That mythology is the product of a mere exaggeration of actual events, or is an allegorical picture, either of the operations of nature or of human traits, is an untenable and obsolete view.
We shall not err in defining the main sources of the religions to be,first, the sense of dependence, and the yearning for the fellowship and favor of powers "not ourselves," by which the lot of men is felt to be determined;secondly, the effort to explain the world of nature above and beneath, and the occurrences of life; andthirdly, the personifying instinct which belongs to the childhood of nations as of individuals. This tendency leads to the attributing of conscious life to things inanimate. A like tendency may impel the savage and the child to ascribe mind to the lower animals. The fact that language, in its earlier stage, was charged with personal life and activity, is itself the work of the personifying instinct. When nature is thus personified, where there is no sense of its unity and no capacity to rise in faith to a living God above nature, the result is a multitude of divinities of higher and lower rank.Mythsrespecting them are the spontaneous invention of unreflecting and uncritical, but imaginative, peoples. Thus they serve to indicate the range of ideas, and the moral spirit of those who originate and give credence to them.
This is not the place to consider the question, What was the primitive religion of man? The earliest deities that history brings to our notice were not fetiches, but heavenly beings of lofty attributes. Whether the religions of savage tribes, in common with their low grade of intelligence, are, or are not, the result ofdegeneracy, is a question which secular history affords no means of deciding with confidence,
It may be added, that, in historic eras, the mythopoeic fancy is not inactive. Stories of marvelous adventure clustered about the old Celtic King Arthur of England and the "knights of the Round-Table," and fill up the chronicles relating to Charlemagne. Wherever there is a person who kindles popular enthusiasm, myths accumulate. This is eminently true in an atmosphere like that which prevailed in the mediaeval period, when imagination and emotion were dominant.
PREHISTORIC RELICS.—Within the last half century, in various countries of Europe, and in other countries, also, which have been, earlier or later, seats of civilization, there have been found numerous relics of uncivilized races, which, at periods far remote, must have inhabited the same ground. Many of these antiquities are met with in connection with remains of fossil elephants, hyenas, bears, etc.,—with animals which no longer live in the regions referred to, and some of which have become wholly extinct. Dwelling-places of these far-distant peoples—such as caves and rock-shelters, and the remains of the lake-habitations that were built on piles, in Switzerland and elsewhere—sepulchers, camps, and forts, and an immense number of implements and ornaments of stone and metal, have been examined. The most ancient of these monuments carry us as far back as the era called by geologists theQuaternaryorDriftperiod.
THE THREE STAGES.—But there are marked distinctions in the relative age of the various relics referred to. They indicate different degrees of knowledge and skill; and this proof of a succession of peoples, or of stages of development, is confirmed by geological evidence. The prehistoric time is divided intothe Stone Age,the Age of Bronze, andthe Age of Iron, according as the implements in use were of one or another of these materials. But the Stone Age includes anearlierand alatersub-division. In the first and most ancient section, the weapons and utensils, mostly of flint, were very rude in their manufacture. This was thePaleolithic Age, where there are no signs of habitations constructed by the hand, or of domesticated plants and animals. Men lived in caves, and their vestments were the skins of beasts. Yet, among their implements are found fragments of bone, horn, ivory, and stone, on which are carved in outline, often with much skill, representations of the reindeer, the bear, the ox, and of other animals. In theNeolithicperiod, there was a decided advance. Implements are better made and polished. There were domestic animals and cultivated plants. The lake-dwellings in Switzerland were well contrived for shelter and defense. Every hut had its hearth. It is probable that most of them were furnished with a loom for weaving. Fragments of pottery are found, and flax was grown and made into cord, nettings, etc. Stalls were constructed near the huts for the ox, the goat, the horse, sheep, and pigs. The lake-dwellers cultivated wheat and barley. TheBronze Age, when implements were made of copper or of a mixture of copper and tin, exhibits proof of decided improvement in various directions; and theAge of Iron, a still more marked advance. In the Swiss remains referred to are distinct traces of a transition from the Stone Age to the Age of Bronze, and then to the Age of Iron. The kitchen-middens, or shell-mounds, of Denmark belong exclusively to the Neolithic period. Where the transition was made from the Stone Age to the Age of Bronze, it apparently occurred in some cases by degrees, and peacefully; but sometimes by the incoming of an invading people more advanced. It should be observed that the lines of division between these periods are not sharply drawn: implements of stone continued to be used after the Bronze and even the Iron periods had been introduced. Nor were these several ages in one region contemporaneous with like conditions in every other. Moreover, it is not possible to find in all countries once civilized proofs of a passage through these successive eras. In Egypt, the evidences of a Stone Age are scanty. The most ancient human remains show that man in his physical characteristics was on a level with man at present.
Dr. Daniel Wilson, speaking of the age of the Flint-folk, says: "It is of no slight importance to perceive that the interval which has wrought such revolutions in the earth" [involving great geological changes and mutations of climate] "as are recorded in the mammaliferous drift, shows man the same reasoning, tentative, and inventive mechanician, as clearly distinguished then from the highest orders of contemporary life of the Elephantine or Cave periods, as he is now from the most intelligent of the brute creation…. The oldest art-traces of the paleotechnic men of central France not only surpass those of many savage races, but they indicate an intellectual aptitude in no degree inferior to the average Frenchman of the nineteenth century." (Prehistoric Man, pp. 33, 34.)
Literature.—Wilson,Prehistoric Man, etc. (2 vols., 1876);Joly,Man before the Metals(1883); Keary,The Dawn ofHistory. The writings of E. B. Tylor,Primitive Culture(2 vols.),Anthropology, Early History of Mankind; hisArt.Anthropology, Encycl. Britt.; Lubbock'sPrehistoricTimes, and hisOrigin of Civilization; Argyll,TheUnity of Nature(1884); J. Geikie,Prehistoric Europe(1881); Lyell,The Antiquity of Man; W. E. Hearn,TheAryan Household; L. H. Morgan,Ancient Society.
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.—Science does not furnish us with the means of fixing the date of the first human inhabitants of the earth. But its various departments of investigation concur in pronouncing the interval between the creation of man and the present to be far longer than the traditional opinion has assumed. For the growth of language and its manifold ramifications; for the development of the different races of mankind, physically considered; for the geological changes since the beginning of the Stone Age in the regions where its relics are uncovered; for the rise of the most ancient civilization in Egypt as well as in Babylon and China,—it is thought that periods of very long duration are indispensable.
As to the date of the Neolithic man, or of the last section of the Stone Age, Professor J. Geikie writes: "Any term of years I might suggest would be a mere guess; but I have written to little purpose, however, if the phenomena described in the preceding chapters have failed to leave the impression upon the reader, that the advent of Neolithic man in Europe must date back far beyond fifty or seventy centuries." (Prehistoric Europe, p. 558.)
The chronology gathered from Genesis has been supposed to place the date of man's creation at a point far less remote. Usher's calculation, attached to the authorized English Version of the Bible, sets this date at 4004 B.C. The discussion of these questions of Scriptural chronology belongs to theology and biblical criticism. It may be observed here, however, that of the three forms in which Genesis is handed down to us,—the Hebrew text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint, or ancient Greek translation,—no two agree in the numbers on which the estimate is founded. Hence Hales and Jackson, following the larger numbers in the genealogies of the Septuagint, place the date of the creation at a point about fourteen hundred years prior to that fixed upon by Usher.
