MYTHS OF
CHINA AND JAPAN
By
DONALD A. MACKENZIE
With Illustrations in Colour & Monochrome
after Paintings and Photographs
THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
66 CHANDOS ST. COVENT GARDEN LONDON
PREFACE
This volume deals with the myths of China and Japan, and it is shown
that these throw light on the origin and growth of civilization and the
widespread dissemination of complex ideas associated with certain modes
of life. The Far East does not appear to have remained immune to
outside cultural influences in ancient times. Modern research has
established that the old school of opinions which insisted on the
complete isolation of China can no longer obtain. As Laufer says: “It
cannot be strongly enough emphasized on every occasion that Chinese
civilization, as it appears now, is not a unit and not the exclusive
production of the Chinese, but the final result of the cultural efforts
of a vast conglomeration of the most varied tribes, an amalgamation of
ideas accumulated from manifold quarters and widely differentiated in
space and time.... No graver error can hence be committed than to
attribute any culture idea at the outset to the Chinese, for no other
reason than because it appears within the precincts of their empire.”
Even the Chinese records have to be regarded with caution. It is
impossible nowadays to accept as serious contributions to history the
inflated chronology and the obvious fables compiled and invented by
Chinese scholars for political and other purposes during the Han and
later dynasties. These scholars had really little knowledge of the
early history of their country and people. They were puzzled even by
certain existing customs and religious practices, and provided
ingenious “secondary explanations” which, like their accounts of the
early dynasties, do not accord with the data accumulated by
archæologists and other workers in the scientific field. The complex
religious ideas of the Chinese were obviously not of spontaneous
generation. Many of these resemble too closely the complexes found
elsewhere, and their history cannot be traced within the limits of the
Chinese empire. Indeed, as is shown, some of them are undoubtedly
products of human experiences obtained elsewhere, and they reveal
traces of the influences to which they were subjected during the
process of gradual transmission from areas of origin. Nor, would it
appear, was Chinese civilization nearly as ancient as the native
scholars would have us believe.
When the early Chinese entered China, they found non-Chinese peoples in
different parts of that vast area which they ultimately welded into an
empire. They were an inland people and did not invent boats; they did
not originate the agricultural mode of life but adopted it, using the
seeds and implements they had acquired; nor did they invent the
potter’s wheel with which they were familiar from the earliest times in
China, having evidently become possessed of it, along with the complex
culture associated with it, before they migrated into the province of
Shensi. Nor could an agrarian people like the Chinese have been the
originators of the belief in the existence of “Isles of the Blest” in
the Eastern Ocean; they were not alone in Asia in believing in a
Western Paradise situated among the mountains.
The Chinese, as Laufer demonstrates in his Jade, did not pass through
in China that culture stage called the “Neolithic”. When they first
settled in Shensi, they searched for and found jade, as did the
carriers of bronze who first entered Europe. There was obviously an
acquired psychological motive for the search for jade, and the evidence
of Chinese jade symbolism demonstrates to the full that it had been
acquired from those who had transferred to jade the earlier symbolism
of shells, pearls, and precious metals. In the chapter devoted to jade
it is shown that this view is confirmed by the evidence afforded by
Chinese customs connected with jade, shells, pearls, &c.
In no country in the world are the processes of culture drifting and
culture mixing made more manifest than in China. The Chinese dragon is,
as Professor Elliot Smith puts it, a “composite wonder beast”.
Throughout this volume it is shown to yield, when dissected, remarkable
evidence regarding the varied influences under which it acquired its
highly complex character. The fact that a Chinese dragon charm closely
resembles a Scottish serpent charm is of special interest in this
connection. When, however, it is found that China obtained certain
myths and practices from the area called by its writers “Fu-lin” (the
Byzantine Empire), and that not only Byzantine but Ægean influences are
traceable in the Celtic field, the charm-link between Gaelic Scotland
and China may not, after all, be regarded as “far-fetched”. The same
may be said regarding the curious similarity between the myths and
practices connected with shells, and especially cockle-shells, in Japan
and the Scottish Hebrides. Although the West Highlanders and the
inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun were never brought into
contact, it may be that similar cultural influences drifted east and
west from their area of origin, and that the carriers were the ancient
mariners who introduced the same type of vessel into far-separated
oceans.
