History of Human Society Part 12

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CHAPTER IX

CIVILIZATION OF THE ORIENT

_The First Nations with Historical Records in Asia and Africa_.--The seats of the most ancient civilizations are found in the fertile valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile. These centres of civilization were founded on the fertility of the river valleys and the fact of their easy cultivation. Just when the people began to develop these civilizations and whence they came are not determined. It is out of the kaleidoscopic picture of wandering humanity seeking food and shelter, the stronger tribes pus.h.i.+ng and crowding the weaker, that these permanent seats of culture became established. Ceasing to wander after food, they settled down to make the soil yield its products for the sustenance of life. Doubtless they found other tribes and races had been there before them, though not for permanent habitation. But the culture of any one group of people fades away toward its origins, mingling its customs and life with those who preceded them. Sometimes, indeed, when a tribe settled down to permanent achievement, its whole civilization is swept away by more savage conquerors. Sometimes, however, the blood of the invaders mingled with the conquered, and the elements of art, religion, and language of both groups have built up a new type of civilization.

The geography of the section comprising the nations where the earliest achievements have left permanent records, indicates a land extending from a territory east of the Tigris and Euphrates westward to the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean and southward into Egypt.

Doubtless, this region was one much traversed by tribes of various languages and cultures. Emerging from the Stone Age, we find the civilization ranging from northern Africa and skirting Arabia through Palestine {153} and a.s.syria down into the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Doubtless, the civilization that existed in this region was more or less closely related in general type, but had derived its character from many primitive sources. As history dawns on the achievements of these early nations, it is interesting to note that there was a varied rainfall within this territory. Some parts were well watered, others having long seasonal periods of drought followed by periodical rains. It would appear, too, the uncertainty of rainfall seemed to increase rather than diminish, for in the valley of the Euphrates, as well as in the valley of the Nile, the inhabitants were forced to resort to artificial irrigation for the cultivation of their crops.

It is not known at what time the Chaldeans began to build their artificial systems of irrigation, but it must have been brought about by the gain of the population on the food supply, or perhaps an increased uncertainty of rainfall. At any rate, the irrigation works became a systematic part of their industry, and were of great size and variety. It took a great deal of engineering skill to construct immense ditches necessary to control the violent floods of the Euphrates and the Tigris. So far as evidence goes, the irrigation was carried on by the gravity system, by which ca.n.a.ls were built from intakes from the river and extended throughout the cultivated district.

In Egypt for a long time the periodical overflow of the Nile brought in the silt for fertilizer and water for moisture. When the flood subsided, seed was planted and the crop raised and harvested. As the population spread, the use of water for irrigation became more general, and attempts were made to distribute its use not only over a wider range of territory but more regularly throughout the seasons, thus making it possible to harvest more than one crop a year, or to develop diversified agriculture. The Egyptians used nearly all the modern methods of procuring, storing, and distributing water. Hence, in these centres of warm climate, fertile land, and plenty of moisture, the earth was made to yield an immense harvest, which made it possible to support a large population. {154} The food supply having been established, the inhabitants could devote themselves to other things, and slowly developed the arts and industries.

_Civilization in Mesopotamia_.--The Tigris and Euphrates, two great rivers having their sources in mountain regions, pouring their floods for centuries into the Persian Gulf, made a broad, fertile valley along their lower courses. The soil was of inexhaustible fertility and easy of cultivation. The climate was almost rainless, and agriculture was dependent upon artificial irrigation. The upper portion of this great river valley was formed of undulating plains stretching away to the north, where, almost treeless, they furnished great pasture ranges for flocks and herds, which also added to the permanency of the food supply and helped to develop the wealth and prosperity of the country. It was in this climate, so favorable for the development of early man, and with this fertile soil yielding such bountiful productions, that the ancient Chaldean civilization started, which was followed by the Babylonian and a.s.syrian civilizations, each of which developed a great empire. These empires, ruling in turn, not only represented centres of civilization and wealth, but they acquired the overlords.h.i.+p of territories far and wide, their monarchs ruling eastward toward India and westward toward Phoenicia. In early times ancient Chaldea, located on the lower Euphrates, was divided into two parts, the lower portion known as Sumer, and the other, the upper, known as Akkad. While in the full development of these civilizations the Semitic race was dominant, there is every appearance that much of the culture of these primitive peoples came from farther east.

_Influences Coming from the Far East_.--The early inhabitants of this country have sometimes been called Turanian to distinguish them from Aryans, Semites, and other races sometimes called Hamitic. They seem to have been closely allied to the Mongolian type of people who developed centres of culture in the Far East and early learned the use of metals and developed a high degree of skill in handicraft. The Akkadians, {155} or Sumer-Akkadians, appear to have come from the mountain districts north and east, and entered this fertile valley to begin the work of civilization at a very early period. Their rude villages and primitive systems of life were to be superseded by civilizations of other races that, utilizing the arts and industries of the Akkadians, carried their culture to a much higher standard. The Akkadians are credited with bringing into this country the methods of making various articles from gold and iron which have been found in their oldest tombs. They are credited with having laid the foundation of the industrial arts which were manifested at an early time in ancient Chaldea, Egypt, and later in Babylonia and Phoenicia. Whatever foundation there may be for this theory, the subsequent history of the civilizations which have developed from Thibet as a centre would seem to attribute the early skill in handiwork in the metals and in porcelain and gla.s.s to these people. They also early learned to make inscriptions for permanent record in a crude way and to construct buildings made of brick.

