Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its elements.
Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its elements.
The reader will here pardon me an indispensable digression. I make use at almost every moment of a term comprising in its extensive signification a collection of ideas which it is important to define accurately:civilization. The greater or less degree in which this term is applicable to the social condition of various nations, is my only standard for the comparative merit of races. I also speak of aEuropeancivilization, in contradistinction to others of a different character. It is the more necessary to avoid the least vagueness, as I am under the disagreeable necessity of differing from a celebrated writer, who has assumed the special task of determining the meaning and comprehensiveness of this expression.
Mr. Guizot, in hisHistory of Civilization in Modern Europe,makes use of a term which seems to me to give rise to a serious confusion of ideas, and lead to positive errors. He says that civilization is afact.
Now, either the word fact must here be understood in a sense much less strict and precise than common usage requires, a sense so indistinct—I might almost say elastic—as has never pertained to it, or what we comprehend under the term civilization cannot be expressed by the word fact. Civilization is nota fact; it is aseries, aconcatenation of facts, more or less logically united, and resulting from ideas often sufficiently diverse: ideas and facts continually reproduce each other. Civilization is a term applied to a certain state or condition in which a society exists—a condition which is of its own creation, bears its character, and, in turn, reacts upon it. This condition is of so variable a nature, that it cannot be called a fact; for a fact cannot be variable without ceasing to be a fact. In other words, there is more than one civilization: there are various kinds. Thus, a civilization may flourish under every form of government, and it does not cease to exist when civil commotions destroy or alter that form.
Let it not be understood that I esteem governmental forms of little importance. Their choiceis intimately connected with the prosperity of the society: if judicious, promoting and developing it; if unpractical, endangering its destruction. But I speak not here of the temporary prosperity or misery of a society. I speak of its civilization; and this is a phenomenon whose causes must be sought elsewhere, and deeper than in transient political forms. Its character, its growth, fecundity, or barrenness, depends upon elementary principles of far greater importance.
But, in Mr. Guizot's opinion, civilization is a fact, a unity; and it is of an essentially political character. Let us see how he defines it. He has chosen a series of hypotheses, describing society in various conditions, and then asks if the state so described is, in the general opinion of mankind, the state of a people advancing in civilization—if it answers to the signification which mankind generally attaches to this word.[94]
"First imagine a people whose outward circumstances are easy and agreeable; few taxes; few hardships; justice is fairly administered; in a word, physical existence, taken altogether, is satisfactorily and happily regulated. But, with all this, the moral and intellectual energies of thispeople are studiously kept in a state of torpor and inertness. It can hardly be called oppression; its tendency is not of that character—it is rather compression. We are not without examples of this state of society. There have been a great number of little aristocratic republics, in which the people have been thus treated like a flock of sheep, carefully tended, physically happy, but without the least intellectual and moral activity. Is this civilization? Do we recognize here a people in a state of moral and social advancement?"
I know not whether such a people is in a state of advancement, but it certainly may be in a very advanced state of civilization, else we should find ourselves compelled to class among the savages or barbarians all those aristocratic republics of ancient and modern times, which answer Mr. Guizot's description. But the common sense of mankind would never ratify a method which ejected from within the pale of civilization not only the Phenicians, Carthaginians, and Lacedæmonians, but even Venice, Genoa, Pisa, the free cities of Germany—in fact, all the powerful municipalities of the last centuries. But, besides this mode of proceeding being too paradoxical and restrictive, it seems to me to encounter another difficulty. Those little aristocratic states, to whom, on accountof their form of government, Mr. Guizot denies the aptitude for civilization, have, for the most part, never been in possession of a special culture peculiar to themselves. Powerful as many of them have been, they assimilated, in this respect, with nations differently governed, but of consanguineous affinity; they formed a fragment only of a greater and more general civilization. Thus, the Carthaginians and Phenicians, though at a great distance from one another, had a similar mode of culture, the type of which must be sought in Assyria. The Italian republics participated in the same ideas and opinions which developed themselves in the bosom of neighboring monarchies. The imperial cities of Thuringia and Suabia, although perfectly independent in a political point of view, were nevertheless intimately united with the general progressive or retrogressive movement of the whole German race. Mr. Guizot, therefore, by assigning to the people of different countries degrees of merit proportionate to the degree and form of their liberty, creates unjustifiable subdivisions in the same race, and makes distinctions without a difference. A lengthy discussion is not in its place here, and I shall therefore proceed rapidly. If, however, it were necessary to enter into a controversy, might we not justly protest against recognizing any inferiorityin the case of Genoa, Pisa, Venice, and others, when compared with countries like Milan, Naples, or Rome?
Mr. Guizot has himself foreseen this difficulty, and removed the objection. If he does not recognize a state of civilization among a people "mildly governed, but in a state of compression," neither does he accord this prerogative to another, "whose outward circumstances are less favorable and agreeable, although supportable, but whose intellectual and moral cravings have not been entirely neglected; among whom pure and elevated sentiments have been cultivated, and religious and moral notions reached a certain degree of improvement, but among whom the desire of liberty has been stifled; where a certain portion of truth is doled out to each, but no one permitted to seek for it himself. This is the condition to which most of the populations of Asia are sunk, because theocratical governments there restrain the progress of mankind; such, for instance, is the state of the Hindoos."
Thus, besides the aristocratic nations of the earth, we must moreover exclude from the pale of civilization the Hindoos, Egyptians, Etruscans, Peruvians, Thibetans, Japanese—nay, even modern Rome and her territories.
