Of the antiquity of savages we at present know little or nothing; but when archaeologists have exhausted the antiquities of civilized countries, a wide and interesting field of research willbe open to them in the study of the antiquities of savages, which are doubtless to be discovered in their surface and drift deposits; and if the stability of their form has been such as we have reason to believe, we shall then be able to arrive at something like certainty in respect to the degree of slowness or rapidity, as well as the order, in which they have been developed.
Leaving now the Australians, and turning to other existing races in a higher, though still in a low, stage of civilization, such as, for example, the Fijians, who at the time of their discovery were still in the stone age, we find, on examining the forms of their implements, that we are in a higher stratum of culture, the characteristics of which correspond exactly to what might have been expected to be found on the principle of gradual evolution. The forms of their tools and weapons present the same connexions of form between themselves as amongst those of the Australians, but they are of a more complex type, and are no longer directly traceable to the natural forms of the limbs of trees, &c. The links of connexion between weapons of the same kind are as close as before, but in their varieties they present forms so singular as scarcely to make it possible to infer that they were designed for the purposes of use. They appear rather to have varied through the instrumentality of some law of succession similar to that by which species of animals have been evolved. In many cases, indeed, the sequence of ideas has led to the use of forms that are absolutely unserviceable as weapons and tools, and human selection, corresponding to natural selection, appears to have retained for use only such forms as could be employed, whilst the others have been consigned to state purposes or applied to symbolic uses. In many cases we find that their clubs have been converted into the forms of animals’ heads, and in all such cases (and there are several in the collection) we see, by grouping a sufficient number of like forms together, that those which are in the shape of animals’ heads have not been designed for the purpose of representing animals’ heads, but their forms have simply been evolved during the numerous variations which the weapon has undergone in the process of development, and when the idea of an animal’s head suggested itself, it has merely been necessary to add an eye, or a line for the mouth, in order to give them the resemblance in question. Examples of this may beseen in the collection of specimens from Africa, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and Solomon Isles.
In ornamentation, the stability of form is very remarkable. Particular forms of ornamentation fix themselves on a tribe or nation, and are repeated over and over again with but little variation of detail, as, for example, in the case of the coil and broken coil ornaments amongst the New Zealanders and the inhabitants of New Guinea, which were probably derived from Assam, or the representation of the head of an albatross amongst the Indians of the north-west coast of North America, or that of a human head amongst the inhabitants of New Ireland.
In the transformations of this latter ornament, which I took occasion to bring to the notice of the meeting of the Anthropological Department of the British Association at Brighton in 1872[5], and which are represented inPlate IV, we see a remarkable example of degradation of form, produced by gradual changes, caused by these people in copying from one another until the original design is lost. The representation of a human figure is here seen to lose gradually its limbs and body, then the sides of the face, leaving only the nose and ears, and ultimately the nose only, which finally expands at the base, and is converted into the representation of a half moon. In this sequence we have an exact parallel to the transformations observed upon ancient British coins by Mr. Evans[6], by which a coin of Philip of Macedon, representing a chariot and horses, becomes converted by a succession of similar changes into the representation of a single horse, and ultimately into fragments of a horse. Other examples of similar transformations from other countries are also shown.
Amongst other advantages of the arrangement by form, is the facility it affords for tracing the distribution of like forms and arts, by which means we can determine the connexion that has existed in former times between distant countries, either by the spread of race, or culture, or by means of commerce. Thus I have been able to trace the distribution of the bow over a large area, with evidence of its having spread from a common centre.In the Asiatic islands and the Pacific, the line of its southern boundary is very clearly defined, marking off as non-bow-using races the whole of the inhabitants of Australia except Cape York, Tasmania, and formerly New Zealand and New Caledonia. Above this line the use of the bow spread from the Asiatic isles, and its transmission to the Papuan and Polynesian isles is due to the Malays, the Malay word for it—viz. ‘panna’—being used over the whole of the region in question with but slight variations.
