Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 Part 7

There are plenty of histories of civilisation and theories of civilisation abroad in the world just now, and which profess to show you how the primaeval savage has, or at least may have, become the civilised man. For my part, with all due and careful consideration, I confess I attach very little value to any of them: and for this simple reason that we have no facts. The facts are lost.

Of course, if you a.s.sume a proposition as certainly true, it is easy enough to prove that proposition to be true, at least to your own satisfaction. If you a.s.sert with the old proverb, that you may make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you will be stupider than I dare suppose anyone here to be, if you cannot invent for yourselves all the intermediate stages of the transformation, however startling. And, indeed, if modern philosophers had stuck more closely to this old proverb, and its defining verb 'make,' and tried to show how some person or persons-let them be who they may-men, angels, or G.o.ds-made the sow's ear into the silk purse, and the savage into the sage-they might have pleaded that they were still trying to keep their feet upon the firm ground of actual experience. But while their theory is, that the sow's ear grew into a silk purse of itself, and yet unconsciously and without any intention of so bettering itself in life; why, I think that those who have studied the history which lies behind them, and the poor human nature which is struggling, and sinning, and sorrowing and failing around them, and which seems on the greater part of this planet going downwards and not upwards, and by no means bettering itself, save in the increase of opera-houses, liquor-bars, and gambling-tables, and that which pertaineth thereto; then we, I think, may be excused if we say with the old Stoics-?p???-I withhold my judgment. I know nothing about the matter yet; and you, O my imaginative, though learned friends, know I suspect very little either.

Eldest of things, Divine Equality:

so sang poor Sh.e.l.ley, and with a certain truth. For, if, as I believe, the human race sprang from a single pair, there must have been among their individual descendants an equality far greater than any which has been known on earth during historic times. But that equality was at best, the infantile innocence of the primary race, which faded away in the race as quickly, alas! as it does in the individual child.

Divine-therefore it was one of the first blessings which man lost; one of the last, I fear, to which he will return; that to which civilisation, even at its best yet known, has not yet attained, save here and there for short periods; but towards which it is striving as an ideal goal, and, as I trust, not in vain.

The eldest of things which we see actually as history, is not equality, but an already developed hideous inequality, trying to perpetuate itself, and yet by a most divine and gracious law, destroying itself by the very means which it uses to keep itself alive.

'There were giants in the earth in those days, And Nimrod began to be a mighty one in the earth'-

A mighty hunter; and his game was man.

No; it is not equality which we see through the dim mists of bygone ages.

What we do see, is-I know not whether you will think me superst.i.tious or old-fas.h.i.+oned, but so I hold-very much what the earlier books of the Bible show us under symbolic laws. Greek histories, Roman histories, Egyptian histories, Eastern histories, inscriptions, national epics, legends, fragments of legends-in the New World as in the Old-all tell the same story. Not the story without an end, but the story without a beginning. As in the Hindoo cosmogony, the world stands on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on-what? No man knows.

I do not know. I only a.s.sert deliberately; waiting, as Napoleon says, till the world come round to me, that the tortoise does not stand-as is held by certain anthropologists, some honoured by me, some personally dear to me-upon the savages who chipped flints and fed on mammoth and reindeer in North-western Europe, shortly after the age of ice, a few hundred thousand years ago. These st.u.r.dy little fellows-the kinsmen probably of the Esquimaux and Lapps-could have been but the avant-couriers, or more probably the fugitives from the true ma.s.s of mankind-spreading northward from the Tropics, into climes becoming, after the long catastrophe of the age of ice, once more genial enough to support men who knew what decent comfort was, and were strong enough to get the same, by all means fair or foul. No. The tortoise of the human race does not stand on a savage. The savage may stand on an ape-like creature. I do not say that he does not. I do not say that he does. I do not know; and no man knows. But at least I say that the civilised man and his world stand not upon creatures like to any savage now known upon the earth. For first, it seems to be most unlikely; and next, and more important to an inductive philosopher, there is no proof of it. I see no savages becoming really civilised men-that is-not merely men who will ape the outside of our so-called civilisation, even absorb a few of our ideas; not merely that; but truly civilised men who will think for themselves, invent for themselves, act for themselves; and when the sacred lamp of light and truth has been pa.s.sed into their hands, carry it on unextinguished, and transmit it to their successors without running back every moment to get it relighted by those from whom they received it: and who are bound-remember that-patiently and lovingly to relight it for them; to give freely to all their fellow-men of that which G.o.d has given to them and to their ancestors; and let G.o.d, not man, be judge of how much the Red Indian or the Polynesian, the Caffre or the Chinese, is capable of receiving and of using.

