Plate I.
Plate I.
Plate I.
Plate II.
Plate II.
Plate II.
On these two diagrams (Plates I and II) I have shown how, from the same form of palaeolithic implement already described, the more complex forms of the spear and axe-blade of the subsequent periods were developed. The point developed into a spear, and the broad end into an axe-blade. You will see by reference to Plate I that the oval tool of the drift suggested the smaller leaf-shaped spear-head of the early neolithic age. This, by a gradual straightening of the sides, became the lozenge-shaped form, which latter developed into the barbed form, and this last into the triangular form, which consists of barbs without a tang.
On the other hand, this same oval tool of the drift (Plate II), when used as an axe-blade with the broad end, became the celt of the neolithic period, chipped only at first and subsequently polished. This gave rise to the copper celt of the same form having convex surfaces, which grew into the bronze celt with flat sides. Then the bronze celt was furnished with a stop to prevent its being pressed too far into the handle by the blow. Others were furnished with projecting flanges to prevent them from swerving by the blow when hafted on a bent stick. Others had both stops and flanges. By degrees the flanges were bent over the stops and over the handle, and then the central portion above the stops, being no longer required, became thinner, and ultimately disappeared, the flanges closed on each other, and by this means the weapon grew into the socket celt. On this socket celt you will see that there is sometimes a semicircular ornamentation on each side. This semicircular ornament, as I pointed out in a paper on primitive warfare read some time ago, is a vestige of the overlapping flange of the earlier forms out of which it grew, which, like the rings on our brass cannon, are survivals of parts formerly serving for special uses (pp.182-3below).
In the vertical columns I have given, in the order of their occurrence, the successive periods of prehistoric time, viz. the early palaeolithic, late palaeolithic, early neolithic, late neolithic,early bronze, late bronze and iron periods, beneath which I have placed lines for two distinct phases of modern savage culture, viz. the Australian and the American Indian. A cross beneath each form denotes the periods in which they occur, and a vertical bar denotes that they are of rare or doubtful occurrence; so that the sequence of development may be seen at a glance, and it is only a glance that I ask you to take at these diagrams on the present occasion. I have checked them with Mr. Evans’ work and also with Sir William Wilde’s Catalogue,[10]and I do not think that any of the statements made in them will be challenged; but as these forms were not developed for the purpose of filling in the spaces in rectangular diagrams, such diagrams only imperfectly convey an idea of the evolution which has taken place, and must be regarded only as provisional and liable to be improved.
In tracing the evolution of prehistoric implements, we are of course limited to such as were constructed of imperishable materials. No doubt our prehistoric ancestors used also implements of wood, but they have long since disappeared; and if we wish to form an idea of what they were, we must turn to those of his nearest congener, the modern savage.
In speaking of savages, the question of progression versus degeneration is probably familiar to most of those present, through the writings of Sir John Lubbock and Mr. E. B. Tylor. To the several weighty arguments in favour of progression given by those writers I will add this one derived from the sequence of ideas.
If the Australians, for example, were the degenerate descendants of people in a higher phase of culture, then, as all existing ideas are made up of previous ideas, we must inevitably find amongst their arts traces of the forms of earlier and higher arts, as is the case amongst some of the savages of South America who early came in contact with Peruvian civilization; but the reverse of this is the case: all the forms of the Australian weapons are derived from those of nature.
In the same way that we saw that the forms of the palaeolithic flint implements were suggested by accidental fractures in theworkshop, so the several forms of the Australian wooden implements were suggested by the various forms of the stems and branches out of which they were made. These savages, having only flint tools to work with, cannot saw out their weapons to any form they please; they can only trim the sticks into a serviceable shape. All their weapons are therefore constructed on the grain of the wood, and their forms and uses have arisen from a selection of the natural curves of the sticks.
Plate III.
Plate III.
Plate III.
I have arranged, on Plate III, drawings of nearly all the weapons used by the Australians, placing them together according to their affinities in such a manner as to show hypothetically their derivation from a single form. As all the forms given on this diagram are drawings of weapons in use at the present time, and there are many intermediate forms not given here, I have not arranged them in horizontal lines, as in the previous diagrams, to show their place in time, but have arranged them as radiating from a central point. We know nothing of the antiquities of savage countries as yet, and therefore cannot trace their evolution in time. The development has therefore been shown by means of survivals of early forms existing at the present time.