The periods of history are not divided from one another by merely chronological limits, according to intervals of time of a definite duration. Such a classification may be of use to the memory, but it is arbitrary in its character. The landmarks of history are properly placed at the turning-points where new eras take their start, whether the intervals between them are longer or shorter.
Of these natural divisions, the most general and the most marked is that between ancient and modern history. Ancient history not only precedes modern in time: it is distinguished from the latter as relating to a by-gone state of things. Modern history, on the contrary, deals with an order of things now existing. Between the two there is this line of demarkation.
History (with the exception of China and India, which require distinct consideration, as standing apart) begins with Egypt, and flows down in a continuous stream, until, in the fourth century A.D., the Roman Empire, into which the ancient civilized peoples were incorporated, was broken up. Then the new nations, especially the tribes of the Germanic race, took power into their hands; Christianity was established among them; out of the chaos of elements there emerged the European nations, with their offshoots,—the peoples at present on the stage of action. Ancient history had its center in the Mediterranean. It embraced the peoples who dwelt on the shores of that sea, in the three continents, and the nations that were brought into relations with them. The Roman Empire, the final outcome of ancient history, was "the monarchy of the Mediterranean." With the breaking-up of the Empire, new races, new centers of power, a universal religion in the room of national religions, and a new type of culture and civilization, were introduced. Invaluable legacies were handed over from the past, surviving the wreck of ancient civilization. There is, however, a unity in history: the transition from the ancient to the modern era was gradual.
Since the fall of the Roman Empire, there has occurred no revolution to be compared with the circumstances and results of that event. An old world passed away, and a new world began to be. Yet the student, as he travels hitherward, arrives at another epoch of extraordinary change,—a period of ferment, when modern society in Europe takes on a form widely different from the character that had belonged to it previously. The long interval betweenancienthistory andmodern(in this more restricted sense of thes term) is styled the Middle Ages. Its termination may be found in the fifteenth century, and a convenient date to mark the boundary-line is the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453).
History thus divides itself into three parts:—
Works on General History.—Ranke,Universal History; Ploetz,Epitome of Ancient, Mediæval, and Modern History(Boston, 1884); Weber,Weitgeschichte(2 vols.); Assmann,Handbuch d. allgemeinen Geschichte(5 vols., 1853-1862); by the same,Abriss d. allgem. Gesch.(in 3 parts); Oncken,Allgem. Geschichte in Einzeidarstellungen(a series of full monographs of high merit). Copious works on Universal History, in German, by Weber, Schlosser, Becker, Leo. Laurent,Études sur l'Histoire de l'Humanitè(this is an extended series of historical dissertations),—The Orient and Greece(2 vols.);Rome(1 vol.);Christianity(1 vol.), etc. Prévost-Paradol,Essai sur l'Histoire Universelle(2 vols.: a suggestive critical survey of the course of history, with the omission of details). S. Willard,Synopsis of History.
DIVISIONS OF ANCIENT HISTORY.—Ancient history separates itself into two main divisions. In the first the Oriental nations form the subject; in the second, which follows in the order of time, the European peoples, especially Greece and Rome, have the central place. The first division terminates, and the second begins, with the rise of Grecian power and the great conflict of Greece with the Persian Empire, 492 B.C.
SECTIONS OF ORIENTAL HISTORY.—But Oriental history divides itself into two distinct sections. The first embraces China and India, nations apart, and disconnected from the Mediterranean and adjacent peoples. China and India have a certain bond of connection with one another through the spread in China of the Buddhistic religion. The second section includes the great empires which preceded, and paved the way for, European history; viz., Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, and Persia. In this section, along the course of the historic stream, other nations which exercised a powerful influence, attract special attention, especially the Phoenicians and the Hebrews. All these Oriental peoples are so connected together that they stand in history as theEarliest Group of Nations. The historic narrative must be so shaped as to describe them in part singly, but, at the same time, in their mutual relations.
Ancient history, from anethnographicalpoint of view, would embrace two general divisions,—Eastern peoples and Western peoples. The first would comprise Egyptians (Hamitic); Jews, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Lydians (Semitic); Hindus, Bactrians, Medes, Persians (Aryan); Parthians, Chinese, Japanese. The second would include Celts, Britons,Greeks,Romans, Teutons (Aryan). (Ploetz,Universal History, p. 1.)
From ageographicalpoint of view, ancient history would fall into three general divisions: I. Asia, including (1) India, (2) China (with Japan), (3) Babylonia and Assyria, (4) Phoenicia, (5) Palestine, (6) Media and Persia. II. Africa, including (1) Egypt, (2) Carthage. III. Europe including (1) Greece, with its states and colonies; (2) Italy.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.—Europe and Asia together form one vast continent, yet have a partial boundary between them in the Ural Mountains and River, and in the deep bed of the Caspian and Black seas. Asia, which extends from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific, and from the Arctic Sea to the Indian Ocean, embraces an immense plateau, stretching from the Black Sea to Corea. This plateau spreads like a fan as it advances eastward. It is traversed by chains of mountains, and bordered also by lofty mountains, of which the Himalayas is the principal range. From this girdle of mountains descend slopes which lead down into the lowlands. The great plateau is broken into two by the Hindu-Kush range. The eastern division, the extensive plateau of Central Asia, is bordered on the north by the barren plains of Siberia. In the lowlands on the east and south are included the fertile plains of Central China and of Hindustan. The plateau of eastern Asia has been the natural abode of nomad tribes, Tartars and Mongols, whose invading hosts have poured through the passes of the mountains into the inviting territories below. The plateau of western Asia, stretching westward from the Indus, is not so high as that of the east. It begins with the lofty tablelands of Iran, and extends, ordinarily at a less elevation, to the extremity of the continent. On the south lie the plains of Mesopotamia. Arabia is a low plateau of vast extent, connected by the plateau and mountains of Syria with the mountain region of Asia Minor. As might be expected, civilization sprang up in the alluvial valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus and the Ganges, and on the soil watered by the great rivers of China, the Hoang-Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang. Egypt was looked on by the Ancients as a part of Asia. Its language was distinct from the languages of the African nations. The seat of its power and thrift was the valley of the Nile. The conflicts of the nations settled in the lowlands with the mountainous peoples, eager for spoil and conquest, are a characteristic feature of Oriental History.
CHARACTER OF THE ASIATIC NATIONS.—Generalizations covering so wide a field are, of necessity, inexact. As a rule, in the oriental mind, the intuitive powers eclipse the severely rational and logical. Civilization—as, for example, in Egypt and China—attains to a certain grade, and is there petrified. Immobility belongs to the Eastern nations. Revolutions bring a change of masters, but leave character and customs unchanged. The sense of individuality has been less vivid, and freedom less understood or valued. Governments have taken the despotic form. Law has had its seat in the ruler's sovereign will. The ruler has been regarded as clothed with divine authority. Before him the subject prostrates himself with groveling servility.
RELIGION IN ASIA.—Asia is the cradle of the principal religions of the world. Heremonotheismappears, as in the faith of the Hebrews, and in the Mohammedan revival of it in a less pure form. Here have flourishedpolytheisticsystems, each with its throng of divinities. In the east,pantheism, dropping out of the conception of the Deity the element of personality, has found a cherished home.
PRIESTHOODS.—Connected with the controlling influence of religion have arisen the priesthoods,—sometimes ruling as an aristocratic caste or class, sometimes dividing power with the reigning despot, to whom sacred attributes are ascribed.
