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| Culture art. Primitive culture. CHAPTER II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE |
Page 1 of 2 Tylor, Edward Burnett, Sir, 1832-1917 CHAPTER II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. Stages of culture, industrial, intellectual, political, moral Development of culture in great measure corresponds with transition from savage through barbaric to civilized life Progression-theory Degeneration- theory Development-theory includes both, the one as primary, the other as secondary Historical and traditional evidence not available as to low stages of culture Historical evidence as to principles of Degeneration Ethnological evidence as to rise and fall in culture from comparison of different levels of culture in branches of the same race Extent of historically recorded antiquity of civilization Prehistoric Archaeology extends the antiquity of man in low stages of civilization Traces of Stone Age, corroborated by megalithic structures, lake dwellings, shell-heaps, burial-places, &c., prove original low culture throughout the world Stages of Progressive Development in industrial arts. IN taking up the problem of the development of culture as a branch of ethnological research, a first proceeding is to obtain a means of measurement. Seeking something like a definite line along which to reckon progression and retro- gression in civilization, we may apparently find it best in the classification of real tribes and nations, past and present. Civilization actually existing among mankind in different grades, we are enabled to estimate and compare it by positive examples. The educated world of Europe and America practically settles a standard by simply placing its own nations at one end of the social series and savage tribes at the other, arranging the rest of mankind between these limits according as they correspond more closely to savage or to cultured life. The principal criteria of classification are the absence or presence, high or low development, of the industrial arts, especially metal-working, manufacture of 26 SAVAGE TO CIVILIZED STATE. 2J implements and vessels, agriculture, architecture, &c., the extent of scientific knowledge, the defmiteness of moral principles, the condition of religious belief and ceremony, the degree of social and political organization, and so forth. Thus, on the definite basis of compared facts, ethnographers are able to set up at least a rough scale of civilization. Few would dispute that the following races are arranged rightly in order of culture : Australian, Tahitian, Aztec, Chinese, Italian. By treating the development of civilization on this plain ethnographic basis, many difficulties may be avoided which have embarrassed its discussion. This may be seen by a glance at the relation which theoretical principles of civilization bear to the transitions to be observed as matter of fact between the extremes of savage and- cultured life. From an ideal point of view, civilization may be looked ' upon as the general improvement of mankind by higher organization of the individual and of society, to the end of promoting at once man's goodness, power, and happiness. This theoretical civilization does in no small measure cor- respond with actual civilization, as traced by comparing savagery with barbarism, and barbarism with modern edu- cated life. So far as we take into account only material and intellectual culture, this is especially true. Acquaint- ance with the physical laws of the world, and the accom- panying power of adapting nature to man's own ends, are, on the whole, lowest among savages, mean among barba- rians, and highest among modern educated nations. Thus a transition from the savage state to our own would be, practically, that very progress of art and knowledge which is one main element in the development of culture. But even those students who hold most strongly that the general course of civilization, as measured along the scale of races from savages to ourselves, is progress towards the benefit of mankind, must admit many and manifold ex- ceptions. Industrial and intellectual culture by no means advances uniformly in all its branches, and in fact excellence in various of its details is often obtained under conditions 28 , THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. which keep back culture as a whole. It is true that these exceptions seldom swamp the general rule; and the English- man, admitting that he does not climb trees like the wild Australian, nor track game like the savage of the Brazilian forest, nor compete with the ancient Etruscan and the modern Chinese in delicacy of goldsmith's work and ivory carving, nor reach the classic Greek level of oratory and sculpture, may yet claim for himself a general condition above any of these races. But there actually have to be taken into account developments of science and art which tend directly against culture. To have learnt to give poison secretly and effectually, to have raised a corrupt literature to pestilent perfection, to have organized a successful scheme to arrest free enquiry and proscribe free expression, are works of knowledge and skill whose progress toward their goal has hardly conduced to the general good. Thus, even in