Moreover, in history there is no record, absolutely no record, as far as I am aware, of any savage tribe civilising itself. It is a bold saying.

I stand by my a.s.sertion: most happy to find myself confuted, even in a single instance; for my being wrong would give me, what I can have no objection to possess, a higher opinion than I have now, of the una.s.sisted capabilities of my fellow-men.

But civilisation must have begun somewhen, somewhere, with some person, or some family, or some nation; and how did it begin?

I have said already that I do not know. But I have had my dream-like the philosopher-and as I have not been ashamed to tell it elsewhere, I shall not be ashamed to tell it here. And it is this:-

What if the beginnings of true civilisation in this unique, abnormal, diseased, unsatisfied, incomprehensible, and truly miraculous and supernatural race we call man, had been literally, and in actual fact, miraculous and supernatural likewise? What if that be the true key to the mystery of humanity and its origin? What if the few first chapters of the most ancient and most sacred book should point, under whatever symbols, to the actual and the only possible origin of civilisation, the education of a man, or a family by beings of some higher race than man?

What if the old Puritan doctrine of Election should be even of a deeper and wider application than divines have been wont to think? What if individuals, if peoples, have been chosen out from time to time for a special illumination, that they might be the lights of the earth, and the salt of the world? What if they have, each in their turn, abused that divine teaching to make themselves the tyrants, instead of the ministers, of the less enlightened? To increase the inequalities of nature by their own selfishness, instead of decreasing them, into the equality of grace, by their own self-sacrifice? What if the Bible after all was right, and even more right than we were taught to think?

So runs my dream. If, after I have confessed to it, you think me still worth listening to, in this enlightened 19th century, I will go on.

At all events, what we see at the beginning of all known and half-known history, is not savagery, but high civilisation, at least of an outward and material kind. Do you demur? Then recollect, I pray you, that the three oldest peoples known to history on this planet are Egypt, China, Hindostan. The first glimpses of the world are always like those which the book of Genesis gives us; like those which your own continent gives us. As it was 400 years ago in America, so it was in North Africa and in Asia 4,000 years ago, or 40,000 for aught I know. Nay, if anyone should ask-And why not 400,000 years ago, on Miocene continents long sunk beneath the Tropic sea? I for one have no rejoinder save-We have no proofs as yet.

There loom up, out of the darkness of legend, into the as yet dim dawn of history, what the old Arabs call Races of pre-Adamite Sultans-colossal monarchies, with fixed and often elaborate laws, customs, creeds; with aristocracies, priesthoods-seemingly always of a superior and conquering race; with a ma.s.s of common folk, whether free or half-free, composed of older conquered races; of imported slaves, too, and their descendants.

But whence comes the royal race, the aristocracy, the priesthood? You enquire, and you find that they usually know not themselves. They are usually-I had almost dared to say, always-foreigners. They have crossed the neighbouring mountains. They have come by sea, like Dido to Carthage, like Manco Ca.s.sae and Mama Bello to America, and they have sometimes forgotten when. At least they are wiser, stronger, fairer, than the aborigines. They are to them-as Jacques Cartier was to the Indians of Canada-as G.o.ds. They are not sure that they are not descended from G.o.ds. They are the Children of the Sun, or what not. The children of light, who ray out such light as they have, upon the darkness of their subjects. They are at first, probably, civilisers, not conquerors. For, if tradition is worth anything-and we have nothing else to go upon-they are at first few in number. They come as settlers, or even as single sages. It is, in all tradition, not the many who influence the few, but the few who influence the many.

So aristocracies, in the true sense, are formed. But the higher calling is soon forgotten. The purer light is soon darkened in pride and selfishness, luxury and l.u.s.t; as in Genesis, the sons of G.o.d see the daughters of men, that they are fair; and they take them wives of all that they choose. And so a mixed race springs up and increases, without detriment at first to the commonwealth. For, by a well-known law of heredity, the cross between two races, probably far apart, produces at first a progeny possessing the forces, and, alas! probably the vices of both. And when the sons of G.o.d go in to the daughters of men, there are giants in the earth in those days, men of renown. The Roman empire, remember, was never stronger than when the old Patrician blood had mingled itself with that of every nation round the Mediterranean.

But it does not last. Selfishness, luxury, ferocity, spread from above, as well as from below. The just aristocracy of virtue and wisdom becomes an unjust one of mere power and privilege; that again, one of mere wealth, corrupting and corrupt; and is destroyed, not by the people from below, but by the monarch from above. The hereditary bondsmen may know

Who would be free, Himself must strike the blow.

But they dare not, know not how. The king must do it for them. He must become the State. 'Better one tyrant,' as Voltaire said, 'than many.'