As in China, we do not in Japan find a culture of purely native origin,
but rather one which has grown up from a mass of imported elements as
varied as the racial types that compose the present-day population.
Both in China and Japan these imported elements have been subjected to
the influences of time and locality and infused with national ideas and
ideals. The processes of growth and change have not, however, concealed
the sources from which certain of the early ideas emanated in varying
degrees of development.
The early native history of Japan is, like that of China, no more
worthy of acceptance than are the long-discarded English and Scottish
fables regarding Brute and Scota.
The data accumulated in this volume tend to show, although we have no
direct evidence of systematic missionary enterprise earlier than that
of the Buddhists, that the influential religious cults of ancient times
that flourished in Mesopotamia and in the Egyptian Empire (which
included part of Western Asia) appear to have left their impress on the
intellectual life of even far-distant peoples. Apparently modes of
thought were transmitted along direct and indirect avenues of
intercourse by groups of traders. Even before trade routes were opened,
religious beliefs and practices appear to have been introduced into
distant lands by prospectors and by settlers who founded colonies from
which later colonies “budded”. When the same set of complexes are found
in widely separated areas, it is difficult to accept the view that they
originated from the same particular experiences and the same set of
circumstances, especially when it is made manifest that the complexes
in the older centre of culture reflect strictly local physical
conditions, and even the local political conditions that resulted in a
fusion of peoples and of their myths, symbols, and religious beliefs
and practices.
DONALD A. MACKENZIE.
CONTENTS
Chap. Page
I. The Dawn of Civilization 1
II. A Far-travelled Invention 13
III. Ancient Mariners and Explorers 24
IV. The World-wide Search for Wealth 36
V. Chinese Dragon Lore 46
VI. Bird and Serpent Myths 66
VII. Dragon Folk-stories 76
VIII. The Kingdom under the Sea 95
IX. The Islands of the Blest 106
X. The Mother-goddess of China and Japan 131
XI. Tree-, Herb-, and Stone-lore 158
XII. How Copper-culture reached China 189
XIII. The Symbolism of Jade 211
XIV. Creation Myths and the God and Goddess Cults 256
XV. Mythical and Legendary Kings 274
XVI. Myths and Doctrines of Taoism 297
XVII. Culture Mixing in Japan 324
XVIII. Japanese Gods and Dragons 345
XIX. Rival Deities of Life and Death, Sunshine and Storm 357
XX. The Dragon-slayer and His Rival 371
XXI. Ancient Mikados and Heroes 378
LIST OF PLATES
Facing Page
THE GOD OF THUNDER (in colour) Frontispiece
From a Chinese picture in the John Rylands Library, Manchester
POTTER’S WHEEL, SIMLA, INDIA 16
From a sketch by J. Lockwood Kipling in the Victoria and Albert
Museum
A MODERN CHINESE JUNK ON THE CANTON RIVER 24
CHINESE DRAGON-BOAT FESTIVAL 40
From a picture woven in coloured silks and gold thread in the
Victoria and Albert Museum
CHINESE DRAGONS AMONG THE CLOUDS 48
From a painting in the British Museum
CHINESE DRAGON VASE WITH CARVED WOOD STAND 56
(Victoria and Albert Museum)
CARP LEAPING FROM WAVES 81
From a Japanese painting in the British Museum
CHINESE PORCELAIN VASE DECORATED WITH FIVE-CLAWED DRAGONS RISING
FROM WAVES 88
(Victoria and Albert Museum)
RESONANT STONE OF JADE SHOWING DRAGON WITH CLOUD ORNAMENTS,
SUSPENDED FROM CARVED BLACKWOOD FRAME 96
By courtesy of B. Laufer, Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago
TORTOISE AND SNAKE 104
From a rubbing in the British Museum of a Chinese original
GATHERING FRUITS OF LONGEVITY 112
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
SHOU SHAN (i.e. “HILLS OF LONGEVITY”), THE TAOIST PARADISE 124
From a woven silk picture in the Victoria and Albert Museum
THE CHINESE SI WANG MU (JAPANESE SEIOBO) AND MAO NU 136
From a Japanese painting (by Hidenobu) in the British Museum
MOUNTAIN VIEW WITH SCHOLAR’S RETREAT 140
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
GENII AT THE COURT OF SI WANG MU 152
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
SQUARE BRICK OF THE HAN DYNASTY, WITH MYTHOLOGICAL FIGURES AND
INSCRIPTIONS 160
CHINESE BOWL WITH SYMBOL OF LONGEVITY 168
(Victoria and Albert Museum)
GOATS CROPPING PLANT OF LIFE 172
From the jade sculpture in the Scottish National Museum,
Edinburgh
THE GODDESS OF THE DEW 184
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
AN OFFERING TO THE GODS, PEKING 200
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
ANCIENT BRONZE ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS ON THE CITY WALL, PEKING 208
MORTUARY FISH IN JADE, OF HAN PERIOD 212
FIGURE OF BUTTERFLY IN WHITE AND BROWNISH-YELLOW JADE, TSʼIN OR
HAN PERIOD 212
AMULETS FOR THE DEAD, AND OTHER OBJECTS IN JADE 220
The subjects on pages 212 and 220 are reproduced by courtesy
of B. Laufer, author of “Jade”, Field Museum, Chicago
THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN, PEKING 228
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
THREE SAGES STUDYING SYMBOL OF YIN AND YANG 230
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
KWAN-YIN, THE CHINESE “GODDESS OF MERCY” 271
From a porcelain figure decorated in soft enamels in the Victoria
and Albert Museum
LAO TZE AND DISCIPLES 300
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
THE MOST FAMOUS PAI-LO (GODDESS SYMBOL) IN CHINA: AT THE MENG
TOMBS, NEAR PEKING 328
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
THE FAMOUS OLD TORI-WI (GODDESS SYMBOL), MIYAJIMA, JAPAN 338
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
THE JAPANESE TREASURE SHIP 352
From a woodcut in the British Museum
SUSA-NO-WO MAKING A COMPACT WITH DISEASE SPIRITS 360
From a Japanese painting (by Hoga) in the British Museum
AMATERÂSU, THE SUN GODDESS, EMERGING FROM HER CAVE 368
From a Japanese painting in the British Museum
SEIOBO (= THE CHINESE SI WANG MU) WITH ATTENDANT AND THREE RISHI 380
From a Japanese painting (by Sanraku) in the British Museum
MYTHS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
CHAPTER I
THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
Chinese Culture—Had it Independent Origin?—Evolution in Human
Affairs—Stratification Theory—The Mystery of Mind—Man’s First
Philosophy of Life—Influences exercised by Ancient
Civilizations—Culture Mixing—The Idea of Progress—Art in the
Pleistocene Age—Introduction of Agriculture—Birth of Osirian
Civilization—The “Water of Greenness” as “Water of Life”—How
Commerce Began—Introduction of Copper-working—The Oldest Calendar
in the World—The “Kings of Mankind”—Ancient Man and Modern Man.
The destinies of a people are shaped by their modes of thought, and
their real history is therefore the history of their culture. The
Chinese frame of mind has made the Chinese the people they are and
China the country it is. Every section of society has been swayed by
this far-reaching and enduring influence, the sources of which lie in
remote antiquity. It is the force that has even been shaping public
opinion and directing political movements. Emperors and leaders of
thought have been uplifted by it or cast down by it.