comparing mental and artistic culture among several peoples, the balance of good and ill is not quite easy to strike. If not only knowledge and art, but at the same time moral and political excellence, be taken into consideration, it becomes yet harder to reckon on an ideal scale the advance or decline from stage to stage of culture. In fact, a combined intellectual and moral measure of human con- dition is an instrument which no student has as yet learnt properly to handle. Even granting that intellectual, moral, and political life may, on a broad view, be seen to progress together, it is obvious that they are far from advancing with equal steps. It may be taken as man's rule of duty in the world, that he shall strive to know as well as he can find out, and to do as well as he knows how. But the parting asunder of these two great principles, that separation of intelligence from virtue which accounts for so much of the wrong-doing of mankind, is continually seen to happen in the great movements of civilization. As one conspicuous instance of what all history stands to prove, if we study the early ages of Christianity, we may see men with minds RISE AND DECLINE. pervaded by the new religion of duty, holiness, and love, yet at the same time actually falling away in intellectual life, thus at once vigorously grasping one half of civilization, and contemptuously casting off the other. Whether in high ranges or in low of human life, it may be seen that advance of culture seldom results at once in unmixed good. Courage, honesty, generosity, are virtures which may suffer, at least for a time, by the development of a sense of value of life and property. The savage who adopts something of foreign civilization too often loses his ruder virtues without gaining an equivalent . The white invader or colonist , though repre- senting on the whole a higher moral standard than the savage he improves or destroys, often represents his standard very ill, and at best can hardly claim to substitute a life stronger, nobler, and purer at every point than that which he supersedes. The onward movement from barbarism has dropped behind it more than one quality of barbaric char- acter which cultured modern men look back on with regret, and will even strive to regain by futile attempts to stop the course of history, and to restore the past in the midst of the present. So it is with social institutions. The slavery recognised by savage and barbarous races is preferable in kind to that which existed for centuries in late European colonies. The relation of the sexes among many savage tribes is more healthy than among the richer classes of the Mohammedan world. As a supreme authority of govern- ment, the savage councils of chiefs and elders compare favourably with the unbridled despotism under which so many cultured races have groaned. The Creek Indians, asked concerning their religion, replied that where agree- ment was not to be had, it was best to ' let every man paddle his canoe his own way :' and after long ages of theo- logical strife and persecution, the modern world seems coming to think these savages not far wrong. Among accounts of savage life, it is not, indeed, uncom- mon to find details of admirable moral and social excellence. To take one prominent instance, Lieut. Bruijn Kops and jO THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. Mr. Wallace have described, among the rude Papuans of the Eastern Archipelago, a habitual truthfulness, rightful- ness, and kindliness which it would be hard to match in the general moral life of Persia or India, to say nothing of many a civilized European district. 1 Such tribes may count as the ' blameless Ethiopians ' of the modern world, and from them an important lesson may be learnt. Ethno- graphers who seek in modern savages types of the remotely ancient human race at large, are bound by such examples to consider the rude life of primaeval man under favourable conditions to have been, in its measure, a good and happy life. On the other hand, the pictures drawn by some travellers of savagery as a kind of paradisiacal state may be taken too exclusively from the bright side. It is remarked as to these very Papuans, that Europeans whose intercourse with them has been hostile become so impressed with the wild-beast-like cunning of their attacks, as hardly to believe in their having feelings in common with civilized men. Our Polar explorers may well speak in kindly terms of the industry, the honesty, the cheerful considerate politeness of the Esquimaux ; but it must be remembered that these rude people are on their best behaviour with foreigners, and that their character is apt to be foul and brutal where they have nothing to expect or fear. The Caribs are described as a cheerful, modest, courteous race, and so honest among themselves that if they missed anything out of a house they said quite naturally : ' There has been a Christian here/ Yet the malignant ferocity with which these estimable people tortured their prisoners of war with knife and fire-brand and red pepper, and then cooked and ate them in solemn debauch, gave fair reason for the name of Carib (Cannibal) to become the generic name of man-eaters in European languages. 