[Footnote 1: A lecture delivered by Prof. Daniel G. Brinton at
the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.]
The subject pertains directly to the advancement of the race. Indeed,
it is to the measure of this advancement I shall ask your attention.
There is no doubt about the advancement. There are some people who
believed and believe that man began in a state of high development and
has since then degenerated into his present condition. The belief in
some period of Arcadian simplicity and human perfection is still to be
found in some remote nooks and crannies of the learned world; but
those minds who have been trained in archæological studies and in
ethnographic observations know well that when we go back to the most
ancient deposits, in which we find any sign of man at all on the
globe, we find also the proofs that man then lived in the rudest
possible condition of savagery. He has, little by little, through long
centuries and millenniums of painful struggle, survived in made his
weapons and his most effective tools for the time being would be a
good criterion to go by, because these weapons and tools enabled him
to conquer not only the wild beasts around him and his fellow man
also, but nature as well. These materials are three in number. They
particularly apply to European archæology, but, in a general way, to
the archæology of all continents. The one is stone, which gave man
material for the best cutting edge which he could make for very many
millenniums of his existence. After that, for a comparatively short
period, he availed himself of bronze--of the mixture of copper and tin
called bronze--an admixture giving a considerable degree of hardness
and therefore allowing polish and edge making. The bronze age was not
long anywhere. It was succeeded by that metal which, beyond all
others, has been of signal utility to man--iron. We live in the iron
age, and it is from iron in some of its forms and products that all
our best weapons and materials for implements, etc., are derived. We
have, therefore, the ages of stone, of bronze and of iron. These are
the measures, from an artistic source, of the advancement of human
culture; and they certainly bear a distinct relation to all man's
other conditions at the time. A tribe which had never progressed
beyond the stone age--which had no better material for its weapons and
implements than stone--could never proceed beyond a very limited point
of civilization. Bronze or any metal which can be moulded, hammered
and sharpened of course gives a nation vast superiority over one which
uses stone only; and the value of iron and steel for the same purposes
I need not dwell upon.
To be sure, we have here several measures; and it would seem more
desirable, if we could, to obtain one single measure--one single
material or object of which we could say that the tribe that uses or
does not use that to an equal degree is certainly lower or, in the
other respects, higher than another; but I believe that there has been
no single material which has been suggested as of sufficient use and
value in this direction to serve as a criterion; but, yes! I remember
there was one and, on the whole, not a bad one. It was suggested by
Baron Liebig, the celebrated chemist, who said: "If you wish a single
material by which to judge of the amount of culture that any nation,
or, for that matter, any individual, possesses, compared to another
one, find out how much soap they use. Nothing," he said, "more than
personal cleanliness and general cleanliness differentiates the
cultured man from the savage;" and as for that purpose he probably had
in view a soap, he recognized that as the one criterion. It is not
amiss, but open, also, to serious objections; because there are tribes
who live in such conditions that they can get neither water nor soap;
and the Arabs, distinctly clean, are not by any means at the highest
pinnacle of civilization.
The Germans, therefore, as a rule, have sought some other means than
all those above mentioned. Almost all the German writers on
ethnography divide the people and nations of the world into two great
classes--the one they call the "wild peoples," the other the "cultured
peoples"--the "Natur-Voelker" and the "Kultur-Voelker." The
distinction which they draw between these two great classes is largely
psychological. Man, they say, in the condition of the "wild
people"--of the "Natur-Voelker"--is subject to nature; therefore, they
call them "nature people." The "Kultur-Voelker," on the other hand,
have emancipated themselves, in great measure, from the control of
nature.
Furthermore, the man in the condition of the "wild people" is
in a condition of practically unconscious life: he has not yet
arrived at self-consciousness--he does not know and recognize his
individuality--the "Ego"--"das ich;" that is a discovery which comes
with the "Kultur-Voelker"--with the "cultured people;" and just in
proportion as an individual (or a nation) achieves a completely clear
idea of his own self-existence, his self-consciousness, his
individuality, to that extent he is emancipated from the mere control
of nature around him and rises in the scale of culture.
