We shall find, then, that with all of the efforts put forth the greater part was wasted. Millions of people were born, lived, and died, leaving scarcely a mark of their existence. No wonder that, as the great kings of Egypt saw the wasting elements of time, the waste of labor in its dreary rounds, having employed the millions in building the mighty temples dedicated to the worship of the gods; or having built great canals and aqueducts to develop irrigation that greater food supply might be assured, thus observing the majesty of their condition in relation to other human beings, they should have employed these millions of serfs in building their own tombs and monuments to remain the only lasting vestige of the civilization long since passed away. Everywhere in the Oriental civilization, then, are lack of freedom and the appearance of despotism. Everywhere is evidence of waste of individual life. No deep conception can be found in either the philosophy or the practice of the Egyptians or the Babylonians of the real object of human life. And yet the few meagre products of art and of learning handed down to European civilization from these Oriental countries must have had a vast influence in laying the foundations of modern civilized life.

Economic Influences.—In the first place, the warm climate of these countries required but little clothing; for a few cents a year a person could be clothed sufficiently to protect himself from the climate and to observe the rules of modesty so far as they existed in those times. In the second place, in hot climates less food is required than in cold. In cold countries people need a large quantity of heavy, oily foods, while in hot climates they need a lighter food and, indeed, less of it. Thus we have in these fertile valleys of the Orient the conditions which supply sustenance for millions at a very small amount of exertion or labor. Now, it is a well-established fact that cheap food among classes of people who have not developed {179} a high state of civilization favors a rapid increase of population. The records show in Babylon and Egypt, as well as in Palestine, that the population multiplied at a very rapid rate. And this principle is enhanced by the fact that in tropical climates, where less pressure of want and cold is brought to bear, the conditions for successful propagation of the human race are present. And this is one reason why the earliest civilizations have always been found in tropical climates, and it was not until man had more vigor of constitution and higher development of physical and mental powers that he could undertake the mastery of himself and nature under less favorable circumstances.

The result was that human life became cheap. The great mass of men became so abundant as to press upon the food supply to its utmost limit. And they who had the control of this food supply controlled the bodies and souls of the great poverty-stricken mass who toiled for daily bread. Here we find the picture of abject slavery of the masses. The rulers, through the government, strengthened by the priests, who held over the masses of the lower people in superstitious awe the tenets of their faith, forced them into subjection. There was no value placed upon a human life; why, then, should there be upon the masses of individuals?

We shall find, too, as the result of all this, that the civilization became more or less stationary. True, there must have been a slow development of religious ideas, a slow development of art, a slow development of government, and yet when the type was once set there was but little change from century to century in the relation of human beings to one another, and their relation to the products of nature. When we consider the accomplishments of these people we must not forget the length of time it took to produce them. Reckon back from the present time 6,000 years, and then consider what has been accomplished in America in the last century. Think back 2,000 years, and see what had been accomplished in Rome from the year of the founding of the imperial city until the Caesars lived {180} in their mighty palaces, a period of seven and a half centuries. Observe, too, what was accomplished in Greece from the time of Homer until the time of Aristotle, a period of about six and a half centuries; then observe the length of time it took to develop the Egyptian civilization, and we shall see its slow progress. It is also to be observed that the Egyptian civilization had reached its culmination when Greece began, and had begun its slow decline. After considering this we shall understand that the civilization of Egypt finally became stationary, conventionalized, non-progressive; that it was only a question of time when other nations should rule the land of the Pharaohs, and that sands should drift where once were populous cities, covering the relics of this ancient civilization far beneath the surface.

The progress in industrial arts and the use of implements was, of necessity, very slow. Where the laboring man was considered of little value, treated as a mere physical machine, to be fed and used for mechanical purposes alone, it mattered little with what tools he worked. In the building of the pyramids we find no mighty engines for the movement of the great stones, we find no evidence of mechanical genius to provide labor-saving machines. The inclined plane and rollers, the simplest of all contrivances, were about the only inventions. Also, in the buildings of Babylon, the tools with which men worked must of necessity have been very poor. It is remarkable to what extent modern invention depends upon the elevation of the standard of life of labor, and how man through intelligence continually makes certain contrivances for the perfection of human industry. However, if we consider the ornaments used to adorn the person, or for the service of the rich, or the elaborate clothing of the wealthy, we shall find quite a high state of development in these lines, showing the greatest contrast between the condition of the laboring multitudes on the one hand and the luxurious few on the other. Along this line of the rapid development of ornaments we find evidence of luxury and ease, and, in the slow development of {181} industrial arts, the sacrifice of labor. And all of the advancement in the mighty works of art and industry was made at the sacrifice of human labor.

To sum this up, we find, then, that the influence of despotic government, of the binding power of caste, of the prevalence of custom, of the influence of priestcraft, the retarding power of a non-progressive religion, concentration of intelligence in a privileged class that seeks its own ease, the slow development of industrial implements, and the rapid development of ornaments, brought decay. We see in all of this a retarding of improvement, a stagnation of organizing effort, and the crystallization of ancient civilization about old forms, to be handed down from generation to generation without progress.

Records, Writing, and Paper.—At an early period papyrus, a paper made of a reed that grows along the Nile valley, was among the first inventions. It was the earliest artificial writing material discovered by any nation of which we have a record; and we are likely to remember it from its two names, biblos and papyrus, for from these come two of our most common words, bible and paper. Frequently, however, leather, pottery, tiles, and stone, and even wooden tablets, were used as substitutes for the papyrus. In the early period the Egyptians used the hieroglyphic form of writing, which consisted of rude pictures of objects which had a peculiar significance. Finally the hieratic simplified this form by symbolizing and conventionalizing to a large extent the hieroglyphic characters. Later came the demotic, which was a further departure from the old concrete form of representation, and had the advantage of being more readily written than either of the others.[1] These characters were used to inscribe the deeds of kings on monuments and tablets, and when in 1798 the key to the Egyptian writing was obtained through means of the Rosetta stone, the opportunity for a large addition to the history of Egypt was made. Strange as it may seem, these ancient people had written romances and fairy tales; one especially to be mentioned {182} is the common Cinderella and the Glass Slipper, written more than thirteen centuries B.C. But in addition to these were published documents, private letters, fables, epics, and autobiographies, and treatises on astronomy, medicine, history, and scientific subjects.

The Babylonians and Assyrians developed the cuneiform method of writing. They had no paper, but made their inscriptions on clay tablets and cylinders. These were set away in rooms called libraries. The discovery of the great library of Ashur-bani-pal, of Nineveh, revealed the highest perfection of this ancient method of recording events.

The art of Egypt was manifested in the dressing of precious stones, the weaving of fine fabrics, and fine work in gold ornaments. Sculpture and painting were practically unknown as arts, although the use of colors was practised to a considerable extent. Artistic energy was worked out in the making of the tombs of kings, the obelisks, the monuments, the sphinxes, and the pyramids. It was a conception of the massive in artistic expression. In Babylon and Nineveh, especially the latter, the work of sculpture in carving the celebrated winged bulls gives evidence of the attempt to picture power and strength rather than beauty. Doubtless the Babylonians developed artistic taste in the manufacture of jewelry out of precious stones and gold.

The Beginnings of Science Were Strong in Egypt, Weak in Babylon.—The greatest expression of the Egyptian learning was found in science. The work in astronomy began at a very early date from a practical standpoint. The rising of the Nile occurred at a certain time annually, coinciding with the time of the rise of the Dog-star, which led these people to imagine that they stood in the relation of effect and cause, and from these simple data began the study of astronomy. The Egyptians, by the study of the movement of the stars, were enabled to determine the length of the sidereal year, which they divided into twelve months, of thirty days each, adding five days to complete the year. This is the calendar which was {183} introduced from Egypt into the Roman Empire by Julius Caesar. It was revised by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, and has since been the universal system for the Western civilized world. Having reached their limit of fact in regard to the movement of the heavenly bodies, their imagination related the stars to human conduct, and astrology became an essential outcome. It was easy to believe that the heavenly bodies, which, apparently, had such great influence in the rise of the river and in the movement of the tides, would have either a good influence or a baneful influence, not only over the vegetable world but upon human life and human destiny as well. Hence, astrology, in Egypt as in Babylonia, became one of the important arts.

