs of the body. The
brain is the seat of thought and the organ of thought; neither can
exist in a normal state apart from the other. As a rule, the power of
the intellect is in proportion to the size and quality of the brain.
Among animals, those of lowest order have the least brains; man, the
most intellectual of animals, has relatively, if not absolutely, the
largest brain. True, in some of the largest animals the cerebral mass
is larger than in man, but, in its chemical composition, its
convolutions, shape, and quality, that in man is superior; and it is
in the quality, rather than in the quantity of the nervous tissues,
that their superiority consists. Intelligence enters the brain by the
organs of the senses, and through the nervous system its subtle
influence radiates to every part of the body. All human activities are
either mental or mechanical; nor will it be denied that mental
activity is produced by mechanical means, or, that mechanical activity
is the result of mental force. Corporeal motion is mental force
distributed to the various parts of the body.
The action of immaterial forces on the material substances of the
human body manifestly accords with the action of immaterial forces
elsewhere. All the physical and mechanical actions of the human body
accord with the physical and mechanical forces elsewhere displayed.
Man, we are told, was the last of all created things, but in the
making of man no new matter was employed; nor in setting the body in
motion can we discover that any new force was invented. Thus the heart
beats upon mechanical principles; the eye sees, and the voice speaks
in accordance with the general laws of optics and acoustics.
To the observer, organic activity is but the product of combined
inorganic forces. The same processes are at work, and in the same
manner, in living and in so-called dead matter. Life, to all
appearance, is but the result of combined chemical and mechanical
processes. Assimilation, digestion, secretion, are explainable by
chemistry, and by chemistry alone. The stomach is a chemical retort,
the body a chemical laboratory. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen,
combine and separate in the body as out of the body. The blood
circulates upon purely mechanical principles; all muscular action is
mechanical. In the phenomena of life, the only perceptible difference
is in the combinations of fundamental elements; yet chemistry and
mechanics cannot produce a live body.
With the foregoing well-recognized principles before us, let us now
notice some few parallelisms between mechanical and social energetics.
Man, like every other natural substance, is a compound of force and
matter. "Respiration," says Liebig, "is the falling weight, the bent
spring, which keeps the clock in motion; the inspirations and
respirations are the strokes of the pendulum which regulates." Atoms
of matter, through the instrumentality of living force, cohere and
coalesce under endless complex conditions into endless varieties of
form and substance; so also the activities of man, corporeal and
intellectual, result in vast accumulations of experiences, which
accumulations become the property of the whole society. Society, like
matter, is composed of units, each possessing certain forces,
attractive and repulsive; societies act upon each other, like
celestial bodies, in proportion to their volume and proximity, and the
power of the unit increases with the increase of the mass. In
association there is a force as silent and as subtle as that which
governs atoms and holds worlds in equipoise; its grosser forms are
known as government, worship, fashion, and the like; its finer essence
is more delicate than thought. It is this social force, attractive and
repulsive, that binds men together, tears them asunder, kneads, and
knits, and shapes, and evolves; it is the origin of every birth, the
ultimate of every activity. Mechanical forces are manifest in
machines, as the lever, the wheel, the inclined plane; professional
force is manifest in intellectual ingenuity, literature, art, science,
which are the machines of human progress.
[Sidenote: MATERIALITY ACTING ON THE MIND.]
How many of all our joys and sorrows, our loves and hates, our good
and evil actions, spring from physical causes only? Even material
substances display moods and affections, as when heated, electrified,
decomposed, or set in motion; the sea at rest presents a different
mood from the sea raging. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's idea that the soul
might be governed for its good by material things working through the
media of the senses, is not so extravagant after all. "The gospel
according to Jean-Jacques," as Carlyle puts it, runs as follows on
this point--and, indeed, the great Genevan evangelist at one time
intended to devote a book to the subject under the title of _La Morale
Sensitive_:--"The striking and numerous observations that I had
collected were beyond all dispute; and, in their physical origin, they
appeared to me proper for furnishing an exterior regimen, which,
varied according to circumstances, should be able to place or maintain
the soul in the state most favorable to virtue. How many wanderings
one might save the reason, how many vices might be hindered birth, if
one could but force the animal economy to favor the moral order that
it troubles so often. Climates, seasons, sounds, colors, darkness,
light, the elements, food, noise, silence, movement, repose, all act
on our bodily frame, and, by consequence, on our soul; all offer us a
thousand firm holds to govern, in their origin, those sentiments by
which we allow ourselves to be dominated."
In contemplating the numerous activities by which we are surrounded,
again and again we are called upon to wonder at the marvelous
regularity which characterizes all their movements. So regular are
these movements, so sure are certain conditions to accompany certain
results, that in physics, in chemistry, in physiology, and even in
society, facts are collected and classified, and from them laws are
discovered as fixed and irrevocable as the facts themselves, which
laws, indeed, are themselves facts, no less than the facts from which
they are deduced.
Highly cultivated nations frame laws that provide for many
contingencies, but the code of nature has yet finer provisions. There
are conditions that neither political nor social laws reach, there are
none not reached by physical law; in society, criminals sometimes
evade the law; in nature, never. So subtle are the laws of nature,
that even thought cannot follow them; when we see that every molecule,
by virtue of its own hidden force, attracts every other molecule, up
to a certain point, and then from the same inherent influence every
atom repels every other atom; when by experiments of physicists it has
been proved that in polarization, crystallization, and chemical
action, there is not the slightest deviation from an almost startling
regularity, with many other facts of like import, how many natural
laws do we feel to be yet unrevealed and, from the exquisite delicacy
of their nature, unrevealable to our present coarse understanding.
It would be indeed strange, if, when all the universe is under the
governance of fixed laws--laws which regulate the motion of every
molecule, no less than the revolutions of suns--laws of such subtle
import, as for instance, regulate the transformations of heat, the
convertibility and correlation of force; it would be strange, I say,
if such laws as these, when they reached the domain of human affairs
should pause and leave the world of man alone in purposeless
wanderings.
