Thus Mr Buckle attempts to prove that man's development is wholly dependent upon his physical surroundings. Huxley points to a system of reflex actions,—mind acting on matter, and matter on mind,—as the possible culture-basis. Darwin advances the doctrine of an evolution from vivified matter as the principle of progressive development. In the transmution of nerve-element from parents to children, Bagehot sees "the continuous force which binds age to age, which enables each to begin with some improvement on the last, if the last did itself improve; which makes each civilization not a set of detached dots, but a line of color, surely enhancing shade by shade." Some see in human progress the ever-ruling hand of a divine providence, others the results of man's skill; with some it is free will, with others necessity; some believe that intellectual development springs from better systems of government, others that wealth lies at the foundation of all culture; every philosopher recognizes some cause, invents some system, or brings human actions under the dominion of some species of law.
As in animals of the same genus or species, inhabiting widely different localities, we see the results of common instincts, so in the evolutions of the human race, divided by time or space, we see the same general principles at work. So too it would seem, whether species are one or many, whether man is a perfectly created being or an evolution from a lower form, that all the human races of the globe are formed on onemodel and governed by the same laws. In the customs, languages, and myths of ages and nations far removed from each other in social, moral, and mental characteristics, innumerable and striking analogies exist. Not only have all nations weapons, but many who are separated from each other by a hemisphere use the same weapon; not only is belief universal, but many relate the same myth; and to suppose the bow and arrow to have had a common origin, or that all flood-myths, and myths of a future life are but offshoots from Noachic and Biblical narratives is scarcely reasonable.
It is easier to tell what civilization is not, and what it does not spring from, than what it is and what its origin. To attribute its rise to any of the principles, ethical, political, or material, that come under the cognizance of man, is fallacy, for it is as much an entity as any other primeval principle; nor may we, with Archbishop Whately, entertain the doctrine that civilization never could have arisen had not the Creator appeared upon earth as the first instructor; for, unfortunately for this hypothesis, the aboriginals supposedly so taught, were scarcely civilized at all, and compare unfavorably with the other all-perfect works of creation; so that this sort of reasoning, like innumerable other attempts of man to limit the powers of Omnipotence, and narrow them down to our weak understandings, is little else than puerility.
SOCIETY ESSENTIAL TO INTELLECT.
Nor, as we have seen, is this act of civilizing the effect of volition; nor, as will hereafter more clearly appear, does it arise from an inherent principle of good any more than from an inherent principle of evil. The ultimate result, though difficult of proof, we take for granted to be good, but the agencies employed for its consummation number among them more of those we call evil than of those we call good. The isolated individual never, by any possibility, can become civilized like the social man; he cannot even speak, and without a flow of words there can be no complete flowof thought. Send him forth away from his fellow-man to roam the forest with the wild beasts, and he would be almost as wild and beastlike as his companions; it is doubtful if he would ever fashion a tool, but would not rather with his claws alone procure his food, and forever remain as he now is, the most impotent of animals. The intellect, by which means alone man rises above other animals, never could work, because the intellect is quickened only as it comes in contact with intellect. The germ of development therein implanted cannot unfold singly any more than the organism can bear fruit singly. It is a well-established fact that the mind without language cannot fully develop; it is likewise established that language is not inherent, that it springs up between men, not in them. Language, like civilization, belongs to society, and is in no wise a part or the property of the individual. "For strangely in this so solid-seeming World," says Carlyle, "which nevertheless is in continual restless flux, it is appointed that Sound, to appearance the most fleeting, should be the most continuing of all things." And further, as remarked by Herbert Spencer: "Now that the transformation and equivalence of forces is seen by men of science to hold not only throughout all inorganic actions, but throughout all organic actions; now that even mental changes are recognized as the correlatives of cerebral changes, which also conform to this principle; and now that there must be admitted the corollary, that all actions going on in a society are measured by certain antecedent energies, which disappear in effecting them, while they themselves become actual or potential energies from which subsequent actions arise; it is strange that there should not have arisen the consciousness that these higher phenomena are to be studied as lower phenomena have been studied—not, of course, after the same physical methods, but in conformity with the same principles."
We may hold then, a priori, that this progressionalprinciple exists; that it exists not more in the man than around him; that it requires an atmosphere in which to live, as life in the body requires an atmosphere which is its vital breath, and that this atmosphere is generated only by the contact of man with man. Under analysis this social atmosphere appears to be composed of two opposing principles—good and evil—which, like attraction and repulsion, or positive and negative electricity, underlie all activities. One is as essential to progress as the other; either, in excess or disproportionately administered, like an excess of oxygen or of hydrogen in the air, becomes pernicious, engenders social disruptions and decay which continue until the equilibrium is restored; yet all the while with the progress of humanity the good increases while the evil diminishes. Every impulse incident to humanity is born of the union of these two opposing principles. For example, as I have said, and will attempt more fully to show further on, association is the first requisite of progress. But what is to bring about association? Naked nomads will not voluntarily yield up their freedom, quit their wanderings, hold conventions and pass resolutions concerning the greatest good to the greatest number; patriotism, love, benevolence, brotherly kindness, will not bring savage men together; extrinsic force must be employed, an iron hand must be laid upon them which will compel them to unite, else there can be no civilization; and to accomplish this first great good to man,—to compel mankind to take the initial step toward the amelioration of their condition,—it is ordained that an evil, or what to us of these latter times is surely an evil, come forward,—and that evil is War.
EVIL AS A STIMULANT OF PROGRESS.
Primeval man, in his social organization, is patriarchal, spreading out over vast domains in little bands or families, just large enough to be able successfully to cope with wild beasts. And in that state humanity would forever remain did not some terrible cause force these bands to confederate. War is an evil,originating in hateful passions and ending in dire misery; yet without war, without this evil, man would forever remain primitive. But something more is necessary. War brings men together for a purpose, but it is insufficient to hold them together; for when the cause which compacted them no longer exists, they speedily scatter, each going his own way. Then comes in superstition to the aid of progress. A successful leader is first feared as a man, then reverenced as a supernatural being, and finally himself, or his descendant, in the flesh or in tradition, is worshiped as a god. Then an unearthly fear comes upon mankind, and the ruler, perceiving his power, begins to tyrannize over his fellows. Both superstition and tyranny are evils; yet, without war superstition and tyranny, dire evils, civilization, which many deem the highest good, never by any possibility, as human nature is, could be. But more of the conditions of progress hereafter; what I wish to establish here is, that evil is no less a stimulant of development than good, and that in this principle of progress are manifest the same antagonism of forces apparent throughout physical nature; the same oppugnant energies, attractive and repulsive, positive and negative, everywhere existing. It is impossible for two or more individuals to be brought into contact with each other, whether through causes or for purposes good or evil, without ultimate improvement to both. I say whether through causes or for purposes good or evil, for, to the all-pervading principle of evil, civilization is as much indebted as to the all-pervading principle of good. Indeed, the beneficial influences of this unwelcome element have never been generally recognized. Whatever be this principle of evil, whatever man would be without it, the fact is clearly evident that to it civilization, whatever that may be, owes its existence. "The whole tendency of political economy and philosophical history," says Lecky, "which reveal the physiology of society, is to show that the happiness and welfareof mankind are evolved much more from our selfish than what are termed our virtuous acts." No wonder that devil-worship obtains, in certain parts, when to his demon the savage finds himself indebted for skill not only to overthrow subordinate deities, but to cure diseases, to will an enemy to death, to minister to the welfare of departed friends, as well as to add materially to his earthly store of comforts. The world, such as it is, man finds himself destined for a time to inhabit. Within him and around him the involuntary occupant perceives two agencies at work; agencies apparently oppugnant, yet both tending to one end—improvement; and Night or Day, Love or Crime, leads all souls to the Good, as Emerson sings. The principle of evil acts as a perpetual stimulant, the principle of good as a reward of merit. United in their operation, there is a constant tendency toward a better condition, a higher state; apart, the result would be inaction. For, civilization being a progression and not a fixed condition, without incentives, that is without something to escape from and something to escape to, there could be no transition, and hence no civilization.