From the measurement of the Nile and the calculation of the lands, which must be redistributed after each annual overflow, came the system of concrete measurement which later developed into the science of geometry. Proceeding from the simple measurement of land, step by step were developed the universal abstract problems of geometry, and the foundation for this great branch of mathematics was laid. The use of arithmetic in furnishing numerical expressions in the solution of geometrical and arithmetical problems became common.

The Egyptians had considerable knowledge of many drugs and medicines, and the physicians of Egypt had a great reputation among the ancients; for every doctor was a specialist and pursued his subject and his practice to the utmost limit of fact and theory. But the physician must treat cases according to customs already established in the past. There was but little opportunity for the advancement of his art. Yet it became very much systematized and conventionalized. The study of anatomy developed also the art of embalming, one of the most distinctive features of Egyptian civilization. This art was carried on by the regular physicians, who made use of resins, oils, bitumens, and various gums. It was customary to embalm the bodies of wealthy persons by filling them with resinous substances and wrapping them closely in linen {184} bandages. The poorer classes were cured very much as beef is cured before drying, and then wrapped in coarse garments preparatory to burial. The number of individuals who were thus disposed of after death is estimated at not less than 420,000,000 between 2000 B.C. and 700 A.D.

The Contribution to Civilization.—The building of the great empires on the Tigris and Euphrates had a tendency to collect the products of civilization so far as they existed, and to distribute them over a large area. Thus, the industries that began in early Sumer and Akkad, coming from farther east, were passed on to Egypt and Phoenicia and were further distributed over the world. Especially is this true in the work of metals, the manufacture of glass, and the development of the alphabet, which probably originated in Babylon and was improved by the Phoenicians, and, through them as traders, had a wide dispersion. Perhaps one ought to consider that the study of the stars and the heavenly bodies, although it led no farther than astrology and the development of magic, was at least a beginning, although in a crude way, of an inquiry into nature.

In Egypt, however, we find that there was more or less scientific study and invention and development of reflective thinking. Moreover, the advancement in the arts of life, especially industrial, had great influence over the Greeks, whose early philosophers were students of the Egyptian system. Also, the contact of the Hebrews and Phoenicians with Egypt gave a strong coloring to their civilization. Especially is this true of the Hebrews, who dwelt so long in the shadow of the Egyptian civilization. The Hebrews, after their captivity in Babylon, contributed the Bible, with its sacred literature, to the world, which with its influence through the legal-ethicalism, or moral code, its monotheistic doctrines, and its attempted development of a commonwealth based on justice, had a lasting influence on civilization. But in the life of the Hebrew people in Palestine its influence on surrounding nations was not so great as in the later times when the Jews were scattered over the {185} world. The Bible has been a tremendous civilizer of the world. Hebrewism became a universal state of mind, which influenced all nations that came in contact with it.

But what did this civilization leave to the world? The influence of Egypt on Greece and Greek philosophy must indeed have been great, for the greatest of the Greeks looked upon the Egyptian philosophy as the expression of the highest wisdom. Nor can we hesitate in claiming that the influence of the Egyptians upon the Hebrews was considerable. There is a similarity in many respects between the Egyptian and the Hebrew code of learning; but the art and the architecture, the learning and the philosophy, had their influence likewise on all surrounding nations as soon as Egypt was opened up to communication with other parts of the world. A careful study of the Greek philosophy brings clearly before us the influence of the Egyptian learning. Thus Thales, the first of the philosophers to break away from the Grecian religion and mythology to inquire into the natural cause of the universe, was a student of Egyptian life and philosophy.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What are the evidences of civilization discovered in Tut-Ankh-Amen's tomb?

2. Give an outline of the chief characteristics of Egyptian civilization?

3. What caused the decline of Egyptian civilization?

4. What did Oriental civilization contribute to the subsequent welfare of the world?

5. The influence of climate on industry in Egypt and Babylon.

6. Why did the Egyptian religion fail to improve the lot of the common man?

7. Retarding influence of the caste system in India and Egypt.



[1] See Chapter VII.



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CHAPTER XI

BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION IN AMERICA

America Was Peopled from the Old World.—The origin of the people of America has been the subject of perennial controversy. Gradually, however, as the studies of the human race and their migrations have increased, it is pretty well established that the one stream of migration came from Asia across a land connection along the Aleutian Islands, which extended to Alaska. At an early period, probably from 15,000 to 20,000 years age, people of the Mongoloid type crossed into America and gradually passed southward, some along the coast line, others through the interior of Alaska and thence south. This stream of migration continued down through Mexico, Central America, South America, and even to Patagonia. It also had a reflex movement eastward toward the great plains and the Mississippi valley. There is a reasonable conjecture, however, that another stream of migration passed from Europe at a time when the British Islands were joined to the mainland, and the great ice cap made a solid bridge to Iceland, Greenland, and possibly to Labrador. It would have been possible for these people to have come during the third glacial period, at the close of the Old Stone Age, or soon after in the Neolithic period. The traditions of the people on the west coast all state their geographical origin in the northwest. The traditions of the Indians of the Atlantic coast trace their origins to the northeast.

The people of the west coast are mostly of the round-headed type (brachycephalic), while those of the east coast have been of the long-headed type (dolichocephalic). The two types have mingled in their migration southward until we have the long heads and the round or broad heads extending the whole {187} length of the two continents. Intermingled with these are those of the middle derivative type, or mesocephalic. From these sources there have developed on the soil of America, the so-called American Indians of numerous tribes, each with its own language and with specialized physical and mental types. While the color of the skin has various shades, the coarse, straight black hair and brown eyes are almost general features of the whole Indian race.

At different centres in both North and South America, tribes have become more or less settled and developed permanent phases of early civilization, strongly marked by the later Neolithic cultures. In some exceptional cases, the uses of copper, bronze, and gold are to be noted. Perhaps the most important centres are those of the Incas in Peru, the Mayas, Aztecs, and Terra-humares of Mexico, the cliff-dwellers and Pueblos of southwestern United States, the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley, and the Iroquois nation of northeastern United States and Canada. At the time of the coming of the Europeans to America, the Indian population in general was nomadic, in the hunter-fisher stage of progress; but many of the tribes had tentatively engaged in agriculture, cultivating maize, squashes, and in some cases fruits. Probably the larger supply of food was from animals, birds, fish, and shell-fish, edible roots and grains, such as the wild rice, and fruits from the native trees in the temperate and tropical countries. The social organization was based upon the family and the tribe, and, in a few instances, a federation of tribes like that of the Iroquois nation.

The Incas of Peru.—When the Spaniards under Pizarro undertook the conquest of the Peruvians, they found the Inca civilization at its highest state of development. However, subsequent investigations discovered other and older seats of civilization of a race in some ways more highly developed than those with whom they came in contact. Among the evidences of this ancient civilization were great temples built of stone, used as public buildings for the administration of religious {188} rights [Transcriber's note: rites?], private buildings of substantial order, and paved roads with numerous bridges. There were likewise ruins of edifices apparently unfinished, and traditions of an ascendent race which had passed away before the development of the Incas of Pizarro's time. In the massive architecture of their buildings there was an attempt to use sculpture on an elaborate scale. They showed some skill in the arts and industries, such as ornamental work in gold, copper, and tin, and the construction of pottery on a large scale. They had learned to weave and spin, and their clothing showed some advancement in artistic design.

In agriculture they raised corn and other grains, and developed a state of pastoral life, although the llama was the only domesticated animal of service. Great aqueducts were built and fertilizers were used to increase the productive value of the soil. The dry climate of this territory necessitated the use of water by irrigation, and the limited amount of tillable soil had forced them to use fertilizers to get the largest possible return per acre.

The Peruvians, or Incas, were called the children of the sun. They had a sacred feeling for the heavenly bodies, and worshipped the sun as the creator and ruler of the universe. They had made some progress in astronomy, by a characterization of the sun and moon and chief planets, mostly for a religious purpose. However, they had used a calendar to represent the months, the year, and the changing seasons. Here, as elsewhere in primitive civilization, religion becomes an important factor in social control. The priest comes in as the interpreter and controller of mysteries, and hence an important member of the community. Religious sacrifices among the Peruvians were commonly of an immaculate nature, being mostly of fruits and flowers. This relieved them of the terrors of human sacrifices so prevalent in early beginnings of civilization where religion became the dominant factor of life. Hence their religious life was more moderate than that of many nations where religious control was more powerful. Yet in governmental {189} affairs and in social life, here as in other places, religion was made the means of enslaving the masses of the people.