In the southern hemisphere, where suitable materials for the construction of it are abundant, the bow is of the form of the arcus, or simple arch; but in the frigid regions to the north, there are large tracts in Europe, Asia, and America which are either totally destitute of trees, or covered with coniferous forests, yielding few if any woods that have sufficient spring for the construction of a bow, and there is reason to believe, from the traces of forests discovered at low levels beneath the soil in various places, that this inhospitable region extended more to the southward in ancient prehistoric times. In such a region it is unlikely that the invention of the bow should have originated, and when the knowledge of it was communicated from the south, it would be necessary to employ some other elastic material to combine with the stiff pinewood, and give it the necessary elasticity; hence the composite bow, which is the bow of the northern hemisphere, and which consists of a combination of wood and sinew, or wood and bone. In its varieties I have traced this bow over the whole of the northern hemisphere, including Lapland, Siberia, and the northern part of North America. It is the bow of the ancient Persians and Scythians. The northern people carried it into India and into China, and also eastward into America, where its distribution is traced in two channels, one extending along the region inhabited by the Esquimaux into Greenland, and the other along the west coast as far south as California; and throughout the region mentioned, its varieties show it to have sprung from a common prototype.
Here also I may select, from amongst other illustrations of the same kind that are to be found, a single example of the manner in which the implements of modern savages may be made to explain the construction of those of races of antiquity, described upon their monuments. Quivers for arrows do not admit ofmuch variety by which to trace improvement, and for this reason they must have continued unchanged in form much longer than contrivances which were susceptible of development; but the combination of quiver and bow case in one, may be traced over the whole of the region of the composite bow, the sinews of which made it necessary that it should be kept dry. Mr. Rawlinson, in hisFive Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World(London, 1864, vol. ii. p. 57), gives an illustration of an Assyrian quiver taken from ancient sculptures at Khorsabad. ‘It had an ornamental rod attached to it, which projected beyond the arrows and terminated in a pomegranate blossom or other similar carving. To this rod were attached the rings which received the strap by which it was suspended to the shoulders.’ The learned author adds: ‘It is uncertain whether the material of the quivers was wood or metal.’ The conventional mode of representing these objects and the imperfect command which the Assyrians had over the hard stone of the sculptures, give to the majority of the objects represented, the appearance of having been constructed of some hard material, as is clearly seen in the case of the hair and drapery; but, on turning to the quivers now used by the Indians of California, we at once see that the material of the quiver is explained by the form and position of the above-mentioned rod, which is fastened on the outside of it for the purpose of keeping thelimpskin bag that contains the arrows stiff and straight, and thereby enabling the bowman to draw out his arrows with the necessary rapidity. And this enables us clearly to understand why, as stated by Mr. Rawlinson, not a single example of a quiver was found in the Assyrian excavations. In the Californian, as in the Assyrian quivers, the rod extends beyond the quiver, and is probably intended to guard the arrows from injury.
It is unnecessary in this place to add to the number of examples. The object of this paper, as already stated, is to explain the principles of classification. For the evidence on which these principles are based I must refer you to the catalogue. Whether these principles of classification are correct or not is a matter of less consequence than the arrangement of the facts, by which every person is enabled to form his own idea of the manner in which progress has been evolved in early times.
Human ideas, as represented by the various products of human industry, are capable of classification into genera, species, and varieties, in the same manner as the products of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and in their development from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous they obey the same laws. If, therefore, we can obtain a sufficient number of objects to represent the succession of ideas, it will be found that they are capable of being arranged in museums upon a similar plan.
The resemblance between the arts of modern savages and those of primaeval man may be compared to that existing between recent and extinct species of animals. As we find amongst existing animals and plants, species akin to what geology teaches us were primitive species, and as among existing species we find the representatives of successive stages of geological species, so amongst the arts of existing savages we find forms which, being adapted to a low condition of culture, have survived from the earliest times, and also the representatives of many successive stages through which development has taken place in times past. As amongst existing animals and plants, these survivals from different ages give us an outline picture of a succession of gradually improving species, but do not represent the true sequence by which improvement has been effected, so, amongst the arts of existing people in all stages of civilization, we are able to trace a succession of ideas from the simple to the complex, but not the true order of development by which those more complex arrangements have been brought about. As amongst existing species of animals, innumerable links are wanting to complete the continuity of structure, so amongst the arts of existing peoples there are great gaps which can only be filled by prehistoric arts. What the palaeontologist does for zoology, the prehistorian does for anthropology. What the study of zoology does towards explaining the structures of extinct species, the study of existing savages does towards enabling us to realize the condition of primaeval man. To continue the simile further, the propagation of new ideas may be said to correspond to the propagation of species. New ideas are produced by the correlation of previously existing ideas in the same manner as new individuals in a breed are produced by the union of previously existing individuals. And in the same manner as we find thatthe crossing of animals makes it extremely difficult to trace the channel of hereditary transmission of qualities in a breed, so the crossing of ideas in this manner makes it extremely difficult to trace the sequence of ideas, although we may be certain that sequence does exist as much in one case as in the other.