In the centre I have placed the simple cylindrical stick, as being the simplest form. By a gradual development of one end I have traced upwards the formation of a sharp ridge and its transition into a kind of mushroom form. To the right upwards I have traced the same development of the mushroom head, the projecting ridge of which is constantly liable to fractures by blows; and as savages always systematize accidental fractures so as to produce symmetry, scollops have been cut out of the ridge in different places for this purpose, which had the effect of concentrating the force of the blow on the projections. These were further developed; one of the pilei of the mushroom head was made larger than the others, and this suggested the form of a bird’s head, so that it was only necessary to add a line for the mouth and a couple of eyes to complete the resemblance. To the right we see that the plain stick held in the centre gave the first idea of a defensive weapon, and was used to parry off the darts of the assailant; an aperture was then made in the stick for the hand, and the face of it became broader, developing into a shield, the narrow ends, however, being still retained for parrying.Below I have shown that the long stick simply pointed at one end became a lance; a row of sharp flints were gummed on to one side to produce a cutting edge, and these were then imitated in wood, and by pointing them obliquely they were converted into barbs. To the right another kind of barb was produced by binding on a piece of sharp-pointed wood. Between this and the shields we see that the first idea of the throwing-stick, employed to project these lances, was simply constructed like the barbed point of the lance itself. The gradual expansion of the stick arose from its being employed like a battledore, to fence off the enemy’s lances. To the left below I have shown the gradual development of a peculiar curved weapon, called the ‘malga’, formed from a stem and the branch projecting from it at different angles. The part where the continuation of the stem was cut off was trimmed to a kind of ridge; this ridge developed, and suggested the crest of a bird’s head; ultimately the eyes were added, in the same manner as in the club on the opposite side of the diagram. To the left we see the plain round stick first flattened, then curved. Savages are in the habit of throwing all their weapons at their adversaries and at animals. In throwing a flat curved stick it rotates of its own accord, and as the axis of rotation continues parallel to itself, the thin edge is presented to the resistance of the air in front; this increases the range, and its peculiar flight must have forced itself on the attention of the savage as the result of experience: but he has never had the slightest knowledge of the laws of its flight. The different curves of the boomerang are the natural curves of the sticks, and like all the Australian weapons, they are made on the grain of the wood. Some are thicker than others; some will fly in the curves peculiar to that weapon, and others will not: scarcely two are alike.
To the left above, we see the mushroom-headed ‘waddy’, with its projecting ridge flattened, then curved; one side becomes more developed than the other, and this being thrown develops into the waddy boomerang, the ridge of the earlier forms being still represented by a mark on the flat head of the weapon; an intermediate link connects it with the true boomerang.
Many other examples might be given to illustrate the continuity which exists in the development of all savage weapons;but I only ask you to glance at the sequence shown in this diagram and the preceding ones in order to convince you of the truth of the statement which I made at the commencement of this discourse, that although, owing to the complexity of modern contrivances and the larger steps by which we mount the ladder of progress in the material arts, their continuity may be lost sight of, when we come to classify the arts of savages and prehistoric men, the term ‘growth’ is fully as applicable to them as to the development of the forms of speech, and that there are no grounds, upon the score of continuity, history, or the action of free will, to separate these studies generically as distinct classes of science.
But in dealing with evolution we have to speak not only of growth, but, as in all other natural sciences, of the principle of decay. By decay I do not mean the decay of the materials of the arts, but the decomposition of the mental ideas which produced them.
As complex ideas are built up of simple ones, so there is also a further process by which they become disintegrated, and the parts go to form parts of other ideas.
This decay in the arts corresponds to what is called phonetic decay in language; and in both cases it arises either from incapacity, the desire to save trouble, or the necessity of abbreviating when ideas originally evolved for one purpose come to form parts of other ideas to which they are merely accessory and subordinate, as in the well-known dialectic changes of speech. Every sound in language had originally a distinct meaning of its own; gradually these sounds or roots came to form parts of words in which the original meanings of the sounds were lost.
I will now endeavour to draw a parallel to this in the arts, by means of what may be termed realistic degeneration.
I will not say much as to the place of realism in culture. The archaeological world has lately been somewhat startled by the discovery of well-executed designs of elephants and other animals in the French caves in association with the rude stone implements of the palaeolithic age, and by the more recent discovery of Mariette Bey, that the earliest Egyptian sculptures of the third dynasty are the most truthful representations of the human form that are to be found in that country. I seenothing surprising in this, when we consider the power that is developed in many children of eight or nine years old of making drawings of animals and other objects, which, when allowance is made for the feeble hand of childhood, are often as truthful as those of the cave-period men, at a time when their minds have acquired but little power of reasoning or generalizing, or even of taking care of themselves; all which goes to prove that this power of imitation, which is a very different thing from ideal art, is one of the most early developed faculties of the mind of man.
When the power of imitation had once been developed, it would naturally be made use of as a means of intercommunication; thus the drawing of a stag would be made to convey information to people at a distance that there was a herd of deer in the neighbourhood to be hunted; and as the object of the drawing was no longer to depict truthfully the peculiarities of the beast, but merely to convey information, the amount of labour expended upon it would be the least that could be employed for the required purpose. All written characters have originated in this way; and no one now requires to be told how pictographic representations developed into hieroglyphic and subsequently into phonetic characters.
But realistic degeneration would equally take place in all cases in which pictorial representations came to be employed for other purposes than those for which they were originally designed, as in the case of ornamental designs.