Again, to make this difference between the two still more apparent, it
is the conflict between the instinctive desires and the human heart
and soul and the intelligent desires--those desires which we have by
instinct, which we have by heredity and which have been inculcated
into us wholly by our surroundings, which we drink in and accept
without any internal discussion of them: those are instinctive in
character. We go about our business, we transact the daily affairs of
life, we accept our religion and politics, not from any internal
conviction of our own or positive examination, but from our
surroundings. To that extent people are acting instinctively; and, as
such, they are on a lower stage of culture than those who arrive at
such results for themselves through intelligent personal effort. This
is a real distinction also, although somewhat more subtle, perhaps,
than the ones previously given. Therefore, the differentiation made by
the German ethnographers between wild people and the cultured peoples
is, in the main, right; but it does not admit of any sharp line of
distinction between the two. We cannot draw a fixed line and say, "On
this side are the cultured people and on that the wild," because there
are many tribes and nations who are about that line, in some respects
on one side of it, in others on the other; but in a broad, general way
this distinction (which is now universally adopted by the German
writers) is one we should keep in our minds as being based upon
careful studies and real distinctions.
Usually the writers in the English tongue prefer a different basis
than any of these which I have mentioned; they prefer the basis as to
whence is derived the food supply of a nation, or a tribe; and on the
source of that food supply they divide nations and tribes into the
more or less cultured. In earliest times (and among the rudest tribes
to-day) the food supply is furnished entirely by natural means; there
is little or no agriculture known to speak of; there is nothing in the
way of preserving domestic animals for food; hunting the wild beasts
of the forests and fishing in the streams are the two sources.
Therefore, we call that last condition the hunting and fishing stage
of human development. You will observe that when that prevails there
can be no congregation of men into large bodies. Such a thing as a
city would be unknown. The food supply is eminently precarious. It
depends upon the season and upon a thousand matters not under the
control of man in any way. Moreover, inasmuch as the supply at the
best is uncertain, it allows but a very limited population in a
district; nor does it permit any permanent or stable inhabitations.
The towns, such as they are, must be movable; they must go to one part
of the country in the summer and another in the winter; they must
follow the game and the fruits; and in that condition, therefore, of
unstable life it is not possible for a nation or a tribe to gain any
great advance. You observe, therefore, that when the food supply is
drawn from this source it does entail a general depravity of culture
everywhere.
Above that would come the food supply which is obtained from other
sources. There is one which is not universal but still widely
extended, and that is the pastoral life. There are many tribes (as,
for instance, in southern Africa and in India and throughout the
steppes of Tartary and elsewhere) who live on their herds and drive
their herds from one pasture to another in order to obtain the best
forage. This nomadic and pastoral life extended very widely over the
old world in ancient times, but existed nowhere in the new world, for
the simple reason that they had no domesticated animals. Our own
remote ancestors--both the Aryans and the Semites--all the early
ancestors of the white race so far as known, were pastoral or nomadic;
and the Aryans of central Europe remained so until after the fall of
Rome, when, for the first time, they became practically sedentary.
This nomadic and pastoral life is a very great advance over the mere
hunting and fishing stage. It requires considerable care and attention
to domesticate the wild animals in any sufficient quantity to form a
reliable source of food. Moreover, the attention which it was
necessary to give to the rearing and training and the looking after
domestic animals was to a certain extent, humanizing. When a man found
that it was necessary to be careful about his animals, he would also
be careful about his neighbors. We would say that the same sense which
enabled him, or directed him, to look after the welfare of the herd
would justify and, in fact, impel him to look after that of man also;
so that the nomadic and pastoral life, although not stable nor
favorable to the development of cities, nor the great extension of
commerce, was nevertheless a decided advance over the ruder hunting
and fishing stage. So far as we know, neither Aryan nor Semite ever
depended upon a hunting and fishing stage. They doubtless did, but not
in the time of any history that we know. The Bedouins, etc., wandering
tribes to-day, and, among the Semitic, the Tuaregs of the Sahara, are
a purely nomadic or pastoral race; yet are very much above the negroes
of the south, who depend upon hunting and fishing.