I omit the last two hypotheses, because, thanks to the first two, the state of civilization is already restricted within boundaries so contracted that scarce any people on the globe is justified in pretending to it. A nation, then, can be called civilized only when it enjoys institutions happily blending popular liberty and the requisite strength of authority for maintaining order; when its progress in material well-being and its moral development are co-ordinate in a certain manner, and no other; where religion, as well as government, is confined within limits accurately defined, which neither ever transgresses; where each individual possesses clearly determinate and inalienable rights. According to this formula, no nation can be civilized unless its political institutions are of the constitutional and representative form, and consequently it is impossible to save many European nations from the reproach of barbarism. Then, measuring thedegreeof civilization by the perfection of this same and only political form, we are compelled to place in a second rank all those constitutional states which have ill employed the engine of parliament, to reserve the crown exclusively for those who know how to make good use of it. By this reasoning, I am forced to consideras truly civilized, in the past as well as the present, none but the single English nation.[95]
I sincerely respect and admire that great people, whose victories, industry, and universal commercehave left no portion of our globe ignorant of its puissance and the prodigies it hasperformed. But still, I do not feel disposed to respect and admire in the world no other: it would seem to me too humiliating and cruel to humanity to confess that, since the beginning of time, it has never succeeded in producing a civilization anywhere but upon a small island of the Western Ocean, has never discovered the laws and forms which produce this state until the reignof William and Mary. Such a conception of civilization might seem to many rather a little too narrow and restrictive. But there is another objection. If we attach the idea of civilization to a political form, reason, observation, and science will soon lose their vote in the decision of the question, which must thenceforth be left to the passions and prejudices of parties. There will be some whose preferences will lead them stoutly to deny that the institutions of the British Isles are the "perfection of human reason:" their enthusiasm, perchance, will be expended in praising the order established in St. Petersburg or in Vienna. Many, again, and perhaps the greater number of all living between the Rhine and the Pyrenees, will sustain to the last that, notwithstanding a few blemishes, the most polished, the most civilized country of the world isla belle France. The moment that the decision of the degree of intellectual culture becomes a matter of preference, a question of sentiment, to come to an understanding is impossible. Each one will think him the man most advanced in civilization who shall coincide with his views about the respective duties of the governing and the governed; while those who are unfortunate enough to differ, will be set down as men behind the age, little better than barbarians, mere "oldfogies," whose visual organs are too weak for the dazzling lights of the epoch; or else as daring, incendiary innovators, who wish to destroy all established order, and sap the very foundation of civilization. I think few will differ from me in considering Mr. Guizot's definition as defective, and the source from which he derives civilization as not the real one.
Let us now examine Baron W. Von Humboldt's definition. "Civilization," says that celebrated statesman, "is the humanization of nations in their outward institutions, in their manners, and in the inward feelings upon which these depend."[96]
Here we meet with a defect of the very opposite kind to that which I took the liberty to point out in Mr. Guizot's definition. The formula is too vague, the boundary lines too indistinct. If civilization consists in a softening of manners, more than one untutored tribe, some extremely low in the scale of races, might take precedence over several European nations whose character contains more acerbity. There are in the South SeaIslands, and elsewhere, very inoffensive populations, of exceedingly gentle manners, and kind, accommodating dispositions; yet, though we may praise them, no one would think of placing them, in the scale of civilization, above the rough Norwegians, or even above the ferocious Malays, who, dressed in brilliant garments of their own fabric, and upon skilfully constructed vessels of their own making, traverse the Indian seas, at the same time the terror and scourge of maritime commerce, and its most successful votaries. This observation could not escape so great a mind as William Von Humboldt's; and he therefore imagines, besides civilization, a higher degree of development, which he callsculture, and by which he declares that nations gain, above their gentle manners, "science and the arts."[97]When the world shall have arrived at this higher state, it will be peopled byaffectionateandsympatheticbeings, very erudite, poetic, and artistic, but, by reason of this same reunion of qualities, ignoring the grosser wants of existence: strangers to the necessity of war, as well as those of rude mechanical toil.
When we reflect upon the limited leisure thatthe mass of even those can enjoy whose lot is cast in the happiest epoch, to abandon themselves to purely intellectual occupations—when we consider how incessant and arduous must ever be the strife of man with nature and the elements to insure the mere means of subsistence, it will soon be perceived that the philosopher of Berlin aimed less at depicting realities than at drawing from the domain of abstraction certain entities which appeared to him beautiful and sublime, and which are so, indeed, and at causing them to act and move in a sphere as ideal as themselves. If any doubts should still remain in this respect, they are soon dispelled when we arrive at the culminating point of the system, consisting of a third and last degree superior to the two others. This greatest point of perfection is that upon which stands thefinishedman (der Gebildete); that is to say, the man who, in his nature, possesses "something higher and more inward or essential; a clear and comprehensive faculty of seeing all things in their true light; a recognition and appreciation of the ultimate goal of man's moral and intellectual aspirations, which diffuses itself harmoniously over all his feelings and his character."[98]
We here have a regular gradation from man in a civilized or "humanized" state, to the man of cultivation—the philosopher, the poet, the artist; and thence still higher to thefinished, theperfectman, who has attained the greatest elevation possible to our species; a man who, if I seize rightly Mr. Humboldt's idea, had his living counterpart in Gœthe, as that towering mind is described to us in its olympic serenity. This theory rests upon no other basis than Mr. Von Humboldt's perception of the immense difference between the civilizationof a nation and the comparative height of perfection attained by great, isolated individualities. This difference is so great that civilizations different from ours, and perhaps inferior to it, have produced men in some respects superior to those we admire most.
Upon this point I fully coincide with the great philosopher whose theory I am unfolding. It is perfectly correct, that our state of development—what we call the European civilization—produces neither the profoundest nor the sublimest thinkers, nor the greatest poets, nor the most skilful artists. Yet I venture to differ from the illustrious philologist in believing that to give a practical meaning to the word civilization, it is necessary to divest one's self, if but for a moment, from the prejudices or prepossessions resulting from the examination of mere details in any particular civilization. We must take the aggregate result of the whole, and not make the requisites too few, as in the case of the man of the first degree, whom I persist in not acknowledging as civilized merely because his manners are gentle; nor too many, as in the case of the sage of the third, for then the development of human faculties would be limited to a few individuals, and would produce results purely isolated and typical.
The Baron Von Humboldt's system, however, does honor to that exquisite and generous sensibility, that grand sublimity which was the dominant characteristic of this great mind; and in its purely abstract nature may be compared to the fragile worlds of Brahmin philosophy. Born from the brain of a slumbering god, they rise in the air like the irised bubbles that the child blows from the suds, bursting and succeeding one another as the dreams that amuse the celestial sleeper.