The government of the Incas was despotic. It was developed through the old family and tribal life to a status of hereditary aristocracy. Individuals of the oldest families became permanent in government, and these were aided and supported by the priestly order. Caste prevailed to a large extent, making a great difference between the situation of the nobility and the peasants and slaves. Individuals born into a certain group must live and die within that group. Hence the people were essentially peaceable, quiet, and not actively progressive. But we find that the social life, in spite of the prominence of the priest and the nobility, was not necessarily burdensome. Docile and passive in nature, they were ready to accept what appeared to them a well-ordered fate. If food, clothing, and shelter be furnished, and other desires remain undeveloped, and life made easy, what occasion was there for them to be moved by nobler aspirations? Without higher ideals, awakened ambition, and the multiplication of new desires, there was no hope of progress. The people seemed to possess considerable nobility of character, and were happy, peaceful, and well disposed toward one another, even though non-progressive conditions gave evidence that they had probably reached the terminal bud of progress of their branch of the human race.

As to what would have been the outcome of this civilization had not the ruthless hand of the Spaniard destroyed it, is a matter of conjecture. How interesting it would have been if these people could have remained unmolested for 400 years as an example of progress or retardation of a race. Students then could, through observation, have learned a great lesson concerning the development of the human race. Is it possible when a branch of the human race has only so much potential power based upon hereditary development, upon attitude toward life, and upon influence of environmental conditions, that after working out its normal existence it grows old and decays and dies, just as even the sturdy oak has its normal life {190} and decay? At any rate, it seems that the history of the human race repeats itself over and over again with thousands of examples of this kind. When races become highly specialized along certain lines and are unadaptable along other lines, changes in climate, soil, food supply, or conflict with other races cause them to perish.

If we admit this to be the universal fate of tribes and races, there is one condition in which the normal life of the race can be prolonged, and that is by contact with other races which bring in new elements, and make new accommodations, not only through biological heredity, but through social heredity which causes a new lease of life to the tribe. Of course the deteriorating effects of a race of less culture would have a tendency to shorten the spiritual if not the physical life of the race. Whatever conjecture we may have as to the past and the probable future of such a race, it is evident that the Peruvians had made a strong and vigorous attempt at civilization. Their limited environment and simple life were not conducive to progressive ideas, and gave little inducement for inventive genius to lead the race forward. But even as we find them, the sum-total of their civilization compares very favorably with the sum-total of the civilization of the Spaniards, who engaged to complete their destruction. Different were these Spaniards in culture and learning, it is true, but their great difference is in the fact that the Spaniards had the tools and equipment for war and perhaps a higher state of military organization than the peace-loving Peruvians.

Aztec Civilization in Mexico.—When Cortez in 1525 began his conquest of Mexico, he found a strong political organization under the Emperor Montezuma, who had through conquest, diplomacy, and assumption of power united all of the tribes in and around Mexico City in a strong federation. These people were made up of many different tribes. At this period they did not show marked development in any particular line, except that of social organization. The people that occupied this great empire ruled by Montezuma, with the seat of power {191} at Mexico City, were called Aztecs. The empire extended over all of lower Mexico and Yucatan. As rapidly as possible Montezuma brought adjacent tribes into subjection, and at the time of the Spanish conquest he exercised lordship over a wide country. So far as can be ascertained, arts and industries practised by most of these tribes were handed down from extinct races that had a greater inventive genius and a higher state of progress. The conquering tribes absorbed and used the arts of the conquered, as the Greeks did those of the conquered Aegeans.

The practice of agriculture, of the industrial arts, such as clothing, pottery, and implements of use and ornaments for adornment, showed advancement in industrial life. They built large temples and erected great buildings for the worship of their gods. There was something in their worship bordering on sun-worship, although not as distinctive as the sun-worship of the Peruvians. They were highly developed in the use of gold and copper, and produced a good quality of pottery. They had learned the art of decorating the pottery, and their temples also were done in colors and in bas-relief. They had developed a language of merit and had a hieroglyphic expression of the same. They had a distinct mythology, comprising myths of the sun and of the origin of various tribes, the origin of the earth and of man. They had developed the idea of charity, and had a system of caring for the poor, with hospitals for the sick. Notwithstanding this altruistic expression, they offered human sacrifices of maidens to their most terrible god.

As before stated, there were many tribes, consequently many languages, although some of them were near enough alike that members of different tribes could be readily understood. Also the characteristic traits varied in different tribes. It is not known whence they came, although their tradition points to the origin of the northwest. Undoubtedly, each tribe had a myth of its own origin, but, generally speaking, they all came from the northwest. Without doubt, at the time of the coming of the Spaniards, the tribes were non-progressive except in {192} government. The coming of the Spaniards was a rude shock to their civilization, and with a disintegration of the empire, the spirit of thrift and endeavor was quenched. They became, as it were, slaves to a people with so-called higher civilization, who at least had the tools with which to conquer if they had not higher qualities of human character than those of the conquered.

The Earliest Centres of Civilization in Mexico.—Prior to the formation of the empire of the Aztecs, conquered by the Spaniards, there existed in Mexico centres of development of much greater antiquity. The more important among these were Yucatan and Mitla. A large number of the ruins of these ancient villages have been discovered and recorded. The groups of people who developed these contemporary civilizations were generally known as Toltecs. The Maya race, the important branch of the Toltecs, which had its highest development in Yucatan, was supposed to have come from a territory northeast of Mexico City, and traces of its migrations are discovered leading south and east into Yucatan. It is not known at what period these developments began, but probably their beginnings might have been traced back to 15,000 years, although the oldest known tablet found gives a record of 202 years B.C. Other information places their coming much later, at about 387 A.D.

All through Central America and southern Mexico ruins of these ancient villages have been discovered. While the civilizations of all were contemporaneous, different centres show different lines of development. There is nothing certain concerning the origin of the Toltecs, and they seemed to have practically disappeared so far as independent tribal life existed after their conquest by the Aztecs, although the products of their civilization were used by many other tribes that were living under the Aztec rule, and, indeed, traces of their civilization exist to-day in the living races of southern and central Mexico. Tradition states that the Toltecs reached their highest state of power between the seventh and the twelfth {193} centuries, but progress in the interpretation of their hieroglyphics gives us but few permanent records. The development of their art was along the line of heavy buildings with bas-reliefs and walls covered with inscriptions recording history and religious symbols. One bas-relief represents the human head, with the facial angle shown at forty-five degrees. It was carved in stone of the hardest composition and was left unpainted.

Ethnologists have tried repeatedly and in vain to show there was a resemblance of this American life to the Egyptian civilization. In art, architecture, and industry, in worship and the elements of knowledge, there may be some resemblance to Egyptian models, but there is no direct evidence sufficient to connect these art products with those of Egypt or to assume that they must have come from the same centre. The construction of pyramids and terraces on a large scale does remind us of the tendency of the Oriental type of civilization. In all of their art, however, there was a symmetrical or conventional system which demonstrated that the indigenous development must have been from a common centre. Out of the fifty-two cities that have been explored which exhibit the habitations of the Toltec civilization, many exhibit ruins of art and architecture worthy of study.

In the construction of articles for use and ornament, copper and gold constituted the chief materials, and there was also a great deal of pottery. The art of weaving was practised, and the soil cultivated to a considerable extent. The family life was well developed, though polygamy appears to have been practised as a universal custom. The form of government was the developed family of the patriarchal type, and, where union of tribes had taken place, an absolute monarchy prevailed. War and conquest here, as in all other places where contact of tribes appeared, led to slavery. The higher classes had a large number of slaves, probably taken as prisoners of war. This indicates a degree of social progress in which enemies were preserved for slavery rather than exterminated in war. Their laws and regulations indicate a high sense of {194} justice in establishing the relationship of individuals within the tribe or nation. These people were still in the later Neolithic Age, but with signs of departure from this degree of civilization in the larger use of the metals. There were some indications that bronze might have been used in making ornaments. Perhaps they should be classified in the later Neolithic Age of the upper status of barbarism. Recent excavations in Central America, Yucatan, and more recently in the valley near Mexico City, have brought to light many new discoveries. Representations of early and later cultures show a gradual progress in the use of the arts, some of the oldest of which show a great resemblance to the early Mongolian culture of Asia.