Above it, however, and a very great improvement upon it, is the
agricultural stage, where the main source of the food supply is the
harvests. You observe, at once, that that means a sedentary life. When
a man sows corn, he must wait thereabout and tend it and till it and
finally reap it and store it and thrash it and then preserve the grain
and build granaries for it; and it involves, in fact, the remaining in
one place all the whole year; and then the regularity of that life led
very distinctly to making men regular, generally, in their habits.
They wanted to defend their homes--defend these grain fields of
theirs, or starvation would result; therefore, they built towers and
strong-walled cities; and they took great care in the selection of the
best men among them to do the fighting, while others looked after the
crop. We find that agriculture began at a very, very early period in
both continents. In our own continent we cannot tell when agriculture
was first in use--the main crop being the maize, or Indian corn. It
was raised by the more advanced tribes from the extreme north, where
its profitable culture invited, to the extreme south, from about the
northern line of Wisconsin in North America to the latitude of
southern Chile in South--extending, therefore, over some seven to
eight thousand miles of linear distance.
In the old world (going back to the time of the lake dwellers) we know
they had barley, rye and a species of millet; and later on they were
introduced to oats and wheat and a variety of others. Rice was of the
very earliest of our cereals, in the extreme east of the old world.
Wherever we find a very ancient civilization we also find that it is
intimately connected with some important cereal, and it has been said
that all you have to do is to study botany--the history of botany--and
you will find the history of human culture; and much there is that
could be said for that.
Fourth, and finally, those who divide human culture according to the
food supply consider that the highest stage is reached through
commerce. Commerce brings to all the great centers of human life the
food essential to their sustenance. It would be absolutely
impossible--obviously so--to have a city like Philadelphia in
existence for a month without constant and ceaseless commerce brought
here the food for its inhabitants. It is quite likely that, were
Philadelphia shut off at once from all connection with the world,
within ten days there would be an absolute famine here--so closely do
we depend upon our commercial supplies for our subsistence. These
supplies are not drawn from any one locality; were we to draw a radius
of five hundred miles around our great city of a million inhabitants,
we should still find that the greater part of our food supply comes
from a wider distance from us than that; and there is no one of us
that will go to his table this evening but will see upon that table
food products drawn from every quarter of the world. Thus it is that
commerce enables man to reach an indefinite degree of consolidation;
and it is through consolidation--through the more and more intimate
relationship, and the closer and closer juxtaposition of man--that his
real benefit and progress may be derived.
These, therefore, are the four stages of culture, as depending upon
food supply: the hunting and fishing stage, the nomadic or pastoral,
the agricultural and the commercial. These have been generally adopted
by English writers, and they are so adopted to-day; and you will
probably find them in many of the text books.
The American writers have, in many instances, followed the principles
laid down and defined most clearly by Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, a
distinguished ethnologist of the last generation. He divides (or
accepted the division and largely defined it) the progress of man into
a series of stages: beginning at the lowest point with savagery; then
barbarism, semi-civilization, civilization, and fifth, enlightenment.
I may briefly refer to what he would include in these and the main
criteria which he gives for each of them. He would place the savage
condition as being that of the lowest tribes known to us. They have
little or no agriculture; their commerce is very inchoate and rude:
they have no knowledge of the metals as such; their best weapon is the
bow and arrow, or the throwing stick; and their best tool is the stone
hatchet and the stone spade. This is very much like the lowest
condition of the "wild people" to whom I referred.
Above that he would place the condition of barbarism. In the stage of
developed barbarism he would place such inventions as, for instance,
pottery, the art of weaving (which is a very primitive art) and the
taming of a certain number of domestic animals, some for food, some
for amusement and hunting, and also the beginnings of the development
of agriculture. A type of such a nation of barbarism would be the
Indians who used to live here--the Algonkian--the Delaware Indians.