LITERATURE AND ART.—The Oriental nature has been mirrored in the literature and art of the East. Its products lack the measure, the grace and symmetry, and the human interest, which characterize the creations of the European mind. In the mechanical arts, invention and discovery push on progress to a certain point, then languish and die out.
China proper comprises less than half of the present Chinese Empire. It was called the land of Sinae or Seres by the ancients, and in the middle ages bore the name of Cathay. In the north of China are the broad alluvial plains, and in the north-eastern portion of the empire, an immense delta. The rest of the country is hilly and mountainous.
The nucleus of the Chinese nation is thought to have been a band of immigrants, who are supposed by some to have started from the region south-east of the Caspian Sea, and to have crossed the head waters of the Oxus. They followed the course of the Hoang-Ho, or Yellow River, having entered the country of their adoption from the north-west; and they planted themselves in the present province of Shan-se. Although nomads, they had some knowledge of astronomy, brought from their earlier homes; and they quickly made for themselves settled abodes. The native tribes by degrees were extirpated or driven out. The new-comers cultivated grain. They raised flax, out of which they wove garments.
LEGENDARY ERA, TO THE CHOW DYNASTY (1123 B.C.).—The early annals of the Chinese, like those of other nations, are made up of myth and fable. The annalists placed the date of the creation at a point more than two millions of years prior to Confucius. The intervening period they sought to fill up with lines of dynasties. Preceding the Chow dynasty, the chroniclers give ten epochs. Prior to the eighth of these, there are no traces of authentic history. ToYew-Chaou She(the Nest-having) is given the credit of teaching the people to make huts of the boughs of trees. Fire was discovered bySuy-jin-She(the Fire-producer), his successor. Another ruler (Fuh-he), whose date is fixed at 2852 B.C., discovered iron. He also divided the people into classes. His successor invented the plow. These tales, perhaps, retain vague reminiscences of the methods in which useful inventions originated, or of the order in which they appeared.
WithYaou(2356 B.C.) we reach the period where the narratives which were compiled many centuries later by Confucius, begin their story. In the mass of fable, there is a larger infusion of historical fact, which, however, it is well-nigh hopeless to separate from the fiction that is mingled with it. In that golden age, few laws were required. We are told that the house-door could safely be left open. Yaou extended the empire: he established fairs and marts over the land. During the reign ofShun, who followed him, a tremendous inundation is said to have occurred; andYu, called "the Great," was energetic in draining off the waters. He ascended the throne in 2205 B.C. His degenerate successors provoked a revolt and the introduction of a new dynasty, called theShangdynasty, whose first Emperor,Tang(1760 B.C.), had a wise and beneficent reign. Tyranny and disaster followed under the later kings of this house; until finallyWoo-Wang, the first sovereign of the Chow dynasty, acceded to the throne (1123 B.C.).
THE CHOW DYNASTY (1123-255 B.C.).—The traditions now become decidedly more trustworthy, although still largely mixed with fable.Woo-Wangwas brave and upright. Under him a momentous change in government took place. By him the kingdom was divided into seventy-two feudal states. Internal divisions and struggles resulted from this new political system. The Tartars availed themselves of the weakened condition of the nation, to make predatory incursions. In this period of disorder and danger,Confucius, the great teacher of China, was born (551 B.C.). His father was a district magistrate, and died when the son was only three years old. He was trained and taught by his mother. When she died, he gave up all employments to mourn for her, during three years. His only occupation during this period was study. A grave and learned youth, he at length resolved to become an instructor of his countrymen in the ancient writings, to which he was devoted. He was regular in all his ways, and never ate or drank to excess. He gathered about him scholars; his fame increased; and, in 500 B.C., he was made magistrate ofChung-tuby the sovereign, DukeTing, an office which he justly and discreetly administered for three years. Sometimes persecuted, he compared himself to a dog driven from his home. "I have the fidelity of that animal, and I am treated like it. But what matters the ingratitude of men? They can not hinder me from doing all the good that has been appointed me. If my precepts are disregarded, I have the consolation of knowing in my own breast that I have faithfully performed my duty." Both by his literary works and by the lessons taught to his disciples, he laid the foundation of a most powerful and lasting influence over his countrymen. He died in 478 B.C., at the age of seventy-three.Laou-tsze, another famous thinker, was a few years older than Confucius. "Three precious things," he said, "I prize, and hold fast,—humility, compassion, and economy."Mencius, a celebrated teacher and reformer, who followed in the path of Confucius, after a long life died in 289 B.C. One of his doctrines was, that the nature of man is good, and that evil is owing to education and circumstances. One of his maxims was, that the people can be led aright, but can not be taught the reasons for the guidance to which they are subjected.
DYNASTY OF TSIN (255-206 B.C.).—Reverting to the course of Chinese history, the next grand epoch is the enthronement of the Tsin dynasty, in the person of the ruler of one of the provinces, which, in the intestine strife among the feudal princes, gained the victory. This was in 255 B.C. In this line belongs the famous EmperorChe Hwang-te, who, in 246 B.C., at the age of thirteen years, succeeded to the crown. His palace in his capital, the modern Se-gan Foo, the edifices which he built elsewhere, the roads and canals constructed by him, excited wonder. He routed and drove out the Tartar invaders, and put down the rebellion of the feudal princes. He enlarged the kingdom nearly to the limits of modern China proper. For the protection of the northern frontier he began the "Great Wall," which he did not live to finish. It was finished 204 B.C., ten years after it was begun. When finished, it was not less than fifteen hundred miles in length. It would reach "from Philadelphia to Topeka, or from Portugal to Naples." The innovations and maxims of government of Che Hwang-te were offensive to the scholars and the conservative class, who pointed the people to the heroes of the feudal days and to the glories of the past. For this reason, the monarch commanded that all books having reference to the history of the empire should be destroyed. He would efface the recollection of the old times. He would not allow his system to be undermined by tradition. The decree was obeyed, although hidden copies of many of the ancient writings were undoubtedly preserved. Numerous scholars were buried alive. His death, in 210 B.C., was followed by disturbances, growing out of the disaffection of the higher classes. In the civil war that ensued, his dynasty was subverted. The throne was next held by
THE HAN RULERS (206 B.C.-22l A.D.).—Their sway, which lasted for four hundred years, covers a brilliant period in the Chinese annals. During the reign ofMing-te, 65 A.D., a deputation was sent to India, to obtain the sacred writings and authorized teachers of the Buddhistic religion, which had begun to spread among the Chinese. The power of the feudal lords was reduced. Northern Corea was conquered, and the bounds of the empire extended on the west as far as Russian Turkestan, In this period, there was a marked revival of learning and authorship. Then lived a famous public officer,Yang Chên, who, when asked to take a bribe, and assured that no one would know it, answered, "How so? Heaven would know, Earth would know, you would know, and I should know." Under this dynasty, a custom of burying slaves with the dead was abolished.
BEGINNING IN 221 A.D., there followed the "era of the three kingdoms." It was an age of martial prowess, civil war, and bloodshed. This long period of division was interrupted in 265 A.D. by a re-union of the greater part of the empire for a brief period. But discord soon sprang up; and it was not until 590 A.D. that unity and order were restored byYang-Kian, who founded the dynasty, named from his local dominion,Suy.