The Pueblo Indians of the Southwest.—In northern Mexico and Arizona there are remains of ancient buildings which seem to indicate that at one time a civilization existed here that has long since become extinct. Long before the arrival of the Spaniards, irrigation was practised in this dry territory. Indeed, in the Salt River valley of Arizona, old irrigation ditches were discovered on the lines of which now flow the waters that irrigate the modern orchards and vineyards. The discoveries in recent years in the southwest territory indicate that this ancient civilization had been destroyed by the warlike tribes that were ever ready to take possession of centres of culture and possess or destroy the accumulation of wealth of the people who toiled. If one could fill in the missing links of history with his imagination, it would be easy to conjecture that the descendants of these people fled to the mountains, and became the Cliff-Dwellers of the Southwest. These people built their homes high on the cliffs, in caves or on projecting prominences. Here they constructed great communal dwellings, where they could defend themselves against all enemies. They were obliged to procure their food and water from the valley, and to range over the surrounding mesas in the hunt. Gradually they stole down out of the cliffs to live in the valleys and built large communal houses, many of which now are in existence in this territory.

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These people have several centres of civilization which are similar in general, but differ in many particulars. They are classed as Pueblo Indians. Among these centres are the Hopi Indians, the Zunian, Taoan, Shoshonean, and many others.[1] The pre-history of these widely extended groups of Indians is not known, but in all probability they have been crowded into this southwest arid region by warlike tribes, and for the shelter and protection of the whole tribe have built large houses of stone or adobe. The idea of protection seems to have been the dominant one in building the cliff houses and the adobe houses of the plain. The latter were entered by means of ladders placed upon the wall, so that they could ascend from one story to another. The first story had no doors or windows, but could be entered by means of a trap-door.

The Pueblos were, as a rule, people of low stature, but of an intelligent and pleasing appearance. They dressed in cotton goods or garments woven from the fibre of the yucca plant, or from coarse bark, and later, under Spanish rule, from specially prepared wool. Their feet were protected by sandals made from the yucca, or moccasins from deer or rabbit skins. Leggings coming above the knee were formed by wrapping long strips of buckskin around the leg. The women and men dressed very much alike. The women banged their hair to the eyebrows, allowing it to hang loosely behind, although in some instances maidens dressed their hair with two large whirls above the ears. The Zuni Indians practised this custom after the coming of the Spaniards.

The Pueblos were well organized into clans, and descent in the female line was recognized. The clans were divided usually into the north, south, east, and west clans by way of designation, showing that the communal idea had been established with recognition of government by locality. Here, as elsewhere among the American aborigines, the clans were named after the animals chosen as their totem, but there were in addition {196} to these ordinary clans, the Sun clan, the Live Oak, the Turquoise, or others named from objects of nature. Each group of clans was governed by a priest chief, who had authority in all religious matters and, consequently, through religious influences, had large control in affairs pertaining to household government, and to social and political life in general. The duties and powers of these chiefs were carefully defined. The communal houses in which the people lived were divided into apartments for different clans and families. In some instances there was a common dining-hall for the members of the tribe. The men usually resided outside of the communal house, but came to the common dining-hall for their meals.

There were many secret societies among these people which seemed to mingle religious and political sentiments. The members of these societies dwelt to a large extent in the Estufa, or Kiva, a large half-subterranean club-house where they could meet in secret. In every large tribe there were four to seven of these secret orders, and they were recognized as representing the various organizations. These "cult societies," so called by Mr. Powell, had charge of the mythical rites, the spirit lore, the mysteries, and the medicines of the part of the tribe which they represented. They conducted the ceremonies at all festivals and celebrations. It is difficult to determine the exact nature of their religion. It was a worship full of superstition, recognizing totemism and direct connection with the spirits of nature. Their religion was of a joyous nature, and always was associated with their games and feasts. The games were usually given in the celebration of some great event, or for some economic purpose, and were accompanied with dancing, music, pantomime, and symbolism. Perhaps of all of the North American Indians, the Pueblos showed the greatest fondness for music and had made some advancement in the arts of poetry and song. The noted snake dance, the green-corn dance, and the cachina all had at foundation an economic purpose. They were done ostensibly to gain the favor of the gods of nature.

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When discovered by the Spaniards, the Pueblos had made good beginnings in agriculture and the industrial arts, were living in a state of peace and apparently contented, there seeming to be little war between the tribes. Their political organization in connection with the secret societies and their shamanistic religion gave them a good development of social order. After nearly 400 years of Spanish and American rule, they appear to have retained many of their original traits and characteristics, and cherish their ancient customs. Apparently the Spanish and the American civilization is merely a gloss over their ancient life which they seek every opportunity to express. They are to-day practically non-assimilative and live to a large extent their own life in their own way, although they have adopted a few of the American customs. While quite a large number of these villages are now to be seen very much in their primitive style of architecture and life, more than 3,000 architectural ruins in the Southwest, chiefly in Arizona and New Mexico, have been discovered. Many of them are partially obscured in the drifting sands, but they show attempts at different periods by different people to build homes. The devastation of flood and famine and the destruction of warlike tribes retarded their progress and caused their extinction. The Pueblo Indians were in the middle status of barbarism when the Spaniards arrived, and there they would have remained forever or become extinct had not the Spanish and American civilizations overtaken them. Even now self-determined progress seems not to possess them. However, through education the younger generations are being slowly assimilated into American life. But it appears that many generations will pass before their tribal life is entirely absorbed into a common democracy.

The Mound-Builders of the Mississippi Valley.—At the coming of the Europeans this ancient people had nearly all disappeared. Only a few descendants in the southern part of the great valley of the Mississippi represented living traces of the Mound-Builders. They had left in their burial mounds {198} and monuments many relics of a high type of the Neolithic civilization which they possessed. As to their origin, history has no direct evidence. However, they undoubtedly were part of that great stream of early European migration to America which gradually spread down the Ohio valley and the upper Mississippi. At what time they flourished is not known, although their civilization was prehistoric when compared with that of the Algonquins, Athabascans, and Iroquois tribes that were in existence at the time of the coming of the Europeans. Although the tradition of these Indians traces them to the Southwest, and that they became extinct by being driven out by more savage and more warlike people, whence they came and whither they went are both alike open to conjecture.

Their civilization was not very different from that of many other tribes of North American Indians. Their chief characteristic consisted in the building of extensive earth mounds as symbolical of their religious and tribal life. They also built immense enclosures for the purpose of fortification. Undoubtedly on the large mounds were originally built public houses or dwellings or temples for worship or burial. Those in the form of a truncated pyramid were used for the purposes of building sites for temples and dwellings, and those having circular bases and a conical shape were used as burial places.

Besides these two kinds was another, called effigy mounds, which represented the form of some animal or bird, which undoubtedly was the totem of the tribe. These latter mounds were seldom more than three or four feet high, but were of great extent. They indicated the unity of the gens, either by representing it through the totem or a mythical ancestry. Other mounds of less importance were used in religious worship, namely, for the location of the altar to be used for sacrificial purposes. All were used to some extent as burial mounds. Large numbers of their implements made of quartz, chert, bone, and slate for the household and for the hunt have been found. They used copper to some extent, which was obtained in a free or native state and hammered into implements and ornaments.

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Undoubtedly, the centre of the distribution of copper was the Lake Superior region, which showed that there was a diffusion of cultures from this centre at this early period. They made some progress in agriculture, cultivating maize and tobacco. Apparently their commerce with surrounding tribes was great, which no doubt gave them a variety of means of life. The pottery, judging from specimens that have been preserved, was inferior to that of the Mexicans or the Arizona Indians, but, nevertheless, in the lower Mississippi fine collections of pottery showing beautiful lines and a large number of designs were found. It fills one with wonder that a tribe of such power should have begun the arts of civilization and developed a powerful organization, and then have been so suddenly destroyed—why or how is not known. In all probability it is the old story of a sedentary group being destroyed by the more hardy, savage, and warlike conquerors.

