another question from the origin of _languages_, or, to use the proper
term, of _linguistic stocks_. They are very numerous, and many of
comparatively late birth. Those convolutions of the brain which preside
over speech once developed, man did not have to repeat his long and
toilsome task of acquiring linguistic facility. Children are always
originating new words and expressions, and if two or three infants are
left much together, they will soon have a tongue of their own, unlike
anything they hear around them. Numerous examples of this character
have been collected by Horatio Hale, and upon them he has based an
entirely satisfactory theory of the source of that multiplicity of
languages which we find in various parts of the globe.[31] In the
unstable life of barbarous epochs, very young children were often left
without parents or protectors, or wandered off and were lost. Most of
them doubtless perished, but those who survived developed a tongue of
their own, nearly all whose radicals would be totally different from
those of the language of their parents. Thus in early times numerous
dialects, numerous independent tongues, came to be spoken within
limited areas by the same ethnic stock.
It is a common error to suppose that there was once but one or a few
languages, from which all others have been derived. The reverse is the
case. Within the historic period, the number of languages has been
steadily diminishing. We know of scores which have become extinct, as
many American tongues; others, like the Celtic, are in plain process
of disappearance. We can almost predict the time when the work and
the thought of the world will be carried on in less than half a dozen
tongues, if indeed that many survive as really active.
If we take a comprehensive survey of the grammatical structure of
all known tongues, we are cheered by the discovery that they can be
divided into a few great classes or groups. The similarities of each
group are not in words or sounds, but in the plan of “expressing the
proposition,” or placing words together in a phrase to convey an idea.
This may be accomplished in one of four ways:
1. By _isolation_. The words representing the parts of the phrase may
be ranged one after another without any change. This is the case in the
Chinese and the languages of Farther India.
2. By _agglutination_. The principal word in the phrase may have
added to it or placed before it a number of syllables expressing the
relations to it of the other ideas. Most African and North Asian
tongues are agglutinative.
3. By _incorporation_. The accessory words are either inserted within
the verbal members of the sentence, or attached to it in abbreviated
forms, so that the phrase has the appearance of one word. Most American
languages belong to this type.
4. By _inflection_. Each word of the sentence indicates by its own form
its relation to the main proposition. All Aryan and Semitic idioms are
more or less inflected.
These distinctions have great ethnographic interest. They almost
deserve to be called racial traits. Thus, the inflected languages
belonged originally solely to the European race; the isolating
languages are still confined wholly to the Sinitic branch of the Asian
race; the incorporative languages are found nowhere of such pure type
and so numerous as in the American race; while the agglutinative type
is that alone which is found in independent examples in every race.
_Scheme of Languages._
1. Isolating { Chinese, Thibetan, Sifan, Tai.
{ Siamese, Annamite, Burmese, Assamese.
{ 1. By reduplication and { Polynesian, Papuan,
prefixes { Bantu.
2. Agglutinative { Sibiric tongues, (Ural-altaic),
{ 2. By suffixes { Basque.
{ Japanese, Korean, Dravidian.
{ 1. With synthetic tendency { Algonkin, Nahuatl.
{ Quichua, Guarani.
3. Incorporative { 2. With analytic tendency. { Otomi, Maya, Sahaptin.
{ 1. By annexing grammatical elements. Egyptian.
4. Inflectional { 2. By inner changes of stem. Libyan, Semitic.
{ 3. By addition of suffixes. Aryac tongues.
The principles on which languages should be compared are frequently
misunderstood, and this is one of the reasons why the value of
linguistics to ethnography has so often been underrated.
The first rule which should be observed is to _rank grammatical
structure far above verbal coincidences_. The neglect of this rule will
condemn any effort at comparison. For example, there have been writers
who have sought to derive the Polynesian, an agglutinative, from the
Sanscrit, an inflected tongue; or an American from a Semitic stock.
Such attempts reveal an ignorance of the nature of language.
