PRIMITIVE MAN AND EARLY CIVILIZATIONS
The development of scientific history has not followed a uniform
course. Progress has been rhythmic. There has been always a reaction
coming in the steps of brilliant discoveries. Periods of feverish
experimental activities have been succeeded by others during which
little apparent progress was made.
Such dull intervals seem to have been necessary for developing,
formulating, classifying, and testing the innumerable details and
inferences that the discoveries of the active periods produced.
While mankind in general has contributed to the total of our
intellectual treasures, some races have been more active in this way
than others. For this reason it is advisable to briefly survey the more
recent discoveries about the ancestors of existing peoples.
Indo-Malaysia, parts of central Asia, and the valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia are variously credited with having been
the cradle of the human race. It should be understood, however, that we
are only permitted to speak authoritatively of existing races, because
the land forms of the earth have undergone such remarkable changes
that we can know little definitely about the earlier periods of human
history. For the purposes of the history of science, while bearing in
mind these qualifying suggestions, we may accept the statement that
man's ancestors originated in proximity to India.
It was around the waters of the Persian Gulf that the earliest known
civilizations arose. The people who founded them came from central
Asia. They had reached a considerable degree of culture, which suggests
that they themselves came from earlier centers of civilization.
The study of prehistoric antiquity is termed archæology. Its principal
periods have been divided, for convenience, into the Stone, Bronze, and
Iron Ages. Each of these is distinguished by the substances used for
tools. In the Stone Age men used stone spearheads, arrows, and knives,
whereas in the Iron Age similar things were made of iron or copper.
The science of mankind is known as Anthropology. It deals with the
innumerable steps in the evolution of mankind from remote periods, and
with the primitive development of the arts, sciences, and religion. Yet
it is one of the youngest of the sciences.
One of its essential teachings is that heredity and racial
predispositions play, and always have played, more important parts
in man's evolution, and in the development of civilization, than
environment and education.
Hereditary tendencies, such as the religious, moral, and æsthetic
instincts have been indispensable in preserving and developing all the
races of mankind.
Moral discipline has been the chief factor in self-control, and
therefore in civilization. It is because the moral sense has
proved so beneficial to the human race, and is the most powerful of
our instinctive desires, that mankind always has been and must be
religious. It controls man's knowledge, desires, and will, and has
dominated the race since our early ancestors began to think.
When we recognize this fact we can readily see that anything which
tends to oppose the moral or ethical sanctions, or detract from
religious beliefs, is injurious to civilization and human progress. The
histories of religion, ethics, and æsthetics plainly develop the rôles
which have been played by moral self-discipline in the protection and
development of mankind, as well as of knowledge and science.
The moral control of individuals acts also upon society generally,
and upon whole racial and national groups. The ethical ideals assist
each individual mind to realize its own end and at the same time tend
to influence the tribal and social mind to attain a common end. This
great moral, instinctive force, which has played such an immensely
valuable part in developing civilization and science, is known as the
human social and national conscience. It acts both individually and
collectively.
European races have been divided into classes corresponding to the
prevailing cephalic indices. The longheads are grouped as the Nordic,
or Baltic, subspecies, because they were formerly numerous around
the Baltic countries. People of this group are distinguished by tall
statures, fair skin and hair, good physique, and light colored eyes.
These peoples include the Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxon, and certain
important Teutonic groups, as well as Asiatic peoples who are known as
the Aryans.
[Illustration:
Copyright, Ewing Galloway
MODEL OF THE SAILING VESSEL "SANTA MARIA," THE FLAGSHIP OF COLUMBUS]
[Illustration: CURTISS NAVY RACER, THE AIRPLANE THAT WON THE PULITZER
RACE OF 1921]
[Illustration: U. S. ARMY DIRIGIBLE ON A TRANSCONTINENTAL FLIGHT]
The most important rôles in the development of modern civilization,
art, industry, and science have been played by representatives of the
Nordics.
The Iberian, or Mediterranean, subspecies, ranks next in importance.
