Joseph McCabe

“ The imperial system—or chaos—ruined Rome. And just when the demoralisation was greatest, and the Teutonic tribes at the frontiers were most numerous and powerful, an accident shook the system. A fierce and numerous people from Asia, the Huns, wandered into Europe, threw themselves on the Teutonic tribes, and precipitated these tribes upon the Empire. A Diocletian might still have saved the Empire, but there was none to guide it. The northern barbarians trod its civilisation underfoot, and Europe passed into the Dark Ages. ”

“ The battle of the future lies between wit and wit, art and art, generosity and generosity; and a great struggle and rivalry may proceed that will carry the distinctive powers of man to undreamed-of heights, yet be wholly innocent of the passion-lit, blood-stained conflict that has hitherto been the instrument of progress. ”

“ To suggest that western peoples have done no more than receive and develop the culture of the older east would be at once unscientific and unhistorical. By the close of the Neolithic age a great number of peoples had reached the threshold of civilisation, and it would be extremely improbable that in only two parts of the world the conditions would be found of further progress. That the culture of these older empires has enriched Europe and had a great share in its civilisation, is one of the most obvious of historical truths. ”

“ The recovery in our time of the actual remains of Egypt and Babylon has corrected much of the libellous legend, which found its way into Greek and European literature, concerning those ancient civilisations. But, as culture advances, human development becomes so complex that we must refrain from attempting to pursue, even in summary, its many outgrowths. The evolution of morality, of art, of religion, of polity, and of literature would each require a whole volume for satisfactory treatment. ”

“ The evolutionary conception of the world is itself undergoing evolution in the mind of man. Age by age the bits of fresh discovery are fitted into the great mosaic. Large areas are still left for the scientific artist of the future to fill. ”

“ The pace increases every century. A calm and critical review of our development inspires a conviction that a few centuries will bring about the realisation of the highest dream that ever haunted the mind of the prophet. What splendours lie beyond that, the most soaring imagination cannot have the dimmest perception.
And the last word must meet an anxiety that arises out of this very confidence. Darwin was right. It is—not exclusively, but mainly—the struggle for life that has begotten higher types. Must every step of future progress be won by fresh and sustained struggle? ”

“ After some hundreds of years of internal trouble, barbaric quarrels, and fresh arrivals from the north, Greece began to wear an aspect of civilisation. Many of the Greeks passed to Asia Minor, as they increased, and, freed from the despotism of tradition, in living contact with the luxury and culture of Persia, which had advanced as far as Europe, they evolved the fine civilisation of the Greek colonies, and reacted on the motherland. ”

“ There is not the least trace of a common element in the environment of these peoples to explain why they have remained at the level of primitive humanity. Many of them lived in the most promising and resourceful surroundings. What is common to them all is their isolation from the paths of later humanity. They represent the first wave of human distribution, pressed to the tips of continents or on islands by later waves, and isolated. ”

“ As in the case of Egypt, again, more tribes were attracted to the fertile region, and by about 4000 B.C. we find that Semitic tribes from the north have superseded the Sumerians, and taken over their civilisation.
In these ancient civilisations, developing in touch with each other, and surrounded by great numbers of peoples at the high Neolithic level from which they had themselves started, culture advanced rapidly. Not only science, art, literature, commerce, law, and social forms were developed, but moral idealism reached a height that compares well even with that of modern times. ”

“ The whole region to the east of the Mediterranean was just as fitted to develop a civilisation as the valley of the Nile. It swarmed with peoples having the latest Neolithic culture, and, as they advanced, and developed navigation, the territory of many of them became the high road of more advanced peoples. A glance at the map will show that the easiest line of expansion for a growing people was westward. ”

“ It remains to be seen if evolutionary principles will throw at least an equal light on the progress of humanity in the historical period. Here again the questions, Whence and Why, have been asked in vain for countless ages. If man is a progressive animal, why has the progress been confined to some of the race? If humanity shared at first a common patrimony, why have the savages remained savages, and the barbarians barbaric? Why has progress been incarnated so exceptionally in the white section of the race, the Europeans? ”

“ We may neglect the older Italian culture, as it had far less to do with the making of Italy and Europe than the influence of the east. By about 500 B.C. Rome was a small kingdom with a primitive civilisation, busy in subduing the neighbouring tribes who threatened its security, and unconsciously gathering the seeds of culture which some of them contained. By about 300 B.C. the vigour of the Romans had united all the tribes of Italy in a powerful republic, and wealth began to accumulate at Rome. Not far to the east was the glittering civilisation of Greece ”

“ The civilisations of Britain, France, Germany, Spain, North Africa, and Italy were ushered into the calendar of mankind, and were ready to bear the burden when the mighty city on the Tiber let the sceptre fall from its enfeebled hands. ”

“ In the new intellectual ferment there appeared the great artists, great thinkers and inventors, and great navigators who led the race to fresh heights. The invention of printing alone would almost have changed the face of Europe. ”

“ What is meant is that the chief key to the progress of certain peoples, the arrest of progress in others, and the entire absence of progress in others, is the study of their relations with, or isolation from, other peoples. They make progress chiefly according to the amount of stimulation they get by contact with a diverse culture. ”