2 So when we read descriptions of the hospitality, the gentleness, the bravery, the deep religious feeling of the 1 G. W. Earl, ' Papuans,' p. 79 ; A. R. Wallace, ' Eastern Archipelago/ * Rochefort, * lies Antilles,' pp. 400-480. RISE AND DECLINE. 3! i North American Indians, we admit their claims to our ; sincere admiration ; but we must not forget that they were hospitable literally to a fault, that their gentleness would pass with a flash of anger into frenzy, that their bravery ; was stained with cruel and treacherous malignity, that their religion expressed itself in absurd belief and useless cere- mony. The ideal savage of the i8th century may be held up as a living reproof to vicious and frivolous London ; but in sober fact, a Londoner who should attempt to lead the : atrocious life which the real savage may lead with impunity [ ' and even respect, would be a criminal only allowed to follow his savage models during his short intervals out of gaol. Savage moral standards are real enough, but they are far looser and weaker than ours. We may, I think, apply the often-repeated comparison of savages to children as fairly to their moral as to their intellectual condition. The better . savage social life seems in but unstable equilibrium, liable to be easily upset by a touch of distress, 'temptation, or violence, and then it becomes the worse savage life, which we know by so many dismal and hideous examples. Alto- gether, it may be admitted that some rude tribes lead a life to be envied by some barbarous races, and even by the outcasts of higher nations. But that any known savage tribe would not be improved by judicious* civilization, is a proposition which no moralist would dare to make ; while the general tenour of the evidence goes far to justify the view that on the whole the civilized man is not only wiser and more capable than the savage, but also better and happier, and that the barbarian stands between. It might, perhaps, seem practicable to compare the whole average of the civilization of two peoples, or of the same people in different ages, by reckoning each, item by item, to a sort of sum-total, and striking a balance between them, much as an appraiser compares the value of two stocks of merchandise, differ as they may both in quantity and quality. But the few remarks here made will have shown how loose must be the working-out of these rough-and-ready 32 ' THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. estimates of culture. In fact, much of the labour spent in investigating the progress and decline of civilization has been mis-spent, in premature attempts to treat that as a whole which is as yet only susceptible of divided study. The present comparatively narrow argument on the develop- ment of culture at any rate avoids this greatest perplexity. It takes cognizance principally of knowledge, art, and custom, and indeed only very partial cognizance within I this field, the vast range of physical, political, social, and ; ethical considerations being left all but untouched. Its; standard of reckoning progress and decline is not that of i ideal good and evil, but of movement along a measured line i from grade to grade of actual savagery, barbarism, and civilization. The thesis which I venture to sustain, within j limits, is simply this, that the savage state in some measure j represents an early condition of mankind, out of which the! higher culture has gradually been developed or evolved, by processes still in regular operation as of old, the result showing that, on the whole, progress has far prevailed over! relapse. On this proposition, the main tendency of human society] during its long term of existence has been to pass from a savage to a civilized state.- Now all must admit a great j part 'of this assertion to be not only truth, but truism. Referred to direct history, a great section of it proves to belong not to the domain of speculation, but to that of posi-j tive knowledge. It is mere matter of chronicle that modern civilization is a development of mediaeval civilization, whichj again is a development from civilization of the order repre-j sented in Greece, Assyria, or Egypt. Thus the higher culture being clearly traced back to what may be called thei middle culture, the question which remains is whether this* middle culture may be traced back to the lower culture,, that is, to savagery. To affirm this, is merely to assert! that the same kind of development in culture which has; gone on inside our range of knowledge has also gone on outside it, its course of proceeding being unaffected by our PROGRESS AND DEGRADATION. 