[Sidenote: ANALOGIES BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE.]
To continue our analogies. As, latent in the atom, or in the mass,
there are energies releasable only by heat or friction,--as in
charcoal, which holds, locked up, muriatic acid gas equivalent to
ninety times its volume; or in spongy platinum, which holds in like
manner oxygen, equal to eight hundred times its volume; so, latent in
every individual, are numberless energies, which demand the friction
of society to call them out.
Force comprises two elements, attraction and repulsion, analagous to
the principles commonly called good and evil in the affairs of human
society; take away from mechanical force either of these two oppugnant
elements, and there could be neither organism nor life, so without
both good and evil in human affairs there could be no progress.
If none of the forces of nature are dissipated or lost, and if force
can no more be extinguished than matter, and like matter passes from
one form into another, we may conclude that intellectual force is
never dissipated or lost, but that the potential energies of mind and
soul perpetually vibrate between man and nature.
Or, again, if, as we have seen, energy of every kind is clothed in
matter, and when employed and expended returns again to its place in
matter; and if the mind draws its forces from the body, as it appears
to do, both growing, acting, and declining simultaneously; and if the
body draws its energy from the earth, which is no less possible; then
may not intellectual and progressional force be derived from man's
environment, and return thither when expended? Every created being
borrows its material from the storehouse of matter, and when uncreated
restores it again; so every individual born into society becomes
charged with social force, with progressional energy, which, when
expended, rests with society. Winslow's opinion on this subject is,
that "all electric and magnetic currents originate in--are inducted
from--and radiate either directly or indirectly out of the globe as
the fountain of every form and constituency of mechanical force, and
that abstract immaterial mechanical energy, as we have thus far
discussed and developed its dual principles, is absolutely convertible
through molecular motion into every form and expansion of secondary
force, passing successively from heat through electricity, magnetism,
etc., and _vice versa_, it follows that this same mechanical energy
itself, as hypostatical motive power, must proceed out of the globe
also."
Thus is loaded with potential energy the universe of matter,
generating life, mind, civilization, and hence we may conclude that
whatever else it is, civilization is a force; that it is the sum of
all the forces employed to drive humanity onward; that it acts on man
as mechanical force acts on matter, attracting, repelling, pressing
forward yet holding in equilibrium, and all under fixed and determined
laws.
* * * * *
From all which it would appear that nothing is found in man that has
not its counterpart in nature, and that all things that are related to
man are related to each other; even immortal mind itself is not unlike
that subtle force, inherent in, and working round every atom.
In this respect physical science is the precursor of social science.
Nature produces man; man in his earlier conception of nature, that is
in his gods, reproduces himself; and later, his knowledge of intrinsic
self depends upon his knowledge of extrinsic agencies, so that as the
laws that govern external nature are better understood, the laws that
govern society are more definitely determined. The conditions of human
progress can be wrought into a science only by pursuing the same
course that raises into a science any branch of knowledge; that is, by
collecting, classifying, and comparing facts, and therefrom
discovering laws. Society must be studied as chemistry is studied; it
must be analyzed, and its component parts--the solubilities,
interactions, and crystallizations of religions, governments and
fashions, ascertained. As in the earlier contemplations of physical
nature, the action of the elements was deemed fortuitous, so in a
superficial survey of society, all events appear to happen by chance;
but on deeper investigation, in society as in physics, events
apparently fortuitous, may be reduced to immutable law. To this end
the life of mankind on the globe must be regarded as the life of one
man, successions of societies as successions of days in that life; for
the activities of nations are but the sum of the activities of the
individual members thereof.
[Sidenote: PHYSICAL LAWS AND SOCIAL LAWS.]
We have seen that man's organism, as far as it may be brought under
exact observation, is governed by the same processes that govern
elemental principles in inorganic nature. The will of man attempting
to exert itself in antagonism to these laws of nature is wholly
ineffectual. We are all conscious of a will, conscious of a certain
freedom in the exercise of our will, but wholly unconscious as to the
line of separation between volition and environment. Part of our
actions arise from fixed necessity, part are the result of free will.
Statistics, as they are accumulated and arranged, tend more and more
to show that by far the greater part of human actions are not under
individual control, and that the actions of masses are, in the main,
wholly beyond the province of the human will.
Take the weather for a single day, and note the effect on the will.
The direction of the wind not unfrequently governs one's train of
thought; resolution often depends upon the dryness of the atmosphere,
benevolence upon the state of the stomach; misfortunes, arising from
physical causes, have ere now changed the character of a ruler from
one of lofty self-sacrifice, to one of peevish fretfulness, whereat
his followers became estranged and his empire lost in consequence. In
the prosecution of an enterprise, how often we find ourselves drifting
far from the anticipated goal. The mind is governed by the condition
of the body, the body by the conditions of climate and food; hence it
is that many of our actions, which we conceive to be the result of
free choice, arise from accidental circumstances.
It is only in the broader view of humanity that general laws are to be
recognized, as Dr Draper remarks: "He who is immersed in the turmoil
of a crowded city sees nothing but the acts of men; and, if he formed
his opinion from his experience alone, must conclude that the course
of events altogether depends on the uncertainties of human volition.
But he who ascends to a sufficient elevation loses sight of the
passing conflicts, and no longer hears the contentions. He discovers
that the importance of individual action is diminishing as the
panorama beneath him is extending; and if he could attain to the truly
philosophical, the general point of view, disengage himself from all
terrestrial influences and entanglements, rising high enough to see
the whole at a glance, his acutest vision would fail to discern the
slightest indication of man, his free will, or his works."
* * * * *
Let us now glance at some of the manifestations of this progressional
influence; first in its general aspects, after which we will notice
its bearing on a few of the more important severalties intimately
affecting humanity, such as religion, morality, government, and
commerce,--for there is nothing that touches man's welfare, no matter
how lightly, in all his long journey from naked wildness to clothed
and cultured intelligence, that is not placed upon him by this
progressional impulse.