But the character of my researches permits me not to indulge in mere abstractions, however brilliant and attractive; I must arrive at results tangible to practical sense and common experience. I do not wish, like Mr. Guizot, to investigate the conditions more or less favorable to the prosperity of societies, nor, like Mr. William Von Humboldt, to speculate upon the isolated elevation of individual intelligences; my purpose is to encompass, if possible, the aggregate power, moral as well as material, which is developed in great masses of men. It is not without trepidation that I engage in a path in which two of the most admired men of our century have lost themselves; and to avoid the errors into which they have fallen, I shall descend to first principles, and define civilization by first investigating from what causes it results.If the reader, then, will follow me patiently and attentively through the mazes into which I am forced to enter, I shall endeavor to throw as much light as I am capable of, upon this inherently obscure and abstruse subject.
There is no human being so degraded, so brutish, in whom a twofold instinct, if I may be permitted so to call it, is not manifest; the instinct which incites to the gratification of material wants, and that which leads to higher aspirations. The degree of intensity of either of these two is the first and principal measure of the differences among races. In none, not even in the lowest tribes, are the two instincts precisely balanced. Among some, the physical wants or animal propensities preponderate; in others, these are subordinate to the speculative tendencies—the cravings for the abstract, the supernatural. Thus, the lowest of the yellow races seem to me to be dominated rather by the first, the physical instinct, without, however, being absolutely deprived of all capacity for abstractions. On the contrary, among the majority of the black races of corresponding rank, the habits are less active than pensive; imagination there attaches greater value to the things of the invisible than to those of the visible world. I do not thence deduce anyconclusion of superior capacity for civilization on the part of those latter races over the former, for history demonstrates that both are equally insusceptible to attain it. Centuries, thousands of years, have passed by without either of them doing aught to ameliorate their condition, because they have never been able to associate a sufficient number of ideas with the same number of facts, to begin the march of progress. I wish merely to draw attention to the fact, that even among the lowest races we find this double current differently constituted. I shall now follow the ascending scale.
Above the Samoyedes on the one hand, and the Fidas and Pelagian negroes on the other, we must place those tribes who are not content with a mere hut of branches, and a social condition based upon force only, but who are capable of comprehending and aspiring to a better condition. These are one degree above the most barbarous.
If they belong to the first category of races—those who act more than they think, among whom the material tendency predominates over that for the abstract—their development will display itself in a greater perfection of their instruments of labor, and of war, in a greater care and skill in their ornaments, etc. In government, the warriorswill take precedence over the priests; in their intercourse with others, they will show a certain aptitude and readiness for trafficking. Their wars, though still characterized by cruelty, will originate rather in a love of gain, than in the mere gratification of vindictive passions. In one word, material well-being, physical enjoyments, will be the main pursuit of each individual. I find this picture realized among several of the Mongol races, and also, to some extent, among the Quichuas and Azmaras of Peru.
On the other hand, if they belong to the second category—to those who have a predominating tendency for the speculative, the abstract—less care will be bestowed upon the material interests; the influence of the priests will preponderate in the government; in fact, we perceive a complete antithesis to the condition above described. The Dahomees, of Western Africa, and the Caffres of the south, are examples of this state.
Leaving those races whose progressive tendency is not sufficiently vigorous to enable them to extend their influence over great multitudes,[99]we come to those of a higher order, in whom this tendency is so vigorous that they are capable ofincorporating, and bringing within their sphere of action, all those they come in contact with. They soon ingraft their own social and political system upon immense multitudes, and impose upon vast countries the dominion of that combination of facts and ideas—more or less co-ordinate—which we call acivilization. Among these races, again, we find the same difference, the same division, that I already pointed out in those of inferior merit—in some the speculative, in others the more materially active tendency predominates. It is, indeed, among these races only, that this difference has important consequences, and is clearly perceptible. When a tribe, by incorporating with it great multitudes, has become a people, has founded a vast dominion, we find that these two currents or tendencies have augmented in strength, according to the character of the populations which enter into the combination, and there become blended. Whatever tendency prevails among these populations, they will proportionably modify the character of the whole. It will be remarked, moreover, that at different periods of the life of a people, and in strict accordance with the mixture of blood and the fusion of different elements, the oscillation between the two tendencies becomes more violent, and it may happen thattheir relative proportion changes altogether; that one, at first subordinate, in time becomes predominant. The results of this mobility are important, as they influence, in a sensible manner, the character of a civilization, and its stability.[100]
For the sake of simplicity, I shall distinguish the two categories of races by designations expressive of the tendency which predominates in them, and shall call them accordingly, eitherspeculativeorutilitarian.[101]As I have before observed, these terms imply neither praise nor blame. I use them merely for convenience, to designate theleading characteristic, without thereby expressing a total absence of the other. Thus, the most utilitarian of the speculative races would closely approximate to the most speculative of the utilitarian. At the head of the utilitarian category, as its type, I place the Chinese; at the head, and as the type of the other, the Hindoos. Next to the Chinese I would put the majority of the populations of ancient Italy, the first Romans of the time of the republic, and the Germanic tribes. On the opposite side, among the speculative races, I would range next to the Hindoos, the Egyptians, and the nations of the Assyrian empire.
I have said already that the oscillations of the two principles or tendencies sometimes result in the preponderance of one, which before was subordinate, and thus the character of the civilization is changed. Minor modifications, the history of almost every people presents. Thus, even the materialistic utilitarian tendency of the Chinese has been somewhat modified by their amalgamation with tribes of another blood, and a different tendency. In the south, the Yunnan particularly, where this population prevailed, the inhabitants are much less exclusively utilitarian than in the north, where the Chinese element is more pure. If this admixture of blood operated so slight a change in thegenius of that immense nation, that its effects have ceased, or make themselves perceptible only in an exceedingly slow manner, it is because its quantity was so extremely small, compared to the utilitarian population by which it was absorbed.
Into the actual populations of Europe, the Germanic tribes infused a strong utilitarian tendency, and in the north, this has been continually recruited by new accessions of the same ethnical element; but in the south (with some exceptions, Piedmont, and the North of Spain, for example), the Germanic element forms not so great a portion of the whole mass, and the utilitarian tendency has there been overweighed by the opposite genius of the native populations.