Had man been placed in the world perfected and sinless, obviously there would be no such thing as progress. The absence of evil implies perfect good, and perfect good perfect happiness. Were man sinless and yet capable of increasing knowledge, the incentive would be wanting, for, if perfectly happy, why should he struggle to become happier? The advent of civilization is in the appearance of a want, and the first act of civilization springs from the attempt to supply the want. The man or nation that wants nothing remains inactive, and hence does not advance; so that it is not in what we have but in what we have not that civilization consists. These wants are forced upon us, implanted within us, inseparable from our being; they increase with an increasing supply, grow hungry from what they feed on; in quick succession, aspirations,emulations, and ambitions spring up and chase each other, keeping the fire of discontent ever glowing, and the whole human race effervescent.
The tendency of civilizing force, like the tendency of mechanical force, is toward an equilibrium, toward a never-attainable rest. Obviously there can be no perfect equilibrium, no perfect rest, until all evil disappears, but in that event the end of progress would be attained, and humanity would be perfect and sinless.
Man at the outset is not what he may be, he is capable of improvement or rather of growth; but childlike, the savage does not care to improve, and consequently must be scourged into it. Advancement is the ultimate natural or normal state of man; humanity on this earth is destined some day to be relatively, if not absolutely, good and happy.
The healthy body has appetites, in the gratification of which lies its chiefest enjoyment; the healthy mind has proclivities, the healthy soul intuitions, in the exercise and activities of which the happiest life is attainable; and in as far as the immaterial and immortal in our nature is superior to the material and mortal, in so far does the education and development of our higher nature contribute in a higher degree to our present benefit and our future well-being.
LABOR A CIVILIZING AGENT.
There is another thought in this connection well worthy our attention. In orthodox and popular parlance, labor is a curse entailed on man by vindictive justice; yet viewed as a civilizing agent, labor is man's greatest blessing. Throughout all nature there is no such thing found as absolute inertness; and, as in matter, so with regard to our faculties, no sooner do they begin to rest than they begin to rot, and even in the rotting they can obtain no rest. One of the chief objects of labor is to get gain, and Dr Johnson holds that "men are seldom more innocently employed than when they are making money."
Human experience teaches, that in the effort is greater pleasure than in the end attained; that labor isthe normal condition of man; that in acquisition, that is progress, is the highest happiness; that passive enjoyment is inferior to the exhilaration of active attempt. Now imagine the absence from the world of this spirit of evil, and what would be the result? Total inaction. But before inaction can become more pleasurable than action, man's nature must be changed. Not to say that evil is a good thing, clearly there is a goodness in things evil; and in as far as the state of escaping from evil is more pleasurable than the state of evil escaped from, in so far is evil conducive to happiness.
The effect of well-directed labor is twofold; by exercise our faculties strengthen and expand, and at the same time the returns of that labor give us leisure in which to direct our improved faculties to yet higher aims. By continual efforts to increase material comforts, greater skill is constantly acquired, and the mind asserts more and more its independence. Increasing skill yields ever increased delights, which encourage and reward our labor. This, up to a certain point; but with wealth and luxury comes relaxed energy. Without necessity there is no labor; without labor no advancement. Corporeal necessity first forces corporeal activity; then the intellect goes to work to contrive means whereby labor may be lessened and made more productive.
EVIL TENDS TO DISAPPEAR.
The discontent which arises from discomfort, lies at the root of every movement; but then comfort is a relative term and complete satisfaction is never attained. Indeed, as a rule, the more squalid and miserable the race, the more are they disposed to settle down and content themselves in their state of discomfort. What is discomfort to one is luxury to another; "the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain"; in following the intellectual life, the higher the culture the greater the discontent; the greater the acquisition, the more eagerly do men press forward toward some higher and greater imaginary good. Weall know that blessings in excess become the direst curses; but few are conscious where the benefit of a blessing terminates and the curse begins, and fewer still of those who are able thus to discriminate have the moral strength to act upon that knowledge. As a good in excess is an evil, so evil as it enlarges outdoes itself and tends toward self-annihilation. If we but look about us, we must see that to burn up the world in order to rid it of gross evil—a dogma held by some—is unnecessary, for accumulative evils ever tend towards reaction. Excessive evils are soonest remedied; the equilibrium of the evil must be maintained, or the annihilation of the evil ensues.
Institutions and principles essentially good at one time are essential evils at another time. The very aids and agencies of civilization become afterward the greatest drags upon progress. At one time it would seem that blind faith was essential to improvement, at another time skepticism, at one time order and morality, at another time lawlessness and rapine; for so it has ever been, and whether peace and smiling plenty, or fierce upheavals and dismemberments predominate, from every social spasm as well as fecund leisure, civilization shoots forward in its endless course. The very evils which are regarded as infamous by a higher culture were the necessary stepping-stones to that higher life. As we have seen, no nation ever did or can emerge from barbarism without first placing its neck under the yokes of despotism and superstition; therefore, despotism and superstition, now dire evils, were once essential benefits. No religion ever attained its full development except under persecution. Our present evils are constantly working out for humanity unforeseen good. All systems of wrongs and fanaticisms are but preparing us for and urging us on to a higher state.
If then civilization is a predestined, ineluctable, and eternal march away from things evil toward that which is good, it must be that throughout the worldthe principle of good is ever increasing and that of evil decreasing. And this is true. Not only does evil decrease, but the tendency is ever toward its disappearance. Gradually the confines of civilization broaden; the central principle of human progress attains greater intensity, and the mind assumes more and more its lordly power over matter.
The moment we attempt to search out the cause of any onward movement we at once encounter this principle of evil. The old-time aphorism that life is a perpetual struggle; the first maxim of social ethics 'the greatest happiness to the greatest number'; indeed, every thought and action of our lives points in the same direction. From what is it mankind is so eager to escape; with what do we wrestle; for what do we strive? We fly from that which gives pain to that which gives pleasure; we wrestle with agencies which bar our escape from a state of infelicity; we long for happiness.
IS CIVILIZATION CONDUCIVE TO HAPPINESS?