RELIGION IN CHINA.—The ancient religion of China was polytheistic. The supreme divinity was calledTienorShang-ti. Tien signifies Heaven. Was Heaven, or Shang-ti—or the Lord—the visible heaven, the expanse above, clothed with the attribute of personality? This has been, and still is, the prevailing opinion of missionaries and scholars. Dr.Legge, however, holds that Tien is the lord of the heavens, a power above the visible firmament; and thus finds monotheism as the basis of the Chinese religious creed.
The prevailing religions of China are three,—Buddhism(which in its original form was brought in from India in the first century of the Christian era),Confucianism, andTaouism. It may be observed, that, in all these systems, there is but a vague sense of personality as inhering in the heavenly powers, in comparison with the creeds in vogue among heathen nations generally. Another fact to be noted is, that, in Chinese worship, the veneration for ancestors, a feeling inbred in the Chinese mind, is a very prominent and pervading element.
Confucius did not profess to reveal things supernatural. His teaching is made up of moral and political maxims. He builds on the past, and always inculcates reverence for the fathers and for what has been. There is much wise counsel to parents and to rulers. His morality reaches its acme in the Golden Rule, which he gives, however, only in its negative relation: "Do not unto others what you would not that others should do unto you." Laou-tsze is a more speculative and mystical thinker. In his moral aphorisms, he approaches the theory of the ancient Stoics. TEH—i.e., virtue—is lauded. Teh proceeds from TAO. To explain what the Chinese sage means by Tao,—a word that signifies the "way,"—is a puzzle for commentators and inquirers. From Tao all things originate: they conform to Tao, and to Tao they return. There are noble maxims in Laou-tsze,—precepts enjoining compassion, and condemning the requital of evil with evil. Taouism is a type of religion which traces itself to the teaching of Laou-tsze. That teaching became mixed with wild speculations. Then certain Buddhistic rites and tenets were added to it. The result, finally, was a compound of knavery and superstition. Taouism is at once mystical and rationalistic in its tone.
LITERATURE IN CHINA.—The Chinese language was crystallized, in the written form, in the monosyllabic stage of its development. Beginning in hieroglyphs, literal pictures of objects, and having no alphabet, it has so multiplied its characters and combinations of characters as to put great hindrances in the way of the acquisition of it. The utter absence of inflection may have crippled the development of poetry and of the drama, for which the Chinese have a natural taste. In these departments, Chinese productions do not rise above mediocrity. For this, however, the lack of imagination and of creative power is largely accountable. It is in the province of pure prose—as in historical narrations, topographical writings, such as geographies, and in the making of encyclopedias—that the Chinese have excelled. But the yoke of tradition has everywhere weighed heavily. In one sense, the Chinese have been a literary people. The system of competitive examinations for public offices has diffused through the nation a certain degree of book-learning; yet the masses have been kept in a state of ignorance. At the foundation of all learning are the "nine classics," which consist of five works, edited or written by Confucius, of which the "Shoo King," or Book of History, stands at the head, together with the four books written by his disciples and the disciples of Mencius. Great as have been the services of Confucius, his own slavish reverence for the past, so stamped upon his writings, has had the effect to cramp the development of the Chinese mind, and to fasten upon it the fetters of tradition.
GOVERNMENT AND CIVILIZATION.—The government of China is "a patriarchal despotism." As father of his people, the king has absolute authority. The power of life and death is in his hand. Yet the right of revolution was taught by Confucius and Mencius, and the Chinese have not been slow to exercise it. The powers of the emperor are limited by ceremonial regulations, and by a body of precedents which are held sacred. He administers rule with the help of a privy council. Officers of every rank in the employ of the government constitute the aristocratic class of Mandarins, who are divided into different ranks.
INVENTION.—Printing by wooden blocks was known in China as early as the sixth century A.D. Printing did not come into general use until the thirteenth century. The use of movable types, although devised, it is said, many centuries earlier, did not come into vogue until the seventeenth century. Gunpowder was used as early as 250 A.D., in the making of fire-crackers; but it was certainly as late as the middle of the twelfth century that it was first employed in war. The Chinese were early acquainted with the polarity of the loadstone, and used the compass in journeys by land long before that instrument was known in Europe. In various branches of manufactures,—as silk, porcelain, carved work in ivory, wood, and horn,—the Chinese, at least until a recent period, have been pre-eminent. In the mechanical arts their progress has been slow. Their crude implements of husbandry are in contrast with their exhibitions of skill in other directions. Although imitation long ago supplanted the activity of inventive talent, to China belongs the distinction of being a civilized land before the Christian nations of Europe had emerged into being.
LITERATURE.—The Middle Kingdom, by S. WELLS WILLIAMS (2 vols.);Encycl. Brit.,Art.Chinaby Professor Douglas; Arts.Confucius and Menciusby Dr. Legge; Legge,The Religions of China; Richthofen,China(3 vols.); Giles,Historic China, and Other Sketches(1882); Legge,The Chinese Classics; BOULGER,History of China(1881-84); Thornton,History of China.
JAPAN.—The authentic history of Japan belongs mainly in the modern period, since the tenth century A.D. The most ancient religion of Japan, designated by a term which means "the way of the gods," included a variety of objects of worship,—gods, deified men, the mikados, or chief rulers, regarded as "the sons of heaven," animals, plants, etc. Unquestioning obedience to the mikado was the primary religious duty. It was a state-religion. Buddhism, brought into the country in 552 A.D., spread, and became prevalent.
The Japanese are a mixed race. Kiôto and the adjacent provinces are said to have been occupied by the conquerors. Prior to 660 B.C. we have no trustworthy history of the island. This is the date assigned by the Japanese to their hero,Jimmu Tenno, the first mikado, the founder of an unbroken line. For several centuries, however, the history is open to question. The tenth mikado, Sujin, is noted as a reformer, and promoter of civilization. An uncrowned princess,Jingu-Kogo(201-269 A.D.), is famous for her military prowess. She suppressed a rebellion, and subdued Corea.Ojin, a celebrated warrior, is still worshiped as a god of war. The introduction of Chinese literature and civilization at this period, makes a turning-point in Japanese history.
LITERATURE.—J. J. REIN,Japan: Travels and Researches, vol. I. (1881); E. J. Reed,Japan(2 vols., 1880); Siebold,Nippon(5 vols. 410, and plates); Kampfer,History of Japan(2 vols. fol., 1728);Encycl. Brit., Art.Japan.
India is the central one of the three great peninsulas of Southern Asia. On the north is the mountainous region of the Himalayas, below which are the vast and fertile river plains, watered by theIndus, theGanges, and other streams. On the south, separated from the Ganges by the Vindhyá range, is the hilly and mountainous tract called the Deccan.
THE ARYAN INVADERS.—The history of India opens with glimpses of a struggle on the borders of the great rivers,—first of the Indus and then of the Ganges,—between an invading race, the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans from the north-west, and the dusky aborigines. These rude native tribes have left few relics but their tombs. Before they tenanted the soil, there dwelt upon it still earlier inhabitants, whose implements were of stone or bronze. The incoming people referred to above were of that Indo-European stock to which we belong. From their home, perhaps in central Asia, they moved in various directions. A part built up the Persian kingdom; another portion migrated farther, and were the progenitors of the Greek nation; and a third founded Rome. The Indian Aryans migrated southward from the headwaters of the Oxus at some time prior, doubtless, to 2000 B.C. Our knowledge of them is derived from their ancient sacred books, theVedas; of these the oldest, theRig-Veda, contains ten hundred and seventeen lyrics, chiefly addressed to the gods. Its contents were composed while the Aryans dwelt upon the Indus, and while they were on their way to the neighborhood of the Ganges. The Rig-Veda, therefore, exhibits this people in their earliest stage of religious and social development. They were herdsmen, but with a martial spirit, which enabled them by degrees to drive out the native tribes, and compel them to take refuge in the mountains on the north, or on the great southern plateau. Among them women were held in respect, and marriage was sacred. There are beautiful hymns written by ladies and queens. No such cruel custom as the burning of widows existed: it was of far later origin. They were acquainted with the metals. Among them were blacksmiths, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, carpenters, and other artisans. They fought from chariots, but had not come to employ elephants in war. They were settled in villages and in towns. Mention is made of ships, or river-boats, as in use among them. They ate beef, and drank a sort of fermented beer made from thesomaplant.