Among the speculative races we have signalized the Hindoos. They are endowed in a high degree with the tendency for the supernatural, the abstract. Their character is more meditative than active and practical. As their ancient conquests incorporated with them races of a similar disposition, the utilitarian element has never prevailed sufficiently to produce decided results. While, therefore, their civilization has arrived at a high degree of perfection in other respects, it has lagged far behind in all that promotes material comfort, in all that is strictly useful and practical.
Rome, at first strictly utilitarian, changed its character gradually as the fusion with Greek, Asiatic, and African elements proceeded, and when once the ancient utilitarian population was absorbed in this ethnical inundation, the practical character of Rome was lost.
From the consideration of these and similar facts, I arrive at the conclusion, that all intellectual or moral activity results from the combined action and mutual reaction of these two tendencies, and that the social system can arrive at that development which entitles it to the name of civilization, only in races which possess, in a high degree, either of the two, without being too much deficient in the other.
I now proceed to the examination of other points also deserving of notice.
ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION—CONTINUED.
Definition of the term—Specific differences of civilizations—Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman civilizations—Universality of Chinese civilization—Superficiality of ours—Picture of the social condition of France.
Definition of the term—Specific differences of civilizations—Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman civilizations—Universality of Chinese civilization—Superficiality of ours—Picture of the social condition of France.
When a tribe, impelled by more vigorous instincts than its neighbors, succeeds in collecting the hitherto scattered and isolated fragments into a compact whole, the first impetus of progress is thus given, the corner-stone of a civilization laid. But, to produce great and lasting results, a mere political preponderance is not sufficient. The dominant race must know how to lay hold of the feelings of the masses it has aggregated, to assimilate their individual interests, and to concentrate their energies to the same purposes. When the different elements composing the nation are thus blended into a more or less homogeneous mass, certain principles and modes of thinking becomegeneral, and form the standard around which all rally. These principles and modes of thinking, however, cannot be arbitrarily imposed, and must be resulting from, and in the main consonant with, pre-existing sentiments and desires.[102]They will be characterized by a utilitarian or a speculative tendency, according to the degree in which either instinct predominates in the constituent elements of the nation.
This harmony of views and interests is the first essential to civilization; the second is stability, and is a natural consequence of the first. The general principles upon which the political and social system rests, being based upon instincts common to all, are by all regarded with the most affectionate veneration, and firmly believed to be perpetual. The purer a race remains, the more conservative will it be in its institutions, for its instincts never change. But the admixture of foreign blood produces proportionate modifications in the national ideas. The new-comers introduce instincts and notions which were not calculated upon in the social edifice. Alterations therefore become necessary, and these are often wholesome, especially in the youthful periodof the society, when the new ethnical elements have not as yet acquired an undue preponderance. But, as the empire increases, and comprises elements more and more heterogeneous, the changes become more radical, and are not always for the better. Finally, as the initiatory and conservative element disappears, the different parts of the nation are no longer united by common instincts and interests; the original institutions are not adapted to their wants; sudden and total transformations become common, and a vain phantom of stability is pursued through endless experiments. But, while thus vacillating betwixt conflicting interests, and changing its purpose every hour, the nation imagines itself advancing to some imaginary goal of perfection. Firmly convinced of its own perpetuity, it holds fast to the doctrine which its daily acts disprove, that one of the principal features of a civilization is God-like immutability. And though each day brings forth new discontents and new changes equally futile, the apprehensions of the day are quieted with the expectations of to-morrow.
I have said that the conditions necessary for the development of a civilization are—the aggregation of large masses, and stable institutions resulting from common views and interests. The sociableinclinations of man, and the less noble attributes of his nature, perform the rest. While the former bring him in intimate and varied connections with his fellow-men, the latter give rise to continual contests and emulation. In a large community, a strong fist is no longer sufficient to insure protection and give distinction, and the resources of the mind are applied and developed. Intellect continually seeks and finds new fields for exertion, either in the regions of the abstract, or in the material world. By its productions in either, we recognize an advanced state of society. The most common source of error in judging foreign nations, is that we are apt to look merely at the exterior demonstrations of their civilization, and because, in this respect, their civilization does not resemble ours, we hastily conclude that they are barbarous, or, at least, greatly inferior to us. A conclusion, drawn from such premises, must needs be very superficial, and therefore ought to be received with caution.
I believe myself now prepared to express my idea of a civilization, by defining it as
A state of comparative stability, in which a large collection of individuals strive, by peaceful means, to satisfy their wants, and refine their intelligence and manners.
This definition includes, without exception, all the nations which I have mentioned as being civilized. But, as these nations have few points of resemblance, the question suggests itself: Do not, then, all civilizations tend to the same results? I think not; for, as the nations called to the noble task of accomplishing a civilization, are endowed with the utilitarian and speculative tendencies in various degrees and proportions, their paths must necessarily lie in very divergent directions.
What are the material wants of the Hindoo? Rice and butter for his nourishment, and a piece of cotton cloth for his garment. Nor can this abstemiousness be accounted for by climate, for the native of Thibet, under a much more rigorous sky, displays the same quality. In these peoples, the imaginative faculty greatly predominates, their intellectual efforts are directed to abstractions, and the fruits of their civilization are therefore seldom of a practical or utilitarian character. Magnificent temples are hewn out of mountains of solid rock at an expense of labor and time that terrifies the imagination; gigantic constructions are erected;—all this in honor of the gods, while nothing is done for man's benefit, unless it be tombs. By the side of the miracles wrought by the sculptor's chisel, we admire the finished masterpieces of aliterature full of vigor, and as ingenious and subtle in theology and metaphysics, as beautiful in its variety: in speculative efforts, human thought descends without trepidation to immeasurable depths; its lyric poetry challenges the admiration of all mankind.