Plate XXI.EVOLUTION OF TYPES ON ANCIENT BRITISH COINS.
Plate XXI.EVOLUTION OF TYPES ON ANCIENT BRITISH COINS.
Plate XXI.
EVOLUTION OF TYPES ON ANCIENT BRITISH COINS.
So also a coin receives upon its surface the image of a king or a god as a stamp of authority. When from any cause the object of the original design is lost, the object of the stamp being no longer to convey a likeness, but being merely used as a test of genuineness, or perhaps amongst an unlettered people to denote its value, the tendency to realistic degeneration would be proportioned to the difficulties of execution; no further labour would be expended on it than was necessary for the object to be attained. Here I must again remind you of the interesting discourse delivered in this Institution on May 14, 1875, by Mr. Evans, on the evolution of British coins.[11]His examples arefigured in hisCoins of the Ancient Britons, pp. 24-32. With his permission I have introduced some of his diagrams (Plate XXI). You will remember how the coin of Philip of Macedon having been introduced into Britain, the head on the obverse gradually disappeared, leaving only the wreath as a band across the coin, which was ultimately converted into a cross; and how on the reverse, the chariot and two horses dwindled into a single horse, the chariot disappeared, leaving only the wheels, the driver became elevated, not elevated after the manner unfortunately but too common amongst London drivers, but elevated after the manner of the Spiritualists, except that you see he had the precaution to take on a pair of wings, differing also both from the London driver and the Spiritualists, inasmuch as instead of having lost his head he has lost his body, and nothing but the head remains; the body of the horse then gradually disappears, leaving only four lines to denote the legs.
I will now show you an exact parallel to these transformations in a collection of designs, supposed to be tribal marks, which are drawn upon the paddle blades of the New Irelanders, a race of Papuan savages inhabiting an island on the north-east coast of New Guinea.
Having noticed one or two allied varieties of design in specimens that came into my possession, I determined to collect all that I could find as they came to this country. In the course of several years I succeeded in obtaining the series represented upon Plate IV.
Plate IV.ORNAMENTATION OF NEW IRELAND PADDLES, SHOWING THE TRANSITION OF FORM.
Plate IV.ORNAMENTATION OF NEW IRELAND PADDLES, SHOWING THE TRANSITION OF FORM.
Plate IV.
ORNAMENTATION OF NEW IRELAND PADDLES, SHOWING THE TRANSITION OF FORM.
The first figure you will see clearly represents the head of a Papuan: the hair or wig is stuffed out, and the ears elongated by means of an ear ornament, after the manner of these people; the eyes are represented by two black dots, and the red line of the nose spreads over the forehead. This is the most realistic figure of the series. In the second figure the face is somewhat conventionalized: the line of the nose passes in a coil round the eyes; there is a lozenge pattern on the forehead, representing probably a tattoo mark; the body is represented sitting in full. In the third figure the man is represented sitting sideways, simply by lopping off an arm and a leg on one side. In the fourth figure the legs have disappeared. In the fifth figure the whole body has disappeared. In the sixth figure the nosehas expanded at the base, and the sides of the face are made to conform to the line of the nose; the elongated ears are there, but the ear ornament is gone: the nose in this figure is becoming the principal feature. In the seventh figure nothing but the nose is left: the sides of the face and mouth are gone; the ears are drawn along the side of the nose; the head is gone, but the lozenge pattern on the forehead still remains; the coil round the eyes has also disappeared, and is replaced by a kind of leaf form, suggested by the upper lobe of the ear in the previous figures; the eyes are brought down into the nose. In the eighth figure the ears are drawn at right angles to the nose. In the ninth figure the nose has expanded at the base; all the rest is the same as in the last figure. In the tenth figure the lozenge pattern and the ears have disappeared, and a vestige of them only remains, in the form of five points; the base of the nose is still further expanded into a half moon. In the last figure, nothing but a half moon remains. No one who compared this figure with the first of the series, without the explanation afforded by the intermediate links, would believe that it represented the nose of a human face. Unfortunately we do not know as yet the exact meaning of these designs, but when further information is obtained about them it will throw considerable light on similar transformations in prehistoric times.
My next and last illustration is taken from the relics of Troy, recently brought to light by Dr. Schliemann.[12]In the valuable work lately published by him he gives illustrations of a number of earthenware vases and other objects, called by him idols, having on them the representation of what he conceives to be the face of an owl, and which he believes to represent Athena, the tutelary goddess of Troy, called by Homer ‘Glaukopis Athene’, which signifies, according to him, ‘with the face of an owl.’ Professor Max Müller has given his opinion that the word ‘glaukopis’ cannot possibly be taken to mean owl-faced, but can only mean large- or bright-eyed. On this point I will venture no opinion, but accepting Professor Müller’s highauthority for the usually received interpretation of it being correct, I shall in no way weaken the evidence in favour of Dr. Schliemann’s discovery of the true site of Troy if I succeed in proving that, according to the true principle of realistic degeneration, this figure does not represent an owl but a human face.