[Sidenote: MANIFESTATIONS OF PROGRESSIONAL IMPULSE.]
In every living thing there is an element of continuous growth; in
every aggregation of living things there is an element of continuous
improvement. In the first instance, a vital actuality appears; whence,
no one can tell. As the organism matures, a new germ is formed, which,
as the parent stock decays, takes its place and becomes in like manner
the parent of a successor. Thus even death is but the door to new
forms of life. In the second instance, a body corporate appears, no
less a vital actuality than the first; a social organism in which,
notwithstanding ceaseless births and deaths, there is a living
principle. For while individuals are born and die, families live;
while families are born and die, species live; while species are born
and die, organic being assumes new forms and features. Herein the
all-pervading principle of life, while flitting, is nevertheless
permanent, while transient is yet eternal. But above and independent
of perpetual birth and death is this element of continuous growth,
which, like a spirit, walks abroad and mingles in the affairs of men.
"All our progress," says Emerson, "is an unfolding, like the vegetable
bud. You have first an instinct; then an opinion, then a knowledge, as
the plant has root bud and fruit."
Under favorable conditions, and up to a certain point, stocks improve;
by a law of natural selection the strongest and fittest survive, while
the ill-favored and deformed perish; under conditions unfavorable to
development, stocks remain stationary or deteriorate. Paradoxically,
so far as we know, organs and organisms are no more perfect now than
in the beginning; animal instincts are no keener, nor are their
habitudes essentially changed. No one denies that stocks improve, for
such improvement is perceptible and permanent; many deny that
organisms improve, for if there be improvement it is imperceptible,
and has thus far escaped proof. But, however this may be, it is
palpable that the mind, and not the body, is the instrument and object
of the progressional impulse.
Man in the duality of his nature is brought under two distinct
dominions; materially he is subject to the laws that govern matter,
mentally to the laws that govern mind; physiologically he is perfectly
made and non-progressive, psychologically he is embryonic and
progressive. Between these internal and external forces, between moral
and material activities there may be, in some instances, an apparent
antagonism. The mind may be developed in excess and to the detriment
of the body, and the body may be developed in excess and to the
detriment of the mind.
The animal man is a bundle of organs, with instincts implanted that
set them in motion; man intellectual is a bundle of sentiments, with
an implanted soul that keeps them effervescent; mankind in the mass,
society,--we see the fermentations, we mark the transitions; is there,
then, a soul in aggregated humanity as there is in individual
humanity?
The instincts of man's animality teach the organs to perform their
functions as perfectly at the first as at the last; the instincts of
man's intellectuality urge him on in an eternal race for something
better, in which perfection is never attained nor attainable; in
society, we see the constant growth, the higher and yet higher
development; now in this ever-onward movement are there instincts
which originate and govern action in the body social as in the body
individual? Is not society a bundle of organs, with an implanted Soul
of Progress, which moves mankind along in a resistless predetermined
march?
Nations are born and die; they appear first in a state of infancy or
savagism; many die in their childhood, some grow into manhood and rule
for a time the destinies of the world; finally, by sudden extinction,
or a lingering decrepitude, they disappear, and others take their
place. But in this ceaseless coming and going there is somewhere a
mysterious agency at work, making men better, wiser, nobler, whether
they will or not. This improvement is not the effect of volition; the
plant does not will to unfold, nor the immature animal to grow;
neither can the world of human kind cease to advance in mind and in
manners. Development is the inevitable incident of being. Nations,
under normal conditions, can no more help advancing than they can
throw themselves into a state of non-existence; than can the
individual stop his corporeal growth, or shut out from the intellect
every perception of knowledge, and become a living petrification. And
in whatever pertains to intellectual man this fundamental principle is
apparent. It underlies all moralities, governments, and religions, all
industries, arts, and commerce; it is the mainspring of every action,
the consequence of every cause; it is the great central idea toward
which all things converge; it is the object of all efforts, the end of
all successes; it absorbs all forces, and is the combined results of
innumerable agencies, good and evil.
Before the theory of Dr von Martius and his followers, that the
savage state is but a degeneration from something higher, can become
tenable, the whole order of nature must be reversed. Races may
deteriorate, civilized peoples relapse into barbarism, but such
relapse cannot take place except under abnormal conditions. We cannot
believe that any nation, once learning the use of iron would cast it
away for stone. Driven from an iron-yielding land, the knowledge of
iron might at last be forgotten, but its use would never be
voluntarily relinquished. And so with any of the arts or inventions of
man. Societies, like individuals, are born, mature, and decay; they
grow old and die; they may pause in their progress, become diseased,
and thereby lose their strength and retrograde, but they never turn
around and grow backward or ungrow,--they could not if they would.
[Sidenote: BRUTES CANNOT PROGRESS.]
In the brute creation this element of progress is wanting. The bird
builds its nest, the bee its cell, the beaver its dam, with no more
skill or elaboration to-day, than did the bird or bee or beaver
primeval. The instinct of animals does not with time become intellect;
their comforts do not increase, their sphere of action does not
enlarge. By domestication, stocks may be improved, but nowhere do we
see animals uniting for mutual improvement, or creating for themselves
an artificial existence. So in man, whose nature comprises both the
animal and the intellectual, the physical organism neither perceptibly
advances nor deteriorates. The features may, indeed, beam brighter
from the light of a purer intellectuality cast upon them from within,
but the hand, the eye, the heart, so far as we know, is no more
perfect now than in the days of Adam.