But if we leave the domain of idealistic reveries, and seek for inventions of practical utility, and for the sciences that are their theoretical basis, we find a deplorable deficiency. From a dazzling height, we suddenly find ourselves descended to a profound and darksome abyss. Useful inventions are scarce, of a petty character, and, being neglected, remain barren of results. While the Chinese observed and invented a great deal, the Hindoos invented but little, and of that little took no care; the Greeks, also, have left us much information, but little worthy of their genius; and the Romans, once arrived at the culminating point of their history, could no longer make any real progress, for the Asiatic admixture in which they were absorbed with surprising rapidity, produced a population incapable of the patient and toilsome investigation of stern realities. Their administrative genius, however, their legislation, and the useful monuments with which they provided the soil of their territories, attest sufficiently the practicalcharacter which, at one time, so eminently characterized that people; and prove that if the South of Europe had not been so rapidly submerged with colonists from Asia and the North of Africa, positive science would have been the gainer, and less would have been left to be accomplished by the Germanic races, which afterward gave it a renewed impulse.
The Germanic conquerors of the fifth century were characterized by instincts of a similar kind to those of the Chinese, but of a higher order. While they possessed the utilitarian tendency as strongly, if not stronger, they had, at the same time, a much greater endowment of the speculative. Their disposition presented a happy blending of these two mainsprings of activity. Where-ever the Teutonic blood predominates, the utilitarian tendency, ennobled and refined by the speculative, is unmistakable. In England, North America, and Holland, this tendency governs and preponderates over all the other national instincts. It is so, in a lesser degree, in Belgium, and even in the North of France, where everything susceptible of practical application is understood with marvellous facility. But as we advance further south, this predisposition is less apparent, and, finally, disappears altogether. We cannot attributethis to the action of the sun, for the Piedmontese live in a much warmer climate than the Provençals and the inhabitants of the Languedoc; it is the effect of blood.
The series of speculative races, or those rendered so by admixture, occupies the greater portion of the globe, and this observation is particularly applicable to Europe. With the exception of the Teutonic family, and a portion of the Sclavonic, all other groups of our part of the world are but slightly endowed with the faculty for the useful and practical; or, having already acted their part in the world's history, will not be able to recommence it. All these races, from the Gaul to the Celtiberian, and thence to the variegated compounds of the Italian populations, present a descending scale from a utilitarian point of view. Not that they are devoid of all the aptitudes of that tendency, but they are wanting in some of the most essential.
The union of the Germanic tribes with the races of the ancient world, this engrafting of a vigorous utilitarian principle upon the ideas of that variegated compound, produced our civilization; the richness, diversity, and fecundity of our state of culture is the natural result of that combination of so many different elements, whicheach contributed their part, and which the practical vigor of our Germanic ancestors, succeeded in blending into a more or less harmonious whole.
Wherever our state of civilization extends, it is characterized by two traits; the first, that the population contains a greater or less admixture of Teutonic blood; the other, that it is Christian. This last feature, however, as I said before, though the most obvious and striking, is by no means essential, because many nations are Christian, and many more may become so, without participating in our civilization. But the first feature is positive, decisive. Wherever the Germanic element has not penetrated, our civilization cannot flourish.[103]
This leads me to the investigation of a serious and important question: "Can it be asserted that all the European nations are really and thoroughly civilized?" Do the ideas and facts which rise upon the surface of our civilization, strike root in the basis of our social and political structure, and derive their vitality from that source? Are the results of these ideas and facts such as are conformable to the instincts, the tendencies, of the masses? Or, in other words, have the lowest strata of our populations the same direction of thought and action as the highest—that direction which wemay call the spirit or genius of our progressive movement?
To arrive at a true and unbiassed solution of this question, let us examine other civilizations, different from ours, and then institute a comparison.
The similarity of views and ideas, the unity of purpose, which characterized the whole body of citizens in the Grecian states, during the brilliant period of their history, has been justly admired. Upon every essential point, the opinions of every individual, though often conflicting, were, nevertheless, derived from the same source, emanated from the same general views and sentiments; individuals might differ in politics, one wishing a more oligarchical, another a more democratic government; or they might differ in religion, one worshipping, by preference, the Eleusinian Ceres, another the Minerva of the Parthenon; or in matters of taste, one might prefer Æschylus to Sophocles, Alceus to Pindar. At the bottom, the disputants all participated in the same views and ideas, ideas which might well be called national. The question was one of degree, not of kind.[104]
Rome, previous to the Punic wars, presented the same spectacle; the civilization of the country was uniform, and embraced all, from the master to the slave.[105]All might not participate in it to the same extent, but all participated in it and in no other.
But in Rome, after the Punic wars, and in Greece, soon after Pericles, and especially after Philip of Macedon, this character of homogeneity began to disappear. The greater mixture of nations produced a corresponding mixture of civilizations, and the compound thus formed exceeded in variety, elegance, refinement, and learning, the ancient mode of culture. But it had this capital inconvenience, both in Hellas and in Italy, that it belonged exclusively to the higher classes. Its nature, its merits, its tendencies, were ignored by the sub-strata of the population. Let us take the civilization of Rome after the Asiatic wars. It was a grand, magnificent monument of human genius. It had a cosmopolitan character: the rhetoricians of Greece contributed to it the transcendental spirit, the jurists and publicists of Syria and Alexandria gave it a code of atheistic, levelling, and monarchical laws—each part of the empire furnished to the common store some portion of its ideas, its sciences, and its character. But whom did this civilization embrace? The men engaged in the public administration or in great monetary enterprises, the people of wealth and of leisure. It was merely submitted to, not adopted by the masses. The populations of Europe understood nothing of those Asiatic and African contributions to the civilization; the inhabitantsof Egypt, Numidia, or Asia, were equally uninterested in what came from Gaul and Spain, countries with which they had nothing in common. But a small minority of the Roman people stood on the pinnacle, and being in possession of the secret, valued it. The rest, those not included in the aristocracy of wealth and position, preserved the civilization peculiar to the land of their birth, or, perhaps, had none at all. Here, then, we have an example of a great and highly perfected civilization, dominating over untold millions, but founding its reign not in their desires or convictions, but in their exhaustion, their weakness, their listlessness.