To understand China, it is necessary that we should inquire into its
inner history—the history of its culture—so as to get at the Chinese
point of view and look at things through Chinese eyes. That inner
history is in part a record of its early experiences among the nations
of the earth. There was a time when China was “in the making”, when the
little leaven that leavened the whole lump began to move, when that
culture which spread over a vast area was confined to a small centre
and to a comparatively small group of people. Who were this people,
where were they situated, what influences were at work to stir them and
shape their ambitions, and what secret did they learn which gave them
power over the minds and bodies of about a third of the inhabitants of
the globe? In short, how and where did Chinese culture originate, and
how did it spread and become firmly established? Was it a thing of
purely local growth? Did it begin to be quite independently of all
other cultures? Does it owe its virility and distinctiveness among the
cultures of ancient and modern times to the influence of the locality
in which it had “independent origin”? Had it an independent origin?
These queries open up the larger problem as to the origin of
civilization in the world. At this point, therefore, we must decide
whether or not we are to accept the idea of evolution in human affairs.
Can the principles of biological evolution be applied to the problems
of ethnology (using the term in its widest sense to include the
physical and cultural history of mankind)? Can we accept the theory
that in isolated quarters of the globe separated communities were
stirred by natural laws to make progress in adapting themselves to
their environments, and that, once a beginning was made, separated
communities developed on similar lines? Did each ancient civilization
have its natural periods of growth and decay? Were separated
communities uninfluenced during these periods by human minds and wills?
Were their destinies shaped by natural laws, or by the cumulative force
of public opinion? Was it a natural law that made men abandon the
hunting and adopt the agricultural mode of life? Did certain
communities of men, influenced by natural laws in ancient times, begin
to shape their religious systems by first worshipping groups of spirits
and ultimately, having passed through a sequence of well-defined
stages, find themselves elevated by these natural laws to the stage of
monotheism? Is it because certain races have, for some mysterious
reason, been prompted to pass through these stages more quickly than
others, that they are deserving of the term “progressive” while others
must be characterized as “backward”?
If these questions are answered in the affirmative, we must assume that
we have solved the riddle of Mind. Those who apply the principles of
biological evolution to human affairs are in the habit of referring to
laws that control the workings of the human mind. But what do we really
know about the workings of the human mind? This question has only to be
asked so that the hazardous character of the fashion of thinking
adopted by extreme exponents of the Evolution School may be emphasized.
It cannot but be admitted that we know little or nothing regarding the
human mind. What happens when we think? How are memories stored in the
brain? How are emotions caused? What is Consciousness? How does the
Will operate? Grave psychological problems have to be solved before we
can undertake the responsibility of discussing with any degree of
confidence the laws that are supposed to govern human thought and
action.
The researches into the early history of man, of about a generation
ago, were believed by some to “have revealed the essential similarity
with which, under many superficial differences, the human mind has
elaborated its first crude philosophy of life”. It was found that
similar beliefs and practices obtained among widely separated
communities, and it was not suspected that the influence exercised by
direct and indirect cultural contact between “progressive” and
“backward” communities extended to such great distances as has since
been found to be the case. Prospecting routes by land and sea were the
avenues along which cultural influences “drifted”. Early man was much
more enterprising as a trader and explorer than was believed in Tylor’s
day. The evidence accumulated of late years tends to show that almost
no part of the globe remained immune to the influences exercised by the
great ancient civilizations, and that these civilizations were never in
a state of “splendid isolation” at any period in their histories. In
the light of this knowledge it is becoming more and more clear that
Victorian ethnologists were inclined to make too much of resemblances,
and failed to take into account the differences that a more intensive
study of local cultures have revealed. There were, of course,
resemblances, which suggest the influence of cultural contact and the
settlement among backward peoples of colonists from progressive
communities, but there were also differences of beliefs and customs
which were of local origin and can hardly be characterized as
“superficial”. One of the results of contact was the process of
“culture mixing”. Customs and fashions of thinking were introduced into
a country and blended with local customs and local modes of thought. In
early China, as will be shown, there was “culture mixing”. The Chinese
frame of mind is the result of compromises effected in remote times.