As viewed by Mr Bagehot, the body of the accomplished man "becomes, by
training, different from what it once was, and different from that of
the rude man, becomes charged with stored virtue and acquired faculty
which come away from it unconsciously." But the body of the
accomplished man dies, and the son can in no wise inherit it, whereas
the soul of his accomplishments does not die, but lives in the air,
and becomes part of the vital breath of society. And, again, "power
that has been laboriously acquired and stored up as statical in one
generation" sometimes, says Maudsley, "becomes the inborn faculty of
the next; and the development takes place in accordance with that law
of increasing speciality and complexity of adaption to external nature
which is traceable through the animal kingdom; or, in other words,
that law of progress, from the general to the special, in development,
which the appearance of nerve force amongst natural forces and the
complexity of the nervous system of man both illustrate." On the other
side John Stuart Mill is just as positive that culture is not
inherent. "Of all vulgar modes," he remarks, "of escaping from the
consideration of the effect of social and moral influences on the
human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of
conduct and character to inherent natural differences;" and, says Mr
Buckle, "we cannot safely assume that there has been any permanent
improvement in the moral or intellectual faculties of man, nor have we
any decisive ground for saying that those faculties are likely to be
greater in an infant born in the most civilized part of Europe, than
in one born in the wildest region of a barbarous country."
Whether or not the nervous system, which is the connective tissue
between man's animality and his intellectuality, transmits its subtle
forces from one generation to another, we may be sure that the mind
acts on the nerves, and the nerves on every part of the system, and
that the intelligence of the mind influences and governs the
materialism of the body, and the consequences in some way are felt by
succeeding generations; but that the mind becomes material, and its
qualities transmitted to posterity, is an hypothesis yet
unestablished.
[Sidenote: IMPROVEMENT PURELY INTELLECTUAL.]
Moreover we may safely conclude that the improvement of mankind is a
phenomenon purely intellectual.
Not that the improvement of the mind is wholly independent of the
condition of the body; for, as we shall hereafter see, so intimate is
the connection between the mind and the body, that the first step
toward intellectual advancement cannot be taken until the demands of
the body are satisfied. Nervous phenomena are dependent upon the same
nutritive processes that govern physical development; and that this
nerve force, through whose agency the system is charged with
intellectuality, as the molecule is charged with mechanical force,
does exist, is capable, to some extent, of transmitting acquirements
or artificial instincts from parent to child, we have every reason to
believe; but, so far as we know, intellectual force, _per se_, is no
more a transmittable entity than is the flesh-quivering of the slain
ox life.
The strangest part of it all is, that though wrought out by man as the
instrument, and while acting in the capacity of a free agent, this
spirit of progress is wholly independent of the will of man. Though in
our individual actions we imagine ourselves directed only by our free
will, yet in the end it is most difficult to determine what is the
result of free will, and what of inexorable environment. While we
think we are regulating our affairs, our affairs are regulating us. We
plan out improvements, predetermine the best course and follow it,
sometimes; yet, for all that, the principle of social progress is not
the man, is not in the man, forms no constituent of his physical or
psychical individual being; it is the social atmosphere into which the
man is born, into which he brings nothing and from which he takes
nothing. While a member of society he adds his quota to the general
fund and there leaves it; while acting as a free agent he performs his
part in working out this problem of social development, performs it
unconsciously, willing or unwilling he performs it, his baser passions
being as powerful instruments of progress as his nobler; for avarice
drives on intellect as effectually as benevolence, hate as love, and
selfishness does infinitely more for the progress of mankind than
philanthropy. Thus is humanity played upon by this principle of
progress, and the music sometimes is wonderful; green fields as if by
magic take the place of wild forests, magnificent cities rise out of
the ground, the forces of nature are brought under the dominion of
man's intelligence, and senseless substances endowed with speech and
action.
It is verily as Carlyle says; "under the strangest new vesture, the
old great truth (since no vesture can hide it) begins again to be
revealed: That man is what we call a miraculous creature, with
miraculous power over men; and, on the whole, with such a Life in him,
and such a World round him, as victorious Analysis, with her
Physiologies, Nervous Systems, Physic and Metaphysic, will never
completely name, to say nothing of explaining."
Thus, to sum up the foregoing premises: in society, between two or
more individuals, there is at work a mysterious energy, not unlike
that of force between molecules or life in the organism; this social
energy is under intelligent governance, not fortuitous nor causeless,
but reducible to fixed law, and capable of being wrought into a
science; is, moreover, a vital actuality, not an incident nor an
accident, but an entity, as attraction and repulsion are entities;
under this agency society, perforce, develops like the plant from a
germ. This energy acts on the intellect, and through the intellect on
the organism; acts independently of the will, and cannot be created or
destroyed by man; is not found in the brute creation, is not
transmittable by generation through individuals, is wrought out by man
as a free-will agent, though acting unconsciously, and is the product
alike of good and evil.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CAUSES OF MAN'S DEVELOPMENT.]
As to the causes which originate progressional phenomena there are
differences of opinion. One sees in the intellect the germ of an
eternal unfolding; another recognizes in the soul-element the vital
principle of progress, and attributes to religion all the benefits of
enlightenment; one builds a theory on the ground-work of a fundamental
and innate morality; another discovers in the forces of nature the
controlling influence upon man's destiny; while yet others, as we have
seen, believe accumulative and inherent nervous force to be the media
through which culture is transmitted. Some believe that moral causes
create the physical, others that physical causes create the moral.
Thus Mr Buckle attempts to prove that man's development is wholly
dependent upon his physical surroundings. Huxley points to a system of
reflex actions,--mind acting on matter, and matter on mind,--as the
possible culture-basis. Darwin advances the doctrine of an evolution
from vivified matter as the principle of progressive development. In
the transmution of nerve-element from parents to children, Bagehot
sees "the continuous force which binds age to age, which enables each
to begin with some improvement on the last, if the last did itself
improve; which makes each civilization not a set of detached dots, but
a line of color, surely enhancing shade by shade." Some see in human
progress the ever-ruling hand of a divine providence, others the
results of man's skill; with some it is free will, with others
necessity; some believe that intellectual development springs from
better systems of government, others that wealth lies at the
foundation of all culture; every philosopher recognizes some cause,
invents some system, or brings human actions under the dominion of
some species of law.