Plate V.REALISTIC DEGENERATION.ILLUSTRATED BY REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HUMAN FACE, FOUND BY DR. SCHLIEMANN AT TROY.[The numerals in brackets give—(1)the number of the figure in Schliemann’sTroy and its Remains, (2)the depth at which the figure was found, in metres.]
Plate V.REALISTIC DEGENERATION.ILLUSTRATED BY REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HUMAN FACE, FOUND BY DR. SCHLIEMANN AT TROY.[The numerals in brackets give—(1)the number of the figure in Schliemann’sTroy and its Remains, (2)the depth at which the figure was found, in metres.]
Plate V.
REALISTIC DEGENERATION.
ILLUSTRATED BY REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HUMAN FACE, FOUND BY DR. SCHLIEMANN AT TROY.
[The numerals in brackets give—(1)the number of the figure in Schliemann’sTroy and its Remains, (2)the depth at which the figure was found, in metres.]
The figures on Plate V are all taken from Dr. Schliemann’s representations, and as the depth of each is given it will be seen that the different varieties of face occur in all the different strata excavated by him except the highest, and therefore no argument as to antiquity can be based upon the depth at which they were found. The two first figures, it will be seen, are clearly intended to represent a human face, all the features being preserved. In the two next figures (3, 4) the mouth has disappeared, but the fact of the principal feature being still a nose and not a beak, is shown by the breadth of the base and also by the representation of the breasts. In the two succeeding figures (5, 6) the nose is narrowed at the base, which gives it the appearance of a beak, but the fact of its being still a human form is still shown by the breasts. Had the idea of an owl been developed through realistic degeneration in these last figures, it would have retained this form, but in the two succeeding figures (7, 8) it will be seen that the nose goes on diminishing.
In the remaining figures, some of which are (12-16) of solid stone, not earthenware, and are believed by Dr. Schliemann to be gods, it is clearly shown by the rude scratches representing the eyebrows, and their want of symmetry, that this degeneration of form is the result of haste.
What then are these solid stone objects? I cannot for a moment doubt, from their resemblance to the vases, from the marks denoting the junction of the cover with the vase, and from the representations of handles, that they are votive urns of some kind, similar to those Egyptian stone models of urns represented in the two figures above. Urns of this kind were used by the Egyptians to contain the viscera of the mummies; but with the cheaper form of burial, in which the viscera were retained in the body, stone models of urns, of which these figures are drawings from originals in the British Museum, were deposited in the graves as vestiges of the earlier and more expensive process; these objects therefore cannot be idols, but votive urns. Thefact of human remains having been found in some of the human-headed urns, and the hasty scratches on the stone models, show that they are merely models appertaining to the conventionalized survival of some earlier or more elaborate system of urn burial.
We see from these facts that both growth and decay, the two component elements of evolution, are represented in the study of the material arts.
My object in this discourse has been not, as I fear it may have appeared to you from the brief time at my disposal and my imperfect treatment of the subject, to extol the material arts as being intrinsically of more interest or importance than other branches of culture, but to affirm the principle that it is by studying the psychology of the material arts alone that we can trace human culture to its germs.
The theory of degradation is supported only by the study of those branches of culture of which the early history is lost.
The tree is the type of all evolution: all trees are seedlings, but they differ in their mode of growth. Some, like the beech and oak, throw their branches upwards, and these are typical of the development of the material arts; others, like the straight-stemmed pine, throw off their branches downwards, and these are typical of the development of some other branches of culture. It is quite true, as stated by mythologists, that the history of myths is one of continued degeneration in so far as they can be traced, and that the element of decay enters far more into their composition than that of growth. But the whole accessible history of these myths represents drooping branches from the upward-growing stem of free thought out of which they sprang. What is the space of time which separates us from the Vedas, as compared with the whole upward growth of humanity before and since!
There are huge gaps in our knowledge of the history of the human race, and it has been the pleasure of mankind in all ages to people these gaps with jugglers and bogies; but surely, if slowly, science will open up these desert places, and prove to us that, so far as the finite mind of man can reach, there is nothing but unbroken continuity to be seen in the present and in the past.
Although it is more in accordance with the purposes for which this establishment has been organized, that the Lecture-room should be devoted chiefly to subjects of practical utility connected with the improvement of our military system and the progress of the mechanical appliances, the organization, and general efficiency of our Army and Navy, than to the efforts of abstract science, yet the fact of your possessing in the three large apartments that are devoted to your armoury, one of the best assortments of semi-civilized and savage weapons that are to be found in this country, or, perhaps, in any part of the world, is sufficient to prove that it is not foreign to the objects of the Institution that the science of war should be ethnographically and archaeologically, as well as practically, treated.
The requirements of our advancing age demand that every vein of knowledge should be opened out, and, in order to make good our title to so interesting a collection of objects as that comprised in what may very properly be called our ethnographical military department, it should be shown that, whether or not the subject may be considered to fall within the ordinary functions of the Society, our Museum is made available for the purposes of science.