Continuing still further the simile, we find that, as in the breeding of animals, when the divergence of races has gone so far as to constitute what is called distinct species, they cannot interbreed, so when the development of ideas has run in distinct channels far enough to create a hiatus, no intercommunication can take place. Two men of very different culture may travel in the same coach together, and, though speaking the same language, may find themselves unable to communicate except upon commonplace topics in which the simple ideas are common to both. Or two nations in very different stages of civilization may be brought side by side, as is the case in many of our colonies, but there can be no amalgamation between them. Nothing but the vices and imperfections of the superior culture can coalesce with the inferior culture without break of sequence.
Progress is like a game of dominoes—like fits on to like. In neither case can we tell beforehand what will be the ultimate figure produced by the adhesions; all we know is that the fundamental rule of the game issequence.
If we accept the definition of the term science as ‘organized common sense’, we necessarily reject the idea of it as a ‘great medicine’ applicable only to particular subjects and inapplicable to others; and we assume that all those things which call forth the exercise of our common sense are capable of being scientifically dealt with, according as the knowledge which we pretend to have about them is based on evidence in the first place, and in the sequel is applied to the determination of what, for want of a better word, we call general laws.
But in using this term ‘law’, we do not employ it in the sense of a human law, as a regulating or governing principle of anything, but merely as deduction from observed phenomena. We use it in the sense of a result, rather than a cause of what we observe, or at most we employ it to express the operation of proximate causes; and of the ultimate causes for the phenomena of nature we know nothing at all.
Further, in this development of the principle of common sense it has been said that the inductive sciences pass through three phases, which have been termed the empirical, the classificatory, and the theoretical.
Of these, the first or empirical stage may be defined as representing that particular phase of unorganized common sense in which our knowledge is simply a record of the results of ordinary experience, such as might be acquired by any savage or uneducated person in his dealings with external nature.
But as this condition of knowledge might perhaps be denied the claim to be considered scientific, it might be better perhaps to extend the term so as to embrace all that can be included under a practical knowledge of the subjects treated, in which these subjects are studied for their own sakes, or on account oftheir practical uses to man, and not with a view to generalizing upon them.
In this way it may be said that agriculture represents the empirical or practical stage of botany; mining, that of geology; hunting and the domestication of animals, that of zoology; the trade of the butcher, that of anatomy; navigation by means of the stars, that of astronomy.
Passing now over the boundary line which separates what are generally recognized as the physical sciences from the science of culture, in which the subjects treated are emanations from the human mind, we find that these also have their corresponding phases of development.
Commencing first with the science of language, which has been the earliest and perhaps the most important branch of human culture the study of which has been scientifically treated as yet, we find that Professor Max Müller, in the series of lectures delivered in this Institution in 1861-3,[8]has shown that the science of language has its corresponding empirical or practical stage, in which it is studied only for its own sake, or for its utility as a means of intercommunication; not as a means of generalizing upon language as a whole, but merely for the purpose of understanding the particular languages which we wish to make use of in our intercourse with others.
In like manner passing from language to the particular department of culture which, for the reasons to be explained hereafter, I shall make the subject of this discourse, viz. the material arts, I shall endeavour to show that there exists also in relation to them a practical or empirical stage, which is the stage that we are now in with respect to them, in which we may include the whole of the constructive arts of mankind, from the simple flint knife to the most complex machine of modern times, when viewed from the standpoint of the mechanic or the artificer, not as subjects for generalization, but merely from an utilitarian point of view.
There are many persons no doubt who regard utility, not as a primary stage, but as the final and highest result of science. But the highest achievements of science, even the highest practical achievements, would never have been reached by themere utilitarian. There is a force within us by which we are moved in the direction of acquiring knowledge for its own sake and for the sake of truth, regardless of any material advantage to be derived from such knowledge. Sooner or later such knowledge is sure to bear practical fruits, even though we may not live to realize them.
It is in this spirit that men of science have advanced to the second or classificatory stage, in which, with a view to higher generalization, the subjects studied are grouped together according to their affinities, and specific points of resemblance are taken as the representatives of each class.
These classes are at first grouped round independent centres; but such an arrangement of them, having no existence in reality, is purely subjective and can only be transitional. The margins of the classes so formed represent only the margins of our knowledge or our ignorance, as the case may be.