Then comes the question, What is happiness? Is man polished and refined happier than man wild and unfettered; is civilization a blessing or a curse? Rousseau, we know, held it to be the latter; but not so Virey. "What!" he exclaims, "is he happier than the social man, this being abandoned in his maladies, uncared for even by his children in his improvident old age, exposed to ferocious beasts, in fear of his own kind, even of the cannibal's tooth? The civilized man, surrounded in his feebleness by affectionate attention, sustains a longer existence, enjoys more pleasure and daily comforts, is better protected against inclemencies of weather and all external ills. The isolated man must suffice for himself, must harden himself to endure any privation; his very existence depends upon his strength, and if necessity requires it of him, he must be ready to abandon wife and children and life itself at any moment. Such cruel misery is rare in social life, where the sympathies of humanity are awakened, and freely exercised."
Continue these simple interrogatories a little farther and see where we land. Is the wild bird, forced to long migrations for endurable climates and food, happier than the caged bird which buys a daily plentiful supply for a song? Is the wild beast, ofttimes hungry and hunted, happier than its chained brother of the menagerie? Is the wild horse, galloping with its fellows over the broad prairie, happier than the civilized horse of carriage, cart, or plow? May we not question whether the merchant, deep in his speculating ventures, or the man of law, poring over his brain-tearing brief, derives a keener sense of enjoyment than does the free forest-native, following the war-path or pursuing his game?
As I have attempted to show, civilization is not an end attained, for man is never wholly civilized,—but only the effort to escape from an evil, or an imaginary evil—savagism. I say an evil real or imaginary, for as we have seen, the question has been seriously discussed whether civilization is better or worse than savagism. For every advantage which culture affords, a price must be paid,—some say too great a price. The growth of the mind is dependent upon its cultivation, but this cultivation may be voluntary or involuntary, it may be a thing desired or a thing abhorred.
Every nation, every society, and every person has its or his own standard of happiness. The miser delights in wealth, the city belle in finery, the scholar in learning. The Christian's heaven is a spiritual city, where they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; the Norse-man's a Valhalla of alternate battle and wassail; the Mahometan's, a paradise of houris and lazy sensuality. The martyr at the stake, triumphant in his faith, may be happier than the man of fashion dying of ennui and gout; the savage, wandering through forest and over plain in pursuit of game, or huddled in his hut with wives and children, may be happier than the care-laden speculator or the wrangling politician. Content, the essence of all happiness, is as prevalentamong the poor and ill-mannered, as among the rich, refined and civilized.Ubi bene, ibi patria, where it is well with me, there is my country, is the motto of the Indian,—and to be well with him signifies only to be beyond the reach of hunger and enemies. Ask the savage which is preferable, a native or a cultured state, and he will answer the former; ask the civilized man, and he will say the latter. I do not see any greater absurdity in the wild man saying to the tamed one: Give up the despotisms and diseases of society and throw yourself with me upon beauteous, bounteous nature; than in the European saying to the American: If you would find happiness, abandon your filth and naked freedom, accept Christianity and cotton shirts, go to work in a mission, rot on a reservation, or beg and starve in civilized fashion!
Of all animals, man alone has broken down the barriers of his nature in civilizing, or, as Rousseau expresses it, in denaturalizing himself; and for this denaturalization some natural good must be relinquished; to every infringement of nature's law, there is a penalty attached; for a more delicate organism the price is numberless new diseases; for political institutions the price is native freedom. With polished manners the candidate for civilization must accept affectation, social despotism; with increasing wealth, increasing wants; civilization engenders complexity in society, and in its turn is engendered thereby. Peoples the most highly cultured are moved by the most delicate springs; a finer touch, the result of greater skill, with a finer tone, the result of greater experience, produces music more and yet more exquisite.
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE HUMANITY.
Were man only an animal, this denaturalization and more, would be true. The tamed brute gives up all the benefits of savagism for few of the blessings of civilization; in a cultured state, as compared to a state of wild freedom, its ills are numberless, its advantages infinitesimal. But human nature is twofold, objective and subjective, the former typical of thesavage state, the latter of the civilized. Man is not wholly animal; and by cultivating the mind, that is, by civilizing himself, he is no more denaturalized than by cultivating the body, and thereby acquiring greater physical perfection. We cannot escape our nature; we cannot re-create ourselves; we can only submit ourselves to be polished and improved by the eternal spirit of progress. The moral and the intellectual are as much constituents of human nature as the physical; civilization, therefore, is as much the natural state of man as savagism.
Another more plausible and partially correct assertion is, that by the development of the subjective part of our nature, objective humanity becomes degenerated. The intellectual cannot be wrought up to the highest state of cultivation except at the expense of the physical, nor the physical fully developed without limiting the mental. The efforts of the mind draw from the energies of the body; the highest and healthiest vigor of the body can only be attained when the mind is at rest, or in a state of careless activity. In answer to which I should say that beyond a certain point, it is true; one would hardly train successfully for a prize fight and the tripos at the same time; but that the non-intellectual savage, as a race, is physically superior, capable of enduring greater fatigue, or more skillful in muscular exercise than the civilized man is inconsistent with facts. Civilization has its vices as well as its virtues, savagism has its advantages as well as its demerits.
The evils of savagism are not so great as we imagine; its pleasures more than we are apt to think. As we become more and more removed from evils their magnitude enlarges; the fear of suffering increases as suffering is less experienced and witnessed. If savagism holds human life in light esteem, civilization makes death more hideous than it really is; if savagism is more cruel, it is less sensitive. Combatants accustomed to frequent encounter think lightly ofwounds, and those whose life is oftenest imperiled think least of losing it. Indifference to pain is not necessarily the result of cruelty; it may arise as well from the most exalted sentiment as from the basest.
Civilization not only engenders new vices, but proves the destroyer of many virtues. Among the wealthier classes energy gives way to enjoyment, luxury saps the foundation of labor, progress becomes paralyzed, and with now and then a noble exception, but few earnest workers in the paths of literature, science, or any of the departments which tend to the improvement of mankind, are to be found among the powerful and the affluent, while the middle classes are absorbed in money-getting, unconsciously thereby, it is true, working toward the ends of civilization.
That civilization is expedient, that it is a good, that it is better than savagism, we who profess to be civilized entertain no doubt. Those who believe otherwise must be ready to deny that health is better than disease, truth than superstition, intellectual power than stupid ignorance; but whether the miseries and vices of savagism, or those of civilization are the greater, is another question. The tendency of civilization is, on the whole, to purify the morals, to give equal rights to man, to distribute more equally among men the benefits of this world, to melioriate wholesale misery and degradation, offer a higher aim and the means of accomplishing a nobler destiny, to increase the power of the mind and give it dominion over the forces of nature, to place the material in subservience to the mental, to elevate the individual and regulate society. True, it may be urged that this heaping up of intellectual fruits tends toward monopoly, toward making the rich richer and the poor poorer, but I still hold that the benefits of civilization are for the most part evenly distributed; that wealth beyond one's necessity is generally a curse to the possessor greater than the extreme of poverty, and that the true blessings of culture and refinement like air and sunshine are free to all.