33 having or not having reporters present. If any one holds that human thought and action were worked out in primae- val times according to laws essentially other than those of 1 the modern world, it is for him to prove by valid evidence < this anomalous state of things, otherwise the doctrine of permanent principle will hold good, as in astronomy or geology. That the tendency of culture has been similar throughout the existence of human society, and that we may fairly judge from its known historic course what its prehistoric course may have been, is a theory clearly en- titled to precedence as a fundamental principle of ethno- graphic research. Gibbon in his ' Roman Empire ' expresses in a few vigorous sentences his theory of the course of culture, as from savagery upward. Judged by the knowledge of nearly a century later, his remarks cannot, indeed, pass unques- tioned. Especially he seems to rely with misplaced con- fidence on traditions of archaic rudeness, to exaggerate the lowness of savage life, to underestimate the liability to decay of the ruder arts, and in his view of the effect of high on low civilization, to dwell too exclusively on the brighter side. But, on the whole, the great historian's judgment seems so substantially that of the unprejudiced modern student of the progressionist school, that I gladly quote the passage here at length, and take it as a text to represent the develop- ment theory of culture : ' The discoveries of ancient and modern navigators, and the domestic history, or tradition, of the most enlightened nations, represent the human savage naked both in mind and body, and destitute of laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language. From this abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal state of man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to fertilise the earth, to traverse the ocean, and to measure the heavens. His progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and corporeal faculties has been irregular and various ; infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by degrees with redoubled velocity : ages of laborious ascent have been 34 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. followed by a moment of rapid downfall ; and the several climates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness. Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions : we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection ; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism. The improvements of society may be viewed under a threefold aspect, i. The poet or philosopher illustrates his age and j country by the efforts of a single mind ; but these superior powers of reason or fancy are rare and spontaneous produc- tions ; and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or Newton, would excite less admiration, if they could be created byj the will of a prince, or the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The ; benefits of law and policy, of trade and manufactures, of I arts and sciences, are more solid and permanent ; and manyi individuals may be qualified, by education and discipline, to< promote, in their respective stations, the interest of the! community. But this general order is the effect of skill! and labour ; and the complex machinery may be decayed by! time, or injured by violence. 3. Fortunately for mankind,! the more useful, or, at least, more necessary arts, can bej performed without superior talents, or national subordina- tion ; without the powers of one, or the union of many.\ Each village, each family, each individual, must always! possess both ability and inclination, to perpetuate the usei of fire and of metals; the propagation and service on domestic animals ; the methods of hunting and fishing; the] rudiments of navigation ; the imperfect cultivation of coraj or other nutritive grain ; and the simple practice of the me-| chanic trades. Private genius and public industry may be] extirpated ; but these hardy plants survive the tempest, and] strike an everlasting root into the most unfavourable soil.! The splendid days of Augustus and Trajan were eclipsed' by a cloud of ignorance ; and the barbarians subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the invention, od PROGRESS AND DEGRADATION. 35 emblem of Saturn, still continued annually to mow the harvests of Italy; and the human feasts of Laestrigons have never been renewed on the coast of Campania. Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and religious zeal, have diffused, among the savages of the Old and New World, these inestimable gifts : they have been successively propagated ; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race/ l This progression-theory of civilization may be contrasted with its rival, the degeneration-theory, in the dashing invective of Count Joseph de Maistre, written toward the beginning of the igih century. ' Nous partons toujours/ he says, ' de 1'hypothese banale que rhomme s'est eleve gra- duellement de la barbarie a la science et a la civilisation. C'est le reVe favori, c'est 1'erreur-mere, et comme dit 1'ecole le proto-pseudes de notre siecle. Mais si les philosophes de ce malheureux siecle, avec 1'horrible perversite que nous leur avons connue, et qui s'obstinent encore malgre les avertissements qu'ils ont resus, avaient possede de plus quelques-unes de ces connaissances qui ont du necessaire- ment appartenir aux premiers hommes, &c.' a The degeneration-theory, which this eloquent antagonist of ' modern ideas ' indeed states in an extreme shape, has received the sanction of men of great learning and ability. It has practically resolved itself into two assumptions, first, that the history of culture began with the appearance on earth of a semi-civilized race of men, and second, that from this stage culture has proceeded in two ways, backward to produce savages, and forward to produce civilized men. The idea of the original condition of man being one of more or less high culture, must have a certain prominence 1 Gibbon, ' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' ch. xxxviii. 