How, then, did the idea of progress originate? Is there in the human
mind an instinct which stirs mankind to achieve progress? If so, how
does it come about that some peoples have failed to move until brought
into contact with progressive races? Why did the Melanesians, for
instance, remain in the Stone Age until reached by the missionary and
the sandal-wood trader? The missionaries and the traders caused them to
advance in a brief period from the Stone Age to the Age of Steel and
Machinery. Can it be maintained that in ancient days no sudden changes
took place? Did the people, for instance, who introduced bronze-working
into a country introduce nothing else? Did they leave behind their
beliefs, their myths, their customs, and their stories?
When it is asked how progress originated, we can only turn to such
evidence as is available regarding the early history of “Modern Man”.
At a remote period, dating back in Europe to the Pleistocene Age, men
lived in organized communities and pursued the hunting mode of life.
Their culture is revealed by their pictorial art in the prehistoric
cave-dwellings of France and Spain, and their decorative art by their
finely engraved implements and weapons. [1] This art reached a high
state of perfection. In some aspects it compares favourably with modern
art. [2] Evidently it had a long history, and was practised by those
who were endowed with the artistic faculty and had received a training.
These early men, who belonged to the Cro-Magnon races, were traders as
well as hunters. In some of their “inland stations” have been found
shells that had been imported from the Mediterranean coast.
The hunting mode of life prevailed also among the proto-Egyptians in
the Nile valley, an area which was less capable in remote times of
maintaining a large population than were the wide and fertile plains of
Europe. Egypt was thinly peopled until the agricultural mode of life
was introduced. Someone discovered how to make use of the barley that
grew wild in the Nile valley and western Asia. In time the seeds were
cultivated, and some little community thus provided itself with an
abundant food-supply. Men’s minds were afterwards engaged in solving
the problem how to extend the area available for cultivation in the
narrow Nile valley. Nature was at hand to make suggestions to them.
Each year the River Nile came down in flood and fertilized the parched
and sun-burnt wastes. The waters caused the desert to “blossom like the
rose”. Intelligent observers perceived that if the process of
water-fertilization were maintained, as in the Delta region, they could
extend their little farms and form new ones. The art of irrigation was
discovered and gradually adopted, with the result that the narrow river
valley, which had been thinly peopled during the Hunting Period, became
capable of maintaining a large population.
In what particular area the agricultural mode of life was first
introduced, it is impossible to say. Some favour southern Palestine and
some southern Mesopotamia. Those who favour Egypt [3] can refer to
interesting and important evidence in support of their view. It is the
only ancient country, for instance, in which there are traditions
regarding the man [4] who introduced the agricultural mode of life.
This was Osiris, a priest-king [5] who was deified, or a god to whom
was credited the discovery, made by a man or group of men, of how to
grow corn. Plutarch’s version of the Egyptian legend states: “Osiris,
being now become King of Egypt, applied himself towards civilizing his
countrymen, by turning them from their former indigent and barbarous
course of life; he moreover taught them how to cultivate and improve
the fruits of the earth”. Evidence has been forthcoming that the
pre-Dynastic Egyptians were agriculturists. The bodies of many of them
have been found preserved in their graves in the hot dry sands of Upper
Egypt. “From the stomachs and intestines of these prehistoric people”,
writes Professor G. Elliot Smith, “I was able to recover large
quantities of food materials, in fact, the last meals eaten before
death.” Careful examination was made of the contents of the stomachs.