The peoples of this great racial division originally occupied the
countries between the northern Atlantic coast of Africa and the
confines of the areas of the Nordics around the northern provinces of
France. They spread down the Mediterranean and over large areas in
Asia. Their skulls are long, but differ from those of the Nordics in
their absolute size. Their stature is lower, and weaker than that of
the Nordics, while their hair, eyes, and skin are dark or black. The
Welsh, the Moors, and the early Greeks are chiefly classed with the
Mediterranean group. The Carthaginians, Phœnicians, Egyptians, and
Etrurians were members of it.
The roundheads comprise the Alpine subspecies. This is the strongest
numerical group to-day. It is characterized by small round heads, short
bodies, dark hair, and dark eyes. It is of Asiatic origin and includes
the Slavs, modern Greeks, Italians, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, the
pre-Nordic Irish, French, and Belgians. The first Alpine invasion of
Europe began about 10,000 B. C. There were many subsequent ones through
the plateaus of Asia Minor, the Balkans, and valley of the Danube. They
reached England about 1800 B. C., and formed small colonies in Ireland,
the descendants of which now call themselves Celts and are clearly
distinguished by the characteristic Alpine indices. This race is now
so well acclimatized in Europe that most of its Asiatic traces have
been lost, and its round skulls and dark eyes and hair are the only
reminders of its Mongolian origin.
Members of each of these three great racial groups of mankind have
throughout the ages contributed to the development of the sciences and
arts. The Nordics began to appear in European history as agricultural
tribes, speaking Aryan languages, like Celtic and Welsh, who swept
down from the north and pushed the earlier settlers back through their
irresistible arms, which were made of bronze and later of iron. The
earlier settlers were still furnished with arms and implements of the
Stone Age.
There was a much older intellectual people than the Nordics settled in
Europe. The people of this race, about whom we have learned through
recent archæological researches, are known as the Cro-Magnons. They
lived between 25,000 and 10,000 B. C. Their skulls were distinguished
from those of the Nordics by their pronounced cheek-bones and broad
faces. Their culture, as their favorable cephalic index would suggest,
was of a high character. Numerous drawings and art works of theirs,
which have been preserved, place them among the world's superior
peoples.
Soon after the settlement of the Cro-Magnons in Europe, and their
intermarriage with the earlier settlers, their physical development
and stature began to decline. They were finally absorbed and destroyed
by the inferior peoples among whom they dwelled. Their disappearance,
like that of the ancient Greeks, who appear to have been the most
intellectual people the world ever produced, shows how the upward
development of human physical and intellectual qualities is constantly
injured by the contacts of superior and inferior races.
The scientific discoveries made prior to the Iron Age, or about 2000
B. C., were not numerous. The struggle for life was so intense that
few had opportunity for contemplation and philosophic reflection. It
was subsequent to the discovery of the basic principles of metallurgy,
in the Iron Age, that science began rapidly to advance. The benefits
bestowed upon mankind by the employment of metals reduced the sharpness
of life's struggles, permitted and instigated reflection, and provided
means for experimentation.
Modern history begins with the peoples of Mesopotamia. There were
cultured peoples east of the Tigris and Euphrates, in Persia, India,
Mongolia, Tartary, and China before the founding of Babylon. But we are
more instructed about the Babylonians and Assyrians than about earlier
Asiatic races.
The Babylonians and Assyrians appear to have originated in central
Asia and to have migrated to Arabia about 10,000 B. C., and perhaps
earlier. They were well settled in Arabia before the Egyptian pyramids
and other Semitic memorials were planned. They brought with them from
the farthest Orient many important contributions to civilization and
culture, and developed many others.
These were religious, philosophical and keen commercial peoples.
They shaped the organization of modern religions. The Babylonians
reduced the world of gods to a single system with classifications
distinguishing between major and minor deities, and between those of
heavenly, or stellar, and earthly habitats, and those of time and
space. They developed many religious myths of the Creation, the
Flood, Paradise, and others which were subsequently embraced by other
religions.