Other Types of Indian Life.—While the great centres of culture were found in Peru, Central America, Mexico, southwest United States, and the Mississippi valley, there were other cultures of a less pronounced nature worthy of mention. On the Pacific coast, in the region around Santa Barbara, are the relics of a very ancient tribe of Indians who had developed some skill in the making of pottery and exhibit other forms of industrial life. Recently an ancient skeleton has been discovered which seems to indicate a life of great antiquity. Nevertheless, it is a lower state of civilization than those of the larger centres already mentioned. Yet it is worthy of note that there was here started a people who had adopted village habits and attained a considerable degree of progress. Probably they were contemporary with other people of the most ancient civilizations of America.

So far as the advancement of government is concerned, the Iroquois Indians of Canada and New York showed considerable advancement. As represented by Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, who made a careful study of the Iroquois, their tribal divisions and their federation of tribes show an advancement along {200} governmental lines extending beyond the mere family or tribal life. Their social order showed civil progress, and their industrial arts, in agriculture especially, were notable.

Why Did the Civilization of America Fail?—There is a popular theory that the normal advancement of the Indian races of America was arrested or destroyed by the coming of the Europeans. Undoubtedly the contact of the higher civilization with the latter had much to do with the hastening of the decay of the former. The civilizations were so widely apart that it was not easy for the primitive or retarded race to adopt the civilization of the more advanced. But when it is assumed that if the Europeans had never come to the American continent, native tribes and races would eventually, of their own initiative, develop a high state of civilization, such an assumption is not well founded, because at the time of the coming of the Europeans there was no great show of progress. It seems as if no branch of the race could go forward very far without being destroyed by more warlike tribes. Or, if let alone, they seemed to develop a stationary civilization, reaching their limit, beyond which they could not go. As the races of Europe by specialization along certain lines became inadaptable to new conditions and passed away to give place to others, so it appears that this was characteristic of the civilization of America. Evidently the prehistoric Peruvians, Mexicans, Pueblos, and Mound-Builders had elements of civilization greater than the living warring Indian tribes which came in contact with the early European settlers in America.

It may not be wise to enter a plea that all tribes and races have their infancy, youth, age, and decay, with extinction as their final lot, but it has been repeated so often in the history of the human race that one may assume it to be almost, if not quite, universal. The momentum of racial power gained by biological heredity and social achievement, reaches its limit when it can no longer adapt itself to new conditions, with the final end and inevitable result of extinction.

The Nordic race, with all of its vigor and persistency, has {201} had a long and continuous life on account of its roving disposition and its perpetual contact with new conditions of its own choice. It has always had power to overcome, and its vigor has kept it exploiting and inventing and borrowing of others the elements of civilization, which have continually forced it forward. When it, too, reaches a state when it cannot adapt itself to new conditions, perhaps it will give way to some other branch of the human race, which, gathering new strength or new vigor from sources not available to the Nordic, will be able to overpower it; but the development of science and art with the power over nature, is greater in this race than in any other, and the maladies which destroy racial life are less marked than in other races. It would seem, then, that it still has great power of continuance and through science can adapt itself to nature and live on.

But what would the American Indian have contributed to civilization? Would modern civilization have been as far advanced as now, had the Europeans found no human life at all on the American continent? True, the Europeans learned many things of the Indians regarding cultivation of maize and tobacco, and thus increased their food supply, but would they not have learned this by their own investigations, had there been no Indians to teach? The arts of pottery have been more highly developed by the Etruscans, the Aegeans, and the Greeks than by the American Indians. The Europeans had long since passed the Stone Age and entered the Iron Age, which they brought to the American Indians. But the studies of ethnology have been greatly enlarged by the fact of these peculiar and wonderful people, who exhibited so many traits of nobility of character in life. Perhaps it would not be liberal to say the world would have been just as well off had they never existed. At any rate, we are glad of the opportunity to study what their life was and what it was worth to them, and also its influence on the life and character of the Europeans.

The most marked phases of this civilization are found in the development of basketry and pottery, and the exquisite work {202} in stone implements. Every conceivable shape of the arrow-head, the spear, the stone axe and hammer, the grinding board for grains, the bow-and-arrow, is evidence of the skill in handiwork of these primitive peoples. Also, the skill in curing and tanning hides for clothing, and the methods of hunting and trapping game are evidences of great skill. Perhaps, also, there is something in the primitive music of these people which not only is worthy of study but has added something to the music culture of more advanced peoples. At least, if pressed to learn the real character of man, we must go to primitive peoples and primitive life and customs.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What contributions did the American Indians make to European civilization?

2. What are the chief physical and mental traits of the Indian?

3. What is the result of education of the Indian?

4. How many Indians are there in the United States? (a) Where are they located? (b) How many children in school? Where?

5. If the Europeans made a better use of the territory than did the Indians, had the Europeans the right to dispossess them? Did they use the right means to gain possession?

6. Study an Indian tribe of your own selection regarding customs, habits, government, religion, art, etc.



[1] Recent discoveries in Nevada and Utah indicate a wide territorial extension of the Pueblo type.



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PART IV

WESTERN CIVILIZATION

CHAPTER XII

THE OLD GREEK LIFE

The Old Greek Life Was the Starting Point of Western Civilization.—Civilization is a continuous movement—hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization to the Western. The former finally merges into the latter. Although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. Perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. Connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. It has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. It was the early privilege of European life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. Kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the Western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. There came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. It is admitted that the despotic governments of the Old World existed for the few and neglected the many. While despotism was not wanting in European civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. The history of Europe centres around this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action.

Among Oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. True, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices {206} of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. Their eyes were turned toward the past. Their thoughts centred on traditions and things that were fixed. Life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. If at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. On the other hand, in European civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. The early Greeks and Romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. At times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. But through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of Western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress.

Another great distinction in the development of European civilization was the recognition of humanity. In ancient times humanitarian spirit appeared not in the heart of man nor in the philosophy of government. Even the old tribal government was for the few. The national government was for selected citizens only. Specific gods, a special religion, the privilege of rights and duties were available to a few, while all others were deprived of them. This invoked a selfishness in practical life and developed a selfish system even among the leaders of ancient culture. The broad principle of the rights of an individual because he was human was not taken into serious consideration even among the more thoughtful. If he was friendly to the recognized god he was permitted to exist. If he was an enemy, he was to be crushed. On the other hand, the triumph of Western civilization is the recognition of the value of a human being and his right to engage in all human associations {207} for which he is fitted. While the Greeks came into contact with the older civilizations of Egypt and Asia, and were influenced by their thought and custom, they brought a vigorous new life which gradually dominated and mastered the Oriental influences. They had sufficient vigor and independence to break with tradition, wherever it seemed necessary to accomplish their purpose of life.

The Aegean Culture Preceded the Coming of the Greeks.—Spreading over the islands of the Aegean Sea was a pre-Greek civilization known as Minoan. Its highest centre of development was in the Island of Crete, whose principal city was Cnossos. Whence these people came and what their ethnological classification are still unsettled.[1] They had a number of centres of development, which varied somewhat in type of culture. They were a dark-haired people, who probably came from Africa or Asia Minor, settling in Crete about 5,000 years B.C. It is thought by some that the Etruscans of Italy were of Aegean origin. Prior to the Minoans there existed a Neolithic culture throughout the islands of Greece.

In the great city of Cnossos, which was sacked and burned about the fourteenth century B.C., were found ruins which show a culture of relatively high degree. By the excavations in Crete at this point a stratum of earth twenty feet thick was discovered, in which were found evidences of all grades of civilization, from the Neolithic implements to the highest Minoan culture. Palaces with frescoes and carvings, ornaments formed of metal and skilfully wrought vases with significant colorings, all evinced a civilization worthy of intensive study. These people had developed commerce and trade with Egypt, and their boats passed along the shores of the Mediterranean, carrying their civilization to Italy, northern Africa, and everywhere among the islands of Greece, as well as on the mainland. The cause of the decline of their civilization is {208} not known, unless it could be attributed to the Greek pirates who invaded their territory, and possibly, like all nations that decline, they were beset by internal maladies which marked their future destiny. Possibly, high specialization along certain lines of life rendered them unadaptable to new conditions, and they passed away because of this lack.