By degrees, as the classes become extended, sub-classes are formed, and they are seen to arrange themselves in the form of branches radiating from a central stem. By still further observation, the stems of the several classes are seen to tend towards each other, and we are led to trace them to a point of union.
Thus from the classificatory or comparative we pass gradually into the third stage, which I have spoken of as the theoretical, but which may perhaps be more clearly defined as the evolutionary. By the use of this term ‘evolutionary’ we make it apparent that our third stage is but a development of the second, evolution being merely the necessary and inevitable result of the extension of classification, implying greater unity and broader generalizations.
These three stages then, the empirical or practical, the classificatory or comparative, and the evolutionary, are applicable to the development of all the inductive sciences.
But it has been held by some that a broad line of demarcation must be drawn between the physical sciences properly so called, such as zoology, botany, and geology, which deal with external nature, and those sciences which have been termed historic, which deal with the works of man.
This question has been ably treated by Professor Max Müller in the series of lectures to which I have referred, a course oflectures which must be regarded as a starting-point and basis of instruction for all who follow after him in the same path.
But in claiming for the science of language, and for language only, a place amongst the physical sciences, he has made admissions to opponents which, in my humble judgement, ought not to be made, and which are inconsistent with that more extended view of the subject by which I contend that, if language, then all that comes under the head of culture must be included amongst the physical sciences. Thus, for example, we find him admitting this passage as a sound and reasonable argument on the part of those who deny the claim of language to be included amongst the physical sciences: ‘Physical science,’ he says, ‘deals with the work of God, historical science with the works of man.’
Now if in dealing with what are here termed the historical sciences, we were to take the subjects of such sciences, as for example the arts or language, implements or words, and were to regard them as entities to be studied apart from their relation to mind, and were to endeavour to deduce from them the laws by which they are related to each other, it is evident that we should be dealing with a matter which could not be correlated with the physical sciences; but such a course would be absurd. It would be as absurd to speak of a boomerang as being derived by inheritance from a waddy, as to speak of a word in Italian being derived by inheritance from a corresponding word in Latin; these words and these implements are but the outward signs or symbols of particular ideas in the mind; and the sequence, if any, which we observe to connect them together, is but the outward sign of the succession of ideas in the brain. It is the mind that we study by means of these symbols.
But of the particular molecular changes or other processes which accompany the evolution of ideas in the mind, we know no more than we do of the particular molecular changes and other processes which accompany the evolution of life in nature, or the changes in chemistry.
If then we are to understand the expression ‘the work of God’ as implying the direct action of ultimate causes, it is evident that we are not in a position either to affirm or to deny or to make any statement whatever respecting such ultimatecauses, which may operate either as directly or as indirectly in the one case as the other. We know nothing about them, and therefore to invoke ultimate causes as a reason for distinguishing between the sciences is to take up a position which cannot be scientifically maintained.
With equal if not greater truth we may combat the assertion that the science of culture is historical, whilst nature, on the other hand, as dealt with by the physical sciences, is incapable of progress. However valid this objection might have appeared during the empirical and comparative stages of the physical sciences, it cannot be maintained, since the researches of Darwin and others have fairly landed them in their evolutionary phase. The principles of variation and natural selection have established a bond of union between the physical and culture sciences which can never be broken. History is but another term for evolution. There are histories and histories, as any one may determine who has read Green’sShort History of the English People, and compared it with the kind of matter which passed for history in his school days. But our position with regard to culture has always been one which has forced on our comprehension the reality of progress, whilst with respect to the slow progress of external nature, it has been concealed from us, owing to the brief span of human existence and our imperfect records of the past. The distinction, therefore, between the sciences, as historical and non-historical, is but a subjective delusion, and not an objective reality; and herein, I believe, lies the secret of most of those errors that we have to contend with.
But the point in which I venture more particularly to differ from the conclusions of the learned author of theScience of Languageis the line which he has drawn between language and the other branches of culture by including language amongst the physical sciences whilst he excludes the rest. ‘If language,’ he says, ‘be the work of man in the same sense in which a statue, a temple, a poem, or a law, are properly called works of man, the science of language would have to be classed as an historic science’; and again he says, ‘It is the object of these lectures to prove that language is not a work of human art in the same sense as painting, or building, or writing, or printing.’