8 De Maistre, ' Soirees de St. P6tersbourg,' vol. ii. p. 150. 3b THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. given to it on account of its considerable hold on public opinion. As to definite evidence, however, it does not seem to have any ethnological basis whatever. Indeed, I scarcely think that a stronger counter-persuasion could be used on an intelligent student inclined to the ordinary degeneration-theory than to induce him to examine criti- cally and impartially the arguments of the advocates on his own side. It must be borne in mind, however, that the grounds on which this theory has been held have generally been rather theological than ethnological. The strength of the position it has thus occupied may be well instanced from the theories adopted by two eminent French writers of the i8th century, which in a remarkable way piece together a belief in degeneration and an argument for pro- gression. De Brosses, whose whole intellectual . nature turned to the progression-theory, argued that by studying what actually now happens ' we may trace men upward from the savage state to which the flood and dispersion had reduced them/ 1 And Goguet, holding that the pre- existing arts perished at the deluge, was thus left free to work out on the most thorough-going progressionist principles his theories of the invention of fire, cooking, agriculture, law, and so forth, among tribes thus reduced to a condition of low savagery. 2 At the present time it is not unusual for the origin of civilization to be treated as matter of dogmatic theology. It has happened to me more than once to be assured from the pulpit that the theories of ethnologists who consider man to have risen from a low original condition are delusive fancies, it being revealed truth that man was originally in a high condition. Now as a matter of Biblical criticism it must be remembered that a large proportion of modern theologians are far from accept- ing such a dogma. But in investigating the problem of early civilization, the claim to ground scientific opinion upon 1 De Drosses, ' Dieux Fetiches,' p. 15 ; ' Formation des Langues,' vol. i. p. 49 ; vol. ii. p. 32. 2 Goguet, ' Origine des Lois, des Arts,' &c., vol. i. p. 88. PROGRESS AND DEGRADATION. 37 a basis of revelation is in itself objectionable. It would be, I think, inexcusable if students who have seen in Astronomy and Geology the unhappy results of attempting to base science on religion, should countenance a similar attempt in Ethnology. By long experience of the course of human society, the principle of development in culture has become so in- grained in our philosophy that ethnologists, of whatever school, hardly doubt but that, whether by progress or degradation, savagery and civilization are connected as lower and higher stages of one formation. As such, then, two principal theories claim to account for their relation. As to the first hypothesis, which takes savage life as in some sort representing an early human state whence higher states were, in time, developed, it has to be noticed that advocates of this progression-theory are apt to look back toward yet lower original conditions of mankind. It has been truly remarked that the modern naturalist's doctrine of progressive development has encouraged a train of thought singularly accordant with the Epicurean theory of man's, early existence on earth, in a condition not far removed from that of the lower animals. On such a view, savage life itself would be a far advanced condition. If the advance of culture be regarded as taking place along one general line, then existing savagery stands directly inter- mediate between animal and civilized life ; if along different lines, then savagery and civilization may be considered as at least indirectly connected through their common origin. The method and evidence here employed are not, however, suitable for the discussion of this remoter part of the problem of civilization. Nor is it necessary to enquire how, under this or any other theory, the savage state first came to be on earth. It is enough that, by some means or other, it has actually come into existence ; and so far as it may serve as a guide in inferring an early condition of the human race at large, so far the argument takes the very practicable shape of a, discussion turning rather on actua.1 i, P 2$ THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. than imaginary states of society. The second hypothesis, which regards higher culture as original, and the savage condition as produced from it by a course of degeneration, at once cuts the hard knot of the origin of culture. It takes for granted a supernatural interference, as where Archbishop Whately simply refers to miraculous revelation that condition above the level of barbarism which he con- siders to have been man's original state. 