The Greeks Were of Aryan Stock.—Many thousand years ago there appeared along the shores of the Baltic, at the beginning of the Neolithic period of culture, a group of people who seem to have come from central Asia. It is thought by some that these were at least the forerunners of the great Nordic race. Whatever conjectures there may be as to their origin, it is known that about 2,000 years before Christ, wandering tribes extended from the Baltic region far eastward to the Caspian Sea, to the north of Persia, down to the borderland of India. These people were of Caucasian features, with fair hair and blue eyes—a type of the Nordic race. They were known as the Aryan branch of the Caucasian race. Whether this was their primitive abode, or whether their ancestors had come at a much earlier time from a central home in northern Africa, which is considered by ethnologists as the centre from which developed the Caucasian race, is not known.

They were not a highly cultured people, but were living a nomadic life, engaged in hunting, fishing, piratical exploits, and carrying on agriculture intermittently. They had also become acquainted with the use of metals, having passed during this period from the Neolithic into the Bronze Age. About the year 1500 B.C. they had become acquainted with iron, and about the same time had come into possession of the horse, probably through their contact with central Asia.

The social life of these people was very simple. While they undoubtedly met and mingled with many tribes, they had a language sufficiently common for ordinary intercourse. They had no writing or means of records at all, but depended upon the recital of deeds of warriors and nations and tribes. Wherever the Aryan people have been found, whether in Greece, {209} Italy, Germany, along the Danube, central Asia, or India, they have been noted for their epics, sagas, and vedas, which told the tales of historic deeds and exploits of the tribal or national life. It is thought that this was the reason they developed such a strong and beautiful language.

They came in contact with Semitic civilization in northern Persia, with the primitive tribes in Italy, with the Dravidian peoples of India, and represented the vigorous fighting power of the Scythians, Medes, and Persians. They or their kindred later moved up the Danube into Spain and France, with branches into Germany and Russia, and others finally into the British Islands. It was a branch of these people that came into the Grecian peninsula and overthrew and supplanted the Aegean civilization—where they were known as the Greeks.

The Coming of the Greeks.—It is not known when they came down through Asia Minor. Not earlier than 2000 B.C. nor later than 1500 B.C. the invasion began. In successive waves came the Phrygians, Aeolians, the Ionians, and the Dorians—different divisions of the same race. Soon they spread over the mainland of Greece and all the surrounding islands, and established their trading cities along the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. These people, though uncultured, seemed to absorb culture wherever they went. They learned the methods of the civilization that had been established in the Orient wherever they came in contact with other peoples, and also in the Aegean country. In fact, though they conquered and occupied the Aegean country, they took on the best of the Minoan civilization.[2] As marauders, pirates, and conquerors, they were masterful, but they came in conflict with the ideas developed among the Semitic people of Asia and the Hamitic of Egypt. Undoubtedly, this conquest of the Minoan civilization furnished the origin of many of the tales or folklore that afterward were woven into the Iliad and the Odyssey by {210} Homer. It is not known how early in Greek life these songs originated, but it is a known fact that in the eighth century the Greeks were in possession of their epics, and at this period not only had conquered the Minoan civilization but had absorbed it so far as they had use for it.

They came into this territory in the form of the old tribal government, with their primitive social customs, and as they settled in different parts of the territory in tribes, they developed independent communities of a primitive sort. They had what was known in modern historical literature as the village community, which was always found in the primitive life of the Aryans. Their mode of life tended to develop individualism, and when the group life was established, it became independent and was lacking in co-operation—that is, it became a self-sufficient social order. Later in the development of the Greek life the individual, so far as political organization goes, was absorbed in the larger state, after it had developed from the old Greek family life. These primitive Greeks soon had a well-developed language. They began systematic agriculture, became skilled in the industrial arts, domesticated animals, and had a pure home life with religious sentiments of a high order. Wherever they went they carried with them the characteristics of nation-building and progressive life. They mastered the earth and its contents by living it down with force and vigor.

The Greek peninsula was favorably situated for development. Protected on the north by a mountain range from the rigors of a northern climate and from the predatory tribes, with a range of mountains through the centre, with its short spurs cutting the entire country into valleys, in which were developed independent community states, circumstances were favorable to local self-government of the several tribes. This independent social life was of great importance in the development of Greek thought. In the north the grains and cereals were grown, and in the south the citrus and the orange. This wide range from a temperate to a semi-tropical climate {211} furnished a variety of fruits and diversity of life which gave great opportunity for development. The variety of scenery caused by mountain and valley and proximity to the sea, the thousand islands washed by the Aegean Sea, brought a new life which tended to impress the sensitive mind of the Greek and to develop his imagination and to advance culture in art.

Character of the Primitive Greeks.—The magnificent development of the Greeks in art, literature, philosophy, and learning, together with the fortunate circumstance of having powerful writers, gives us rather an exaggerated notion of the Greeks, if we attempt to apply a lofty manner and a magnificent culture to the Homeric period. They had a good deal of piratical boldness, and, after the formation of their small states, gave examples of spurts of courage such as that at Marathon and Thermopylae. Yet these evidences were rare exceptions rather than the rule, for even the Spartan, trained on a military basis, seldom evinced any great degree of bravery. Perhaps the gloomy forebodings of the future, characteristic of the Greeks, made them fear death, and consequently caused them to lack in courage. However, this is a disputed point. Pages of the earlier records are full of the sanction of deception of enemies, friends, and strangers. Evidently, there was a low moral sense regarding truth. While the Greek might be loyal to his family and possibly to his tribe, there are many examples of disloyalty to one another, and, in the later development, a disloyalty of one state toward another. Excessive egoism seems to have prevailed, and this principle was extended to the family and local government group. Each group appeared to look out for its own interests, irrespective of the welfare of others. How much a united Greece might have done to have continued the splendors and the service of a magnificent civilization is open to conjecture.

The Greeks were not sympathetic with children nor with the aged. Far from being anxious to preserve the life of the aged, their greatest trouble was in disposing of them. The honor and rights of women were not observed. In war women {212} were the property of their captors. Yet the home life of the Greeks seems to have been in its purity and loyalty an advance on the Oriental home life. In their treatment of servants and slaves, in the care of the aged and helpless, the Greeks were cold and without compassion. While the poets, historians, and philosophers have been portraying with such efficiency the character of the higher classes; while they have presented such a beautiful exterior of the old Greek life; the Greeks, in common with other primitive peoples, were not lacking in coarseness, injustice, and cruelty in their internal life. Here, as elsewhere in the beginnings of civilization, only the best of the real and the ideal of life was represented, while the lower classes were suffering a degraded life.

The family was closely organized in Greece. Monogamic marriage and the exclusive home life prevailed at an early time. The patriarchal family, in which the oldest male member was chief and ruler, was the unit of society. Within this group were the house families, formed whenever a separate marriage took place and a separate altar was erected. The house religion was one of the characteristic features of Greek life. Each family had its own household gods, its own worship, its private shrine. This tended to unify the family and promote a sacred family life. A special form of ancestral worship, from the early Aryan house-spirit worship, prevailed to a certain extent. The worship of the family expanded with the expansion of social life. Thus the gens, and the tribe, and the city when founded, had each its separate worship. Religion formed a strong cement to bind the different social units of a tribe together. The worship of the Greeks was associated with the common meal and the pouring of libations to the gods.

As religion became more general, it united to make a more common social practice, and in the later period of Greek life was made the basis of the games and general social gatherings. Religion brought the Greeks together in a social way, and finally led to the mutual advantage of members of society. {213} Later, mutual advantage superseded religion in its practice. The Greeks, at an early period, attempted to explain the origin of the earth and unknown phenomena by referring it to the supernatural powers. Every island had its myth, every phenomenon its god, and every mountain was the residence of some deity. They sought to find out the causes of the creation of the universe, and developed a theogony. There was the origin of the Greeks to be accounted for, and then the origin of the earth, and the relation of man to the deities. Everything must be explained, but as the imagination was especially strong, it was easier to create a god as a first cause than to ascertain the development of the earth by scientific study.