The age in which we live is not more remarkable for its rapid onward movement than for its intelligent retrospect of the past. It is reconstructive as well as progressive. The light which is kindled by the practical discoveries of modern science, throws back its rays, and enables us to distinguish objects of interest, which have been unnoticed in the gloom of bygone ages, or passed over with contempt.
Men observe only those things which their occupations or their education enable them to understand and appreciate. Whena savage is introduced on board the deck of a European vessel, he notices only those objects with the uses of which he is familiar—the sewing of a coat, a chain, or a cable, at once rivets his attention, but he passes by the steam-engine without observation, and if a work of art is forced upon his notice, he is unable to say whether it represents a man, a ship, or a kangaroo![14]So in past ages the flint implements of the drift, the parents of all our modern implements, whether for war or handicraft, must have been carted away in hundreds, unobserved, and in ignorance that these inconspicuous objects would one day be the means of upsetting the received chronology of our species.
Whilst, therefore, we devote our energies chiefly to progress, and fix our attention upon the present and future of war, it cannot fail to interest those who are actively engaged in the duties of their profession, if we occasionally take a glance backward and see what recent discoveries have done towards elucidating its origin and early history.
It might, perhaps, assist a right understanding of the principles on which the weapons and implements of savages deserve to be studied, if I were to notice some of those great questions respecting the origin of our species, and man’s place in nature, which the investigations of science have been the means of raising in our day. I need hardly say that the rude implements, which I am about to describe, are of little practical interest in themselves, as models for instruction or imitation. We have no need of bows and arrows in the existing state of war, and if we did require them, the appliances of modern times would enable us to construct them in far greater perfection than could be acquired by any lessons from savages. These weapons are valuable only, in the absence of other evidence, from the light they throw on prehistoric times, and on those great questions to which I have alluded, and from their enabling us to trace out the origin of many of those customs which have been handed down to us by past generations.
As, however, the discussion of these interesting subjects would lead me into matters that are hardly suited to the Lecture-room of this Institution, I must pass over the consideration of them with a few brief remarks.
In so doing, I may appear to postulate some opinions upon points that are still the subject of animated controversy in the scientific world. But it would require a far broader field of investigation than is here afforded me, in order to treat these inquiries successfully, and to adduce all the evidence that would be necessary to support the hypotheses put forward; and I am anxious to devote no greater space to these preliminary remarks than is necessary to point out some of the main features of interest that are involved in the particular study which forms the subject of my lecture.
We are apt to speak of the creation of the universe as a thing of the past, and to suppose that the world, with all the varied life upon it, previous to man’s appearance, having been created for his especial happiness and supremacy, was afterwards left to his control and government. But this view of the subject belongs to an age in which the laws of nature in their all-sufficiency and completeness were but little studied and appreciated. Modern science finds no evidence of any such abandonment of the universe to man’s jurisdiction. The more comprehensively the subject is viewed, the more restricted appear to be those limits over which the free will of mankind is permitted to range, and the more evident it becomes, that in his social advancement, his laws, arts, and wars, he moves on under the influence and development of those same laws which have been in force from the very first dawn of creation. The lower the archaeologist searches in the crust of the earth for the relics of human art, the more faint become the traces of that broad gulf, which in our times appears to separate man from the brute creation. In all the numerous and varied offsprings of the human intellect, in the arts, and even in speech, the more we investigate and trace them back, the more clearly they appear to point to a condition of the human race in which they had no existence whatever. The great law of nature, ‘natura non facit saltum,’ was not broken by the introduction of man upon the earth. He appears to have been produced in the fullness of time, as the work of creation required a more perfect tool, and to have ameliorated his condition, only as the work to be performed became more complicated and varied, just as in the hands of man, the rougher tool is employed for felling, and the finer tool for finishing and polishing.
By this view we come to look upon even the most barbarous state of man’s existence, as a condition, not so much of degradation, as of arrested or retarded progress, and to see that, notwithstanding many halts and relapses, and a very varied rate of movement in the different races, the march of the human intellect has been always onward.
As, in the lower creation, we find no individuals that are capable of self-improvement, though some appear, by their imitative faculties, to contain within them the germs of an improving element, so the aboriginal man, closely resembling the brutes, may have passed through many generations before he began to show even the first symptoms of mental cultivation, or the rudiments of the simplest arts; and even then his progress may have been, at first, so slow, that it is not without an effort of imagination that the civilized races of our day can realize, by means of the implements which he has left us, the minute gradations which appear to mark the stages of his advancement. This appears to be the view taken by Sir Charles Lyell in hisAntiquity of Man, when, in comparing the flint implements found in the higher and lower-level gravels of the valley of the Somme, he arrives at the conclusion ‘that the state of the arts in those early times remained stationary for almost indefinite periods’. ‘We see,’ he says, ‘in our own time, that the rate of progress in the arts and sciences proceeds in a geometrical ratio as knowledge increases, and so, when we carry back our retrospect into the past, we must be prepared to find the signs of retardation augmenting in a like geometrical ratio; so that the progress of a thousand years at a remote period, may correspond to that of a century in modern times, and in ages still more remote man would more and more resemble the brutes in that attribute which causes one generation exactly to imitate, in all its ways, the generation which preceded it’ (4th ed. 1873, p. 421).