Civilization, it is said, multiplies wants, but then they are ennobling wants, better called aspirations, and many of these civilization satisfies.
If civilization breeds new vices, old ones are extinguished by it. Decency and decorum hide the hideousness of vice, drive it into dark corners, and thereby raise the tone of morals and weaken vice. Thus civilization promotes chastity, elevates woman, breaks down the barriers of hate and superstition between ancient nations and religions; individual energy, the influence of one over the many, becomes less and less felt, and the power of the people becomes stronger.
Civilization in itself can not but be beneficial to man; that which makes society more refined, more intellectual, less bestial, more courteous; that which cures physical and mental diseases, increases the comforts and luxury of life, purifies religions, makes juster governments, must surely be beneficial: it is the universal principle of evil which impregnates all human affairs, alloying even current coin, which raises the question. That there are evils attending civilization as all other benefits, none can deny, but civilization itself is no evil.
CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS.
If I have succeeded in presenting clearly the foregoing thoughts, enough has been said as to the nature and essence of civilization; let us now examine some of the conditions essential to intellectual development. For it must not be forgotten that, while every department of human progress is but the unfolding of a germ; while every tendency of our life, every custom and creed of our civilization finds its rudiment in savagism; while, as man develops, no new elements of human nature are created by the process; while, as the organism of the child is as complex and complete as the organism of the man, so is humanity in a savage state the perfect germ of humanity civilized,—it must not be forgotten in all this, that civilization cannot unfold except under favorable conditions. Just as the plant,though endowed with life which corresponds to the mind-principle in progress, requires for its growth a suitable soil and climate, so this progressional phenomenon must have soil and sunshine before it yields fruit; and this is another proof that civilization is not in the man more than around him; for if the principle were inherent in the individual, then the Hyperborean, with his half year of light and half year of underground darkness, must of necessity become civilized equally with the man born amidst the sharpening jostles of a European capital, for in all those parts that appertain solely to the intrinsic individual, the one develops as perfectly as the other. A people undergoing the civilizing process need not necessarily, does not indeed, advance in every species of improvement at the same time; in some respects the nation may be stationary, in others even retrograde. Every age and every nation has its special line of march. Literature and the fine arts reached their height in pagan Greece; monotheism among the Hebrews; science unfolded in Egypt, and government in Rome.
In every individual there is some one talent that can be cultivated more advantageously than any other; so it is with nations, every people possesses some natural advantage for development in some certain direction over every other people, and often the early history of a nation, like the precocious proclivities of the child, points toward its future; and in such arts and industries as its climate and geographical position best enable it to develop, is discovered the germ of national character. Seldom is the commercial spirit developed in the interior of a continent, or the despotic spirit on the border of the sea, or the predatory spirit in a country wholly devoid of mountains and fastnesses. It cannot be said that one nation or race is inherently better fitted for civilization than another; all may not be equally fitted for exactly the same civilization, but all are alike fitted for that civilization which, if left to itself, each will work out.
Mankind, moreover, advances spasmodically, and in certain directions only at a time, which is the greatest drawback to progress. As Lecky remarks: "Special agencies, such as religious or political institutions, geographical conditions, traditions, antipathies, and affinities, exercise a certain retarding, accelerating, or deflecting influence, and somewhat modify the normal progress." Perfect development only is permanent, and that alone is perfect which develops the whole man and the whole society equally in all its parts; all the activities, mental, moral, and physical, must needs grow in unison and simultaneously, and this alone is perfect and permanent development. Should all the world become civilized there will still be minor differences; some will advance further in one direction and some in another, all together will form the complete whole.
Civilization as an exotic seldom flourishes. Often has the attempt been made by a cultivated people to civilize a barbarous nation, and as often has it failed. True, one nation may force its arts or religion upon another, but to civilize is neither to subjugate nor annihilate; foreigners may introduce new industries and new philosophies, which the uncultured may do well to accept, but as civilization is an unfolding, and not a creation, he who would advance civilization must teach society how to grow, how to enlarge its better self; must teach in what direction its highest interests lie.
Thus it appears that, while this germ of progress is innate in every human society, certain conditions are more favorable to its development than others,—conditions which act as stimulants or impediments to progress. Often we see nations remain apparently stationary, the elements of progress evenly balanced by opposing influences, and thus they remain until by internal force, or external pressure, their system expands or explodes, until they absorb or are absorbedby antagonistic elements. The intrinsic force of the body social appears to demand extrinsic prompting before it will manifest itself. Like the grains of wheat in the hand of Belzoni's mummy, which held life slumbering for three thousand years, and awoke to growth when buried in the ground, so the element of human progress lies dormant until planted in a congenial soil and surrounded by those influences which provoke development.
This stimulant, which acts upon and unfolds the intellect, can be administered only through the medium of the senses. Nerve force, which precedes intellectual force, is supplied by the body; the cravings of man's corporeal nature, therefore, must be quieted before the mind can fix itself on higher things. The first step toward teaching a savage is to feed him; the stomach satisfied he will listen to instruction, not before.
Cultivation of at least the most necessary of the industrial arts invariably precedes cultivation of the fine arts; the intellect must be implanted in a satisfied body before it will take root and grow. The mind must be allowed some respite from its attendance on the body, before culture can commence; it must abandon its state of servitude, and become master; in other words, leisure is an essential of culture.
As association is the primal condition of progress, let us see how nature throws societies together or holds them asunder. In some directions there are greater facilities for intercommunication (another essential of improvement) than in other directions. Wherever man is most in harmony with nature, there he progresses most rapidly; wherever nature offers the greatest advantages, such as a sea that invites to commerce, an elevated plateau lifting its occupants above the malaria of a tropical lowland, a sheltering mountain range that wards off inclement winds and bars out hostile neighbors, there culture flourishes best.
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE STIMULANTS.
So that humanity, in its twofold nature, is dependentfor its development upon two distinct species of stimulants, objective and subjective. Material causations, or those forces which minister to the requirements of man's material nature but upon which his intellectual progress is dependent, are configurations of surface, soil, climate, and food. Those physical conditions which, when favorable, give to their possessors wealth and leisure, are the inevitable precursors of culture. Immaterial causations are those forces which act more directly upon man's immaterial nature, as association, religion, wealth, leisure, and government. Continuing the analysis, let us first examine physical stimulants. Admitting readily two of M. Taine's primordial humanity-moving forces, 'le milieu' or environment, and his 'le moment' or inherited impulse, we will pass over the third force 'la race';—for inherent differences in race, in the present stage of science, are purely hypothetical; it remains yet to be proved that one nation is primarily inherently inferior or superior to another nation. That man once created is moulded and modified by his environment, there can be no doubt. Even a cursory survey of the globe presents some indications favorable and unfavorable to the unfolding of the different forms of organic being.