Influence of Old Greek Life.—In all of the traditions and writings descriptive of the old Greek social life, with the exception of the Works and Days of Hesiod, the aristocratic class appears uppermost. Hesiod "pictures a hopeless and miserable existence, in which care and the despair of better things tended to make men hard and selfish and to blot out those fairer features which cannot be denied to the courts and palaces of the Iliad and Odyssey." It appears that the foundation of aristocracy—living in comparative luxury, in devotion to art and the culture of life—was early laid by the side of the foundation of poverty and wretchedness of the great mass of the people. While, then, the Greeks derived from their ancestry the beautiful pictures of heroic Greece, they inherited the evils of imperfect social conditions. As we pass to the historical period of Greece, these different phases of life appear and reappear in changeable forms. If to the nobleman life was full of inspiration; if poetry, religion, art, and politics gave him lofty thoughts and noble aspirations; to the peasant and the slave, life was full of misery and degradation. If one picture is to be drawn in glowing colors, let not the other be omitted.

The freedom from great centralized government, the development of the individual life, the influences of the early ideas of art and life, and the religious conceptions, were of great importance in shaping the Greek philosophy and the Greek {214} national character. They had a tendency to develop men who could think and act. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first real historical period was characterized by struggles of citizens within the town for supremacy. Fierce quarrels between the upper and the lower classes prevailed everywhere, and resulted in developing an intense hatred of the former for the latter. This hatred and selfishness became the uppermost causes of action in the development of Greek social polity. Strife led to compromise, and this in turn to the recognition of the rights and privileges of different classes.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The Aegean culture.

2. The relation of Greek to Egyptian culture.

3. What were the great Greek masterpieces of (a) Literature, (b) Sculpture, (c) Architecture, (d) Art, (e) Philosophy?

4. Compare Greek democracy with American democracy.

5. What historical significance have Thermopylae, Marathon, Alexandria, Crete, and Delphi?



[1] Sergi, in his Mediterranean Race, says that they came from N. E. Africa. Beginning about 5000 years B.C., they gradually infiltrated the whole Mediterranean region. This is becoming the general belief among ethnologists, archaeologists, and historians.

[2] Recent studies indicate that some of the Cretan inscriptions are prototypes of the Greece-Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenicians evidently derived the original characters of their alphabet from a number of sources. The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet about 800-1000 B.C.



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CHAPTER XIII

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The Transition from Theology to Inquiry.—The Greek theology prepared the way for the Ionian philosophy. The religious opinions led directly up to the philosophy of the early inquirers. The Greeks passed slowly from accepting everything with a blind faith to the rational inquiry into the development of nature. The beginnings of knowing the scientific causes were very small, and sometimes ridiculous, yet they were of immense importance. To take a single step from the "age of credulity" toward the "age of reason" was of great importance to Greek progress. To cease to accept on faith the statements that the world was created by the gods, and ordered by the gods, and that all mysteries were in their hands, and to endeavor to find out by observation of natural phenomena something of the elements of nature, was to gradually break from the mythology of the past as explanatory of the creation. The first feeble attempt at this was to seek in a crude way the material structure and source of the universe.

Explanation of the Universe by Observation and Inquiry.—The Greek mind had settled down to the fact that there was absolute knowledge of truth, and that cosmogony had established the method of creation; that theogony had accounted for the creation of gods, heroes, and men, and that theology had foretold their relations. A blind faith had accepted what the imagination had pictured. But as geographical study began to increase, doubts arose as to the preconceived constitution of the earth. As travel increased and it was found that none of the terrible creatures that tradition had created inhabited the islands of the sea or coasts of the mainland, earth lost its terrors and disbelief in the system of established {216} knowledge prevailed. Free inquiry was slowly substituted for blind credulity.

This freedom of inquiry had great influence on the intellectual development of man. It was the discovery of truth through the relation of cause and effect, which he might observe by opening his eyes and using his reason. The development of theories of the universe through tradition and the imagination gave exercise to the emotions and beliefs; but change from faith in the fixity of the past to the future by observation led to intellectual development. The exercise of faith and the imagination even in unproductive ways prepared the way for broader service of investigation. But these standing alone could permit nothing more than a childish conception of the universe. They could not discover the reign of law. They could not advance the observing and reflecting powers of man; they could not develop the stronger qualities of his intellect. Individual action would be continually stultified by the process of accepting through credulity the trite sayings of the ancients. The attempt to find out how things were made was an acknowledgment of the powers of the individual mind. It was a recognition that man has a mind to use, and that there is truth around him to be discovered. This was no small beginning in intellectual development.

The Ionian Philosophy Turned the Mind Toward Nature.—Greek philosophy began in the seventh century before Christ. The first philosopher of note was Thales, born at Miletus, in Asia Minor, about 640 B.C. Thales sought to establish the idea that water is the first principle and cause of the universe. He held that water is filled with life and soul, the essential element in the foundation of all nature. Thales had great learning for his time, being well versed in geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. He travelled in Egypt and the Orient, and became acquainted with ancient lore. It is said that being impressed with the importance of water in Egypt, where the Nile is the source of all life, he was led to assert the importance of water in animate nature. In his attempts to break away from the {217} old cosmogony, he still exhibits traces of the old superstitions, for he regarded the sun and stars as living beings, who received their warmth and life from the ocean, in which they bathed at the time of setting. He held that the whole world was full of soul, manifested in individual daemons, or spirits. Puerile as his philosophy appears in comparison with the later development of Greek philosophy, it created violent antagonism with mythical theology and led the way to further investigation and speculation.

Anaximander, born at Miletus 611 B.C., an astronomer and geographer, following Thales chronologically, wrote a book on "Nature," the first written on the subject in the philosophy of Greece. He held that all things arose from the "infinite," a primordial chaos in which was an internal energy. From a universal mixture things arose by separation, the parts once formed remaining unchanged. The earth was cylindrical in shape, suspended in the air in the centre of the universe, and the stars and planets revolved around it, each fastened in a crystalline ring; the moon and sun revolved in the same manner, only at a farther distance. The generation of the universe was by the action of contraries, by heat and cold, the moist and the dry. From the moisture all things were originally generated by heat. Animals and men came from fishes by a process of evolution. There is evidence in his philosophy of a belief in the development of the universe by the action of heat and cold on matter. It is also evident that the principles of biology and the theory of evolution are hinted at by this philosopher. Also, he was the first to observe the obliquity of the ecliptic; he taught that the moon received its light from the sun and that the earth is round.

Anaximenes, born at Miletus 588 B.C., asserted that air was the first principle of the universe; indeed, he held that on it "the very earth floats like a broad leaf." He held that air was infinite in extent; that it touched all things, and was the source of life of all. The human soul was nothing but air, since life consists in inhaling and exhaling, and when this is no longer {218} continued death ensues. Warmth and cold arose from rarefaction and condensation, and probably the origin of the sun and planets was caused by the rarefaction of air; but when air underwent great condensation, snow, water, and hail appeared, and, indeed, with sufficient condensation, the earth itself was formed. It was only a step further to suppose that the infinite air was the source of life, the god of the universe.

Somewhat later Diogenes of Apollonia asserted that all things originated from one essence, and that air was the soul of the world, eternal and endowed with consciousness. This was an attempt to explain the development of the universe by a conscious power. It led to the suggestion of psychology, as the mind of man was conscious air. "But that which has knowledge is what men call air; it is it that regulates all and governs all, and hence it is the use of air to pervade all, and to dispose all, and to be in all, for there is nothing that has not part in it."

Other philosophers of this school reasoned or speculated upon the probable first causes in the creation. In a similar manner Heraclitus asserted that fire was the first principle, and states as the fundamental maxim of his philosophy that "all is convertible into fire, and fire into all." There was so much confusion in his doctrines as to give him the name of "The Obscure." "The moral system of Heraclitus was based on the physical. He held that heat developed morality, moisture immorality. He accounted for the wickedness of the drunkard by his having a moist soul, and inferred that a warm, dry soul was noblest and best."