As in animals of the same genus or species, inhabiting widely
different localities, we see the results of common instincts, so in
the evolutions of the human race, divided by time or space, we see the
same general principles at work. So too it would seem, whether species
are one or many, whether man is a perfectly created being or an
evolution from a lower form, that all the human races of the globe are
formed on one model and governed by the same laws. In the customs,
languages, and myths of ages and nations far removed from each other
in social, moral, and mental characteristics, innumerable and striking
analogies exist. Not only have all nations weapons, but many who are
separated from each other by a hemisphere use the same weapon; not
only is belief universal, but many relate the same myth; and to
suppose the bow and arrow to have had a common origin, or that all
flood-myths, and myths of a future life are but offshoots from Noachic
and Biblical narratives is scarcely reasonable.
It is easier to tell what civilization is not, and what it does not
spring from, than what it is and what its origin. To attribute its
rise to any of the principles, ethical, political, or material, that
come under the cognizance of man, is fallacy, for it is as much an
entity as any other primeval principle; nor may we, with Archbishop
Whately, entertain the doctrine that civilization never could have
arisen had not the Creator appeared upon earth as the first
instructor; for, unfortunately for this hypothesis, the aboriginals
supposedly so taught, were scarcely civilized at all, and compare
unfavorably with the other all-perfect works of creation; so that this
sort of reasoning, like innumerable other attempts of man to limit the
powers of Omnipotence, and narrow them down to our weak
understandings, is little else than puerility.
[Sidenote: SOCIETY ESSENTIAL TO INTELLECT.]
Nor, as we have seen, is this act of civilizing the effect of
volition; nor, as will hereafter more clearly appear, does it arise
from an inherent principle of good any more than from an inherent
principle of evil. The ultimate result, though difficult of proof, we
take for granted to be good, but the agencies employed for its
consummation number among them more of those we call evil than of
those we call good. The isolated individual never, by any possibility,
can become civilized like the social man; he cannot even speak, and
without a flow of words there can be no complete flow of thought.
Send him forth away from his fellow-man to roam the forest with the
wild beasts, and he would be almost as wild and beastlike as his
companions; it is doubtful if he would ever fashion a tool, but would
not rather with his claws alone procure his food, and forever remain
as he now is, the most impotent of animals. The intellect, by which
means alone man rises above other animals, never could work, because
the intellect is quickened only as it comes in contact with intellect.
The germ of development therein implanted cannot unfold singly any
more than the organism can bear fruit singly. It is a well-established
fact that the mind without language cannot fully develop; it is
likewise established that language is not inherent, that it springs up
between men, not in them. Language, like civilization, belongs to
society, and is in no wise a part or the property of the individual.
"For strangely in this so solid-seeming World," says Carlyle, "which
nevertheless is in continual restless flux, it is appointed that
Sound, to appearance the most fleeting, should be the most continuing
of all things." And further, as remarked by Herbert Spencer: "Now that
the transformation and equivalence of forces is seen by men of science
to hold not only throughout all inorganic actions, but throughout all
organic actions; now that even mental changes are recognized as the
correlatives of cerebral changes, which also conform to this
principle; and now that there must be admitted the corollary, that all
actions going on in a society are measured by certain antecedent
energies, which disappear in effecting them, while they themselves
become actual or potential energies from which subsequent actions
arise; it is strange that there should not have arisen the
consciousness that these higher phenomena are to be studied as lower
phenomena have been studied--not, of course, after the same physical
methods, but in conformity with the same principles."
We may hold then, a priori, that this progressional principle exists;
that it exists not more in the man than around him; that it requires
an atmosphere in which to live, as life in the body requires an
atmosphere which is its vital breath, and that this atmosphere is
generated only by the contact of man with man. Under analysis this
social atmosphere appears to be composed of two opposing
principles--good and evil--which, like attraction and repulsion, or
positive and negative electricity, underlie all activities. One is as
essential to progress as the other; either, in excess or
disproportionately administered, like an excess of oxygen or of
hydrogen in the air, becomes pernicious, engenders social disruptions
and decay which continue until the equilibrium is restored; yet all
the while with the progress of humanity the good increases while the
evil diminishes. Every impulse incident to humanity is born of the
union of these two opposing principles. For example, as I have said,
and will attempt more fully to show further on, association is the
first requisite of progress. But what is to bring about association?
Naked nomads will not voluntarily yield up their freedom, quit their
wanderings, hold conventions and pass resolutions concerning the
greatest good to the greatest number; patriotism, love, benevolence,
brotherly kindness, will not bring savage men together; extrinsic
force must be employed, an iron hand must be laid upon them which will
compel them to unite, else there can be no civilization; and to
accomplish this first great good to man,--to compel mankind to take
the initial step toward the amelioration of their condition,--it is
ordained that an evil, or what to us of these latter times is surely
an evil, come forward,--and that evil is War.
[Sidenote: EVIL AS A STIMULANT OF PROGRESS.]