In dealing with this question it is material, as regards the relative claims of language and the arts to be studied as physical sciences, to distinguish between the general and the particular. If it is said that language as a whole is not a work of human design, the same may with equal truth be said of the arts as a whole. A man who constructs a building, a tool, or a weapon, can no more be said to have devised a scheme of arts, than the introducer of a new word can be said to have invented a language; but each particular word bears the impress of human design as clearly as a weapon or a coin. A word may be said to be a tool for the communication of thought, just as a weapon is an implement of war.
But, says Professor Müller, ‘art, science, philosophy, religion, all have a history; language or any other production of nature admits only of growth.’ But unless it can be shown that words are entities having the power of generating and producing other words, which arts, tools, or weapons, do not possess, the word growth can only be applied figuratively to language as it is to the arts, and in that case growth and history are synonymous terms. But this is absurd. Words, as I said before, are the outward signs of ideas in the mind, and this is also the case with tools or weapons. Words are ideas expressed by sounds, whilst tools are ideas expressed by hands; and unless it can be shown that there are distinct processes in the mind for language and for the arts they must be classed together.
But it is said, ‘language has the property of progressing gradually and irresistibly, and the changes in it are completely beyond the control of the free will of man.’ This, however, can only be accepted relatively. We know that in certain phases of savage life the use of particular words may be tabooed in the same manner that the use of particular implements or weapons may be tabooed; but it would be quite as hopeless for any individual to attempt to change the entire course of the constructive arts as to change the form of a language; the action of the individual man is limited in both cases to the production of particular words or particular implements, which take their place like bricks in a building.
Man is not the designer in the sense of an architect, but he is the constructor in the sense of a brickmaker or a bricklayer.
But the difficulty of tracing fleeting words to their sources operates to a great extent in effacing the action of the individual in language. Words become public property before they are incorporated in a language. It would be difficult to establish a system of patents for new words. Here again we see that the line drawn between language and the arts is a subjective delusion, not an objective reality. It is not true that words do not originate with individual men, but merely that we do not perceive it.
Modifications of words, like modifications in the forms of the arts, result from the succession of ideas or other causes affecting particular minds. They obtain acceptance through natural selection by the survival of the fittest.
The chance which a new word or a new implement has of surviving depends on the number of words or implements to be superseded, on their relative importance to the art or the language, and the persistency with which these superseded words or implements are retained. The truth of this is seen in the fact that vocabularies change far more rapidly than grammatical forms; because the same grammatical terminations are employed with a large number of different words, and they are therefore a more constant necessity of speech.
Hence early and barbaric languages may be connected by their grammatical forms long after their vocabularies have entirely changed. The same truth is seen in the fact admitted by philologists, that in small communities new words and modifications of words gain more ready acceptance than in large communities; because the struggle of the new words for existence is less in small than in large communities, and the dialects therefore change more rapidly. And the same causes influence the transformations which take place in the arts. Objects in common use change more slowly than those which are but little employed; the difference is merely one of degree and not of kind.
In dealing with the arts, each separate contrivance occupies a larger share of our attention, to the exclusion of any comprehensive survey of them as a whole. The arts present themselves to our mental vision on a larger scale, and we view them analytically; we are as it were in the brickmaker’s yard seeing each brick turned out of hand, whereas in dealing with language we see only the finished building; the details are lost. We viewlanguage synthetically. The arts may be said to present themselves to us as a sea beach in detached fragments; language in the form of a compact sandstone. The empiric or the utilitarian may deny that there is any resemblance between them; but the geologist knows that the mode of deposition has been the same in both cases, and he classes the whole as rocks.
Then again there are facilities for collecting and arranging the data for the study of language which do not exist in the case of the arts. Whilst words take seconds to record, hours and days may be spent in the accurate delineation of form. Words cost nothing, may be packed in folios, transmitted by post, and stored on the shelves of every private library. Ten thousand classified words may be carried in the coat pocket without inconvenience, whilst a tenth part of that number of material objects require a museum to contain them, and are accessible only to a few: this is the reason why the arts have never been subjected to those classifications which form the groundwork of a science.
But when we say that words and implements are both tools employed for the expression of thought, it is important to bear in view one difference between them, which has a practical bearing on the relative value of the two studies as a means of tracing the evolution of culture in prehistoric times and amongst savages. The word is the tool of the ear, the implement the tool of the eye; and for this reason language is the science of historic times, whilst the arts constitute the subject of science to be studied in relation to prehistoric times.