In order to understand the relationship which the savage tribes of our own time bear to the races of antiquity, it is necessary to keep in view that, neither in historic nor prehistoric times is there any evidence that civilization has been equally or universally distributed; on the contrary, it appears always to have been partial, and confined to particular races, whose function it has been, by means of war and conquest, to spread the artsamongst surrounding nations, or to exterminate those whose low state of mental culture rendered them incapable of receiving it.
Assuming the whole of the human species to have sprung originally from one stock, an hypothesis which, although disputed, appears to me by all existing evidence and analogy of known facts, to be the most reasonable assumption, the several races appear to have branched off at various and remote periods, many of them, perhaps, previously to the present geographical arrangement of land and water, and to have located themselves in the several regions in which they are now found, in a state which probably differs but little from that in which they existed at the time of their separation from the parent stem.
Each race, after separation, shows evidence of arrested growth; and, finally, the intellect of the nation fossilizes and becomes stationary for an indefinite period, or until destroyed by being brought again in contact with the leading races in an advanced stage of civilization, precisely in the same way that the individuals composing these races, after propagating their species, stagnate, and ultimately decay, or, in a low state of savagery, are often destroyed by their own offspring.
Taking a comprehensive view of the development of civilization, it may be compared to the growth of those plants whose vigour displays itself chiefly in the propagation of their leading shoots, which, overtopping the older and feebler branches, cause them to be everywhere replaced by a fresh growth of verdure. The vegetable kingdom thus furnishes us with the grand type of progress; continuity and bifurcation are principles of universal application, uniting the lowest with the highest created thing.
The analogy of tree growth has been frequently employed in relation to natural phenomena, and it may very well be taken to explain the distribution of the human race, and the progress and expansion of the arts. It forms the key to the Darwinian theory of natural selection, which is essentially monogenistic in its application to the origin of the human race.
Thus the existing races of mankind may be taken to represent the budding twigs and foliage, each in accordance with the relative superiority of its civilization, appertaining to branches higher and higher placed, upon the great stem of life.
So little is as yet known of the early history of any but ourown family of nations, that in the existing state of knowledge, the attempt to classify and place them on their proper branches, must be attended with much difficulty, and great liability to error. However, by arranging the existing races according to their civilization, a tolerably correct judgement may perhaps be formed as to the value of this system of classification, if we distribute them with those of antiquity in some two or three broad divisions. The Caucasian races of modern Europe, for example, may be said to bear to their ancestors of the historical period the same relationship that geologists have shown the existing mammalia of our forests to bear to the mammalia of the tertiary geological period. The semi-civilized Chinese and Hindoos, in like manner, may be classed with the races of ancient Assyria, Egypt, and other nations immediately prior to the first dawn of history, the civilization of which nations they still so greatly resemble, and appear to have retained, in a state of retarded progress from those ages to our own. A third division may perhaps be made of the Malay, Tartar, and African negro nations, which, though now in an age of iron, may, by the state of their arts, and more especially by the form of their implements, be taken as the best representatives of the prehistoric bronze period of Europe, towards which they appear to hold the same relationship that the fish and reptiles of our seas bear to those of the secondary geological period. In a fourth division may be included the still more barbarous races of our times, the Australian, Bushman, and hunting races of America, whose analogy to those of the stone age of Europe may be typified by that of the mollusca of recent species to the mollusca of the primary geological period.
In all these existing races, we find that the slowness of their progression and incapacity for improvement is proportioned to the low state of their civilization, thereby leading to the supposition that they may have retained their arts with but slight modification from the time of their branching from the parent stem, and may thus be taken as the living representatives of our common ancestors in the various successive stages of their advancement.
Many examples of this immobility on the part of savages and semi-civilized races may be given.
Plate VI.
Plate VI.
Plate VI.