A second rule is that in tracing the etymology of words, the _phonetic
laws of the special group to which they belong_ must be followed. This
is an even more frequent source of error than the former. Writers of
high reputation will trace variations in African or American or Semitic
names by the phonetic laws of the Aryac dialects--an absurd error, as
the phonetic changes are not at all the same in different linguistic
stocks.
Yet a third rule is _to appraise correctly the value of verbal
identities_. Generally, it is placed too high. All developed tongues
include many “loan words,” borrowed from a variety of sources. They are
not _prima facie_ evidence of ethnic relation; they have frequently
been transmitted through other nations, as is the case with thousands
of English words.
An absolute verbal identity is always suspicious; or rather it is of
_no_ ethnic value. There must be a series of words in the languages
compared of the same or similar meanings, but whose forms have been
altered by the phonetic laws peculiar to the group, for such lists of
words to merit the attention of a scientific linguist.
The question how far languages can be accepted as indicating the
relationships of peoples has been a bone of contention. One principle
we may lay down, with unimportant exceptions--_No nation has ever
willingly adopted a foreign tongue._ Whenever such a change has taken
place, it has been under stress of sovereignty, _vi coactum_, as the
lawyers say. Hence in the savage state, where prolonged domination of
one tribe by another rarely occurs, language is an excellent ethnic
guide, as in America and ancient Europe.
Another principle is that in a conflict of tongues, as after conquest,
_that tongue prevails which belongs to the more cultured people_,
whether this be conqueror or conquered. This is well illustrated by
the survival of the Romance languages after the inroads of the Teutonic
hordes at the Fall of the Western Empire.
A third maxim in linguistic ethnography is that _mixture of languages,
especially in grammatical structure, indicates mixture of blood_.
When, for instance, we find the Maltese a dialect partly Arabic,
partly Romance, we may correctly infer that the people of the island
are descended from both these stocks. This holds good even of loan
words, when they are numerous; for though such have no influence on
the grammatical structure of a tongue, they testify to some relations
between nations, which we may be sure corresponded to others of a
sexual nature.
The “American citizens of African descent” speak English only; and
though they have been in contact with the white race for but three or
four generations, the majority of those now living are related to it by
blood, that is, are mulattoes.
The _mental aptitude_ of a nation is closely dependent on the type of
its idiom. The mind is profoundly influenced by its current modes of
vocal expression. When the form of the phrase is such that each idea
is kept clear and apart, as it is in nature, and yet its relations
to other ideas in the phrase and the sentence are properly indicated
by the grammatical construction, the intellect is stimulated by
wider variety in images and a nicer precision in their outlines and
relations. This is the case in the highest degree with the languages
of inflection, and it is no mere coincidence that those peoples who
have ever borne the banner in the van of civilization have always
spoken inflected tongues. The world will be better off when all others
are extinguished, and it is only in deep ignorance of linguistic
ethnography that such a language as _Volapük_--agglutinative in
type--could have been offered for adoption as a world-language.
I have said that alone of all animals, man has articulate speech; I now
add that also alone of all animals, he is capable of
_3. Religion._
Not only is he capable of it; he has never been known to be devoid of
it. All statements that tribes have been discovered without any kind
of religion are erroneous. Not one of them has borne the test of close
investigation.[32] The usual mistake has been to suppose that this
or that belief, this or that moral observance, constitutes religion.
In fact, there are plenty of immoral religions, and some which are
atheistic. The notion of a God or gods is not essential to religion;
for that matter, some of the most advanced religious teachers assert
that such a notion is incompatible with the highest religion. Religion
is simply the recognition of the Unknown as a controlling element in
the destiny of man and the world about him. This we shall find in the
cult of every nation, and in the heart of every man.