THE VEDIC RELIGION.—The early religion of the Indian Aryans was quite different from the system that grew up later among them. We do not find in it the dreamy pantheism that appears afterwards. It is cheerful in its tone, quite in contrast with the gloomy asceticism which is stamped on it in after times. The head of each family is priest in his own household. It is only the great tribal sacrifice which is offered by priests set apart for the service. The worship is polytheistic, but not without tendencies to monotheism. The principal divinities are the powers of nature. The deities (deva) were the heavenly or the shining ones. "It was the beautiful phenomenon of light which first and most powerfully swayed the Aryan mind." The chief gods were the Father-heaven; Indra, the god of thunder and of rain, from whom the refreshing showers descended; Varuna, the encompassing sky; and Agni, the god of fire. Among theseIndra, from his beneficence, more and more attracted worship.Soma, too, was worshiped; soma being originally the intoxicating juice of a plant.Brihaspati, the lord of prayer, personifying the omnipresent power of prayer, was adored. Thirty-three gods in all were invoked. The bodies of the dead were consumed on the funeral-pile. The soul survived the body, but the later doctrine of transmigration was unknown. All the attributes of sovereign power and majesty were collected inVaruna. No one can fathom him, but he sees and knows all. He is the upholder of order; just, yet the dispenser of grace, and merciful to the penitent. Worship is made up of oblations and prayers. It must be sincere. The gods will not tolerate deceit. They require faith. Of the last things and the last times the Rig-Veda hardly speaks. The Vedic hymns have much to say of the origin of things, but little, except in the last book, of the final issues.
There are four Vedas,—theRig-Veda, which has the body of hymns; theYajur-Veda, in which the prescribed formulas to be used in acts of sacrifice are collected; theSama-Veda, containing the chants; and theAtharva-Veda, a collection of hymns, in part of a later date. Besides, each Veda contains, as a second part, one or more Brâhmanas, or prose treatises on the ceremonial system. In addition, there are theological works supplementary, and of later origin,—the intermediateAranyakas, and theUpanishads, which are of a speculative cast.
Not only is nature—mountains, rivers, trees, etc.—personified in the Vedas: the animals—as the cow, the horse, the dog, even the apparatus of worship, the war-chariot, the plow, and the furrow—are addressed in prayer. The sacrificial fire is deified inAgni, the sacrificial drink inSoma. Indra has for his body-guards theMaruts, gods of the storm and lightning. He is a warlike god, standing in his chariot, but also a beneficent giver of all good gifts.Varunais the god of the vast luminous heavens, in their serene majesty.Indra, on the other hand, represents the atmosphere in its active and militant energy. The number of the gods is variously given. In passages, they are said to be many thousands.
RITES.—There is no hierarchy among the gods. But there is a tendency to confuse the attributes of the different divinities. Occasionally, for the time being, one eclipses all the rest, and is addressed as if all others were forgotten. There is sometimes a tendency to regard them as all one, under different names. But this tendency develops itself later. Offerings consisted of rice, cakes, soma, etc. Victims also were sacrificed, the horse especially; also the goat, the buffalo, and other animals. Sacrifice purchases the gifts and favor of the gods. It is an expression of gratitude and dependence. It has, moreover, a deep, mysterious energy of an almost magical character.
THE ARYANS ON THE GANGES.—Later, but earlier than 1000 B.C., we find that the Aryan invaders have moved onward in their career of conquest, and have planted themselves on the plains of the Ganges. A marvelous transformation has taken place in their social constitution, their religion, and in their general spirit. The caste system has sprung up, of which there are few traces in the Rig-Veda. In the first or lowest of these distinct classes are theSudras, or despised serfs, who are the subjugated aborigines; the second, or next higher, class is composed of the tillers of the soil, who are of a lower rank than the third, the warrior caste. These, in turn, fall below theBrahmans, or priests, who, as rites of worship grew more complicated, and superstition increased, gained, though not without a struggle, a complete ascendency. This marks the beginning of the sacerdotal era. The tendency of the farmer caste was to decrease, until, in modern times, in various provinces they are hardly found. The supremacy of the Brahmans was largely owing to their eminence as the great literary caste. They arose out of the families by whom the hymns had been composed, and who managed the tribal sacrifices. They alone understood the language of the hymns and the ritual.Brahman, in the earliest Veda, signifies a worshiper.
BRAHMINICAL PANTHEISM.—The polytheism of the earlier type of religion was converted into pantheism.Brahma, the supreme being, is impersonal, the eternal source of all things, from which all finite beings—gods, nature, and men—emanate. It is byemanation,—an outflow analogous to that of a stream from its fountain, in distinction fromcreation, implying will and self-consciousness,—that all derived existences emerge into being. With this doctrine was connected the belief in the transmigration of souls. All animated beings, including plants as well as animals, partake of the universal life which has its origin and seat in Brahma. Alienation from Brahma, finite, individual being, is evil. To work the way back to Brahma is the great aim and hope. Absorption in Brahma, return to the primeval essence, is the supreme good. The sufferings of the present are the penalty of sins committed in a pre-existent state. If they are not purged away, the soul is condemned to be embodied again and again,—it may be, in some repulsive animal. This process of metempsychosis might be repeated far into the indefinite future. With the doctrine of Brahma and of transmigration was connected the feeling that all life is sacred. The Brahman spared even trees and plants from destruction. Pollution or defilement might be contracted in a great variety of ways. There grew out of these ideas of sin, rigorous penances, most painful forms of self-torment. It was only by practices of this sort that there was hope of avoiding the retribution so much dreaded.
THE BRAHMINICAL CODES.—The principal of these codes is theLaws of Manu. Manu was imagined to be the first human being, conceived of as a sage. This code is a digest compiled by the priests at a date unknown, but comprising in it materials of a very high antiquity. Hence, while exhibiting Brahmanism in its maturer form, it affords glimpses of society at a much earlier date. A second code was compiled not earlier than the second century A.D. These codes present Hindu law under three heads: (1) domestic and civil rights and duties, (2) the administration of justice, (3) purification and penance. In truth, the codes prescribe regulations for every department of life. The obligations of kings, of Brahmans, and of every other class, are defined in detail. One motive that is kept in view is to set forth and fortify the special privileges of the Brahminical order.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMINS.—In process of time, commentaries on the Vedas were multiplied. Discord arose in the interpretation of the sacred books. Out of this debate and confusion there emerged, in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., several philosophical systems. These aimed to give peace to the soul by emancipating it from the bondage of matter, and by imparting a sense of independence of the body and of the external world.