Throughout the entire continent of Australia the weapons and implements are alike, and of the simplest form, and the people are of the lowest grade. The spear, the waddy, and the boomerang, with some stone hatchets, are their only weapons; but amongst these it has been noticed that, like the implements of the drift, there are minute differences, scarcely apparent to Europeans, but which enable a native to determine at a glance to what tribe a weapon belongs.[15]This, whilst it proves a tendency to vary their forms, shows at the same time either an incapacity, or, what answers the same purpose, a retarding power or prejudice, which prevents their effecting more than the smallest appreciable degree of change. In the island of Tahiti, Captain Cook was unable to make the natives (a superior race to the Australians) appreciate the uses of metal, until he had caused his armourer to construct an iron adze (Plate VI, fig. 1a)[16]of precisely the same form as their own adzes of basalt (Fig. 1b). After that, metal tools came into general use amongst them, though their old forms are in a great measure preserved to this day. When, during the American War, the English endeavoured to utilize the Indians by arming them, they were compelled to construct for them tomahawks after their own pattern, having a pipe in the handle (Fig. 2). When the Purus Indians of South America receive a knife from Europeans they break off the handle, and fashion the knife according to their own ideas, placing the blade between two pieces of wood, and binding it round tight with a sinew.[17]The natives of Samoa now use iron adzes, constructed after the exact pattern of their ancient stone ones.[18]The Fiji Islanders, though they have now the means of obtaining good blades and chisels from Sheffield, and axes from America, prefer plane irons to any other form of implement, because they are able to fix them by lashing them on to their handles in the same fashion as the ancient stone adzes of their own manufacture, which they resemble.[19]The Andaman Islanders use the Europeanmetal that falls into their hands, only to grind it down into spear- and arrow-heads of the same form as their stone ones. The same applies to the whole of the Aborigines of North and South America, which have stood by, for nearly three centuries, passive spectators of the arts of Europeans, without attempting to copy them. Crawfurd, in hisHistory of the Indian Archipelago,[20]comments on the obstinate adherence of the Javanese to ancient customs, in accounting for the kris having been retained by them long after the causes which produced that peculiar weapon had ceased to operate. Tylor, in his account of the Anahuac, observes upon the preservation of old types amongst the present inhabitants of Mexico, which have remained almost unchanged from generation to generation, enabling the historian to distinguish clearly those which are of Aztec from those which are of Spanish origin.[21]Herodotus describes the spears carried by the Ethiopians in the army of Xerxes as being armed with the sharpened horn of the antelope.[22]Consul Petherick found still in use by the Djibba negroes, more than two thousand years after, these identical spears, armed with the straightened and sharpened horn of the antelope, and their other weapons also resembled in character those described by Herodotus, although they had passed from the stone weapons then used, into an age of metal.[23]The Scythian bow (Plate VI, fig. 3) is the bow still used by the whole of the Tartar races (Fig. 4). The celt of the Tartar, and the celt and sword of the Negro (Fig. 5) are still the celt and sword of the European bronze period (Fig. 6), and this resemblance is not confined to the general outline of the weapons, but extends to the style and patterns of ornamentation. The same identity of form exists between the ‘manillas’ (Fig. 7) used as a medium of exchange in the Eboe country of West Africa and the so-called penannular rings or ring money (Fig. 8) of gold and bronze which are found in Ireland, and which, with some modifications, belong also to Germany and the Swiss Lakes. The corrugated iron blade of the Kaffir assegai, a section ofwhich is shown in Fig. 9, and which is used also in Central and West Africa, is identical with those found in the Saxon graves (Fig. 10), and is intended to give a spiral motion to these missiles. Chevalier Folard observes that the Gauls were remarkable for the tenacity with which they clung to their ancient customs, while the Romans, their conquerors, are mentioned by all historians as peculiar in their time for the facility with which they adopted the customs of others, and developed their own.[24]In modern Europe, the Gipsies have also been noticed as being distinguished from the Europeans in all the various localities in which they are found, for their remarkable adherence to especial arts, savouring of an extinct civilization. Amongst the Chinese and Hindoos, the conservatism which has caused them to remain for ages in nearly the same condition is too well known to require comment. It will, however, be remembered (in illustration of the fact that customs of minor importance often survive great political changes, and serve to keep up the continuity that would otherwise be broken), that after the Manchu Tartars had conquered and established themselves in the Chinese territory, they were nearly driven again from the country, on account of their forcing upon the subject people the custom of wearing pigtails, after the fashion of their conquerors; showing how difficult it is to ingraft, upon an alien race, customs that are not indigenous.
These, and many other notices of a similar character that are to be found in the pages of travel, establish it as a maxim, that the existing races, in their respective stages of progression, may be taken as the bona fide representatives of the races of antiquity; and, marvellous as it may appear to us in these days of rapid progress, their habits and arts, even to the form of their rudest weapons, have continued in many cases, with but slight modifications, unchanged throughout countless ages, and from periods long prior to the commencement of history. They thus afford us living illustrations of the social customs, the forms of government, laws, and warlike practices, which belonged to the ancient races from which they remotely sprang, whose implements, resembling, with but little difference, their own, are now found low down in the soil, in situations, and under circumstances inwhich, alone, they would convey but little evidence to the antiquary, but which, when the investigations of the antiquary are interpreted by those of the ethnologist, are teeming with interesting revelations respecting the past history of our race; and which, in the hands of the anthropologist, in whose science that of antiquity and ethnology are combined with physiology and geology, are no doubt destined to throw a flood of light, if not eventually, in a great measure, to clear up the mystery, which now hangs over everything connected with the origin of mankind.