Great continents, for instance, appear to be congenial to the development of animal life; islands and lesser continents to the growth of exuberant vegetation. Thus, in the eastern hemisphere, which is a compact oval, essentially continental, with vast areas far removed from the influence of the ocean, flourish the elephant, the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, the courageous lion, the fierce tiger, the largest and lordliest of animal kind, while in the more oceanic western hemisphere inferior types prevail. Cold and dryness characterize the one; heat and humidity the other; in one are the greatest deserts, in the other the greatest lakes and rivers. Warm oceanic currents bathe the frosty shores of the northern extremities of the continents and render them habitable; the moisture-ladenequatorial atmosphere clothes the adjacent islands and firm land in emerald verdure. Upon the same parallel of latitude are the great Sahara Desert of Africa, and the wilderness of luxuriant billowy foliage of the American Isthmus. In warm, moist climates, such species of animal life attain the fullest development as are dependent upon the aqueous and herbous agencies. In tropical America are seen the largest reptiles, the most gorgeous insects,—there the inhabitants of warm marshes and sluggish waters assume gigantic proportions, while only upon the broad inland prairies or upon elevated mountain ranges, away from the influences of warm waters and humid atmospheres, are found the buffalo, bear, and elk. The very complexion and temperament of man are affected by these vegetative and umbrageous elements. Unprotected from the perpendicular rays of the sun, the African is black, muscular, and cheerful; under the shadow of primeval forest, man assumes a coppery hue, lacking the endurance of the negro, and becomes in disposition cold and melancholy.
And again, if we look for the natural causes which tend to promote or retard association, we find in climates and continental configurations the chief agencies. The continent of the two Americas, in its greatest length, lies north and south, the eastern continental group extends east and west. Primitive people naturally would spread out in those directions which offered the least change of climate from that of the primitive centre. Obviously, variations of climate are greater in following a meridian than along a parallel of latitude. Thus, the tropical man passing along a meridian is driven back by unendurable cold, while a continent may be traversed on any parallel, elevations excepted, with but little variation in temperature. A savage, exposed and inexperienced, not knowing how to protect himself against severe changes of climate, could not travel far in a northerly or southerly direction without suffering severely from the cold or heat;hence, other things being equal, the inhabitants of a country whose greatest length lay east and west, would intermingle more readily than those whose territory extended north and south.
CLIMATE AND MOUNTAIN RANGES.
That the eastern hemisphere attained a higher degree of civilization than the western, may be partly due to the fact, that the former presents wider spaces of uniform climate than the latter. The climatic zones of the New World, besides being shorter, are intersected by mountain barriers, which tend to retard the intercourse that would otherwise naturally follow. Thus the Mexican table-land, the seat of Aztec civilization, is atierra friasituated above the insalubrioustierra calienteof either coast and the healthfultierra templadaof the slopes, but below the mountain ranges which rise from this table-land, forming atierra frígida, a region of perpetual snow. To this day, the natives of the Mexican plateau cannot live on the sea-coast, though less than a day's journey distant.
Between the climatic zones which extend through Europe and Asia, there are contrasts as marked and changes as sudden, but these differences are between the different zones rather than between longitudinal sections of the same zone. Hence, in the old world, where climatic zones are separated by mountain ranges which make the transition from one to the other sudden and abrupt, we see a greater diversity of race than in America, where the natural barriers extend north and south and intersect the climatic zones, thereby bringing the inhabitants along a meridian in easier communication than those who live in the same latitude but who are separated by mountains, table-lands and large rivers. That is, if color and race are dependent on climate, America should offer greater varieties in color and race than Europe, for America traverses the most latitudes; but the mountain barriers of America extend north and south, thereby forcing its people to intermingle, if at all, in that direction, while the chief ranges of the eastern continent extend east and west,parallel with climatic zones, thereby forming in themselves distinctly marked lines between peoples, forcing the African to remain under his burning sun, and the northmen in their cooler latitudes; so that in the several climatic zones of the old world, we see the human race distinctly marked, Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian—white, black, and yellow—while throughout the two Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, type and color are singularly uniform.
Who can picture the mighty tide of humanity, which, while the eastern hemisphere has been developing so high a state of culture, in America has ebbed and flowed between barbarisms and civilizations? Through what long and desperate struggles, continuing age after age through the lives of nations, now advancing, now receding, have these peoples passed? Asia, from its central position and favorable climate, would seem naturally to encourage a redundant population and a spontaneous civilization; the waters of the Mediterranean invite commerce and intercommunication of nations, while the British Isles, from their insular situation and distance from hypothetical primitive centres, would seem necessarily to remain longer in a state of barbarism. In the Pacific States of North America we find the densest population north along the shores of the ocean, and south on the cordillera table-land, from the fact that the former offers the best facilities for food and locomotion until the latter is reached, when the interior presents the most favorable dwelling-place for man.
Climate affects both mental and moral endowments, the temperament of the body, and the texture of the brain; physical energy, and mental vigor. Temperate climates are more conducive to civilization, not for the reason given by Mr Harris, "as developing the higher qualities, and not invigorating the baser feelings", for the Hyperborean is as unchaste and as great a slave to passion as the sub-equatorial man—but because atemperate climate, while it lures to exertion, rewards the laborer.
THE INFLUENCE OF FOOD.
Next, let us consider the agency of food in human development. The effect of food is to supply the body with caloric, which is essential to its life, and to repair the muscular fibres which are constantly undergoing waste in our daily activities. These two effects are produced by two different kinds of diet; carbonized food, such as animal flesh, fish, oils and fats, and oxidized food, which consists chiefly of vegetables. In hot climates, obviously, less carbonized food is required to keep up the necessary temperature of the body than in cold climates. Hence it is, that hyperborean nations subsist on whale's blubber, oil, and flesh, while the tropical man confines himself almost exclusively to a vegetable diet.
It is not my purpose here to enter into the relative effects of the different kinds of food on physiological and mental development; I desire, however, to call attention to the comparative facility with which carbonized and oxidized food is procured by man, and to note the effect of this ease or difficulty in obtaining a food supply, upon his progress. In warm, humid climates vegetation is spontaneous and abundant; a plentiful supply of food may, therefore, be obtained with the smallest expenditure of labor. The inhabitants of cold climates, however, are obliged to pursue, by land and water, wild and powerful animals, to put forth all their strength and skill in order to secure a precarious supply of the necessary food. Then, again, besides being more difficult to obtain, and more uncertain as to a steady supply, the quantity of food consumed in a cold climate is much greater than that consumed in a hot climate. Now as leisure is essential to cultivation, and as without a surplus of food and clothing there can be no leisure, it would seem to follow naturally that in those countries where food and clothing are most easily obtained culture shouldbe the highest; since so little time and labor are necessary to satisfy the necessities of the body, the mind would have opportunity to expand. It would seem that a fertile soil, an exuberant vegetation, soft skies and balmy air, a country where raiment was scarcely essential to comfort, and where for food the favored inhabitant had but to pluck and eat, should become the seat of a numerous population and a high development. Is this the fact? "Wherever snow falls," Emerson remarks, "there is usually civil freedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent, and pampered at the cost of higher qualities; the man is sensual and cruel;" and we may add that where wheat grows, there is civilization, where rice is the staple, there mental vigor is relaxed.