These old philosophies are preserved in theUpanishads, or Instructions. The main idea in these diverse systems—theSankhya, theVedanta, etc.—is, that the soul's notion of itself as separate from the supreme, impersonal being, is the fallen state. This duality must be overcome. Conscious of its identity with the Supreme, the soul enters intoyoga, or the state of unison with the Infinite. He who is thus taken away from the illusions of sense, or theyogin, is free from the power of things perishable. Death brings a complete absorption into the source of all being. It is the bliss of personal extinction. This sort of philosophy attached great value to contemplation and self-renunciation. It led to a light esteem of ritual practices and ceremonies.
The Brahminical system has not ceased to maintain its supremacy in India since the time when it was presented to view in the law-codes. But it has not escaped alteration and attack. New movements, religious and political, have appeared to modify its character. Of these, Buddhism is by far the most memorable.
THE LIFE OF BUDDHA.—Of the life of Buddha we have only legendary information, where it is impossible to separate fact from romance. The date of his death was between 482 and 472 B.C. He was then old. He belonged to the family of Gautamas, who were said to be of the royal line of the Çâkyas, a clan having its seat about a hundred and thirty-seven miles north of Benares. The story is, that, brought up in luxury, and destined to reign, he was so struck with the miseries of mankind, that, at the age of twenty-nine, he left his parents, his young wife, and an only son, and retired to a solitary life to meditate upon the cause of human suffering. From Brahminical teachers he could obtain no solution of the problem. But after seven years of meditation and struggle, during which sore temptations to return to a life of sense and of ease were successfully resisted, he attained to truth and to peace. For forty-four years after this he is said to have promulgated his doctrine, gathering about him disciples, whom he charged with the duty of spreading it abroad.
THE BUDDHISTIC DOCTRINE.—Buddhism was not a distinct revolt against the reigning system of religion. Buddha left theology to the Brahmans. Indra, Agni, and the other divinities, and the services rendered to them, he left untouched. Being an anchorite, he was not required to concern himself with the rites and observances in which others took part. His aim was practical. His doctrine, though resting on a theoretical basis, was propounded simply as a way of salvation from the burdens that oppressed the souls of men. Nor did he undertake a warfare against caste. The blessing of deliverance from the woes of life he opened to all without distinction. This was the limit of his opposition to caste.
THE ROAD TO NIRVANA.—Buddha taught, (1) that existence is always attended with misery; (2) that all modes of misery result from passion, or desire unsatisfied; (3) that desire must be quenched; (4) that there are four steps in doing this, and thus of arriving at NIRVANA, which is the state in which self is lost and absorbed, and vanishes from being. These four ways are (1) the awakening to a perception of the nature and cause of evil, as thus defined; (2) the consequent quenching of impure and revengeful feelings; (3) the stifling of all other evil desires, also riddance from ignorance, doubt, heresy, unkindliness, and vexation; (4) the entrance into Nirvana, sooner or later, after death. The great boon which Buddha held out was escape from the horrors of transmigration. He attributed to the soul no substantial existence. It is theKarma, or another being, the successor of one who dies, the result and effect of all that he was, who re-appears in case of transmigration. Buddhism involved atheism, and the denial of personal immortality, or, where this last tenet was not explicitly denied, uncertainty and indifference respecting it. On the foundation of Buddha's teaching, there grew up a vast system of monasticism, with ascetic usages not less burdensome than the yoke of caste. The attractive feature of Buddhism was its moral precepts. These were chiefly an inculcation of chastity, patience, and compassion; the unresisting endurance of all ills; sympathy and efficient help for all men.
DEIFICATION OF BUDDHA.—By the pupils of Buddha he was glorified. He was placed among the Brahminical gods, by whom he was served. A multitude of cloisters were erected in his honor, in which his relics were believed to be preserved. On the basis of the simpler doctrine and precepts of the founder, there accumulated a mass of superstitious beliefs and observances.
THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM.—After the death of Buddha, it is said that his disciples, to the number of five hundred, assembled, and divided his teaching into three branches,—his own words, his rules of discipline, and his system of doctrine. During the next two centuries Buddhism spread over northern India. One of the most conspicuous agents in its diffusion wasAsoka, the king of Behar, who was converted to the Buddhistic faith, and published its tenets throughout India. His edicts, in which they were set forth, were engraved on rocks and pillars and in caves. He organized missionary efforts among the aborigines, using only peaceful means, and combining the healing of disease, and other forms of philanthropy, with preaching. He carried the Buddhistic faith as far asCeylon. It spread overBurmah(450 A.D.).Siamwas converted (638 A.D.), andJavabetween the fifth and seventh centuries of our era. Through Central Asia the Buddhistic missionaries passed intoChinain the second century B.C., and Buddhism became an established system there as early as 65 A.D. At present, this religion numbers among its professed adherents more than a third of the human race.
THE BRAHMINICAL RE-ACTION.—In India Buddhism did not supplant the old religion. The Brahmans modified their system. They made their theology more plain to the popular apprehension. They took up Buddhistic speculations into their system. But they rendered their ceremonial practices more complex and more burdensome. Their ascetic rule grew to be more exacting and oppressive. In diffusing and making popular their system, customs, like the burning of widows, were introduced, which were not known in previous times. The divinities,Brahma, the author of all things,Vishnuthe preserver, andSivathe destroyer, were brought into a relation to one another, as a sort of triad. Successive incarnations of Vishnu became an article of the creed,Krishnabeing one of his incarnate names. For centuries Brahmanism and Buddhism existed together. Gradually Buddhism decayed, and melted into the older system; helping to modify its character, and thus to give rise to modern Hinduism. For ten centuries Buddhism, with multitudinous adherents abroad, has had no existence in the land of its birth.
THE GREEK-ROMAN PERIOD.—In 327 B.C.,Alexander the Greatadvanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab, which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the kings,Porus, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established alliances, and left garrisons. On the death of Alexander (323 B.C.) and the division of his empire, Bactria and India fell to the lot of Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy. About this time a new kingdom grew up in the valley of the Ganges, under the auspices ofChandra Gupti, a native. After various conflicts, Seleucus ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab to this prince, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. The successors of Seleucus sent Græco-Bactrian expeditions into India. Thus Greek science and Greek art exerted a perceptible influence in Hindustan. During the first six centuries of the Christian era, Scythian hordes poured down into northern India. They were stoutly resisted, but effected settlements, and made conquests. The events as well as the dates of the long struggle are obscure. The non-Aryan races of India, both on the north and on the south of the Ganges, many of whom received the Buddhistic faith, were not without a marked influence—the precise lines of which it is difficult to trace—upon the history and life of India during the period of Greek and Scythic occupation and warfare. TheDravidianpeople in southern India, made up of non-Aryans, number at present forty-six millions.
LITERATURE.—Mill'sHistory of India(Wilson's edition, 9 vols.); MONIER WILLIAMS,Indian Wisdom; Max Müller'sHistory of Sanskrit Literature; EARTH'SThe Religions of India, 1882;Encycl. Brit., Arts.India, Brahmanism, Buddhism.
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.—When the curtain that hides the far distant past is lifted, we find in the valley of the Nile a people of a dark color, tinged with red, and a peculiar physiognomy, who had long existed there. Of their beginnings, there is no record. It is not likely that they came down the river from the south, as some have thought; more probably they were of Asiatic origin. Their language, though it certainly shows affinities with the Semitic tongues in its grammar, is utterly dissimilar in its vocabulary: its modern descendant is the Coptic, no longer a spoken dialect. The Egyptians were of the Caucasian variety, but not white like the Lybians on the west. On the east were tribes of a yellowish complexion and various lineage, belonging to the numerous people whom the Egyptians designated asAmu. On the south, in what was calledEthiopia, was a negro people; and, also beyond them and eastward, a dusky race, of totally different origin, a branch of the widely diffusedCushites.