Better stand in fear of one lion far away, than of many wolves, each in the nearest wood. And so arise those truly monstrous Eastern despotisms, of which modern Persia is, thank G.o.d, the only remaining specimen; for Turkey and Egypt are too amenable of late years to the influence of the free nations to be counted as despotisms pure and simple-despotisms in which men, instead of wors.h.i.+pping a G.o.d-man, wors.h.i.+p the hideous counterfeit, a _Man-G.o.d_-a poor human being endowed by public opinion with the powers of deity, while he is the slave of all the weaknesses of humanity. But such, as an historic fact, has been the last stage of every civilisation-even that of Rome, which ripened itself upon this earth the last in ancient times, and, I had almost said, until this very day, except among the men who speak Teutonic tongues, and who have preserved through all temptations, and rea.s.serted through all dangers, the free ideas which have been our sacred heritage ever since Tacitus beheld us, with respect and awe, among our German forests, and saw in us the future masters of the Roman Empire.

Yes, it is very sad, the past history of mankind. But shall we despise those who went before us, and on whose acc.u.mulated labours we now stand?

Shall we not reverence our spiritual ancestors? Shall we not show our reverence by copying them, at least whenever, as in those old Persians, we see in them manliness and truthfulness, hatred of idolatries, and devotion to the G.o.d of light and life and good? And shall we not feel pity, instead of contempt, for their ruder forms of government, their ignorances, excesses, failures-so excusable in men who, with little or no previous teaching, were trying to solve for themselves for the first time the deepest social and political problems of humanity.

Yes, those old despotisms, we trust, are dead and never to revive. But their corpses are the corpses, not of our enemies, but of our friends and predecessors, slain in the world-old fight of Ormuzd against Ahriman-light against darkness, order against disorder. Confusedly they fought, and sometimes ill: but their corpses piled the breach and filled the trench for us, and over their corpses we step on to what should be to us an easy victory-what may be to us, yet, a shameful ruin.

For if we be, as we are wont to boast, the salt of the earth and the light of the world, what if the salt should lose its savour? What if the light which is in us should become darkness? For myself, when I look upon the responsibilities of the free nations of modern times, so far from boasting of that liberty in which I delight-and to keep which I freely, too, could die-I rather say, in fear and trembling, G.o.d help us on whom He has laid so heavy a burden as to make us free; responsible, each individual of us, not only to ourselves, but to Him and all mankind.

For if we fall we shall fall I know not whither, and I dare not think.

How those old despotisms, the mighty empires of old time, fell, we know, and we can easily explain. Corrupt, luxurious, effeminate, eaten out by universal selfishness and mutual fear, they had at last no organic coherence. The moral anarchy within showed through, at last burst through, the painted skin of prescriptive order which held them together.

Some braver and abler, and usually more virtuous people, often some little, hardy, homely mountain tribe, saw that the fruit was ripe for gathering; and, caring nought for superior numbers-and saying with German Alaric when the Romans boasted of their numbers, 'The thicker the hay the easier it is mowed-struck one brave blow at the huge inflated wind-bag-as Cyrus and his handful of Persians struck at the Medes; as Alexander and his handful of Greeks struck afterwards at the Persians-and behold, it collapsed upon the spot. And then the victors took the place of the conquered; and became in their turn an aristocracy, and then a despotism; and in their turn rotted down and perished. And so the vicious circle repeated itself, age after age, from Egypt and a.s.syria to Mexico and Peru.

And therefore, we, free peoples as we are, have need to watch, and sternly watch, ourselves. Equality of some kind or other is, as I said, our natural and seemingly inevitable goal. But which equality? For there are two-a true one and a false; a n.o.ble and a base; a healthful and a ruinous. There is the truly divine equality, and there is the brute equality of sheep and oxen, and of flies and worms. There is the equality which is founded on mutual envy. The equality which respects others, and the equality which a.s.serts itself. The equality which longs to raise all alike, and the equality which desires to pull down all alike. The equality which says-Thou art as good as I, and it may be better too, in the sight of G.o.d. And the equality which says-I am as good as thou, and will therefore see if I cannot master thee.

Side by side, in the heart of every free man, and every free people, are the two instincts struggling for the mastery, called by the same name, but bearing the same relation to each other as Marsyas to Apollo, the Satyr to the G.o.d. Marsyas and Apollo, the base and the n.o.ble, are, as in the old Greek legend, contending for the prize. And the prize is no less an one than all free people of this planet.

In proportion as that n.o.bler idea conquers, and men unite in the equality of mutual respect and mutual service, they move one step further towards realising on earth that Kingdom of G.o.d of which it is written-'The despots of the nations exercise dominion over them, and they that exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But he that will be great among you let him be the servant of all.'