Every new tool or weapon formed by the hand of man retains the same form as long as it continues to exist; it may be handed from man to man, from tribe to tribe, from father to son, from one generation to another; or, buried in the soil, it may under special conditions continue for untold ages without change of form, until in our time it may be discovered and employed as evidence of the condition of the arts at the time it was fabricated. Very different, however, is the history of words. Each word coined by the exercise of the inventive faculty of man to express an idea is liable to change as it passes from mouth to ear. Its continued identity is dependent solely on memory, and it is subject to phonetic and acoustic changes from which the forms of the arts are exempt.
When by the invention of writing each word receives its equivalent in forms that are appreciable to the sense of sight, it gains stability, which places it on a footing of equality with the arts, and enables us to trace with certainty the changes it has undergone; and therefore in historic times language is the surest test of social contact that we can have. But in prehistoric times, before it had acquired this permanence through the invention of writing, the forms of language were, to use Mr. Sayce’s expression, in a constant state of flux.
The truth of this is seen in the immense number of dialects and languages employed by savages at the present time. Thus amongst the one hundred islands occupied by the Melanesian race, the Bishop of Wellington tells us, and his statement is confirmed by the late lamented Bishop Patteson, that there are no less than two hundred languages, differing so much that the tribes can have but very little interchange of thought; and similar accounts are given of rapid changes of language in Cambodia, Siberia, Central Africa, North, Central, and South America.
The greater stability of the material arts as compared with the fluctuations in the language of a people in a state of primaeval savagery, is well shown by a consideration of the weapons of the Australians, and the names by which they are known in the several parts of that continent. These people, from the simplicity of their arts, afford us the only living examples of what we may presume to have been the characteristics of a primitive people. Their weapons are the same throughout the continent; the shield, the throwing-stick, the spear, the boomerang, and their other weapons differ only in being thicker, broader, flatter, or longer, in different localities; but whether seen on the east or the west coast, each of these classes of weapons is easily recognized by its form and uses. On the other hand, amongst the innumerable languages and dialects spoken by these people, it would appear that almost every tribe has a different name for the same weapon. The narrow parrying-shield, which consists of a piece of wood with a place for the hand in the centre, in South Australia goes by the name of ‘heileman’, in other parts it is known under the name of ‘mulabakka’, in Victoria it is ‘turnmung’, and on the west coast we have ‘murukanye’ and ‘tamarang’ for the same implement very slightly modified in size and form.Referring to the comparative table of Australian languages compiled by the Rev. George Taplin, in the first number of theJournal of the Anthropological Institute(i, 1872, pp. 84-8), we find the throwing-stick, which on the Murray River is known by the name of ‘yova’, on the Lower Darling is ‘yarrum’, in New South Wales it is ‘wommurrur’, in Victoria ‘karrick’, on Lake Alexandrina ‘taralye’, amongst the Adelaide tribes of South Australia it is ‘midla’, in other parts of South Australia it is called ‘ngeweangko’, and in King George’s Sound ‘miro’.
From these considerations we arrive at the conclusion that in the earliest stages of culture the arts are far more stable than language: whilst the arts are subject only, or chiefly, to those changes which result from growth, language, in addition to those which result from growth, is also affected by changes arising from phonetic decay.
The importance therefore of studying the grammar, so to speak, of the arts becomes apparent, as it is by this means alone that we can trace out the origin and evolution of culture in the earliest times.
The task before us is to follow by means of them the succession of ideas by which the mind of man has developed, from the simple to the complex, and from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous; to work out step by step, by the use of such symbols as the arts afford, that law of contiguity by which the mind has passed from simple cohesion of states of consciousness to the association of ideas, and so on to broader generalizations.
This development has to be considered under the two heads of culture and constitution, that is to say, that we have to consider not only the succession of ideas in the mind resulting from experience, but also the development by inheritance of the internal organism of the mind itself, or, to use the words of Mr. Herbert Spencer, ‘In the progress of life at large, as in the progress of the individual, the adjustment of inner tendencies to outer persistencies must begin with the simple and advance to the complex, seeing that, both within and without, complex relations, being made up of simple ones, cannot be established before simple ones have been established’ (Princ. of Psych., i3, p. 426).
We find no difficulty in assenting to the general proposition that culture has been a work of progress. Our difficulty lies inrealizing the slow stages of its early development, owing to the complexities both of our mental constitution and of the contemporaneous culture from which experience is drawn, or, again to use Mr. Spencer’s more expressive words, of our ‘inner tendencies’, and ‘outer persistencies’; we are apt to regard as intuitive, if not congenital, many simple ideas which in early culture can only have been worked out through the exercise of experience and reason during a long course of ages.