“Almost every sample contained husks of barley, and in about 10 per
cent of the specimens husks of millet could be identified with
certainty.” The millet found in these bodies is nearly related to the
variety “which is now cultivated in the East Indies”. [6]
Here we have proof that the agricultural mode of life obtained in the
Nile valley over sixty centuries ago, and that the seeds of the
cultivated variety of millet, which grows wild in North Africa and
southern Asia, were carried to far-distant areas by ancient traders and
colonists. These facts have, as will be found, an important bearing on
the early history of Chinese civilization.
Our immediate concern, however, is with the history of early
civilization. In the Nile valley man made progress when he was able to
provide something which he required, by the intelligent utilization of
means at his disposal. No natural law prompted him to cultivate corn
and irrigate the sun-parched soil. He did not become an agriculturist
by instinct. He conducted observations, exercised his reasoning
faculty, made experiments, and a great discovery was forthcoming. The
man whose memory is enshrined in that of Osiris was one of the great
benefactors of the human race. When he solved the problem of how to
provide an abundant supply of food, he made it possible for a large
population to live in a small area. It is told of Osiris that “he gave
them (the Egyptians) a body of laws to regulate their conduct by”. No
doubt the early hunters observed laws which regulated conduct in the
cave-home as well as on the hunting-field. The fact that a great
pictorial art was cultivated by Aurignacian man in western Europe,
about 20,000 years ago, indicates that the social organization had been
sufficiently well developed to permit of certain individuals of a
class—possibly the priestly class—devoting themselves to the study of
art, while others attended to the food-supply. Aurignacian art could
never have reached the degree of excellence it did had there not been a
school of art—apparently religious art—and a system of laws that
promoted its welfare.
When, in Egypt, the agricultural mode of life was introduced, and an
abundant supply of food was assured, new laws became a necessity, so
that the growing communities might be kept under control. These laws
were given a religious significance. Osiris “instructed them (the
Egyptians) in that reverence and worship which they were to pay to the
gods”. Society was united by the bonds of a religious organization,
and, as is found, Nilotic religion had a close association with the
agricultural mode of life. It reflected the experiences of the early
farmers; it reflected, too, the natural phenomena of the Nile valley.
Water—the Nile water—was the fertilizing agency. It was the “water of
life”. The god Osiris was closely associated with the Nile; he was the
“fresh” or the “new” water that flowed in due season after the trying
period of “the low Nile”, during which the land was parched by the
burning sun and every green thing was coated by the sand-storms. “Ho,
Osiris! the inundation comes,” cried the priest when the Nile began to
rise. “Horus comes; he recognizes his father in thee, youthful in thy
name of Fresh Water.” [7] The literal rendering is: “Horus comes; he
beholds his father in thee, greenness in thy name of Water of
Greenness”. The reference is to the “new water” which flows quite green
for the first few days of the annual inundation. The “new water”
entered the soil and vegetation sprang up. Osiris was the principle of
life; he was also the ghost-god who controlled the river. As the Nile,
Osiris was regarded as the source of all life—the creator and sustainer
and ruler in one.
When the discovery of how to grow corn was passed from people to people
and from land to land, not only the seeds and agricultural implements
were passed along, but the ceremonies and religious beliefs connected
with the agricultural mode of life in the area of origin. The
ceremonies were regarded as of as much importance as the implements.
It need not surprise us, therefore, to find, as we do find, not only
North African millet in the East Indies, but North African religious
beliefs connected with agriculture in widely separated countries.
Osirian religious ideas and myths were, it would appear, distributed
over wide areas and among various races. There is therefore a germ of
historical truth in the account given by Plutarch of the missionary
efforts of Osiris. “With the same disposition”, we read, “he (Osiris)
afterwards travelled over the rest of the world, inducing the people
everywhere to submit to his discipline.... The Greeks conclude him to
have been the same person with their Dionysos or Bacchus.” [8]
In the process of time the Egyptians found that they were able to
produce a larger food-supply than they required for their own needs.