Some nations identified this unknown controlling power with one real
or supposed existence, some with another. Those in whom the family
sentiment was well developed believed themselves still under the
control of their deceased parents, giving rise to “ancestral worship;”
more frequently the change from light to darkness, day to night,
impressed the children of nature, and led to light and sun worship;
in some localities the terrific force displayed in the cyclone or the
thunder-storm seemed the mightiest revelation of the Unknown, and we
have the Lightning and Storm Myths; elsewhere, any odd or strange
object, any unexplained motion, was attributed to the divine, the
_super_-natural. The last mentioned mental state gave rise to those low
cults called “fetichism” and “animism,” while the former are supposed
to be somewhat higher and are distinguished as “polytheisms.” In all
of them, the prevailing sentiment is fear of the Unknown; the spirit
of worship is propitiatory, the gods being regarded as jealous and
inclined to malevolence; the cult is of the nature of sorcery, certain
formulas, rites and sacrifices being held to placate or neutralize the
ill-will or bad temper of the divinities. In its lowest forms this
is called “shamanism;” in its highest, it is seen in all dogmatic
religions.
In early conditions, each tribe has its own gods, which are not
supposed to be superior, except in force, to the gods of neighboring
tribes. No attempt is made to extend their worship beyond the tribe,
and in their images they are liable to be captured, as are their
votaries. Special prisons for such captive gods were constructed in
ancient Rome and Cuzco.
These “tribal religions” prevailed everywhere in early historic times.
The religion of the ancient Israelites, such as we find it portrayed
in the Pentateuch, was of this character. In later days, profoundly
religious minds of philosophic cast perceived that tribal cults do
not satisfy the loftiest aspirations of the religious sentiment. The
conceptions of the highest truths must be universal conceptions, and in
obedience to this the Universal or World-religions were formed.
The earliest of these was preached by Sakya Muni, Prince of
Kapilavastu, in India, about 500 B. C. It is known as Buddhism, and has
now the largest number of believers of any one faith. The second was
that taught by Christ, and the third is Islam, introduced by Mohammed
in the seventh century. It is noteworthy that all these world-religions
were framed by members of the white race. None has been devised by
members of the other races, for the doctrines advanced by Confutse and
Laotse in China are philosophic systems rather than religions.
The three World-religions named have rapidly extinguished the various
tribal religions, and it is easy to foresee that in a few generations
they will virtually embrace the religious sentiments of all mankind.
They are all three on the increase, Christianity the most rapidly by
the extension of the nations adhering to it, but Mohammedanism can
claim in the present century the greater number of proselytes, its
fields being in Central Asia, India, and Central Africa.
In the ethnographic study of religions for the purpose of estimating
their influence on the life and character of nations, we must take
notice especially of three points: 1. The ethical contents of a faith;
2. The philosophic “theory of things” on which it is based (cosmogony,
theosophy, etc.), and 3. Its power over the emotions, as upon this
rests its practical potency.
As currently taught, no one of the three world-religions named is
fully adequate on all these points. The cosmogony of Christianity is
a series of Assyrian and Hebrew myths contradicted by modern science,
and its ethical purity has been often sullied by efforts to place faith
in dogmas above the law of conscience. Mohammedanism, a more genuine
monotheism than Christianity, in some respects higher in practical
morality (temperance, charity, equality), and certainly superior in
power over the emotions, is weak in its doctrine of fatalism and in its
degradation of woman. Buddhism is tainted by a profound distrust of the
value of the individual life, by a false theory of the universe, and by
its borrowed doctrine of metempsychosis; but rises high in its appeals
to the sense of justice and right within the mind.
A religion tends to elevate its votaries in the proportion that it
withdraws their minds from merely material aims, and sets before them
stimulating ideals. This is the distinction between “material” and
“ideal” cults. Where the rites are directed mainly to conjuration,
where the prayers are for good luck in life, where the myths are mere
stories of exaggerated human shapes, there the faith is material. Such
were all the religions of the African blacks and of the Eastern and
Northern Asiatic tribes. They have never developed any thing higher.