1 It may be inci- dentally remarked, however, that the doctrine of original civilization bestowed on man by divine intervention, by no means necessarily involves the view that this original civil- ization was at a high level. Its advocates are free to choose their starting-point of culture above, at, or below the savage condition, as may on the evidence seem to them most reasonable. The two theories which thus account for the relation of savage to cultured life may be contrasted according to their | main character, as the progression-theory and the degrada-! tion-theory. Yet of course the progression-theory recog-j nizes degradation, and the degradation-theory recognizes! progression, as powerful influences in the course of culture.! Under proper limitations the principles of both theories are! conformable to historical knowledge, which shows us, onj the one hand, that the state of the higher nations was! reached by progression from a lower state, and, on the other hand, that culture gained by progression may be lost! by degradation. If in this enquiry we should be obliged toi end in the dark, at any rate we need not begin there. History, taken as our guide in explaining the different stages of civilization, offers a theory based, on actual experience. This is a development-theory, in which both advance and relapse have their acknowledged places. But so far as history is to be our criterion, progression is primary and degradation secondary ; culture must be gained before it 1 Whately, ' Essay on the Origin of Civilisation,' in Miscellaneous Lectures, &c. His evidence is examined in detail in my ' Early History ol Mankind,' ch. vii. See also W. Cooke Taylor, ' Natural History of Society. 1 COMBINED RESULTS. 39 can be lost. Moreover, in striking a balance between the effects of forward and backward movement in civilization, it must be borne in mind how powerfully the diffusion of culture acts in preserving the results of progress from the attacks of degeneration. A progressive movement in culture spreads, and becomes independent of the fate of its origi- nators. What is produced in some limited district is dif- fused over a wider and wider area, where the process of effectual ' stamping out ' becomes more and more difficult. Thus it is even possible for the habits and inventions of races long extinct to remain as the common property of surviving nations ; and the destructive actions which make such havoc with the civilizations of particular districts fail to destroy the civilization of the world. The enquiry as to the relation of savagery to barbarism and semi-civilization lies almost entirely in prge-historic or extra-historic regions. This is of course an unfavourable condition, and must be frankly accepted. Direct history hardly tells anything of the changes of savage culture, except where in contact with and under the dominant influence of foreign civilization, a state of things which is little to our present purpose. Periodical examinations of low races otherwise left isolated to work out their own destinies, would be interesting evidence to the student of civilization if they could be made ; but unfortunately they cannot. The lower races, wanting documentary memorials, loose in preserving tradition, and ever ready to clothe myth in its shape, can seldom be trusted in their stories of long-past ages. History is oral or written record which can be satisfactorily traced into contact with the events it de- scribes ; and perhaps no account of the course of culture in its lower stages can satisfy this stringent criterion. Tradi- tions may be urged in support either of the progression- theory or of the degradation-theory. These traditions may be partly true, and must be partly untrue ; but whatever truth or untruth they may contain, there is such difficulty in separating man's recollection of what was from his specu- 4O ' THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. lation as to what might have been, that ethnology seems not likely to gain much by attempts to judge of early stages of civilization on a traditional basis. The problem is one which has occupied the philosophic mind even in savage and barbaric life, and has been solved by speculations asserted as facts, and by traditions which are, in great measure, mere realized theories. The Chinese can show, with all due gravity, the records of their ancient dynasties and tell us how in old times their ancestors dwelt in caves, clothed themselves with leaves, and ate raw flesh, till, under such and such rulers, they were taught to build huts, prepare skins for garments, and make fire. 1 Lucretius can describe to us, in his famous lines, the large-boned, hardy, lawless, primaeval race of man, living the roving life of the wild beasts which they overcame with stones and heavy clubs, devouring berries and acorns, ignorant as yet of fire, and agriculture, and the use of skins for clothing. From this state the Epicurean poet traces up the development of culture, beginning outside but ending inside the range of human memory. 2 To the same class belong those legends which, starting from an ancient savage state, describe its elevation by divine civilizers : this, which may be called the supernatural progression-theory, is exemplified in the familiar culture-traditions of Peru and Italy. But other minds, following a different ideal track from the present to the past, have seen in a far different shape the early stages of human life. Those men whose eyes are always turned to look back on the wisdom of the ancients, those who by a common confusion of thought ascribe to men of old the wisdom of old men, those who hold fast to some once-honoured scheme of life which new schemes are superseding before their eyes, are apt to carry back their thought of present degeneration into far-gone ages, till they reach a period of primaeval glory. The Parsi looks back to the happy rule of King Yima, when men and cattle were immortal, when water and trees never dried up and food 1 Goguet, vol. iii. p. 270. * Lucret. v. 923, &c. ; see Hor. Sat. i. 3. EVIDENCE OF DECLINE. 