Heat and moisture being the great vegetative stimulants, tropical lands in proximity to the sea are covered with eternal verdure. Little or no labor is required to sustain life; for food there is the perpetually ripening fruit, a few hours' planting, sometimes, being sufficient to supply a family for months; for shelter, little more than the dense foliage is necessary, while scarcely any clothing is required.
But although heat and moisture, the great vegetative stimulants, lie at the root of primitive progress, these elements in superabundance defeat their own ends, and in two ways: First, excessive heat enervates the body and prostrates the mind, languor and inertia become chronic, while cold is invigorating and prompts to activity. And in tropical climates certain hours of the day are too hot for work, and are, consequently, devoted to sleep. The day is broken into fragments; continuous application, which alone produces important results, is prevented, and habits of slackness and laxity become the rule of life. Satisfied, moreover, with the provisions of nature for their support, the people live without labor, vegetating, plant-like, through a listless and objectless life. Secondly, vegetation, stimulated by excessive heat and moisture, grows withsuch strength and rapidity as to defy the efforts of inexperienced primitive man; nature becomes domineering, unmanageable, and man sinks into insignificance. Indeed the most skillful industry of armed and disciplined civilization is unable to keep under control this redundancy of tropical vegetation. The path cleared by the pioneer on penetrating the dense undergrowth, closes after him like the waters of the sea behind a ship; before the grain has time to spring up, the plowed field is covered with rank weeds, wild flowers, and poisonous plants no less beautiful than pernicious. I have seen the very fence-posts sprouting up and growing into trees. So destructive is the vegetation of the Central American lowlands, that in their triumphal march the persistent roots penetrate the crevices of masonry, demolish strong walls, and obliterate stupendous tumuli. The people whose climate makes carbonized food a necessity, are obliged to call into action their bolder and stronger faculties in order to obtain their supplies, while the vegetable-eater may tranquilly rest on bounteous nature. The Eskimo struggles manfully with whale, and bear, and ice, and darkness, until his capacious stomach is well filled with heat-producing food, then he dozes torpidly in his den while the supply lasts; the equatorial man plucks and eats, basks in the open air, and sleeps.
UNMANAGEABLENESS OF REDUNDANT NATURE.
Here we have a medley of heterogeneous and antagonistic elements. Leisure is essential to culture; before leisure there must be an accumulation of wealth; the accumulation of wealth is dependent upon the food-supply; a surplus of food can only be easily obtained in warm climates. But labor is also essential to development, and excessive heat is opposed to labor. Labor, moreover, in order to produce leisure must be remunerative, and excessive cold is opposed to accumulation. It appears, therefore, that an excess of labor and an excess of leisure are alike detrimental to improvement. Again, heat and moisture are essential to an abundant supply of oxidized food. But heat and moisture,especially in tropical climates, act as a stimulant upon other rank productions, engendering dense forests, tangled brush-wood, and poisonous shrubs, and filling miasmatic marshes with noxious reptiles. These enemies to human progress the weaponless savage is unable to overcome.
It is, therefore, neither in hot and humid countries, nor in excessively cold climates, that we are to look for a primitive civilization; for in the latter nature lies dormant, while in the former the redundancy of nature becomes unmanageable. It is true that in the tropics of America and Asia are found the seats of many ancient civilizations, but if we examine them one after the other, we shall see, in nearly every instance, some opposite or counteracting agency. Thus, the Aztecs, though choosing a low latitude in proximity to both oceans, occupied an elevated table-land, in a cool, dry atmosphere, seven or eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. The river Nile, by its periodic inundations, forced the ancient Egyptians to lay by a store of food, which is the very first step toward wealth. The rivers of India are, some of them, subject to like overflowings, while the more elevated parts are dry and fertile.
Egypt was the cradle of European development. Long before the advent of Christianity, the fertile banks of the Nile, for their pyramidal tombs, their colossi, their obelisks and catacombs and sphinxes and temples, were regarded by surrounding barbarians as a land of miracles and marvels. Thence Greece derived her earliest arts and maxims. The climate of Egypt was unchangeable, and the inundations of the Nile offered a less uncertain water-supply than the rains of many other districts, and thus agriculture, while offering to the laborer the greater part of the year for leisure, was almost certain to be remunerative. Common instincts and common efforts, uniformity of climate and identity of interests produced a homogeneous people, and forty centuries of such changelesscoming and going could not fail to result in improvement.
MR BUCKLE'S THEORY.
Mr Buckle, in his attempt to establish a universal theory that heat and moisture inevitably engender civilization, and that without those combined agencies no civilization can arise, somewhat overreaches himself. "In America, as in Asia and Africa," he says, "all the original civilizations were seated in hot countries; the whole of Peru, proper, being within the southern tropic, the whole of Central America and Mexico within the northern tropic." The fact is, that Cuzco, the capital city of the Incas, is in the cordilleras, three hundred miles from and eleven thousand feet above the sea. For the latitude the climate is both cold and dry. The valley of Mexico is warmer and moister, but cannot be called hot and humid. Palenque and Copan approach nearer Mr Buckle's ideal than Cuzco or Mexico, being above the tierra caliente proper, and yet in a truly hot and humid climate.
The Hawaiian Islands,—an isolated group of lava piles, thrown up into the trade winds on the twentieth parallel, and by these winds deluged on one side with rain, while the other is left almost dry, with but little alluvial soil, and that little exceedingly fertile,—at the time of their discovery by Captain Cook appeared to have made no inconsiderable advance toward feudalism. Systems of land tenure and vassalage were in operation, and some works for the public weal had been constructed. Here were the essentials for a low order of improvement such as was found there, but which never, in all probability, would have risen much higher.
Again, Mr Buckle declares that, "owing to the presence of physical phenomena, the civilization of America was, of necessity, confined to those parts where alone it was found by the discoverers of the New World." An apparently safe postulate; but, upon any conceivable hypothesis, there are very manyplaces as well adapted to development as those in which it was found. Once more: "The two great conditions of fertility have not been united in any part of the continent north of Mexico." When we consider what it is, namely, heat and humidity, upon which Mr Buckle makes intellectual evolution dependent, and that not only the Mexican plateau lacked both these essentials, in the full meaning of the term, but that both are found in many places northward, as for instance, in some parts of Texas and in Louisiana, a discrepancy in his theory becomes apparent. "The peculiar configuration of the land," he continues, "secured a very large amount of coast, and thus gave to the southern part of North America the character of an island." An island, yes, but, as M. Guyot terms it, an "aerial island;" bordered on either side by sea-coast, but by such sea-coast as formed an almost impassable barrier between the table-land and the ocean.