THE NILE: DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.—Egypt (styled by its ancient inhabitants, from the color of the soil deposited by the Nile,Kemor the Black Land, and by the Hebrews calledMizraim) is the creation of the great river. "Egypt," says Herodotus, "is the gift of the Nile;" and this is not only true, as the historian meant it, physically, because it is the Nile that rescued the land from the arid waste by which it is bordered; but the course of Egyptian history—the occupations, habits, and religion of the people—was largely determined by the characteristics of the river. The sources of the Nile have had in all ages the fascination of mystery, and have been a fruitful theme for conjecture. It was reserved for modern explorers to ascertain that it takes its rise in equatorial Africa, in the two great lakes, theAlbertandVictoria Nyanzas. From that region, fed by few tributaries, it flows to the Mediterranean, a distance of two thousand miles, but breaks, as it nears the sea, into two main and several minor arms. These spread fruitfulness over the broad plain called, from its shape, theDelta.Above the Delta the fringe of productive land has a width of only a few miles on either side of the stream. Its fertility is due to the yearly inundation which, as the effect of the rainfall of Abyssinia, begins early in July, and terminates in November, when the river, having slowly risen in the interval to an average height of twenty-three or twenty-four feet, reaches in its gradual descent the ordinary level. This narrow belt of territory, annually enriched with a layer of fertile mud, is in striking contrast with the barren regions, parched by the sun, on either side, with the long chain of Arabian mountains that adjoin it on the east, and with the low hills of the Lybian desert on the west. By dikes, canals, and reservoirs, the beneficent river from the most ancient times has been made to irrigate the land above, where are the towns and dwellings of the people, and thus to extend and keep up its unrivaled fertility. The country of old was divided into two parts,—Upper Egypt,as it is now called, withThebesfor its principal city, extending from the first cataract, nearSyene,to the Memphian district; andLower Egypt,embracing the rest of the country on the north, including the Delta. The two divisions were marked by differences of dialect and of customs. The country was further divided intonomes,or districts, about forty in all, but varying in number at different times. They were parted from one another by boundary stones. Each had its own civil organization, a capital, and a center of worship.
EARLY CULTURE.—At a far remote day, there existed in Lower Egypt an advanced type of culture. Sepulchers, with their inscriptions and sculptures, were made of so solid material that they have remained to testify to this fact. When the pyramids were built, mechanical skill was highly developed, Egyptian art had reached a point beyond which it scarcely advanced, and the administration of government had attained substantially to the form in which it continued to exist. The use of writing, the division of the year, the beginnings of the sciences and of literature, are found in this earliest period. Egyptian culture, as far as we can determine, was not borrowed. It was a native product. The earliest period was the period of most growth. The prevailing tendency was to crystallize all arts and customs into definite, established forms, and to subject every thing to fixed rules. The desire to preserve what had been gained overmastered the impulses to progress: individuality and enterprise were blighted by an excessive spirit of conservatism. Moreover, the culture of the Egyptians never disengaged itself from its connection with every-day practical needs, or the material spirit that lay at its root. They did not, like the Greeks, soar into the atmosphere of theoretical science and speculation. They did not break loose from the fetters of tradition.
THE HIEROGLYPHICS.—We owe our knowledge of ancient Egypt chiefly to hieroglyphical writing. The hieroglyphs, except those denoting numbers, were pictures of objects. The writing is of three kinds. Thefirst, the hieroglyphical, is composed of literal pictures, as a circle, O, for the sun, a curved line for the moon, a pointed oval for the mouth. Thesecondsort of characters, the hieratic, and thethird, the demotic, are curtailed pictures, which can thus be written more rapidly. They are seldom seen on the monuments, but are the writing generally found on the papyrus rolls or manuscripts. They are written from right to left. The hieroglyphs proper may be written either way, or in a perpendicular line. In the demotic, or people's writing, the characters are somewhat more curtailed, or abridged, than in the hieratic, or priestly, style. There were four methods of using the hieroglyphics in historical times.First, there were the primary, representational characters, the literal pictures.Secondly, the characters were used figuratively, as symbols. Thus a circle, O, meant not only the sun, but also "day"; the crescent denoted not only the moon, but also "a month;" a pen and inkstand signified "writing," etc. So one object was substituted for another analogous to it,—as the picture of a boot in a trap, which stood for "deceit." A conventional emblem, too, might represent the object. Thus, the hawk denoted the sun, two water-plants meant Upper and Lower Egypt.Thirdly, hieroglyphics were used as determinatives. That is, an object would be denoted by letters (in a way that we shall soon explain), and a picture be addedto determine, or make clear, what was meant. After proper names, they designated the sex; after the names of other classes, as animals, they specified the particular genus.Fourthly, the bulk of the hieroglyphs are phonetic. They stand for sounds. The picture stood for the initial sound of the name of the object depicted. Thus the picture of an eagle,akhôm, represented "A." Unfortunately, numerous objects were employed for a like purpose, to indicate the same sound. Hence the number of characters was multiplied. The whole number of signs used in writing is not less than nine hundred or a thousand. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone—a large black slab of stone—with an identical inscription in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek, furnished toChampollion(1810) and toYoungthe clew to the deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian manuscripts were made of the pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by side horizontally, with another layer of strips across them; the two layers being united by paste, and subjected to a heavy pressure. The Egyptians wrote with a reed, using black and red ink.
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.—These are (1) the inscriptions on the monuments. These, it must be remembered, are commonly in praise of the departed, and of their achievements. (2) The list of kings in the Turin papyrus, a very important Egyptian manuscript, discovered by Champollion. (3)Manetho. An Egyptian priest, he wrote, about 250 B.C., a history. Only his lists of dynasties are preserved as given in an Armenian version ofEusebius, a writer of the fourth century, and inGeorge Syncellus, a writer of the eighth century, who professed to embody the statements of Eusebius and of another author,Julius Africanus, probably of the second century, who had also quoted the lists of Manetho. Manetho is of great importance; but we do not know accurately what his original text was, it being so differently reported. His details frequently clash with the monuments. Moreover, the method adopted by him in making his lists is, in essential points, subject to doubt. (4) The Greek historians.Herodotushad visited Egypt (between 460 and 450 B.C.), and conferred with Egyptian priests.Diodorus, also, in the time of Julius Caesar, had visited Egypt. He is largely a copyist of Herodotus. (5) The Old Testament. Here we have many instructive references to Egypt. But, until Rehoboam, the kings of Egypt have in the Scriptures the general name ofPharaoh. Hence it is not always easy to identify them with corresponding kings on the Egyptian lists.
CHRONOLOGY.—The date of the beginning of the first dynasty of Egyptian rulers is a controverted point; there are advocates of a longer and of a shorter chronology. The data are not sufficient to settle accurately the questions in dispute. Some judicious scholars put the beginning ofthe first dynastyas early as 5000 B.C.; others have wished to bring it down even lower than 3000 B.C. Egyptian history, prior to the Persian conquest (525 B.C.), divides itself into three sections,—theOld Empire, having its seat at Memphis; theMiddle Empire, following upon a period of strife and division, and embracing the rule of foreign invaders,the Hyksos;and theNew Empire, the era of conquest, by foreign power, and of downfall.