“ The northern, more isolated peoples, are the more primitive; the north-eastern, whose isolation is accentuated by a severe environment, are most primitive of all. The Eskimo, whether they are the survivors of the Magdalenian race or a regiment thrown off the Asiatic army as it entered America, remain at the primitive level. The American peoples in turn accord with this view. Those which penetrate furthest south remain stagnant or deteriorate; those which remain in the far north remain below the level of civilisation, because the land-bridge to Asia breaks down ”

“ Their environment is one of the finest in the world, but—it lies far away from the highways of culture.
In much the same way can we interpret the swarming peoples of Africa. The more primitive peoples which arrived first, and were driven south or into the central forests by the later and better equipped invaders from the central zone, have remained the more primitive. The more northern peoples, on the fringe of, or liable to invasion from, the central zone, have made more advance, and have occasionally set up rudimentary civilisations. ”

“ Rome fell. The more accurate historians of our time correct the old legend of death from senile decay or from the effect of dissipation. Races of men, like races of animals, do not die; they are killed. The physical deterioration of the citizens of Rome was a small matter in its fall. Fiscal and imperial blunders loosed the frame of its empire. ”

“ There remain the civilisations of Asia, and here we have a new and interesting aspect of the question. How did these civilisations develop in Asia, and how is it that they have remained stagnant for ages, while Europe advanced? The origin of the Asiatic civilisations is obscure. The common idea of their vast antiquity has no serious ground. The civilisation of Japan cannot be traced back beyond about the eighth century B.C. Even then the population was probably a mixed flotsam from neighbouring lands—Ainus, Koreans, Chinese, and Malays. ”

“ Yet some recent historical writers, in their eagerness to set up indigenous civilisations apart from those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, pass to the opposite extreme. We are prepared to find civilisation developing wherever the situation of a people exposes it to sufficient stimulation, and we do find advance made among many peoples apart from contact with the great southern empires. ”

“ There was no progressive element in the advancing few that was not shared by the stagnant many. The difference lay in the environment. Let us see if this principle applies to the history of civilisation.
In the last chapter I observed that, with the rise of human intelligence, the cultural environment becomes more important than the physical. Since human progress is a progress in ideas and the emotions which accompany them, this may seem to be a truism. ”

“ The peoples of the Mediterranean fringe of Africa, living in the central zone of stimulation, have proved very progressive. Under the Romans North Africa was at least as civilised as Britain, and an equally wise and humane European policy might lead to their revival to-day.
When we turn to Asia we encounter a mass of little-understood peoples and a few civilisations with obscure histories, but we have a fairly clear application of the principle. ”

“ It is enough for us to know that the whole region fermented with jostling peoples. Why it did so the previous chapters will explain. It is the temperate zone into which men had been pressed by the northern ice-sheet, and from Egypt to the Indian Ocean it remained a fertile breeding-ground of nations.
These early civilisations are merely the highest point of Neolithic culture. The Egyptian remains show a very gradual development of pottery, ornamentation, etc., into which copper articles are introduced in time. The dawn of civilisation is as gradual as the dawn of the day. ”

“ At least we may say that the notion that progress in the future depends, as in the past, upon the pitting of flesh against flesh, and tooth against tooth, is a deplorable illusion. Such physical struggle is indeed necessary to evolve and maintain a type fit for the struggle. ”

“ The civilisation of India is also far later than the civilisation of the west, and seems to be more clearly due to borrowing from the west. The primitive peoples who live on the hills about India, or in the jungles, are fragments, apparently, of the Stone Age inhabitants of India, or their descendants. Their culture may have degenerated under the adverse conditions of dislodgement from their home, but we may fairly conclude that it was never high. ”

“ Yet even in its imperfect state the evolutionary picture of the world is most illuminating. The questions that have been on the lips of thoughtful men since they first looked out with adult eyes on the panorama of nature are partly answered. ”

“ The authorities tell us that, unless some cosmic accident intervene, the earth will remain habitable by man for at least ten million years. It is safe to conclude that the man of that remote age will be lifted above the man of to-day as much as we transcend the reptile in intelligence and emotion. ”

“ The Ethnologist tells us that the lowest peoples of the earth are the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, the Hottentots, a number of little-understood peoples in Central Africa, the wild Veddahs of Ceylon, the (extinct) Tasmanians, the Aetas in the interior of the Philippines, and certain fragments of peoples on islands of the Indian Ocean. ”

“ We cannot run over all the peoples of the earth in this way, but will briefly glance at the lower races of the various continents. A branch of the second phase of developing humanity, the negroid stock, spread eastward over the Asiatic islands and Australia, and westward into Africa. The extreme wing of this army, the Australian blacks, too clearly illustrates the principle to need further reference. It has retained for ages the culture of the middle Palaeolithic. ”

“ In the preceding chapters I have endeavoured to show how, without invoking any "definitely directed variations," which we seem to have little chance of understanding, we may obtain a broad conception of the way in which the earth and its living inhabitants came to be what they are. No one is more conscious than the writer that this account is extremely imperfect. ”

“ The civilisation which developed on the Euphrates is found first at Susa, on the hills overlooking the plains of Mesopotamia, about 6000 B.C. A people akin to the Turkish or Chinese lives among the hills, and makes the vague advance from higher Neolithic culture to primitive civilisation. About the same time the historical or dynastic civilisation begins in Egypt, and some high authorities, such as Mr. ”