We see this error of our own minds constantly displayed in the education of children. The ideas in a child’s mind, like those of mankind at large, are necessarily built up in sequence. The instructor makes use of some word, the meaning of which is clearly understood by him, but which does not fall into the sequence of the child’s reasoning; the conception associated with it in the child’s mind must, however, necessarily conform to such sequence. Hence a confusion of ideas, which is often attributed to the stupidity of the child, but which is in reality due to the inexperience of the instructor; as, for instance, in the case exemplified by Pip, in Dickens’Great Expectations, who, having imbibed the precept that he was to ‘walk in the same all the days of his life’, was led by his sequence of ideas to infer therefrom that he was invariably to walk to school by the same path, and on no account go round by the pastrycook’s.
And so in studying savages and early races whose mental development corresponds in some degree to that of children, we have to guard against this automorphism, as Mr. Spencer terms it; that is to say, the tendency to estimate the capacity of others by our own, which appears almost completely to incapacitate some people from dealing with the subject.
The question of the free will of man enters largely into this study. I shall not be expected to say much upon a subject which has so lately occupied the attention of the public, having been discussed by some of our ablest scientists; but I cannot avoid quoting, in reference to this point, a passage from Dr. Carpenter’sMental Physiology, who in this controversy is certainly entitled to be regarded as the champion of free will; and therefore by quoting him we run no risk of overstating the case against free will. ‘Our mental activity,’ he says (p. 25), is ‘entirely spontaneous or automatic, being determined by our congenitalnervous organism.... It may be stated as a fundamental principle that the will can never originate any form of mental activity....’ But it has the power, he continues, of selecting any one out of several objects that present themselves either simultaneously or successively before the mental vision, and of so limiting and intensifying the impression which that particular object makes upon the consciousness, that all others shall be for the time non-existent to it.
The truth of this, in so far as regards the limitation of the will, cannot fail to force itself upon the student of culture. It is, I venture to think, by classifying and arranging in evolutionary order the actual facts of the manifestations of mind, as seen in the development of the arts, institutions, and languages of mankind, no less than by comparative anatomy, and far more than by metaphysical speculation, that we shall arrive at a solution of the question, to what extent the mental Ego has been, to use Professor Huxley’s expression, a conscious spectator of what has passed.
I propose, therefore, with your permission, to give a few examples, by means of diagrams, of material evolution derived from the earliest phases of culture. In language and in all ideas communicated by word of mouth there is a hiatus between the limits of our knowledge and the origin of culture which can never be bridged over, but we may hold in our hand the first tool ever created by the hand of man.
It has been said that the use of speech is the distinctive quality of man. But how can we know that? We are literally surrounded by brute language. We can imitate their calls, and we find that animals will respond to our imitations of them. But who has ever seen any of the lower animals construct a tool and use it.
The conception of man, not as a tool-usingbut as a tool-makinganimal, is clear, defined, and unassailable; probably if we could trace language to its sources, we should be able to draw the same line between natural sounds employed as a medium of communication, and the created word. Thus the arts which we can study may perhaps be taken to illustrate the origin of language, which we cannot study in this phase.
The ape employs both sticks and stones as missiles and as hammers to crack the shells of nuts. But we have no evidencethat he ever selects special forms for special uses. The arts therefore afford us a clearly defined starting-point for the commencement of culture.
To go in search of a particular form of stick or stone in order to apply it to a particular use would require greater effort of the will in fixing attention continuously on the matter in hand than is found to exist amongst the lower animals except in cases of instinct, which term I understand to mean an inherited congenital nervous organism which adapts the mind to the ready reception of experience of a particular kind. But this instinct does not exist in the case in question; there is no tool-making instinct: our tool has to be evolved through reason and experience, without the aid of any special organism for the purpose.
The process we have to assume therefore is that, in using stones as hammers, they would occasionally split. In using certain stratified rocks this would occur frequently, and so force itself on the attention of the creature. The creature going on hammering, it would force itself on his notice that the sharp fractured end was doing better work than before. It would be perceived that there were hard things and soft things, that the hard things split the stone, and the soft things were cut by it; and so there would grow up in the mind an association of ideas between striking hard things and splitting, and striking soft things and cutting, and also a sequence by which it would be perceived that the fracture of the stone was a necessary preliminary to the other; and in the course of many generations, during which the internal organism of the mind grew in harmony with this experience, the creature would be led to perform the motions which had been found effectual in splitting the stone before applying it to the purposes for which it was to be used.