And in proportion as that base idea conquers, and selfishness, not self-sacrifice, is the ruling spirit of a State, men move on, one step forward towards realising that kingdom of the devil upon earth, 'Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.' Only, alas! in that evil equality of envy and hate, there is no hindmost, and the devil takes them all alike.

And so is a period of discontent, revolution, internecine anarchy, followed by a tyranny endured, as in old Rome, by men once free, because tyranny will at least do for them, what they were too lazy and greedy and envious to do for themselves.

And all because they have forgot What 'tis to be a man-to curb and spurn The tyrant in us: the ign.o.bler self Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute; And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain, No purpose, save its share in that wild war In which, through countless ages, living things Compete in internecine greed. Ah, loving G.o.d, Are we as creeping things, which have no lord?

That we are brutes, great G.o.d, we know too well; Apes daintier-featured; silly birds, who flaunt Their plumes, unheeding of the fowler's step; Spiders, who catch with paper, not with webs; Tigers, who slay with cannon and sharp steel, Instead of teeth and claws:-all these we are.

Are we no more than these, save in degree?

Mere fools of nature, puppets of strong l.u.s.ts, Taking the sword, to perish by the sword Upon the universal battle-field, Even as the things upon the moor outside?

The heath eats up green gra.s.s and delicate herbs; The pines eat up the heath; the grub the pine; The finch the grub; the hawk the silly finch; And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey, Eats what he lists. The strong eat up the weak; The many eat the few; great nations, small; And he who cometh in the name of all Shall, greediest, triumph by the greed of all, And, armed by his own victims, eat up all.

While ever out of the eternal heavens Looks patient down the great magnanimous G.o.d, Who, Master of all worlds, did sacrifice All to Himself? Nay: but Himself to all; Who taught mankind, on that first Christmas Day, What 'tis to be a man-to give, not take; To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour; To lift, not crush; if need, to die, not live.

'He that cometh in the name of all'-the popular military despot-the 'saviour of his country'-he is our internecine enemy on both sides of the Atlantic, whenever he arises-the inaugurator of that Imperialism, that Caesarism into which Rome sank, when not her liberties merely, but her virtues, were decaying out of her-the sink into which all wicked States, whether republics or monarchies, are sure to fall, simply because men must eat and drink for to-morrow they die. The Military and Bureaucratic Despotism which keeps the many quiet, as in old Rome, by _panem et Circenses_-bread and games-or if need be, Pilgrimages; that the few may make money, eat, drink, and be merry, as long as it can last. That, let it ape as it may-as did the Caesars of old Rome at first-as another Emperor did even in our own days-the forms of dead freedom, really upholds an artificial luxury by brute force; and consecrates the basest of all aristocracies, the aristocracy of the money bag, by the divine sanction of the bayonet.

That at all risks, even at the price of precious blood, the free peoples of the earth must ward off from them; for, makes.h.i.+ft and stop-gap as it is, it does not even succeed in what it tries to do. It does not last.

Have we not seen that it does not, cannot last? How can it last. This falsehood, like all falsehoods, must collapse at one touch of Ithuriel's spear of truth and fact. And-

'Then saw I the end of these men. Namely, how Thou dost set them in slippery places, and casteth them down.

'Suddenly do they perish, and come to a fearful end. Yea, like as a dream when one awaketh, so shalt Thou make their image to vanish out of the city.'

Have we not seen that too, though, thank G.o.d, neither in England nor in the United States?

And then? What then? None knows, and none can know.

The future of France and Spain, the future of the Tropical Republics of Spanish America, is utterly blank and dark; not to be prophesied, I hold, by mortal man, simply because we have no like cases in the history of the past whereby to judge the tendencies of the present. Will they revive?

Under the genial influences of free inst.i.tutions will the good seed which is in them take root downwards, and bear fruit upwards? and make them all what that fair France has been, in spite of all her faults, so often in past years-a joy and an inspiration to all the nations round? Shall it be thus? G.o.d grant it may; but He, and He alone, can tell. We only stand by, watching, if we be wise, with pity and with fear, the working out of a tremendous new social problem, which must affect the future of the whole civilised world.

For if the agonising old nations fail to regenerate themselves, what can befall? What, when even Imperialism has been tried and failed, as fail it must? What but that lower depth within the lowest deep?

That last dread mood Of sated l.u.s.t, and dull decrepitude.

No law, no art, no faith, no hope, no G.o.d.

When round the freezing founts of life in peevish ring, Crouched on the bare-worn sod, Babbling about the unreturning spring, And whining for dead creeds, which cannot save, The toothless nations s.h.i.+ver to their grave.