Primeval man, in his social organization, is patriarchal, spreading
out over vast domains in little bands or families, just large enough
to be able successfully to cope with wild beasts. And in that state
humanity would forever remain did not some terrible cause force these
bands to confederate. War is an evil, originating in hateful passions
and ending in dire misery; yet without war, without this evil, man
would forever remain primitive. But something more is necessary. War
brings men together for a purpose, but it is insufficient to hold them
together; for when the cause which compacted them no longer exists,
they speedily scatter, each going his own way. Then comes in
superstition to the aid of progress. A successful leader is first
feared as a man, then reverenced as a supernatural being, and finally
himself, or his descendant, in the flesh or in tradition, is worshiped
as a god. Then an unearthly fear comes upon mankind, and the ruler,
perceiving his power, begins to tyrannize over his fellows. Both
superstition and tyranny are evils; yet, without war superstition and
tyranny, dire evils, civilization, which many deem the highest good,
never by any possibility, as human nature is, could be. But more of
the conditions of progress hereafter; what I wish to establish here
is, that evil is no less a stimulant of development than good, and
that in this principle of progress are manifest the same antagonism of
forces apparent throughout physical nature; the same oppugnant
energies, attractive and repulsive, positive and negative, everywhere
existing. It is impossible for two or more individuals to be brought
into contact with each other, whether through causes or for purposes
good or evil, without ultimate improvement to both. I say whether
through causes or for purposes good or evil, for, to the all-pervading
principle of evil, civilization is as much indebted as to the
all-pervading principle of good. Indeed, the beneficial influences of
this unwelcome element have never been generally recognized. Whatever
be this principle of evil, whatever man would be without it, the fact
is clearly evident that to it civilization, whatever that may be, owes
its existence. "The whole tendency of political economy and
philosophical history," says Lecky, "which reveal the physiology of
society, is to show that the happiness and welfare of mankind are
evolved much more from our selfish than what are termed our virtuous
acts." No wonder that devil-worship obtains, in certain parts, when to
his demon the savage finds himself indebted for skill not only to
overthrow subordinate deities, but to cure diseases, to will an enemy
to death, to minister to the welfare of departed friends, as well as
to add materially to his earthly store of comforts. The world, such as
it is, man finds himself destined for a time to inhabit. Within him
and around him the involuntary occupant perceives two agencies at
work; agencies apparently oppugnant, yet both tending to one
end--improvement; and Night or Day, Love or Crime, leads all souls to
the Good, as Emerson sings. The principle of evil acts as a perpetual
stimulant, the principle of good as a reward of merit. United in their
operation, there is a constant tendency toward a better condition, a
higher state; apart, the result would be inaction. For, civilization
being a progression and not a fixed condition, without incentives,
that is without something to escape from and something to escape to,
there could be no transition, and hence no civilization.
Had man been placed in the world perfected and sinless, obviously
there would be no such thing as progress. The absence of evil implies
perfect good, and perfect good perfect happiness. Were man sinless and
yet capable of increasing knowledge, the incentive would be wanting,
for, if perfectly happy, why should he struggle to become happier? The
advent of civilization is in the appearance of a want, and the first
act of civilization springs from the attempt to supply the want. The
man or nation that wants nothing remains inactive, and hence does not
advance; so that it is not in what we have but in what we have not
that civilization consists. These wants are forced upon us, implanted
within us, inseparable from our being; they increase with an
increasing supply, grow hungry from what they feed on; in quick
succession, aspirations, emulations, and ambitions spring up and
chase each other, keeping the fire of discontent ever glowing, and the
whole human race effervescent.
The tendency of civilizing force, like the tendency of mechanical
force, is toward an equilibrium, toward a never-attainable rest.
Obviously there can be no perfect equilibrium, no perfect rest, until
all evil disappears, but in that event the end of progress would be
attained, and humanity would be perfect and sinless.
Man at the outset is not what he may be, he is capable of improvement
or rather of growth; but childlike, the savage does not care to
improve, and consequently must be scourged into it. Advancement is the
ultimate natural or normal state of man; humanity on this earth is
destined some day to be relatively, if not absolutely, good and happy.
The healthy body has appetites, in the gratification of which lies its
chiefest enjoyment; the healthy mind has proclivities, the healthy
soul intuitions, in the exercise and activities of which the happiest
life is attainable; and in as far as the immaterial and immortal in
our nature is superior to the material and mortal, in so far does the
education and development of our higher nature contribute in a higher
degree to our present benefit and our future well-being.
[Sidenote: LABOR A CIVILIZING AGENT.]
There is another thought in this connection well worthy our attention.
In orthodox and popular parlance, labor is a curse entailed on man by
vindictive justice; yet viewed as a civilizing agent, labor is man's
greatest blessing. Throughout all nature there is no such thing found
as absolute inertness; and, as in matter, so with regard to our
faculties, no sooner do they begin to rest than they begin to rot, and
even in the rotting they can obtain no rest. One of the chief objects
of labor is to get gain, and Dr Johnson holds that "men are seldom
more innocently employed than when they are making money."
Human experience teaches, that in the effort is greater pleasure than
in the end attained; that labor is the normal condition of man; that in
acquisition, that is progress, is the highest happiness; that passive
enjoyment is inferior to the exhilaration of active attempt. Now
imagine the absence from the world of this spirit of evil, and what
would be the result? Total inaction. But before inaction can become
more pleasurable than action, man's nature must be changed. Not to say
that evil is a good thing, clearly there is a goodness in things evil;
and in as far as the state of escaping from evil is more pleasurable
than the state of evil escaped from, in so far is evil conducive to
happiness.
The effect of well-directed labor is twofold; by exercise our
faculties strengthen and expand, and at the same time the returns of
that labor give us leisure in which to direct our improved faculties
to yet higher aims. By continual efforts to increase material
comforts, greater skill is constantly acquired, and the mind asserts
more and more its independence. Increasing skill yields ever increased
delights, which encourage and reward our labor. This, up to a certain
point; but with wealth and luxury comes relaxed energy. Without
necessity there is no labor; without labor no advancement. Corporeal
necessity first forces corporeal activity; then the intellect goes to
work to contrive means whereby labor may be lessened and made more
productive.
[Sidenote: EVIL TENDS TO DISAPPEAR.]
The discontent which arises from discomfort, lies at the root of every
movement; but then comfort is a relative term and complete
satisfaction is never attained. Indeed, as a rule, the more squalid
and miserable the race, the more are they disposed to settle down and
content themselves in their state of discomfort. What is discomfort to
one is luxury to another; "the mark of rank in nature is capacity for
pain"; in following the intellectual life, the higher the culture the
greater the discontent; the greater the acquisition, the more eagerly
do men press forward toward some higher and greater imaginary good.
We all know that blessings in excess become the direst curses; but
few are conscious where the benefit of a blessing terminates and the
curse begins, and fewer still of those who are able thus to
discriminate have the moral strength to act upon that knowledge. As a
good in excess is an evil, so evil as it enlarges outdoes itself and
tends toward self-annihilation. If we but look about us, we must see
that to burn up the world in order to rid it of gross evil--a dogma
held by some--is unnecessary, for accumulative evils ever tend towards
reaction. Excessive evils are soonest remedied; the equilibrium of the
evil must be maintained, or the annihilation of the evil ensues.