Thus we arrive at a state of the arts in which we may suppose man to be able to construct a tool by means of a single blow. By constantly striking in the same direction, flakes would be produced; and by still further repeating the same motions, it would at last be found that by means of many blows a stone could be chipped to an edge or a point so as to form a very efficient tool.
But this continued chipping of the stone in order to produce a tool, implies a considerable mental advance upon the effort of mind necessary to construct a tool with one blow.
It implies continued attention directed by the will to the accomplishment of an object already conceived in the mind, and its subsequent application to another object which must also have been conceived in the mind before the tool was begun.
Now we know from all experience, and from all evolution which we can trace with certainty, that progress moves on in an accelerating ratio, and that the earlier processes take longer than the later ones.
Plate XII.Diagram 1.
Plate XII.Diagram 1.
Plate XII.
Diagram 1.
But the implements of the drift, which are the earliest relics of human workmanship as yet recognized, are most of them multi-flaked tools, such as the implements figured on Plate XII, Nos. 1-10, requiring a considerable time to construct, and the use of innumerable blows in order to trim to a point at one end.
It appears therefore evident that in the natural course of events the drift period must have been preceded by an earlier period of considerable extent characterized by the use of single-flaked tools. And we may therefore consider it probable that should any evidences of man be hereafter discovered in miocene beds, they will be associated with such large rude flakes as those now exhibited, which require a feebler effort of attention and of reason to construct.
If we examine the forms of the flint implements of the drift, we find that out of many intermediate shapes we may recognize three in particular, which have been minutely described by Mr. Evans in his valuable work on the stone implements of Britain[9]: (1) a side-tool, consisting of a flint chipped to an edge on one side and having the natural rounded outside of the flint left on the other side, where it appears to have been held in the hand; (2) a tongue-shaped implement chipped to a point at one end, and having the rounded surface for the hand at the big end; and (3) an oval or almond-shaped tool, which is often chipped to an edge all round.
We have no evidence to show which of these kind of tools was the earliest; but that they were employed for different uses there can be little reason to doubt. But have we any evidence to throw light on the way in which these several forms originated in the minds of men in the very low condition of mental development which we may suppose to have existed at the time?
About eight years ago, whilst examining the ancient British camps on the South Downs, I chanced to discover in the camp of Cissbury, near Worthing, a large flint factory of the neolithic age. There were some sixty or more pits from which flints had been obtained from the chalk, and these pits were full of the débris of the flint-workers. The factory was of the neolithic age, the most characteristic tool of which is the flint celt, a form which differs but slightly from the oval or almond-shaped palaeolithic form, but the cutting edge of which is more decidedly at the broad end. The débris, some six hundred or more specimens of which were collected, consisted chiefly of these celts in various stages of manufacture.
If any one will attempt to make a flint celt, as I have done sometimes (and Mr. Evans, from whom I learnt that art, has done frequently), he will find that it is difficult to command the fracture of the flint with certainty; every now and then a large piece will come off, or a flaw will be discovered which spoils the symmetry of the tool, and it has to be thrown away. In arranging and classifying the remains of this flint factory, I found that all the palaeolithic forms were represented by one or other of these unfinished celts, so much so as to make it doubtful whether some of them may not actually have been used like them.
A celt finished at the thin end, and abandoned before the cutting edge was completed, represented a tongue-shaped palaeolithic implement; a celt finished only on one side represented a palaeolithic side-tool; and a celt rudely chipped out, and abandoned before receiving its finishing strokes, represented almost exactly an oval palaeolithic tool, only differing from it in being somewhat rougher, and showing evidence of unfinish.
Taking a lesson then from this flint-worker’s shop of the later neolithic age, we see how the earlier palaeolithic forms originated. They were not designed outright, as the nineteenth-century man would have designed them for special uses, but arose from a selection of varieties produced accidentally in the process of manufacture. The forms were also suggested by those of the nodules out of which they were made. We see, by examining the outside surfaces that were left on some of them, how a long thin nodule produced a long thin celt, a broad thick nodule a broad thick celt, and so forth. Indeed, so completely does thefabricator appear to have been controlled by the necessities of his art, that in tracing these successive forms one is almost tempted to ask whether the principle of causation lay mostly in the flint or in the flint-worker, so fully do they bear out the statement of Dr. Carpenter and the other physiologists, that nothing originates in the free will of man.