4! was inexhaustible, when there was no cold nor heat, no envy nor old age. 1 The Buddhist looks back to the age of glorious soaring beings who had no sin, no sex, no want of food, till the unhappy hour when, tasting a delicious scum that formed upon the surface of the earth, they fell into evil, and in time became degraded to eat rice, to bear children, to build houses, to divide property, and to establish caste. In after ages, record preserves details of the continuing course of degeneration. It was King Chetiya who told the first lie, and the citizens who heard of it, not knowing what a lie was, asked if it were white, black or blue. Men's lives grew shorter and shorter, and it was King Maha Sagara who, after a brief reign of 252,000 years, made the dismal discovery of the first grey hair. 8 Admitting the imperfection of the historical record as regards the lowest stages of culture, we must bear in mind that it tells both ways. Niebuhr, attacking the progression- ists of the i8th century, remarks that they have overlooked the fact ' that no single example can be brought forward of an actually savage people having independently become civilized.' 8 Whately appropriated this remark, which indeed forms the kernel of his well-known Lecture on the Origin of Civilisation: * Facts are stubborn things/ he says, 'and that no authenticated instance can be produced of savages that ever did emerge, unaided, from that state is no theory, but a statement, hitherto never disproved, of a matter of fact.' He uses this as an argument in support of his general conclusion, that man could not have risen indepen- dently from a savage to a civilized state, and that savages are degenerate descendants of civilized men. 4 But he omits to ask the counter-question, whether we find one recorded in- tance of a civilized people falling independently into a savage 1 ' Avesta,' trans. Spiegel & Bleeck, vol. ii. p. 50. * Hardy, ' Manual of Budhism,' pp. 64, 128. 3 Niebuhr, ' Romische Geschichte,' part i. p. 88 : ' Nur das haben sie ubersehen, dasz kein einziges Beyspiel von einem wirklich wilden Volk aufzuweisen 1st, welches frey zur Cultur iibergegangen ware.' 4 Whately, ' Essay on Origin of Civilisation.' 42 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. state ? Any such record, direct and well vouched, would be of high interest to ethnologists, though, of course, it would not contradict the development-theory, for proving loss is not disproving previous gain. But where is such a record to be found ? The defect of historical evidence as to the transi- tion between savagery and higher culture is a two-sided fact , only half taken into Archbishop Whately's one-sided argu- ment. Fortunately the defect is by no means fatal. Though history may not account directly for the existence and explain the position of savages, it at least gives evidence which bears closely on the matter. Moreover, we are in various ways enabled to study the lower course of culture on evidence which cannot have been tampered with to support a theory. Old traditional lore, however untrustworthy as direct record of events, contains most faithful incidental descriptions of manners and customs ; archaeology displays old structures and buried relics of the remote past ; philo- logy brings out the undesigned history in language, which generation after generation have handed down without a thought of its having such significance ; the ethnological survey of the races of the world tells much ; the ethnogra- phical comparison of their condition tells more. Arrest and decline in civilization are to be recognised as among the more frequent and powerful operations of national life. That knowledge, arts, and institutions should decay in certain districts, that peoples once progressive should lag behind and be passed by advancing neighbours, that some- times even societies of men should recede into rudeness and misery all these are phenomena with which modern history is familiar. In judging of the relation of the' lower to the higher stages of civilization, it is essential to gain some idea how far it may have been affected by such degeneration. What kind of evidence can direct observation and history give as to the degradation of men from a civilized condition towards that of savagery ? In our great cities, the so-called 1 dangerous classes ' are sunk in hideous misery and de- pravity. If we have to strike a balance between the EVIDENCE OF DECLINE. 