When the first Europeans came to the shores of the Delaware River they
did not find absolutely rude savages. The Delaware Indians had
moderately stationary villages surrounded by pickets, the houses being
built of strong timber; they had large fields of maize, pumpkins,
squashes and beans, which they cultivated diligently during the summer
and stored the food for their winter's supply. They depended largely,
to be sure, upon hunting and fishing also; but along with that they
had these simple arts: From the rushes which grew below Philadelphia,
in a place called the "Neck," they used to weave mats for protecting
the floors and also for building the sides of their summer houses and
for sleeping upon. They had a method of tanning and dressing buckskin
and using it for the purposes of clothing. They were by no means naked
savages; they were clothed, and tolerably well clothed; they could
make pottery, and the pottery was decorated sometimes with interesting
designs, of which we have specimens in our cabinets. Therefore, we
find among the old Delaware Indians who formerly lived on the site of
Philadelphia a fair specimen of a nation in a barbarous stage,
decidedly superior to the Australian natives of to-day or the Indians
of the Terra del Fuego or the northern part of British America, who
are in the state of complete savagery.
Above that is the period of semi-civilization, a stage marked by the
discovery of the method of building stone walls. No Algonkian or
Iroquois Indian ever built a stone wall in his life; there is no
record of any and no signs of any throughout the United States east of
the Mississippi; there was never a stone wall built by a native tribe
that really amounted to anything more than a stone pile; but we do
find that in the southwest, among the cliff dwellers, and in various
parts of Central America and South America, the stone wall was not
only known, but it was constructed with a great deal of durability and
skill. Also, some knowledge of metals was found among most of the
semi-civilized people. The Mexicans and the Peruvians were in a state
of semi-civilization when they were discovered by the whites the first
time. They, built many extensive temples and houses, erected
frequently upon pyramids, the pyramids themselves being supported by
stone walls. They knew the dressing of stone; they were distinctly
agricultural and depended more on that than anything else for their
food supply. They had developed a system of mnemonic records which, in
the Yucatan culture, might be called picture writing, but was not
phonetic writing in our true sense of the term. The also knew
something about weighing and measuring. They had definite laws, laws
which were carried out by properly appointed individuals. Their towns
and cities would often number thousands of inhabitants; they had roads
connecting them, which roads were kept in good condition; they had a
regular army made up of men selected and trained for that purpose. In
all these respects we see nations who were semi-civilized, but they
were not yet civilized. We could call a nation civilized that had a
distinct system of phonetic writing and used it; but not all nations
having this are civilized. It is only when it is used freely and for
purposes of business that we can call them civilized.
The wild Tuaregs of the Sahara have a system of phonetic writing used
by a few of them--the women being the literati of those tribes (the
men not knowing how to read or write); but civilization means more
than this; it means the use of iron weapons and tools; it means also
the adoption of a definite currency which is established on a fixed
basis and recognized throughout the community; it means the
establishment of commercial lines--a progress distinct above that
which is the mere barter of the lower conditions of savagery and
barbarism. In all these respects we see that civilization means a type
about such as we enjoy at present. It is such as has existed in Europe
since the Renaissance; because during the middle ages we could only
say that Europe was in a semi-civilized condition. They knew something
about writing; but at a time when Dean, the writer of the early
history of England, said that throughout the whole of England there
were not half a dozen men who could read what he had written, you can
see that writing was a very unimportant part of the culture of that
nation; so it can only be when writing becomes a common possession of
the majority that we can call it an element of civilization.
It is not to be supposed that we ourselves have reached the type of
the highest culture. We leave something for our descendants to do. We
do not wish to relieve them of the privilege of being better than
ourselves; and we shall leave them, probably, plenty of room; because
it is supposed that the stage of enlightenment which is the highest
stage of culture--which we foresee, but do not see--that that rather
applies to the future than to ourselves. That period will come when
mankind has freed itself very much more than now from the bonds of
nature and the environment of society. It will come when the ideas of
our equality are much more perfect than they are now; when that
equality extends to the equality of women with men before the law and
in all rights; when it comes to the equality of all men of all castes
before the law and the equal opportunity of all men to obtain that
which is best in the life of all. We are very far from that yet. It
will come also when the idea of international legislation is such that
it will not be necessary, in order to cure great evils, that we should
have recourse to weapons of any material whatsoever; that time is not
yet come; and so we have much that is left for our descendants to work
out in this direction.