A very different spectacle is presented in China. The boundless extent of that empire includes, indeed, several races markedly distinct, but I shall speak at present only of the national race, the Chinese proper. One spirit animates the whole of this immense multitude, which is counted by hundreds of millions. Whatever we think of their civilization, whether we admire or censure the principles upon which it is based, the results which it has produced, and the direction which it takes; we cannot deny that it pervades all ranks, that every individual takes in it a definite and intelligent part. And this is not because the country isfree, in our sense of the word: there is no democratic principle which secures, by law, to every one the position which his efforts may attain, and thus spurs him on to exertions. No; I discard all Utopian pictures. The peasant and the man of the middle classes, in the Celestial Empire, are no better assured of rising by their own merit only, than they are elsewhere. It is true that, in theory, public honors are solely the reward of merit, and every one is permitted to offer himself as a candidate;[106]but it is well known that, in reality, the families of great functionaries monopolize all lucrative offices, and that the scholastic diplomas often cost more money than efforts of study. Butdisappointed or hopeless ambition never leads the possessor to imagine a different system; the aim of the reformer is to remedy the abuses of the established organization, not to substitute another. The masses may groan under ills and abuses, but the fault is charged, not to the social and political system, which to them is an object of unqualified admiration, but to the persons to whose care the performance of its duties is committed. The head of the government, or his functionaries, may become unpopular, but the form itself, the government, never. A very remarkable feature of the Chinese is that among them primary instruction is so universal; it reaches classes whom we hardly imagine to have any need of it. The cheapness of books, the immense number and low price of the schools, enable even the poorest to acquire the elements of knowledge, reading and writing.[107]Thelaws, their spirit and tendency, are well known and understood by all classes, and the government prides itself upon facilitating the study of this useful science.[108]The instinct of the masses is decidedly averse to all political convulsions. Mr. Davis, whowas commissioner of H. B. Majesty in China, and who studied its affairs with the assiduity of a man who is interested in understanding them well, says that the character of the people cannot be better expressed than by calling them "a nation of steady conservatives."[109]
Here, then, we have a most striking contrast to the civilization of Rome in her latter days, when governmental changes occurred in fearfully rapid succession, until the arrival of the nations of the north. In every portion of that vast empire, there were whole populations that had no interest in the preservation of established order, and were ever ready to second the maddest schemes, to embark in any enterprise that seemed to promise advantage, or that was represented in seductive colors by some ambitious demagogue. During that long period of several centuries, no scheme was left untried: property, religion, the sanctity of family relations, were all called in question, and innovators in every portion of the empire, found multitudes ever disposed to carry their theories into practice by force. Nothing in the Greco-Roman world rested on a solid basis, not even the imperial unity, so indispensable, it would seem, to the mereself-preservation of such a state of society. It was not only the armies, with their swarm ofimprovistoCæsars, that undertook the task of shaking this palladium of national safety; the emperors themselves, beginning with Diocletian, had so little faith in monarchy, that they willingly made the experiment of dualism in the government, and finally found four at a time not too many for governing the empire.[110]I repeat it, not one institution, not one principle, was stable in that wretched state of society, which continued to preserve some outward form, merely from the physical impossibility of assuming any others, until the men of the north came to assist in its demolition.
Between these two great societies, then, the Roman empire, and that of China, we perceive themost complete contrast. By the side of the civilization of Eastern Asia, I may mention that of India, Thibet, and other portions of Central Asia, which is equally universal, and diffused among all ranks and classes. As in China there is a certain level of information to which all attain, so in Hindostan, every one is animated by the same spirit; each individual knows precisely what his caste requires him to learn, to think, to believe. Among the Buddhists of Thibet, and the table-lands of Asia, nothing is rarer than to find a peasant who cannot read, and there everybody has the same convictions upon important subjects.
Do we find this homogeneity in European nations? It is scarce worth while to put the question. Not even the Greco-Roman empire presents incongruities so strange, or contrasts so striking, as are to be found among us; not only among the various nationalities of Europe, but in the bosom of the same sovereignty. I shall not speak of Russia, and the states that form the Austrian empire; the demonstration of my position would there be too facile. Let us turn to Germany; to Italy, Southern Italy in particular; to Spain, which, though in a less degree, presents a similar picture; or to France.
I select France. The difference of manners, in various parts of this country, has struck even the most superficial observer, and it has long since been observed that Paris is separated from the rest of France by a line of demarcation so decided and accurately defined, that at the very gates of the capital, a nation is found, utterly different from that within the walls. Nothing can be more true: those who attach to our political unity the idea of similarity of thoughts, of character—in fine, of nationality, are laboring under a great delusion. There is not one principle that governs society and is connected with our civilization, which is understood in the same manner in all our departments. I do not speak here merely of the peculiarities that characterize the native of Normandy, of Brittany, Angevin, Limousin, Gascony, Provence. Every one knows how little alike these various populations are,[111]and how they differ in their tendencies and modes of thinking. Iwish to draw attention to the fact, that while in China, Thibet, India, the most essential ideas upon which the civilization is based, are common to all classes, participated in by all, it is by no means so among us. The very rudiments of our knowledge, the most elementary and most generally accessible portion of it, remain an impenetrable mystery to our rural populations, among whom but few individuals are found acquainted with reading and writing. This is not for want of opportunities—it is because no value is attached to these acquisitions, because their utility is not perceived. I speak from my own observation, and that of persons who had ample facilities, and brought extensive information and great judgment to the task of investigation. Government has made the most praiseworthy efforts to remedy the evil, to raise the peasantry from the sink of ignorance in which they vegetate. But the wisest laws, and the most carefully calculated institutions have proved abortive. The smallest village affords ample opportunities for common education; even the adult, when conscription forces him into the army, finds in the regimental schools every facility for acquiring the most necessary branches of knowledge. Compulsion is resorted to—every one who has lived in the provinces knows with whatsuccess. Parents send their children to school with undisguised repugnance, for they regret the time thus spent as wasted, and, therefore, eagerly seize the most trifling pretext for withdrawing them, and never suffer them to exceed the legal term of attendance. So soon as the young man leaves school, or the soldier has served his time, they hasten to forget what they were compelled to learn, and what they are heartily ashamed of. They return forever after to the localpatois[112]of their birthplace, and pretend to have forgotten the French language, which, indeed, is but too often true. It is a painful conclusion, but one which many and careful observations have forced upon me, that all the generous private and public endeavors to instruct our rural population, are absolutely futile, and can tend no further than to enforce an outward compliance. They care not for the knowledge we wish to give them—they will not have it, and this not from mere negligence or apathy, but from a feeling of positive hostility toour civilization. This is a startling assertion, but I have not yet adduced all the proofs in support of it.