"While, therefore," adds Mr Buckle, "the position of Mexico near the equator gave it heat, the shape of the land gave it humidity; and this being the only part of North America in which these two conditions were united it was likewise the only part which was at all civilized. There can be no doubt, that if the sandy plains of California and Southern Columbia, instead of being scorched into sterility, had been irrigated by the rivers of the east, or if the rivers of the east had been accompanied by the heat of the west, the result of either combination would have been that exuberance of soil, by which, as the history of the world decisively proves, every early civilization was preceded. But inasmuch as, of the two elements of fertility, one was deficient in every part of America north of the twentieth parallel, it followed that, until that line was passed, civilization could gain no resting place; and there never has been found, and we may confidently assert never will be found, any evidence that even a single ancient nation, in the whole of that enormous continent, was able to make much progress in the arts of life, or organizeitself into a fixed and permanent society." This is a broad statement embodying precipitate deductions from false premises, and one which betrays singular ignorance of the country and its climate. These same "sandy plains of California" so far from being "scorched into sterility", are to-day sending their cereals in every direction—to the east and to the west—and are capable of feeding all Europe.
WHY WERE CALIFORNIANS NOT CIVILIZED?
I have often wondered why California was not the seat of a primitive civilization; why, upon every converging line the race deteriorates as this centre is approached; why, with a cool, salubrious seaboard, a hot and healthful interior, with alternate rainy and dry seasons, alternate seasons of labor and leisure which encourage producing and hoarding and which are the primary incentives to accumulation and wealth, in this hot and cool, moist and dry, and invigorating atmosphere, with a fertile soil, a climate which in no part of the year can be called cold or inhospitable, should be found one of the lowest phases of humanity on the North American continent. The cause must be sought in periods more remote, in the convulsions of nature now stilled; in the tumults of nations whose history lies forgotten, forever buried in the past. Theories never will solve the mystery. Indeed, there is no reason why the foundations of the Aztec and Maya-Quiché civilizations may not have been laid north of the thirty-fifth parallel, although no architectural remains have been discovered there, nor other proof of such an origin; but upon the banks of the Gila, the Colorado, and the Rio Grande, in Chihuahua, and on the hot dry plains of Arizona and New Mexico, far beyond the limits of Mr Buckle's territory where "there never has been found, and we may confidently assert never will be found" any evidence of progress, are to-day walled towns inhabited by an industrial and agricultural people, whose existence we can trace back for more than three centuries, besides ruins of massive buildings of whose history nothing is known.
Thus, that California and many other parts of North America could not have been the seat of a primitive civilization, cannot be proved upon the basis of any physical hypothesis; and, indeed, in our attempt to elucidate the principles of universal progress, where the mysterious and antagonistic activities of humanity have been fermenting all unseen for thousands of ages, unknown and unknowable, among peoples of whom our utmost knowledge can be only such as is derived from a transient glimpse of a disappearing race, it is with the utmost difficulty that satisfactory conclusions can in any instance be reached.
It is in a temperate climate, therefore, that man attains the highest development. On the peninsulas of Greece and Italy, where the Mediterranean invites intercourse; in Iran and Armenia, where the climate is cold enough to stimulate labor, but not so cold as to require the use of all the energies of body and mind in order to acquire a bare subsistence; warm enough to make leisure possible, but not so warm as to enervate and prostrate the faculties; with a soil of sufficient fertility to yield a surplus and promote the accumulation of wealth, without producing such a redundancy of vegetation as to be unmanageable by unskilled, primitive man—there it is that we find the highest intellectual culture.
It sometimes happens that, in those climates which are too vigorous for the unfolding of the tender germ, cultivation is stimulated into greater activity than in its original seats. It sometimes happens that, when the shell of savagism is once fairly broken, a people may overcome a domineering vegetation, and flourish in a climate where by no possibility could their development have originated. Even in the frozen regions of the north, as in Scandinavia, man, by the intensity of his nature, was enabled to surmount the difficulties of climate and attain a fierce, rude cultivation. The regions of Northern Europe and Northern America, notwithstanding their original opposition to man,are to-day the most fruitful of all lands in industrial discoveries and intellectual activities, but in the polar regions, as in the equatorial, the highest development never can be reached.
The conditions which encourage indigenous civilization are not always those that encourage permanent development, and vice versa. Thus, Great Britain in her insulation, remained barbarous long after Greece and Italy had attained a high degree of cultivation, yet when once the seed took root, that very insulation acted as a wall of defense, within which a mighty power germinated and with its influence overspread the whole earth.
Thus we have seen that a combination of physical conditions is essential to intellectual development. Without leisure, there can be no culture, without wealth no leisure, without labor no wealth, and without a suitable soil and climate no remunerative labor.
Now, throughout the material universe, there is no object or element which holds its place, whether at rest or in motion, except under fixed laws; no atom of matter nor subtle mysterious force, no breath of air, nor cloudy vapor nor streak of light, but in existing obeys a law. The Almighty fiat: Be fruitful and multiply, fruitful in increase, intellectual as well as physical, was given alike to all mankind; seeds of progress were sown broadcast throughout all the races human; some fell on stony places, others were choked with weeds, others found good soil. When we see a people in the full enjoyment of all these physical essentials to progress yet in a state of savagism, we may be sure that elements detrimental to progress have, at some period of their history, interposed to prevent natural growth. War, famine, pestilence, convulsions of nature, have nipped in the bud many an incipient civilization, whose history lies deep buried in the unrecorded past.
ASSOCIATION AN ELEMENT OF PROGRESS.
The obvious necessity of association as a primary condition of development leaves little to be said onthat subject. To the manifestation of this Soul of Progress a body social is requisite, as without an individual body there can be no manifestation of an individual soul. This body social, like the body individual, is composed of numberless organs, each having its special functions to perform, each acting on the others, and all under the general government of the progressional idea. Civilization is not an individual attribute, and though the atom, man, may be charged with stored energy, yet progress constitutes no part of individual nature; it is something that lies between men and not within them; it belongs to society and not to the individual; man, the molecule of society, isolate, is inert and forceless. The isolated man, as I have said, never can become cultivated, never can form a language, does not possess in its fullness the faculty of abstraction, nor can his mind enter the realm of higher thought. All those characteristics which distinguish mankind from animal-kind become almost inoperative. Without association there is no speech, for speech is but the conductor of thought between two or more individuals; without words abstract thought cannot flow, for words, or some other form of expression, are the channels of thought, and with the absence of words the fountain of thought is in a measure sealed.
At the very threshold of progress social crystallization sets in; something there is in every man that draws him to other men. In the relationship of the sexes, this principle of human attraction reaches its height, where the husband and wife, as it were, coalesce, like the union of one drop of water with another, forming one globule. As unconsciously and as positively are men constrained to band together into societies as are particles forced to unite and form crystals. And herein is a law as palpable and as fixed as any law in nature; a law, which if unfulfilled, would result in the extermination of the race. But the law of human attraction is not perfect, does not fulfill its purpose apart from the law of human repulsion, for as we haveseen, until war and despotism and superstition and other dire evils come, there is no progress. Solitude is insupportable, even beasts will not live alone; and men are more dependent on each other than beasts. Solitude carries with it a sense of inferiority and insufficiency; the faculties are stinted, lacking completeness, whereas volume is added to every individual faculty by union.
COÖPERATION AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR.