It would, however, appear that all these various criteria which I have
named are somewhat unsatisfactory. They do not, it appears to me,
quite touch the question at issue. They are in a measure external
measures altogether--even that somewhat psychological one which I
quoted from the German authorities. Were I to propose a criterion, or
a series of criteria, of culture which could be applied to all
nations, it would be that which might as well and easily be applied to
each individual; and when we come to apply it in that manner it is
much more easy to understand its bearing. Herbert Spencer, in defining
what he means by culture, says: "It means the knowledge of one thing
thoroughly and a knowledge of the groundwork of all other branches of
human knowledge." He claimed that we can only understand one thing
thoroughly; but that we could and ought to understand the general
outline of all other things which are studied by mankind. This is
somewhat defective, it appears, because it bases culture entirely from
an intellectual point of view; and if man were merely a walking
intellectual machine, it would be well enough; but he is not; for the
intellectual man is but a small portion of his life. We are engaged,
most of our time, in something which is very far from purely
intellectual action. We are governed distinctly by our emotions and
our feelings--our sentiments; and culture must touch them, or it is
vague and empty. Therefore it is that I would say that we should think
with Goethe--to whom we must often recur for an insight into the
profoundest trends of human nature--must recur to him; and we find
that he lays down the principle of culture in the individual to be "A
general sympathy with all the highest ideas which have governed and
are governing the human mind." He said: "We should keep ourselves
first (each man and woman should keep himself and herself) in touch
with the highest elements of his and her own nature." He said, "It is
not so difficult, if we give but a little time to it--provided we give
that time regularly. We must remember," he says, "to cultivate our
intellect by some study, every day and our sense of the beautiful by
looking at something which is beautiful; and there is much around us
which costs us nothing to look at were we to observe it--the cloud,
the sunlight, the tree, the flower, a butterfly--anything of that kind
studied for a few minutes each day would continue to develop in man's
mind the sense of the beautiful. We should also appreciate carefully
our actions and govern them and measure them, as to whether they are
just to others--a matter which a very few minutes a day will probably
enable us to do;" and so also he would go further and seek to find, in
the idea of truth itself, as to what we ought and ought not to
believe--trying to discover some one test of truth which we can apply.
Indeed, we may therefore formulate and apply to nations at large what
Goethe has there suggested; and we shall find it can be arranged in
what I may call a pentatonic scale of culture. You may be aware that
all musical scales of all savage and barbarous and primitive tribes
are not in the octave, as ours, but in five notes only; they all have
one musical scale only, and that is a pentatonic scale; and it is
perhaps because they feel that their own minds are based upon some
such arrangement as that (although that is an idea which I do not
subscribe to, but only suggest); but when we come to look over the
whole cycle of culture, as we find it described in the histories of
culture--in the histories of civilization--we find that they are all
efforts to develop one or the other, or several, of five primary ideas
which are in the mind of every human being; and when they are
developed, then culture is perfect, either in the individual or in the
nation or the race. These five primitive ideas, innate in every human
soul, are the ideas of the useful, of the beautiful, of the just, of
the good and of the true, and you will not find any savage (provided
he is not deficient in the ordinary mental ability of his tribe) who
does not indicate an appreciation of every one of these in his own
way. It is the idea of the useful which teaches him his utilitarian
arts; which teaches him to build his house; to chip the flint for his
weapon; to sharpen the stick to dig the place to drop the seed; and
all those we call the arts of utility, the useful arts; and yet you
will not find a savage tribe to-day but what goes somewhat above this;
because among them all they make also an effort that these tools and
weapons of theirs shall have some sign about them of the beautiful;
and you will find decoration--indeed, "the painted savage" is a name
we give to the lowest order of humanity; yet this same paint is to
make himself beautiful; and so it is throughout all his games and
amusements in life--you will find he is constantly striving at the
idea of decoration--at the idea of beauty; little by little he
develops this, until it becomes, in some nations, the joy of their
existence and the lesson of the race, as in the ancient Greeks; as in
the Italians of the time of the Renaissance. These are what we call
the æsthetic emotions, based upon an innate sense and love of the
beautiful: and we may also turn to the lowest savage--we shall not
find him deficient in justice; on the contrary, among the rudest
Australians, without shelter or clothing, you will find that the law
of the tribe is well defined and also implacable; and a man who has
sinned knows that he must meet it or flee; he knows that there is no
avail or recourse beyond the tribal council, and he knows what they
will decide in his particular case, because he knows the law and the
penalty of its infringement. And this rude notion of justice develops,
little by little, into the great edifice of jurisprudence, the law of
nation and the law of nations. Thus we find that the idea of the just,
and of what is right from man to man, is something which is found
everywhere; and as that develops culture develops; but the mere just
alone does not satisfy the human heart; the man who merely metes out
to his fellow that which the tribal law, or the law of the land,
requires of him, certainly is not up to the ideal of any man or woman
in this assembly or in this city.