43 Papuans of New Caledonia and the communities of Euro- pean beggars and thieves, we may sadly acknowledge that we have in our midst something worse than savagery. But it is not savagery ; it is broken-down civilization. Nega- tively, the inmates of a Whitechapel casual ward and of a Hottentot kraal agree in their want of the knowledge and virtue of the higher culture. But positively, their mental and moral characteristics are utterly different. Thus, the savage life is essentially devoted to gaining subsistence from nature, which is just what the proletarian life is not. Their rela- tions to civilized life the one of independence, the other of dependence are absolutely opposite. To my mind the popular phrases about ' city savages ' and ' street Arabs ' seem like comparing a ruined house to a builder's yard. It is more to the purpose to notice how war and misrule, famine and pestilence, have again and again devastated coun- tries, reduced their population to miserable remnants, and lowered their level of civilization, and how the isolated life of wild country districts seems sometimes tending towards savagery. So far as we know, however, none of these causes have ever really reproduced a savage community. For an ancient account of degeneration under adverse cir- cumstances, Ovid's mention of the unhappy colony of Tomi on the Black Sea is a case in point, though perhaps not to be taken too literally. Among its mixed Greek and barbaric population, harassed and carried off into slavery by the Sarmatian horsemen, much as the Persians till lately were by the Turkomans, the poet describes the neglect of the gardener's craft, the decay of textile arts, the barbaric clothing of hides. ' Nee tamen haec loca sunt ullo pretiosa metallo : Hostis ab agricola vix sinit ilia fodi. Purpura saepe tuos fulgens praetexit amictus : Sed non Sarmatico tingitur ilia mari. Vellera dura ferunt pecudes, et Palladis uti Arte Tomitanae non didicere nurus. Femina pro lana Cerialia munera frangit, Suppositoque gravem vertice portat aquam. 44 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE. Non hie pampineis amicitur vitibus ulmus : Nulla premunt ramos pondere poma suo. Tristia deformes pariunt absinthia campi, Terraque de fructu quam sit amara docet.' * Cases of exceptionally low civilization in Europe may perhaps be sometimes accounted for by degeneration of this kind. But they seem more often the relics of ancient un- changed barbarism. The evidence from wild parts of Ireland two or three centuries ago is interesting from this point of view. Acts of Parliament were passed against the inveterate habits of fastening ploughs to the horses' tails, and of burning oats from the straw to save the trouble of threshing. In the i8th century Ireland could still be 'thus described in satire : ' The Western isle renowned for bogs, For tories and for great wolf-dogs, For drawing hobbies by the tails, And threshing corn with fiery flails.' * Fynes Moryson's description of the wild pr ' meere ' Irish about 1600, is amazing. The very lords of them, he says, dwelt in poor clay houses, or cabins of boughs covered with turf. In many parts men as well as women had in very winter time but a linen r,ag about the loins and a woollen mantle on their bodies, so that it would turn a man's stomach to see an old woman in the morning before break- fast. He notices their habit of burning oats from the straw, and making cakes thereof. They had no tables, but set their meat on a bundle of grass. They feasted on fallen horses, and seethed pieces of beef and pork with the un- washed entrails of beasts in a hollow tree, lapped in a raw cow's hide, and so set over the fire, and they drank milk warmed with a stone first cast into the fire. 8 Another 1 Ovid. Ex Ponto, iii. 8; see Grote, ' History of Greece,' vol. xii. p. 641. 8 W. C. Taylor, ' Nat. Hist, of Society,' vol. i. p. 202. 3 Fynes Moryson, ' Itinerary ; ' London, 1617, part iii. p. 162, &c. ; J. Evans in ' Archaeologia,' vol. xli. See description of hide-boiling, &c., among the wild Irish, about 1550, in Andrew Boorde, 'Introduction of Knowledge,' ed. by F. J. Furnivall, Early English Text Soc. 1870. SAVAGE AND BARBARIC SURVIVAL. 45 district remarkable for a barbaric simplicity of life is the Hebrides. Till of late years, there were to be found there in actual use earthen vessels, unglazed and made by hand without the potter's wheel, which might pass in a museum as indifferent specimens of savage manufacture. These ' craggans ' are still made by an old woman at Barvas for sale as curiosities. Such a modern state of the potter's art in the Hebrides fits well with George Buchanan's state- ment in the i6th century that the islanders used to boil meat in the beast's own paunch or hide. 1 Early in the 1 8th century Martin mentions as prevalent there the ancient way of dressing corn by burning it dexterously from the ear, which he notices to be a very quick process, thence called ' graddan ' (Gaelic, grad= quick). 2 Thus we see that the habit of burning out the grain, for which the ' meere Irish ' were reproached, was really the keeping up of an old Keltic art, not without its practical use. So the appearance in modern Keltic districts of other widespread arts of the lower culture hide-boiling, like that of the Scythians in Herodo- tus, and stone-boiling, like that of the Assinaboins of North America seems to fit not so well with degradation from a high as with survival from a low civilization. The Irish and the Hebrideans had been for ages under the influence of comparatively high civilization, which nevertheless may have left unaltered much of the older and ruder habit of the people. |