But association simply, is not enough; nothing materially great can be accomplished without union and coöperation. It is only when aggregations of families intermingle with other aggregations, each contributing its quota of original knowledge to the other; when the individual gives up some portion of his individual will and property for the better protection of other rights and property; when he entrusts society with the vindication of his rights; when he depends upon the banded arm of the nation, and not alone upon his own arm for redress of grievances, that progress is truly made. And with union and coöperation comes the division of labor by which means each, in some special department, is enabled to excel. By fixing the mind wholly upon one thing, by constant repetition and practice, the father hands down his art to the son, who likewise, improves it for his descendants. It is only by doing a new thing, or by doing an old thing better than it has ever been done before, that progress is made. Under the régime of universal mediocrity the nation does not advance; it is to the great men,—great in things great or small, that progress is due; it is to the few who think, to the few who dare to face the infinite universe of things and step, if need be, outside an old-time boundary, that the world owes most.
Originally implanted is the germ of intelligence, at the first but little more than brute instinct. This germ in unfolding undergoes a double process; it throws off its own intuitions and receives in return those of another. By an interchange of ideas, the experiencesof one are made known for the benefit of another, the inventions of one are added to the inventions of another; without intercommunication of ideas the intellect must lie dormant. Thus it is with individuals, and with societies it is the same. Acquisitions are eminently reciprocal. In society, wealth, art, literature, polity, and religion act and react on each other; in science a fusion of antagonistic hypotheses is sure to result in important developments. Before much progress can be made, there must be established a commerce between nations for the interchange of aggregated human experiences, so that the arts and industries acquired by each may become the property of all the rest, and thus knowledge becomes scattered by exchange, in place of each having to work out every problem for himself. Thus viewed, civilization is a partnership entered into for mutual improvement; a joint stock operation, in which the product of every brain contributes to a general fund for the benefit of all. No one can add to his own store of knowledge without adding to the general store; every invention, and discovery, however insignificant, is a contribution to civilization.
In savagism, union and coöperation are imperfectly displayed. The warriors of one tribe unite against the warriors of another; a band will coöperate in pursuing a herd of buffalo; even one nation will sometimes unite with another nation against a third, but such combinations are temporary, and no sooner is the particular object accomplished than the confederation disbands, and every man is again his own master. The moment two or more persons unite for the accomplishment of some purpose which shall tend permanently to meliorate the condition of themselves and others, that moment progress begins. The wild beasts of the forest, acting in unison, were physically able to rise up and extirpate primitive man, but could beasts in reality confederate and do this, such confederation of wild beasts could become civilized.
THE SAVAGE HATES CIVILIZATION.
But why does primitive man desire to abandon his original state and set out upon an arduous never-ending journey? Why does he wish to change his mild paternal government, to relinquish his title to lands as broad as his arm can defend, with all therein contained, the common property of his people? Why does he wish to give up his wild freedom, his native independence, and place upon his limbs the fetters of a social and political despotism? He does not. The savage hates civilization as he hates his deadliest foe; its choicest benefits he hates more than the direst ills of his own unfettered life. He is driven to it; driven to it by extraneous influences, without his knowledge and against his will; he is driven to it by this Soul of Progress. It is here that this progressional phenomenon again appears outside of man and in direct opposition to the will of man; it is here that the principle of evil again comes in and stirs men up to the accomplishment of a higher destiny. By it Adam, the first of recorded savages, was driven from Eden, where otherwise he would have remained forever, and remained uncivilized. By it our ancestors were impelled to abandon their simple state, and organize more heterogeneous complex forms of social life. And it is a problem for each nation to work out for itself. Millions of money are expended for merely proselyting purposes, when if the first principles of civilization were well understood, a more liberal manner of teaching would prevail.
Every civilization has its peculiarities, its idiosyncrasies. Two individuals attempting the same thing differ in the performance; so civilization evolving under incidental and extraneous causes takes an individuality in every instance. This is why civilizations will not coalesce; this is why the Spaniards could make the Aztecs accept their civilization only at the point of the sword. Development engendered by one set of phenomena will not suit the developments of other circumstances. The government, religion, and customsof one people will not fit another people any more than the coat of one person will suit the form of another. Thought runs in different channels; the happiness of one is not the happiness of another; development springs from inherent necessity, and one species cannot be engrafted on another.
Let us now examine the phenomena of government and religion in their application to the evolution of societies, and we shall better understand how the wheels of progress are first set in motion,—and by religion I do not mean creed or credulity, but that natural cultus inherent in humanity, which is a very different thing. Government is early felt to be a need of society; the enforcement of laws which shall bring order out of social chaos; laws which shall restrain the vicious, protect the innocent, and punish the guilty; which shall act as a shield to inherent budding morality. But before government, there must arise some influence which will band men together. An early evil to which civilization is indebted is war; the propensity of man—unhappily not yet entirely overcome—for killing his fellow-man.
GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION.
The human race has not yet attained that state of homogeneous felicity which we sometimes imagine; upon the surface, we yet bear many of the relics of barbarism; under cover of manners, we hide still more. War is a barbarism which civilization only intensifies, as indeed civilization intensifies every barbarism which it does not eradicate or cover up. The right of every individual to act as his own avenger; trial by combat; justice dependent upon the passion or caprice of the judge or ruler and not upon fixed law; hereditary feuds and migratory skirmishes; these and the like are deemed barbarous, while every nation of the civilized world maintains a standing army, applies all the arts and inventions of civilization to the science of killing, and upon sufficient provocation, as a disputed boundary or a fancied insult, no greater nor more important thanthat which moved our savage ancestors to like conduct, falls to, and after a respectable civilized butchery of fifty or a hundred thousand men, ceases fighting, and returns, perhaps, to right and reason as a basis for the settlement of the difficulty. War, like other evils which have proved instruments of good, should by this time have had its day, should have served its purpose. Standing armies, whose formation was one of the first and most important steps in association and partition of labor, are but the manifestation of a lingering necessity for the use of brute force in place of moral force in the settlement of national disputes. Surely, rational beings who retain the most irrational practices concerning the simplest principles of social life cannot boast of a very high order of what we are pleased to call civilization. Morality, commerce, literature, and industry, all that tends toward elevation of intellect, is directly opposed to the warlike spirit. As intellectual activity increases, the taste for war decreases, for an appeal to war in the settlement of difficulties is an appeal from the intellectual to the physical, from reason to brute force.
Despotism is an evil, but despotism is as essential to progress as any good. In some form despotism is an inseparable adjunct of war. An individual or an idea may be the despot, but without cohesion, without a strong central power, real or imaginary, there can be no unity, and without unity no protracted warfare. In the first stages of government despotism is as essential as in the last it is noxious. It holds society together when nothing else would hold it, and at a time when its very existence depends upon its being so held. And not until a moral inherent strength arises sufficient to burst the fetters of despotism, is a people fit for a better or milder form of government; for not until this inherent power is manifest is there sufficient cohesive force in society to hold it together without being hooped by some such band as despotism. Besides thus cementing society, war generates many virtues, suchas courage, discipline, obedience, chivalrous bearing, noble thought; and the virtues of war, as well as its vices, help to mould national character.