Among the whites, however, and in a less degree among the American
Indians, there were mythical ideal figures, ranked among the gods, who
embodied grand ideal conceptions of the possible perfectibility of man,
and served as examples and models for the religious sentiment.[33]
The associative influence of a religion, whether tribal or universal in
theory, is singularly powerful. The Mohammedan who looks toward Mecca,
the Christian who turns toward Rome, feels a like bond of sympathy
with his fellow worshippers of every race and color, as did the
Israelite who wended his way to Jerusalem, or the Nahuatl who travelled
to the sacred city of Cholula. The pilgrimages, the Crusades, the
ecclesiastical Councils of past ages, have collected nations together
under the control of ideas stronger than any which practical life can
offer.
Other bonds of union are those derived from the practice of
_4. The Arts of Life._
Unquestionably the earliest of these to exert such an influence was
the construction of a shelter, in other words _architecture_. We know
that even glacial man had learned enough to make himself a house,
though it was probably inferior to that of the muskrat. In early
conditions one structure sheltered several families. Such are called
“communal houses,” and some ethnologists have argued that they are well
nigh universal down to a very late day in the evolution of domestic
architecture. The temple, the fortified refuge, the city with its
grouped homes shut in by a common wall of defence--all these illustrate
how architecture has ever tended to bring men together, and strengthen
their instincts of association.
Later in time but wider in its influence in the same direction was
the growth of _agriculture_. This art completely revolutionized the
habits of life, and rendered possible the advent of civilization. The
tribe, dependent on hunting and fishing or on natural products for a
livelihood, is necessarily migratory and separative in its habits. The
tillage of the ground with equal necessity demands a stable residence
and a centralization of individuals. The areas of primitive culture,
the sites of the earliest cities, were always in situations favorable
to agricultural pursuits.
Along with the cultivation of food-plants went hand-in-hand the
domestication of animals. The horse was trained independently in both
Europe and Asia, some species of the dog in all continents, the ox
for draft and the cow for milk principally in Asia, and the camel for
the deserts of Arabia and Africa. These humble aids brought together
distant tribes, and assimilated their characters.
The prosecution of the various special arts, as pottery, metal
work, textile-fabrics, etc., led to the formation of guilds and the
association of workers in particular localities favorable to obtaining
and utilizing the raw products. Each such conquest of the inventive
faculties drew men into closer bonds of harmonious labor, and opened
for them new avenues of joint industry. The pre-historic past of the
race is measured by archæologists by the rise and extension of new
arts, not because of themselves, but because they are indicative of
improved social conditions, greater aggregations of men, more potent
actions in history. The fine arts, in crowning the useful arts with
the iridescent glory of the ideal, impart to the handiwork of men that
universality of motive which unites all into one brotherhood.
The second class of psychic traits are:
II. THE DISPERSIVE ELEMENTS.
These have been of the utmost moment in the history of the species, and
a controlling factor in the records of every people. They are derived
from two quite different impulses in human nature; the one, a natural
propensity to roam, the other, a predisposition to contest.
Both have been favored by the ability of the species to adapt itself
to its surroundings, far surpassing that of any other animal. There is
no zone and no altitude offering the necessary food supplies that man
does not inhabit. The cat, with its traditional “nine lives,” perishes
in the upper Andes, where men live in populous cities. No one breed
of dogs can follow man to all latitudes. His powers of locomotion are
equally surprising. He can walk the swift horse to death, and his
steady and tireless gait will in the long-run leave every competitor
behind. An Indian will track a deer for days and capture it through its
utter fatigue. A Tebu thinks little of passing three days under the sun
of the Sahara without drinking. Such powers as these endow man with the
highest migratory faculties of any animal, and give rise to or have
been developed from
_1. The Migratory Instincts._
Many species of animals, especially birds, change their habitat with
the seasons, the object usually being to obtain a better food supply.
So do most hunting and fishing tribes, and for the same reason. Often
these periodical journeys extend hundred of miles and embrace the whole
tribe.
This must also have been the case with primeval man when he occupied
the world in “palæolithic” time. His home was along the shores of seas
and the banks of streams. Up and down these natural highways he pursued
his wanderings, until he had extended his roamings over most of the
habitable land.