In those parts of the country where the laboring classes are employed in manufactures principally, and in the great cities, the workmen are easily induced to learn to read and write. The circumstances with which they are surrounded, leave them no doubt as to the practical advantages accruing to them from these acquisitions. But so soon as these men have sufficiently mastered the first elements of knowledge, to what use do they, for the most part, apply them? To imbibe or give vent to ideas and sentiments the most subversive of all social order. The instinctive, but passive hostility to our civilization, is superseded by a bitter and active enmity, often productive of the most fearful calamities. It is among these classes that the projectors of the wildest, most incendiary schemes readily recruit their partisans; that the advocates of socialism, community of goods and wives, all, in fact, who, under the pretext of removing the ills and abuses that afflict the social system, propose to tear it down, find ready listeners and zealous believers.
There are, however, portions of the country to which this picture does not apply; and these exceptionsfurnish me with another proof in favor of my proposition. Among the agricultural and manufacturing populations of the north and northeast, information is general; it is readily received, and, once received, retained and productive of good fruits. These people are intelligent, well-informed, and orderly, like their neighbors in Belgium and the whole of the Netherlands. And these, also, are the populations most closely akin to the Teutonic race, the race which, as I said in another place, gave the initiative to our civilization.
The aversion to our civilization, of which I spoke, is not the only singular feature in the character of our rural populations. If we penetrate into the privacy of their thoughts and beliefs, we make discoveries equally striking and startling. The bishops and parish clergy have to this day, as they had one, five, or fifteen centuries ago, to battle with mysterious superstitions, or hereditary tendencies, some of which are the more formidable as they are seldom openly avowed, and can, therefore, be neither attacked nor conquered. There is no enlightened priest, that has the care of his flock at heart, but knows from experience with what deep cunning the peasant, however devout, knows how to conceal in his own bosom some fondly cherished traditional idea or belief, which reveals itself only atlong intervals, and without his knowledge. If he is spoken to about it, he denies or evades the discussion, but remains unshaken in his convictions. He has unbounded confidence in his pastor, unbounded except upon this one subject, that might not inappropriately be called his secret religion. Hence that taciturnity and reserve which, in all our provinces, is the most marked characteristic of the peasant, and which he never for a moment lays aside towards the class he callsbourgeois; that impassable barrier between him and even the most popular and well-intentioned landed proprietor of his district.
It must not be supposed that this results merely from rudeness and ignorance. Were it so, we might console ourselves with the hope that they will gradually improve and assimilate with the more enlightened classes. But these people are precisely like certain savages; at a superficial glance they appear unreflecting and brutish, because their exterior is humble, and their character requires to be studied. But so soon as we penetrate, however little, into their own circle of ideas, the feelings that govern their private life, we discover that in their obstinate isolation from our civilization, they are not actuated by a feeling of degradation. Their affections and antipathiesdo not arise from mere accidental circumstances, but, on the contrary, are in accordance with logical reasoning based upon well-defined and clearly conceived ideas.[113]In speaking of theirreligious notions awhile ago, I should have remarked what an immense distance there is between our doctrines of morals and those of the peasantry, how widely different are their ideas from thosewhich we attach to the same word.[114]With what pertinacious obstinacy they continue to look upon every one not peasant like themselves, as the people of remote antiquity looked upon a foreigner. It is true they do not kill him, thanks to the singular and mysterious terror which the laws, in the making of which they have no part, inspire them; but they hate him cordially, distrust him, and if they can do so without too great a risk, fleece him without scruple and with immense satisfaction. Yet they are not wicked or ill-disposed. Among themselves they are kind-hearted, charitable, and obliging. But then they regard themselves as a distinct race—a race, they tell you—that is weak, oppressed, and that must resort to cunning and stratagem to gain their due, but which, nevertheless, preserves its pride and contempt for all others. In many of our provinces, the laborer believes himself of much better stock than his former lordor present employer. The family pride of many of our peasants is, to say the least, as great as that of the nobility during the Middle Ages.[115]
It cannot be doubted that the lower strata of the population of France have few features in common with the higher. Our civilization penetrates but little below the surface. The great mass is indifferent—nay, positively hostile to it. The most tragic events have stained the country with torrents of blood, unparalleled convulsions have destroyed every ancient fabric, both social and political. Yet the agricultural populations have never been roused from their apathetic indifference,[116]have never taken any other part but thatto which they were forced. When their own personal and immediate interests were not at stake, they allowed the tempests to blow by without concern, without even passive sympathy on one side or the other. Many persons, frightened and scandalized at this spectacle, have declared the peasantry as irreclaimably perverse. This is at the same time an injustice, and a very false appreciation of their character. The peasants regard us almost as their enemies. They comprehend nothing of our civilization, contribute nothing to it of their own accord, and they think themselves authorized to profit by its disasters, whenever they can. Apart from this antagonism, which sometimesdisplays itself in an active, but oftener in a passive manner, it cannot be doubted that they possess moral qualities of a high order, though often singularly applied.
Such is the state of civilization in France. It may be asserted that of a population of thirty-six millions, ten participate in the ideas and mode of thinking upon which our civilization is based, while the remaining twenty-six altogether ignore them, are indifferent and even hostile to them, and this computation would, I think, be even more flattering than the real truth. Nor is France an exception in this respect. The picture I have given applies to the greater part of Europe. Our civilization is suspended, as it were, over an unfathomable gulf, at the bottom of which there slumber elements which may, one day, be roused and prove fearfully, irresistibly destructive. This is an awful, an ominous truth. Upon its ultimate consequences it is painful to reflect. Wisdom may, perhaps, foresee the storm, but can do little to avert it.