They were consequently able to devote their surplus to stimulating
trade, so as to obtain from other countries things which were not to be
had in Egypt. They were thus brought into touch with other communities,
and these communities, such as the wood-cutters of Lebanon, were
influenced by Egyptian civilization and stimulated to adopt new modes
of life. Their food-supply was assured by the Egyptian demand for
timber. They received corn from the Nile valley in payment for their
labour. There are references in the Egyptian texts to the exports of
wheat to North Syria and Asia Minor.
When the great discovery was made of how to work copper, the early
agriculturists achieved rapid progress. Boats were built more easily
and in larger numbers, new weapons were produced, and the Upper
Egyptians conquered the Lower Egyptians, with the result that Egypt was
united under a single king. With this union, which was followed by a
period of remarkable activity, begins the history of Ancient Egypt.
The man, remembered as Osiris, who first sowed his little corn patch,
sowed also the seeds from which grew a mighty empire and a great
civilization. His discovery spread from people to people, and from land
to land, and a new era was inaugurated in the history of the world.
Progress was made possible when mankind were led from the wide
hunting-fields to the little fields of the Stone Age [9] farmer, and
shown how they could live pleasant and well-ordered lives in large
communities.
The early Egyptian farmers found it necessary to measure time and take
account of the seasons. A Calendar was introduced and adopted during
the prehistoric (Palæolithic) period, [10] and was used by the
Egyptians for thousands of years. Julius Cæsar adapted this Calendar
for use in Rome. It was subsequently adjusted by Pope Gregory and
others, and is now in use all over the civilized world. Each time we
hang up a new calendar, therefore, we are reminded of the man who
stimulated progress over vast areas by sowing corn, so as to provide
food for his family in a distant land at a far-distant period of time.
When we consider the problem of the origin of progress, let us not
forget him and others like him—those early thinkers and discoverers to
whom all humanity owe a debt of gratitude. The few invent, the many
adopt; the few think and lead, and the many follow.
“No abstract doctrine”, writes Sir James F. Frazer in this connection,
“is more false and mischievous than that of the natural equality of
men.... The experience of common life sufficiently contradicts such a
vain imagination.... The men of keenest intelligence and strongest
characters lead the rest and shape the moulds into which, outwardly at
least, society is cast.... The true rulers of men are the thinkers who
advance knowledge.... It is knowledge which, in the long run, directs
and controls the forces of society. Thus the discoverers of new truths
are the real though uncrowned and unsceptred kings of mankind.” [11]
Progress has its origin in Mind. It has been manifested in the past in
those districts in which the mind of man was applied to overcome
natural obstacles and to develop natural resources. The histories of
the great ancient civilizations do not support the idea of an
evolutionary process which had its origin in human instinct. “There
has”, Professor G. Elliot Smith writes, “been no general or widespread
tendency on the part of human societies to strive after what by
Europeans is regarded as intellectual or material progress. Progressive
societies are rare because it requires a very complex series of factors
to compel men to embark upon the hazardous process of striving after
such artificial advancement.”
Professor Elliot Smith will have none of what Dr. W. H. R. Rivers
refers to as “crude evolutionary ideas”. “The history of man”, he
writes, “will be truly interpreted, not by means of hazardous and
mistaken analogies with biological evolution, but by the application of
the true historical method. The causes of the modern actions of mankind
are deeply rooted in the past. But the spirit of man has ever been the
same: and the course of ancient history can only be properly
appreciated when it is realized that the same human motives whose
nature can be studied in our fellow-men to-day actuated the men of old
also.” [12]
In the chapters that immediately follow it will be shown that separated
communities were brought into close touch by traders. The term
“trading”, however, refers, especially in early times, chiefly to
prospecting and the exploiting of locally unappreciated forms of
wealth. It was not until after civilization had spread far and wide
that permanent trade routes were established. Some overland routes
became less important when sea routes were ultimately opened.