What prompted him and all savage tribes is not always the search for
food. The desire for a more genial climate, the pressure of foes,
and often mere causeless restlessness, act as motive forces in the
movements of an unstable population. Certain peoples, as the Gypsies,
seem endowed with an hereditary instinct for vagabondage. The nomadic
hordes of the Asiatic steppes and the wastes of the Sahara transmit a
restlessness to their descendants which in itself is an obstacle to a
sedentary life.
Such vagrant tribes became the colporteurs and commercial travellers
of early society. They invented means or transportation, and
conveyed the products of one region to another. Only of late have
we learned to appreciate the wide extent of pre-historic commerce.
Long before Abraham settled in Ur of the Chaldees (say 2000 B.
C.), a well-travelled commercial road stretched from the cities of
Mesopotamia, through Egypt to the Pillars of Hercules, and thence into
Europe.[34] When Hendrick Hudson sailed into the bay of New York, the
commercial relations of the tribes who lived on its shores had already
extended to the coast of the Pacific.[35]
These lines of early traffic were also the lines of the migrations of
nations. They were fixed by the physical geography of regions, and have
rightly attracted the careful attention of ethnographers. Along them,
nation has blended into nation, race fused with race. The conviction
that early man was not sedentary, but mobile, by nature a migratory
species, wandering widely over the face of the earth, is one which has
been brought home to the ethnologist by the science of prehistoric
archæology, and it is full of significance.
_2. The Combative Instinct._
The philosopher Hobbes taught that the natural condition of man in
society is one of perpetual warfare with his neighbors. This grim
theory is sadly attested by a study of savage life. The wretched
Fuegians, the miserable Australians, with really nothing worth living
for, let alone dying for, fall to cutting each other’s throats the
moment that tribe encounters tribe. So it has been in all ages, so
it has been in all stages of culture. The warrior, the hero, is the
one who wins the hearts of women by his fame, and the devotion of men
by his prowess. Civilization helps not at all. In no century of the
world’s history have such destructive battles been fought as in the
nineteenth; at no former period have the powers of the earth collected
such gigantic armies and navies as to-day.
This love of combat at once separates and unites nations. To destroy
the common foe, the bonds of national or tribal unity are drawn the
tighter; and the aversion to the enemy tends to the preservation of the
ethnic type.
In spite of the countless miseries which follow in its train, war has
probably been the highest stimulus to racial progress. It is the most
potent excitant known of all the faculties. The intense instinct of
self-preservation will prompt to an intellectual energy which nothing
else can awake. The grandest works of imagination, the immortal
outbursts of the poets, from Homer to Whitman, have been under the
stimulus of the war-cry ringing in their ears.
The world-conquerors and the holy wars, Alexander and Napoleon, the
Crusades and the Mohammedan invasions, have been landmarks in history,
a destruction of the effete, an introduction of the new and the viable.
Guizot’s bold statement that in the decisive battles of the world it
has been, not the strongest battalions, but the truest idea which has
conquered, may be a profound ethnologic truth. Certain it is that in
weighing the psychical elements of man’s nature and their influence
on the past history of the species, we must assign to his combative
instincts a most prominent place as stimulants, and we must recognize,
amid all the miseries which they have brought upon him, the part they
have played in his development. That they have always resulted in
promoting the “survival of the fittest,” it is hard to believe, and
there is much to make us doubt; but that a great deal of the unfit has
thus been destroyed, we may reasonably accept.
What has been true always, is true to-day. It is force, might, which
forever exercises “the right of eminent domain;” and this principle is
as necessary as it is indestructible. Proudhon was logical, when, in
his treatise on _War and Peace_, he placed war and the duty of waging
war at the basis of all society, and defended it as the necessary
condition of civilization, inasmuch as it alone is the highest form of
judicial action, the last appeal of the oppressed. Never, we may be
sure, will the human species be ready or willing to forego this, the
greatest of all their privileges.
LECTURE III.
THE BEGINNINGS AND SUBDIVISIONS OF RACES.