But ignored, despised, or hated as it is by the greater number of those over whom it extends its dominion, our civilization is, nevertheless, one of the grandest, most glorious monuments of the human mind. In the inventive, initiatory qualityit does not surpass, or even equal some of its predecessors, but in comprehensiveness it surpasses all. From this comprehensiveness arise its powers of appropriation, of conquest; for, to comprehend is to seize, to possess. It has appropriated all their acquisitions, and has remodelled, reconstructed them. It did not create the exact sciences, but it has given them their exactitude, and has disembarrassed them from the divagations from which, by a singular paradox, they were anciently less free than any other branch of knowledge. Thanks to its discoveries, the material world is better known than at any other epoch. The laws by which nature is governed, it has, in a great measure, succeeded in unveiling, and it has applied them so as to produce results truly wonderful. Gradually, and by the clearness and correctness of its induction, it has reconstructed immense fragments of history, of which the ancients had no knowledge; and as it recedes from the primitive ages of the world, it penetrates further into the mist that obscures them. These are great points of superiority, and which cannot be contested.
But these being admitted, are we authorized to conclude—as is so generally assumed as a matter of course—that the characteristics of our civilization are such as to entitle it to the pre-eminenceamong all others? Let us examine what are its peculiar excellencies. Thanks to the prodigious number of various elements that contributed to its formation, it has an eclectic character which none of its predecessors or contemporaries possess. It unites and combines so many various qualities and faculties, that its progress is equally facile in all directions; and it has powers of analysis and generalization so great, that it can embrace and appropriate all things, and, what is more, apply them to practical purposes. In other words, it advances at once in a number of different directions, and makes valuable conquests in all, but it cannot be said that it advances at the same timefurthestin all. Variety, perhaps, rather than great intensity, is its characteristic. If we compare its progress in any one direction with what has been done by others in the same, we shall find that in few, indeed, can our civilization claim pre-eminence. I shall select three of the most striking features of every civilization; the art of government, the state of the fine arts, and refinement of manners.
In the art of government, the civilization of Europe has arrived at no positive result. In this respect, it has been unable to assume a definite character. It has laid down no principles. Inevery country over which its dominion extends, it is subservient to the exigencies of the various races which it has aggregated, but not united. In England, Holland, Naples, and Russia, political forms are still in a state of comparative stability, because either the whole population, or the dominant portion of it, is composed of the same or homogeneous elements. But everywhere else, especially in France, Central Italy, and Germany, where the ethnical diversity is boundless, governmental theories have never risen to the dignity of recognized truth; political science consisted in an endless series of experiments. Our civilization, therefore, being unable to assume a definite political feature, is devoid, in this respect, of that stability which I comprised as an essential feature in my definition of a civilization. This impotency is not found in many other civilizations which we deem inferior. In the Celestial Empire, in the Buddhistic and Brahminical societies, the political feature of the civilization is clearly enounced, and clearly understood by each individual member. In matters of politics all think alike; under a wise administration, when the secular institutions produce beneficent fruits, all rejoice; when in unskilled or malignant hands, they endanger the public welfare, it is a misfortune to be regrettedas we regret our own faults; but no circumstance can abate the respect and admiration with which they are regarded. It may be desirable to correct abuses that have crept into them, but never to replace them by others. It cannot be denied that these civilizations, therefore, whatever we may think of them in other respects, enjoy a guarantee of durability, of longevity, in which ours is sadly wanting.
With regard to the arts, our civilization is decidedly inferior to others. Whether we aim at the grand or the beautiful, we cannot rival either the imposing grandeur of the civilization of Egypt, of India, or even of the ancient American empires, nor the elegant beauty of that of Greece. Centuries hence—when the span of time allotted to us shall have been consumed, when our civilization, like all that preceded it, shall have sunk in the dim shades of the past, and have become a matter of inquiry only to the historical student—some future traveller may wander among the forests and marshes on the banks of the Thames, the Seine, or the Rhine, but he will find no glorious monuments of our grandeur; no sumptuous or gigantic ruins like those of Philæ, of Nineveh, of Athens, of Salsetta, or of Tenochtitlan. A remote posteritymay venerate our memory as their preceptors in exact sciences. They may admire our ingenuity, our patience, the perfection to which we have carried inductive reasoning—not so our conquests in the regions of the abstract. In poesy we can bequeath them nothing. The boundless admiration which we bestow upon the productions of foreign civilizations both past and present, is a positive proof of our own inferiority in this respect.[117]
Perhaps the most striking features of a civilization, though not a true standard of its merit, is the degree of refinement which it has attained. By refinement I mean all the luxuries and amenities of life, the regulations of social intercourse, delicacy of habits and tastes. It cannot be denied that in all these we do not surpass, nor even equal, many former as well as contemporaneous civilizations. We cannot rival the magnificence of the latter days of Rome, or of the Byzantine empire; we can but imagine the gorgeous luxury of Eastern civilizations; and in our own past history we find periods when the modes of living were more sumptuous, polished intercourse regulated by a higher and more exacting standard, when taste was more cultivated, and habits more refined. It is true, that we are amply compensated by a greater and more general diffusion of the comforts of life; but in its exterior manifestations, our civilization compares unfavorably with many others, and might almost be called shabby.
Before concluding this digression upon civilization,which has already extended perhaps too far, it may not be unnecessary to reiterate the principal ideas which I wished to present to the mind of the reader. I have endeavored to show that every civilization derives its peculiar character from the race which gave the initiatory impulse. The alteration of this initiatory principle produces corresponding modifications, and even total changes, in the character of the civilization. Thus our civilization owes its origin to the Teutonic race, whose leading characteristic was an elevated utilitarianism. But as these races ingrafted their mode of culture upon stocks essentially different, the character of the civilization has been variously modified according to the elements which it combined and amalgamated. The civilization of a nation, therefore, exhibits the kind and degree of their capabilities. It is the mirror in which they reflect their individuality.
I shall now return to the natural order of my deductions, the series of which is yet far from being complete. I commenced by enouncing the truth that the existence and annihilation of human societies depended upon immutable and uniform laws. I have proved the insufficiency of adventitious circumstances to produce these phenomena, and have traced their causes to the various capabilitiesof different human groups; in other words, to the moral and intellectual diversity of races. Logic, then, demands that I should determine the meaning and bearing of the word race, and this will be the object of the next chapter.