There is something beyond that, and what is that? We find that it
rests in the idea of the good--that which is often brought forward in
the beautiful forms of religion, which tells man that above justice
there is something greater and nobler than mere ethics or
morality--the mere right and wrong--the mere giving what is due. It is
not enough to do that; there must be a giving of more than is due;
because the idea of the good transcends the present life--it passes
into the future life of the species; and it is only through going
above what is needed to-day that we may endow our posterity with
something greater than we ourselves possess. It is the idea of the
good, therefore, which lifts that which is merely just into a
higher--into, I might say, an immortal sphere of activity. It has
always had an intense attraction for noble souls, which history shows
us; and it is not to be supposed that that attraction will ever
diminish; it will ever increase, although its forms may change; and
finally, along with this betterment of the emotions, and of the sense
of justice--of right and of ethics and of æsthetics--we find the
constant effort and desire of all mankind, in all stages of culture,
to find out what is true, as distinct from that which is not true. You
will not be mistaken if you seek for this in the soul of the rudest
savage; he, too, likes to know the truth. The methods by which he
arrives at it, or seeks to arrive at it, are widely different from
those which you have been taught. Nevertheless, the logical force of
his mind; the methods of thought that he has; the laws that govern his
intelligence, are exactly the same as yours: and it is only with your
enlightenment you have gained more and more acquaintance with the
methods. You know something about the great discovery which has
advanced all modern science from its mediæval condition to that of the
present--of the application of the inductive system of science and
thought; and you know that it is by constant and close mathematical
study of analogy--of probability--that we exclude error little by
little from our observations--we improve more and more our instruments
of precision--we count out the errors of our observation; and we are
constantly seeking those laws which are not transient and ephemeral
only, but which are eternal and immortal. Upon those laws, finally,
must rest all our real, certain knowledge; and it is the endeavor of
the anthropologist to apply those laws to man and his development; and
such, indeed, is the recognized and highest mission of that science.
We thus find that the idea of truth is at the summit of this scale
which I have placed before you--not separated from it. It interprets
every one of the ideas and justifies them and qualifies them and lifts
them up into their highest usefulness. Chevalier Bunsen, in describing
what he thought would be the highest condition of human enlightenment,
said, "It will be when the good will be the true and the true will be
the good;" and he might have extended that further and said, when both
those ideas were the inspiring motives of all these five great ideas
which I have stated are at the basis of the culture of every
individual and are also at the basis of the culture of the race and of
the nation.
This, therefore, will serve as a sketch of the milestones of human
progress. The way has been long and painful; the results have been far
from satisfactory; and yet they have been enormous and wonderful, when
we compare them now with what our ancestors were when history began.
We can conclude, however, from looking back on this thorny and upward
path, that it is still going to ascend; we do not know it for certain;
progress may cease, through some unknown law, now and here; but if
there is anything that we can derive from the lesson of the past--if
we can project into the future any of the facts which history shows us
are our own now--it guides us forward to a firm belief that the
hereafter will have in its breast greater treasures for humanity,
greater glories for posterity, than any that we know or can
understand.
* * * * *