Both the Babylonians and Assyrians composed beautiful hymns, prayers,
parables, and religious tales, and had numerous elaborate religious
customs, rituals, ceremonies, and festivals conducted by priests, nuns,
and acolytes.
Anu, or Anum, the God of Heaven, was the principal Babylonian deity,
while Ashur was the leading god of the Assyrians.
Religious studies and rites occupied a large portion of the time
of these peoples and, consequently, their temples, monasteries,
schools, and other religious buildings were large and numerous.
Their architecture was elaborately artistic. This was one of their
incentives to scientific invention. They made important discoveries in
all the basic physical sciences, like chemistry, physics, metallurgy,
and mathematics, to enable them to improve their buildings and to
embellish them with paintings, pictorial tiles, and fancy metals and
textiles. They had excellent professional men, artists, jurists,
bankers, contractors, and scientists. They were fond of literature and
founded extensive libraries. Music and musical instruments were very
popular with them. Their cuneiform writings, as disclosed by numerous
beautiful stone and porcelain tablets which have come down to us, were
excellently done.
The fragments of literature, laws, and religious policies that we are
acquainted with indicate that the numerous Babylonian and Assyrian
settlements in each great empire possessed social and political
conditions similar to those of our days. Science and art were then
sufficiently advanced to enable these ancient people to live as
agreeable, moral, and legally secure lives as those of any subsequent
peoples.
The Chinese appear to have been making similar progress to that of
the Babylonians about the same period. It would seem that both these
peoples were in contact with a similar but earlier cultured race in
central Asia. Although the early Chinese were a religious people, they
appear to have been more philosophical than the Babylonians. This
enabled them to make further progress in the abstract sciences. In
subsequent years they made rapid strides in the physical sciences, as
will be shown later.
The Egyptians came into prominence toward the end of the Babylonian
and Assyrian empires, and for many centuries played a great rôle in
developing civilization. The numerous benefits which they bestowed
upon the world by their researches in science and art are not fully
appreciated.
Early history pictures two great Asiatic races struggling for supremacy
in India. They were the Aryans, a fair-skinned people, and the
Dravidians, a colored people. The Aryans succeeded in displacing the
Dravidians in the great plains, upon which they settled and developed
large cities, important world commerce, and contributed great art works
and scientific and philosophical discoveries to the world's stores. The
Dravidians retired to the hill country, where their representatives
still live.
The minds of the various Indian peoples have always been strongly
philosophical. This led them to the development of numerous religious
sects and philosophical systems, and they made important mathematical
discoveries. While the scientific bent of the ancient Greeks was of a
concrete nature, which tended toward geometrical proofs for scientific
problems, that of the ancient peoples of India was toward numerical
symbolism and arithmetical proofs. We find that when the Greeks were
developing geometry the Indians were contributing to arithmetic and
algebra.
The Chinese closely resembled the ancient Indians in the philosophical
tendency of their minds; but, owing perhaps to the different conditions
under which they lived, they were more concrete in their ideas. They
also made progress in mathematics and developed medicine, chemistry,
metallurgy, and many of the sciences which were applied to commercial
and industrial uses. The progress made in mathematics in China was
transmitted to Egypt, and therefore to Europe, through India. Among
early Chinese discoveries in mathematics were methods of solving
numerical equations and the development of magic squares and circles,
which gave a great stimulus to studies in geometry and astronomy.
The Arabs, Greeks, and Romans took up the discoveries of the Asiatic
peoples, and the Egyptians enlarged them and passed them forward to
us. The Arabs solved cubic equations by geometrical means, perfected
the basic principles of trigonometry, and made great advances in
mathematics, physics, chemistry, and astronomy.
A survey of the early history of science indicates that from the
remotest period man was engaged in grappling with the great principle
of causation. Progress was necessarily slow at first on account of the
scarcity of tested data. Then it became more rapid. Soon after the
founding of the great city of Babylon we find that the Babylonians were
possessed of enough knowledge of the arts and sciences to enable them
to become world traders and great industrial undertakers. They built
many cities and lived highly civilized lives. The history of modern
science may very properly be dated from the building of Babylon.