Institutions and principles essentially good at one time are essential
evils at another time. The very aids and agencies of civilization
become afterward the greatest drags upon progress. At one time it
would seem that blind faith was essential to improvement, at another
time skepticism, at one time order and morality, at another time
lawlessness and rapine; for so it has ever been, and whether peace and
smiling plenty, or fierce upheavals and dismemberments predominate,
from every social spasm as well as fecund leisure, civilization shoots
forward in its endless course. The very evils which are regarded as
infamous by a higher culture were the necessary stepping-stones to
that higher life. As we have seen, no nation ever did or can emerge
from barbarism without first placing its neck under the yokes of
despotism and superstition; therefore, despotism and superstition, now
dire evils, were once essential benefits. No religion ever attained
its full development except under persecution. Our present evils are
constantly working out for humanity unforeseen good. All systems of
wrongs and fanaticisms are but preparing us for and urging us on to a
higher state.
If then civilization is a predestined, ineluctable, and eternal march
away from things evil toward that which is good, it must be that
throughout the world the principle of good is ever increasing and
that of evil decreasing. And this is true. Not only does evil
decrease, but the tendency is ever toward its disappearance. Gradually
the confines of civilization broaden; the central principle of human
progress attains greater intensity, and the mind assumes more and more
its lordly power over matter.
The moment we attempt to search out the cause of any onward movement
we at once encounter this principle of evil. The old-time aphorism
that life is a perpetual struggle; the first maxim of social ethics
'the greatest happiness to the greatest number'; indeed, every thought
and action of our lives points in the same direction. From what is it
mankind is so eager to escape; with what do we wrestle; for what do we
strive? We fly from that which gives pain to that which gives
pleasure; we wrestle with agencies which bar our escape from a state
of infelicity; we long for happiness.
[Sidenote: IS CIVILIZATION CONDUCIVE TO HAPPINESS?]
Then comes the question, What is happiness? Is man polished and
refined happier than man wild and unfettered; is civilization a
blessing or a curse? Rousseau, we know, held it to be the latter; but
not so Virey. "What!" he exclaims, "is he happier than the social
man, this being abandoned in his maladies, uncared for even by his
children in his improvident old age, exposed to ferocious beasts, in
fear of his own kind, even of the cannibal's tooth? The civilized man,
surrounded in his feebleness by affectionate attention, sustains a
longer existence, enjoys more pleasure and daily comforts, is better
protected against inclemencies of weather and all external ills. The
isolated man must suffice for himself, must harden himself to endure
any privation; his very existence depends upon his strength, and if
necessity requires it of him, he must be ready to abandon wife and
children and life itself at any moment. Such cruel misery is rare in
social life, where the sympathies of humanity are awakened, and freely
exercised."
Continue these simple interrogatories a little farther and see where
we land. Is the wild bird, forced to long migrations for endurable
climates and food, happier than the caged bird which buys a daily
plentiful supply for a song? Is the wild beast, ofttimes hungry and
hunted, happier than its chained brother of the menagerie? Is the wild
horse, galloping with its fellows over the broad prairie, happier than
the civilized horse of carriage, cart, or plow? May we not question
whether the merchant, deep in his speculating ventures, or the man of
law, poring over his brain-tearing brief, derives a keener sense of
enjoyment than does the free forest-native, following the war-path or
pursuing his game?
As I have attempted to show, civilization is not an end attained, for
man is never wholly civilized,--but only the effort to escape from an
evil, or an imaginary evil--savagism. I say an evil real or imaginary,
for as we have seen, the question has been seriously discussed whether
civilization is better or worse than savagism. For every advantage
which culture affords, a price must be paid,--some say too great a
price. The growth of the mind is dependent upon its cultivation, but
this cultivation may be voluntary or involuntary, it may be a thing
desired or a thing abhorred.
Every nation, every society, and every person has its or his own
standard of happiness. The miser delights in wealth, the city belle in
finery, the scholar in learning. The Christian's heaven is a spiritual
city, where they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; the
Norse-man's a Valhalla of alternate battle and wassail; the
Mahometan's, a paradise of houris and lazy sensuality. The martyr at
the stake, triumphant in his faith, may be happier than the man of
fashion dying of ennui and gout; the savage, wandering through forest
and over plain in pursuit of game, or huddled in his hut with wives
and children, may be happier than the care-laden speculator or the
wrangling politician. Content, the essence of all happiness, is as
prevalent among the poor and ill-mannered, as among the rich, refined
and civilized. _Ubi bene, ibi patria_, where it is well with me, there
is my country, is the motto of the Indian,--and to be well with him
signifies only to be beyond the reach of hunger and enemies. Ask the
savage which is preferable, a native or a cultured state, and he will
answer the former; ask the civilized man, and he will say the latter.
I do not see any greater absurdity in the wild man saying to the tamed
one: Give up the despotisms and diseases of society and throw yourself
with me upon beauteous, bounteous nature; than in the European saying
to the American: If you would find happiness, abandon your filth and
naked freedom, accept Christianity and cotton shirts, go to work in a
mission, rot on a reservation, or beg and starve in civilized fashion!
Of all animals, man alone has broken down the barriers of his nature
in civilizing, or, as Rousseau expresses it, in denaturalizing
himself; and for this denaturalization some natural good must be
relinquished; to every infringement of nature's law, there is a
penalty attached; for a more delicate organism the price is numberless
new diseases; for political institutions the price is native freedom.
With polished manners the candidate for civilization must accept
affectation, social despotism; with increasing wealth, increasing
wants; civilization engenders complexity in society, and in its turn
is engendered thereby. Peoples the most highly cultured are moved by
the most delicate springs; a finer touch, the result of greater skill,
with a finer tone, the result of greater experience, produces music
more and yet more exquisite.