The expedition of Shishak, king of Egypt, against Rehoboam, is ascertained, from both Egyptian and Hebrew sources, to have been not earlier than 971 B.C., and within twenty-five years of that date. The nineteenth Egyptian dynasty began about the year 1350 B.C. The Middle Empire is thought by some to have commenced as early as 2200 B.C.; by others as late as 1720 B.C. When we go backward into the Old Empire, the sources of uncertainty are multiplied. The main difficulty is to determine whether the lists of dynasties areconsecutivethroughout, or in partcontemporary. One class of scholars place the date of the first historic king,Menes, two or three thousand years earlier than the point assigned by the other class! The date of Menes given byBöckhis 5702 B.C.; byLenormant, 5004 B.C.; byBrugsch, 4455 B.C.; byLepsius, 3852 B.C.; byBunsen, 3623 or 3059 B.C.;E. Meyermakes 3180 B.C. the lowest possible date for Menes; 3233 B.C. is the date assigned byDuncker. On the contrary,R. S. Poolegives 2717 B.C.;Wilkinson, 2691 B.C.; andG. Rawlinson, between 2450 and 2250 B.C. There are no means of fully determining the controversy, as Rawlinson has shown (History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii., p. 19). It appears to be well ascertained that Egyptian civilization was in being at least as far back as about 4000 B.C.
THE POLITICAL SYSTEM.—The bulk of the people were farmers and shepherds, indisposed to war. The land was owned in large estates by the nobles, who were possessed of multitudes of serfs and of cattle. They had in their service, also, artisans, oarsmen, and traffickers. The centers of industry were the numerous cities. Here the nobles had their mansions, and the gods their temples with retinues of priests. But the Nomes had each its particular jurisdiction. The traces of two original communities are preserved in the mythological legends and in the titles of the kings. The oldest inscriptions discover to us a systematic organization of the state. The king is supreme: under him are the rulers of the two halves of the kingdom. He creates the army, and appoints its generals. The whole strength of the kingdom is given to him for the erection of the temples which he raises to the gods, or of the stupendous pyramid which is to form his sepulcher. The nobility make up his court; from them he selects his chief officers of state,—his secretary, his treasurer, his inspector of quarries, etc. The princes and princesses are educated in connection with the children of the highest nobles. A body-guard protects the monarch: he shows himself to the people only in stately processions. All who approach him prostrate themselves at his feet. He is the descendant of the gods. The Pharaohs are even looked upon as gods incarnate. They are clothed with all power on earth. When they die, they go to the gods; and rites of worship are instituted for them. That there was a well-ordered and efficient civil administration admits of no doubt. Whether there existed a thrifty middle class or not we can not decide. The tendency was for the child to follow the vocation of the parent, but there were no rigid barriers of caste. Not until the New Empire, was there an attempt to build up such a wall even about the priesthood.
THE RELIGION.—With the Egyptians, religion was a matter of supreme and absorbing interest. There was a popular religion; and there arose early, in connection with it, an esoteric or secret doctrine relative to the gods and to the legends respecting them,—a lore that pertained especially to the priesthood. Moreover, while the religious system, from the earliest date, is polytheistic, we have proof that the educated class, sooner or later, put a monotheistic interpretation upon it, and believed in one supreme deity, of whom all the particular gods were so many forms and manifestations, or that one being under different names. Whether this more elevated faith preceded the reigning system, or was a later offspring of it, is a matter of dispute. For a long period the two co-existed, and without collision.
The great divinities of Egypt are pre-eminently gods of light. They are associated with the SUN. With the agency of that luminary, with his rising and setting, they stand in a close relation. All Egypt worships the sun under the names ofRaandHorus. Horus is the adversary ofSeth(calledTyphonby the Greeks), the god of darkness, and is born anew every morning to attack and conquer him. In honor of Ra, the lofty obelisks, or symbols of the sun's rays, are erected, each of which has its own name and priests. With the sun-gods are joined the goddesses of the heavens,—Nut,Hather,Isis, and others. ButOsirisbecame the most famous sun-god. His worship was originally at Abydos and Busiris. At length his cult spread over the whole land. In the legend, he is murdered by Seth; but Horus is his avenger. Horus conquers the power of darkness. Henceforward Osiris reigns in the kingdom of the West, the home of the dead. He is the sun in the realm of the shades. He receives the dead, is their protector, and the judge whose final award is blessedness or perpetual misery. The departed, if their lives have not been wicked, become one with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of the power of darkness over him, and his glorious revival in the regions of the West, typifies human life and destiny. The principal god at Memphis isPtah, the primal divinity, the former of heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a god of light, since he is styled by the Greeks,Hephaestus. At Thebes,Ammonwas revered as the king of the gods: he shared in the properties of the sun.Thothis the chief moon-god, who presides over the reckoning of time. He is the god of letters and of the arts, the author of sacred books. The Nile is worshiped under the name ofHapi, being figured as a man with pendent breasts, an emblem of the fertility of the river. The gods were often connected in triads, there being in each a father, a mother, and a son. To bring to them the right offerings, and to repeat the right formulas, was a matter of momentous concern. Homage was directed to the material objects with which the activity of the god was thought to be connected, and in which he was believed to be present. All nature was full of deities. There were sacred trees, stones, utensils. Above all, animals, in their mysterious life, were identified with the divinities. Worship was offered to the crocodile, the cat, the bull, etc. In the temples these creatures were carefully tended and obsequiously served.
EMBALMING.—Believing that the soul survives death, the Egyptians linked its weal with the preservation of the body, from which they could not conceive its destiny to be wholly dissevered. Thus arose the universal practice of embalming, and of presenting, at intervals, offerings of food and drink to the departed. The tomb contains a room for sacred services to the dead. The most ancient structures are sepulchers. They were the germ of the pyramid, in which rested the sarcophagus of the king.
RELIGION AND MORALITY.—The leading gods were held to be the makers of the world and of men, the givers of good, the rulers and disposers of all things. Morality was not separated from religion. The gods punished unrighteousness and inhumanity. In the age of the pyramid-builders, family life was not wanting in purity; the wife and mother was held in respect: monogamy prevailed.Ma-twas the goddess of truth: in the myth of Osiris, it is in her hall that the dead are judged.
THE PRIESTS.—The priests are the guardians of religious rites. They are acquainted with the origin and import of them. Their knowledge is communicated only to select believers. It was a body of traditions, guarded as a mysterious treasure. But the priests, certainly until a late period, do not control the king. The civil authority is uppermost.
LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.—The most important Egyptian book that has come down to us is theBook of the Dead.It relates, in a mystical strain, the adventures of the soul after death, and explains how, by reciting the names and titles of numberless gods, and by means of other theological knowledge, the soul can make its way to the hall of Osiris. It is a monument of the pedantic and punctilious formalism of the Egyptian ritual. Most of the papyri that have been preserved are of a religious character. There are songs not void of beauty. The moral writings are of a decidedly higher grade. Works of fiction are constructed with considerable skill, and are sometimes not wanting in humor. Some of the hymns are not destitute of merit. It can not be doubted that there were important mathematical writings. Astronomical observations were very early made. In medicine, we have writings which prove that considerable proficiency was attained in this department. But here, as in other branches, the spirit was empirical rather than scientific in the higher sense; and the result was to petrify knowledge in an unalterable form. At length rules of medical treatment, with specific remedies, were definitely settled, from which it was a crime against the state to deviate.