That such a combination of the sciences should have been brought about so opportunely in our days, appears to me to be one of those many indications of an overruling power directing in the aggregate the minds of men, which must, at all times, strike even the most superficial observer of nature; for there can be little doubt that in a few years all the most barbarous races will have disappeared from the earth, or will have ceased to preserve their native arts.
The law which consigns to destruction all savage races when brought in contact with a civilization much higher than their own, is now operating with unrelenting fury in every part of the world. Of the aborigines of Tasmania, not a single individual remains; those of New Zealand are fast disappearing. The Australian savage dies out before the advancing European. North and South America, and the Polynesian Islands, all tell the same tale. Wherever the generous influences of Christianity have set foot, there they have been accompanied by the scourge. Innumerable and often unseen causes combine in effecting the same purpose; diseases which are but little felt by Europeans, act as plagues when introduced into uncivilized communities, and cause them to fall before their ravages, like wheat before the sickle; and the vices of civilization, taking a firmer hold of the savages than its virtues, aid and abet in the same work. The labours of the missionary, if they have produced no other benefit, have been useful in teaching us the great truth, that notwithstanding the philanthropic efforts of the intruding race, the law of nature must be vindicated. The savage is morally and mentally an unfit instrument for the spread of civilization, except when, like the higher mammalia, he is reduced to a state of slavery; his occupation is gone, and his place is required foran improved race. Allowing for the rapidly increasing ratio in which progress advances, it is not too much to assume, that in half a century from the present time, savage life will have ceased to have a single true representative on the face of the globe, and the evidence which it has been the means of handing down to our generation will have perished with it.
When we find that the condition of the aboriginal man must have been one of such complete inanity as to render him incapable of spontaneously initiating even the most rudimentary arts, it follows as a matter of course that in the earliest stages of his career, he must, like children of our own day, have been subject to compulsory instruction. And in looking to nature for the sources from which such early instruction must have been derived, we need not, I think, be long in coming to the conclusion, that the school of our first parent must be sought for in his struggles for mastery with the brute creation, and that, consequently, his first lessons must have been directed to attaining proficiency in the art of war.
Hence it follows that it is to the lower animals that we must look for the origin of all those branches of primitive warfare which it is the object of this lecture to trace out. Nor indeed shall we fail to find abundant evidence that there is hardly a single branch of human industry which may not reasonably be attributed to the same source.
The province of war extends downward through the animal kingdom, showing unmistakable evidence of its existence in forms, offensive and defensive, differing but little from those of the human era, through the unnumbered ages of the geological periods, long prior to man’s advent; proving, beyond the possibility of doubt, that from the remotest age in which we find evidence of organized beings, war has been ordained to an important function in the creative process.
Judging by results, which I apprehend is the only true method of investigating the phenomena of life, three primary instincts appear to have been implanted in nearly all the higher animals[25]:alimentiveness, for the sustenance of life; amativeness, for the propagation of species; and combativeness, for the protection of species, and the propagation by natural selection of the most energetic breeds; on which latter subject much important information has been given to the world by Mr. Darwin, in his celebrated work on the origin of species.
Much might, I believe, be said on the connexion which subsists between these functions, all of which are, in some form or other, necessary to a healthy condition. Suffice, however, to observe, that as regards the dawn of an Utopia, in which some men who think themselves practical appear to indulge; whether we study the subject by observing the uses to which animals apply the various and ingeniously constructed weapons with which Providence has armed them, or whether we view it in relation to the prodigious armaments of all the most civilized nations of Europe, we find no more evidence in nature, of a state of society in which wars shall cease, than we do of a state of existence in which we shall support life without food, or propagate our species by other means than those which nature has appointed.
The universality of the warlike element is shown in the fact, that the classifications of the weapons of men and animals are identical, and may be treated under the same heads.
Many constructive arts are brought to greater perfection in animals by the development of faculties, especially adapting them to the peculiar implements with which nature has furnished them, than can be attained by man, and especially by the aboriginal man, whose particular attribute appears, by all analogy of savage life, to have been an increase of that imitative faculty which, in the lower creation, is found only in a modified degree in apes.
The lower creation would thus furnish man not only with the first element of instruction, but with examples for the improvement of the work commenced, or, to use the words of Pope:—
From the creatures thy instructions take,Thy arts of building from the bee receive;Learn from the mole to plough, the worm to weave;Learn from the little nautilus to sail,Spread the thin oars, and catch the driving gale;Here, too, all forms of social reason find,And hence let reason late instruct mankind.[26]
In the art of war, as we shall see, he would not only derive his first instruction from the beasts, but he would improve his means of offence and defence from time to time by lessons derived from the same source.
It therefore appears desirable that, before entering upon that branch of the subject which relates to theprogressanddevelopmentof the art of war, I should point out briefly the analogies which exist between the weapons, tactics, and stratagems of savages and those of the lower creation, and show to what extent man appears to have availed himself of the weapons of animals for his own defence.
In so doing the subject may be classified as follows:—