[Sidenote: SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE HUMANITY.]
Were man only an animal, this denaturalization and more, would be
true. The tamed brute gives up all the benefits of savagism for few of
the blessings of civilization; in a cultured state, as compared to a
state of wild freedom, its ills are numberless, its advantages
infinitesimal. But human nature is twofold, objective and subjective,
the former typical of the savage state, the latter of the civilized.
Man is not wholly animal; and by cultivating the mind, that is, by
civilizing himself, he is no more denaturalized than by cultivating
the body, and thereby acquiring greater physical perfection. We cannot
escape our nature; we cannot re-create ourselves; we can only submit
ourselves to be polished and improved by the eternal spirit of
progress. The moral and the intellectual are as much constituents of
human nature as the physical; civilization, therefore, is as much the
natural state of man as savagism.
Another more plausible and partially correct assertion is, that by the
development of the subjective part of our nature, objective humanity
becomes degenerated. The intellectual cannot be wrought up to the
highest state of cultivation except at the expense of the physical,
nor the physical fully developed without limiting the mental. The
efforts of the mind draw from the energies of the body; the highest
and healthiest vigor of the body can only be attained when the mind is
at rest, or in a state of careless activity. In answer to which I
should say that beyond a certain point, it is true; one would hardly
train successfully for a prize fight and the tripos at the same time;
but that the non-intellectual savage, as a race, is physically
superior, capable of enduring greater fatigue, or more skillful in
muscular exercise than the civilized man is inconsistent with facts.
Civilization has its vices as well as its virtues, savagism has its
advantages as well as its demerits.
The evils of savagism are not so great as we imagine; its pleasures
more than we are apt to think. As we become more and more removed from
evils their magnitude enlarges; the fear of suffering increases as
suffering is less experienced and witnessed. If savagism holds human
life in light esteem, civilization makes death more hideous than it
really is; if savagism is more cruel, it is less sensitive. Combatants
accustomed to frequent encounter think lightly of wounds, and those
whose life is oftenest imperiled think least of losing it.
Indifference to pain is not necessarily the result of cruelty; it may
arise as well from the most exalted sentiment as from the basest.
Civilization not only engenders new vices, but proves the destroyer of
many virtues. Among the wealthier classes energy gives way to
enjoyment, luxury saps the foundation of labor, progress becomes
paralyzed, and with now and then a noble exception, but few earnest
workers in the paths of literature, science, or any of the departments
which tend to the improvement of mankind, are to be found among the
powerful and the affluent, while the middle classes are absorbed in
money-getting, unconsciously thereby, it is true, working toward the
ends of civilization.
That civilization is expedient, that it is a good, that it is better
than savagism, we who profess to be civilized entertain no doubt.
Those who believe otherwise must be ready to deny that health is
better than disease, truth than superstition, intellectual power than
stupid ignorance; but whether the miseries and vices of savagism, or
those of civilization are the greater, is another question. The
tendency of civilization is, on the whole, to purify the morals, to
give equal rights to man, to distribute more equally among men the
benefits of this world, to melioriate wholesale misery and
degradation, offer a higher aim and the means of accomplishing a
nobler destiny, to increase the power of the mind and give it dominion
over the forces of nature, to place the material in subservience to
the mental, to elevate the individual and regulate society. True, it
may be urged that this heaping up of intellectual fruits tends toward
monopoly, toward making the rich richer and the poor poorer, but I
still hold that the benefits of civilization are for the most part
evenly distributed; that wealth beyond one's necessity is generally a
curse to the possessor greater than the extreme of poverty, and that
the true blessings of culture and refinement like air and sunshine are
free to all.
Civilization, it is said, multiplies wants, but then they are
ennobling wants, better called aspirations, and many of these
civilization satisfies.
If civilization breeds new vices, old ones are extinguished by it.
Decency and decorum hide the hideousness of vice, drive it into dark
corners, and thereby raise the tone of morals and weaken vice. Thus
civilization promotes chastity, elevates woman, breaks down the
barriers of hate and superstition between ancient nations and
religions; individual energy, the influence of one over the many,
becomes less and less felt, and the power of the people becomes
stronger.
Civilization in itself can not but be beneficial to man; that which
makes society more refined, more intellectual, less bestial, more
courteous; that which cures physical and mental diseases, increases
the comforts and luxury of life, purifies religions, makes juster
governments, must surely be beneficial: it is the universal principle
of evil which impregnates all human affairs, alloying even current
coin, which raises the question. That there are evils attending
civilization as all other benefits, none can deny, but civilization
itself is no evil.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS.]
If I have succeeded in presenting clearly the foregoing thoughts,
enough has been said as to the nature and essence of civilization; let
us now examine some of the conditions essential to intellectual
development. For it must not be forgotten that, while every department
of human progress is but the unfolding of a germ; while every tendency
of our life, every custom and creed of our civilization finds its
rudiment in savagism; while, as man develops, no new elements of human
nature are created by the process; while, as the organism of the child
is as complex and complete as the organism of the man, so is humanity
in a savage state the perfect germ of humanity civilized,--it must not
be forgotten in all this, that civilization cannot unfold except under
favorable conditions. Just as the plant, though endowed with life
which corresponds to the mind-principle in progress, requires for its
growth a suitable soil and climate, so this progressional phenomenon
must have soil and sunshine before it yields fruit; and this is
another proof that civilization is not in the man more than around
him; for if the principle were inherent in the individual, then the
Hyperborean, with his half year of light and half year of underground
darkness, must of necessity become civilized equally with the man born
amidst the sharpening jostles of a European capital, for in all those
parts that appertain solely to the intrinsic individual, the one
develops as perfectly as the other. A people undergoing the civilizing
process need not necessarily, does not indeed, advance in every
species of improvement at the same time; in some respects the nation
may be stationary, in others even retrograde. Every age and every
nation has its special line of march. Literature and the fine arts
reached their height in pagan Greece; monotheism among the Hebrews;
science unfolded in Egypt, and government in Rome.