Anaxagoras taught the mechanical processes of the universe, and advanced many theories of the origin of animal life and of material objects. Anaxagoras was a man of wealth, who devoted all of his time and means to philosophy. He recognized two principles, one material and the other spiritual, but failed to connect the two, and in determining causes he came into open conflict with the religion of the times, and asserted that the "divine miracles" were nothing more than natural {219} causes. He was condemned for his atheism and thrown into prison, but, escaping, he was obliged to end his days in exile.

Another notable example of the early Greek philosophy is found in Pythagoras, who asserted that number was the first principle. He and his followers found that the "whole heaven was a harmony of number." The Pythagoreans taught that all comes from one, but that the odd number is finite, the even infinite; that ten was a perfect number. They sought for a criterion of truth in the relation of numbers. Nothing could exist or be formed without harmony, and this harmony depended upon number, that is, upon the union of contrary elements. The musical octave was their best example to illustrate their meaning. The union of the atoms in modern chemistry illustrates in full the principle of number after which they were striving. It emphasized the importance of measurements in investigation. Much more might be said about the elaborate system of the Pythagoreans; but the main principle herein stated must suffice.

The Weakness of Ionian Philosophy.—Viewed from the modern standpoint of scientific research, the early philosophers of Greece appear puerile and insignificant. They directed their thoughts largely toward nature, but instead of systematic observation and comparison they used the speculative and hypothetical methods to ascertain truth. They had turned from the credulity of ancient tradition to simple faith in the mind to determine the nature and cause of the universe. But this was followed by a scepticism as to the sense perception, a scepticism which could only be overcome by a larger observation of facts. Simple as it appears, this process was an essential transition from the theology of the Greeks to the perfected philosophy built upon reason. The attitude of the mind was of great value, and the attention directed to external nature was sure to turn again to man, and the supernatural. While there is a mixture of the physical, metaphysical, and mystical, the final lesson to be learned is the recognition of reality of nature as external to mind.

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The Eleatic Philosophers.—About 500 B.C., and nearly contemporary with the Pythagoreans, flourished the Eleatic philosophers, among whom Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus were the principal leaders. They speculated about the nature of the mind, or soul, and departed from the speculations respecting the origin of the earth. The nature of the infinite and the philosophy of being suggested by the Ionian philosophers were themes that occupied the attention of this new school. Parmenides believed in the knowledge of an absolute being, and affirmed the unity of thought and being. He won the distinction of being the first logical philosopher among the Greeks, and was called the father of idealism.

Zeno is said to have been the most remarkable of this school. He held that if there was a distinction between being and not being, only being existed. This led him to the final assumption that the laws of nature are unchangeable and God remains permanent. His method of reasoning was to reduce the opposite to absurdity.

Upon the whole, the Eleatic philosophy is one relating to knowledge and being, which considered thought primarily as dependent upon being. It holds closely to monism, that is, that nature and mind are of the same substance; yet there is a slight distinction, for there is really a dualism expressed in knowledge and being. Many other philosophers followed, who discoursed upon nature, mind, and being, but they arrived at no definite conclusions. The central idea in the early philosophy up to this time was to account for the existence and substance of nature. It gave little consideration to man in himself, and said little of the supernatural. Everything was speculative in nature, hypothetical in proposition, and deductive in argument. The Greek mind, departing from its dependence upon mythology, began boldly to assert its ability to find out nature, but ended in a scepticism as to its power to ascertain certainty. There was a final determination as to the distinction of reality as external to mind, and this represents the best product of the early philosophers.

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The Sophists.—Following the Eleatics was a group of philosophers whose principle characteristic was scepticism. Man, not nature, was the central idea in their philosophy, and they changed the point of view from objective to subjective contemplation. They accomplished very little in their speculation except to shift the entire attitude of philosophy from external nature to man. They were interested in the culture of the individual, yet, in their psychological treatment of man, they relied entirely upon sense perception. In the consideration of man's ethical nature they were individualistic, considering private right and private judgment the standards of truth. They led the way to greater speculation in this subject and to a higher philosophy.

Socrates the First Moral Philosopher (b. 469 B.C.).—Following the sophists in the progressive development of philosophy, Socrates turned his attention almost exclusively to human nature. He questioned all things, political, ethical, and theological, and insisted upon the moral worth of the individual man. While he cast aside the nature studies of the early philosophy and repudiated the pseudo-wisdom of the sophists, he was not without his own interpretation of nature. He was interested in questions pertaining to the order of nature and the wise adaptation of means to an end. Nature is animated by a soul, yet it is considered as a wise contrivance for man's benefit rather than a living, self-determining organism. In the subordination of all nature to the good, Socrates lays the foundation of natural theology.

But the ethical philosophy of Socrates is more prominent and positive. He asserted that scientific knowledge is the sole condition to virtue; that vice is ignorance. Hence virtue will always follow knowledge because they are a unity. His ethical principles are founded on utility, the good of which he speaks is useful, and is the end of individual acts and aims. Wisdom is the foundation of all virtues; indeed, every virtue is wisdom.

Socrates made much of friendship and love, and thought temperance to be the fundamental virtue. Without {222} temperance, men were not useful to themselves or to others, and temperance meant the complete mastery of self. Friendship and love were cardinal points in the doctrine of ethical life. The proper conduct of life, justice in the treatment of man by his fellow-man, and the observance of the duties of citizenship, were part of the ethical philosophy of Socrates.

Beauty is only another name for goodness, but it is only a harmony or adaptation of means to an end. The Socratic method of ascertaining truth by the art of suggestive questioning was a logical mode of procedure. The meeting of individuals in conversation was a method of arriving at the truth of ethical conduct and ethical relations. It was made up of induction and definition. No doubt the spirit of his teaching was sceptical in the extreme. While having a deeper sense of the reality of life than others, he realized that he did not know much. He criticized freely the prevailing beliefs, customs, and religious practice. For this he was accused of impiety, and forced to drink the hemlock. With an irony in manner and thought, Socrates introduced the problem of self-knowledge; he hastened the study of man and reason; he instituted the doctrine of true manhood as an essential part in the philosophy of life. Conscience was enthroned, and the moral life of man began with Socrates.

Platonic Philosophy Develops the Ideal.—Plato was the pupil of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. These three represent the culmination of Greek philosophy. In its fundamental principles the Platonic philosophy represents the highest flight of the mind in its conception of being and of the nature of mind and matter, entertained by the philosophers. The doctrine of Plato consisted of three primary principles: matter, ideas, and God. While matter is co-eternal with God, he created all animate and inanimate things from matter. Plato maintained that there was a unity in design. And as God was an independent and individual creator of the world, who fashioned the universe, and is father to all creatures, there was unity in God. Plato advanced the doctrine of reminiscences, {223} in which he accounted for what had otherwise been termed innate ideas. Plato also taught, to a certain extent, the transmigration of souls. He was evidently influenced in many ways by the Indian philosophy; but the special doctrine of Plato made ideas the most permanent of all things. Visible things are only fleeting shadows, which soon pass away; only ideas remain. The universal concept, or notion, is the only real thing. Thus the perfect globe is the concept held in the mind; the marble, ball, or sphere of material is only an imperfect representation of the same. The horse is a type to which all individual horses tend to conform; they pass away, but the type remains. His work was purely deductive. His major premise was accepted on faith rather than determined by his reason. Yet in philosophical speculations the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, the unity of the creation and the unity of the creator, and an all-wise ruler of the universe, were among the most important points of doctrine.

Aristotle the Master Mind of the Greeks.—While Aristotle and Plato sought to prove the same things, and agreed with each other on many principles of philosophy, the method employed by the former was exactly the reverse of that of the latter. Plato founded his doctrine on the unity of all being, and observed the particular only through the universal. For proof he relied on the intuitive and the synthetic. Aristotle, on the contrary, found it necessary to consider the particular in order that the universal might be established. He therefore gathered facts, analyzed material, and discoursed upon the results. He was patient and persistent in his investigations, and not only gave the world a great lesson by his example, but he obtained better results than any other philosopher of antiquity. It is generally conceded that he showed the greatest strength of intellect, the deepest insight, the greatest breadth of speculative thought, and the clearest judgment of all philosophers, either ancient or modern.