The Akkadians brought with them a religious system which is shown in a collection of prayers and sacred texts found recorded in the ruins at the great library at Nineveh. Their religion seemed to be a complex of animism and nature-wors.h.i.+p. To them the universe was peopled with spirits who occupied different spheres and performed different services. Scores of evil spirits working in groups of seven controlled the earth and man. Besides these there were numberless demons which a.s.sailed man in countless forms, which worked daily and hourly to do him harm, to control his spirit, to bring confusion to his work, to steal the child from the father's knee, to drive the son from the father's house, or to withhold from the wife the blessings of children.

They brought evil days. They brought ill-luck and misfortune. Nothing could prevent their destructiveness. These spirits, falling like rain from the skies to the earth, could leap from house to house, penetrating the doors like serpents. Their dwelling-places were scattered in {156} the marshes by the sea, where sickly pestilence arose, and in the deserts, where the hot winds drifted the sands.

Sickness and disease were represented by the demons of pestilence and of fever, which bring destruction upon man. It was a religion of fatalism, which held that man was ever attacked by unseen enemies against whom there was no means of defense. There was little hope in life and none after death. There was no immortality and no eternal life. These spirits were supposed to be under the control of sorcerers and magicians or priests, resembling somewhat the medicine men of the wild tribes of North America, who had power to compel them, and to inflict death or disaster upon the objects of their censure and wrath.

Thus, these primitive peoples of early Chaldea were terrorized by the spirits of the earth and by the wickedness of those who manipulated the spirits.

The only bright side of this picture was the creation of other spirits conceived to be essentially good and beneficial, and to whom prayers were directed for protection and help. Such beings were superior to all evil spirits, provided their support could be invoked. So the spirit of heaven and the spirit of earth both appealed to the imagination of these primitive people, who thought that these unseen creatures called G.o.ds possessed all knowledge and wisdom, which was used to befriend and protect. Especially would they look to the spirit of earth as their particular protector, who had power to break the spell of the spirits, compel obedience, and bring terror into the hearts of the wicked ones. Such, in brief, was the religious system which these people created for themselves. Later, after the Semitic invasion, a system of religion developed more colossal in its imagination and yet not less cruel in its final decrees regarding human life and destiny. It pa.s.sed into the purely imaginative religion, and the wors.h.i.+p of the sun and moon and the stars gave man's imagination a broader vision, even if it did not lift him to a higher standard of moral conduct.

It is not known at what date these early civilizations began, {157} but there is some evidence that the Akkadians appeared in the valley not less than four thousand years before Christ, and that subsequently they were conquered by the Elamites in the east, who obtained the supremacy for a season, and then were reinforced by the Semitic peoples, who ranged northeast, and, from northern Africa through Arabia, eastward to the Euphrates.[1]

_Egypt Becomes a Centre of Civilization_.--The men of Egypt are supposed to be related racially to the Caucasian people who dwelt in the northern part of Africa, from whom they separated at a very early period, and went into the Nile valley to settle. Their present racial connection makes them related to the well-known Berber type, which has a wide range in northern Africa. Some time after the departure of the Hamitic branch of the Caucasian race into Egypt, it is supposed that another people pa.s.sed on beyond, entering Arabia, later spreading over a.s.syria, Babylon, Palestine, and Phoenicia. These were called the Semites. Doubtless, this pa.s.sage was long continued and irregular, and there are many intermixtures of the races now distinctly Berber and Arabic, so that in some parts of Egypt, and north of Egypt, we find an Arab-Berber mongrel type. Doubtless, when the Egyptian stock of the Berber type came into Egypt they found other races whose life dates back to the early Paleolithic, as the stone implements found in the hills and caves and graves showed not only Neolithic but Paleolithic culture. Also, the wavering line of Sudan negro types extended across Africa from east to west and came in contact with the Caucasian stock of northern Africa, and we find many negroid intermixtures.

The Egyptians, however, left to themselves for a number of centuries, began rapid ascendency. First, as before stated, their food supply was permanent and abundant. Second, there were inducements also for the development of the art of measurement of land which later led to the development of general principles of measurement. There was observation of {158} the sun and moon and the stars, and a development of the art of building of stone and brick, out of which the vast pyramid tombs of kings were built. The artificers, too, had learned to work in precious stones and metals and weave garments, also to write inscriptions on tombs and also on the papyrus. It would seem as if the civilization once started through so many centuries had become sufficiently substantial to remain permanent or to become progressive, but Egypt was subject to a great many drawbacks. The nation that has the food supply of the world is sooner or later bound to come into trouble. So it appears in the case of Egypt, with her vast food resources and acc.u.mulation of wealth; she was eventually doomed to the attacks of jealous and envious nations.

The history of Egypt is represented by dynasties of kings and changes of government through a long period interrupted by the invasion of tribes from the west and the north, which interfered with the uniformity of development. It is divided into two great centres of development, Lower Egypt, or the Delta, and Upper Egypt, frequently differing widely in the character of civilization. Yet, in the latter part of her supremacy Egypt went to war with the Semitic peoples of Babylon and a.s.syria for a thousand years. It was the great granary of the world and a centre of wealth and culture.

The kings of Egypt were despots who were regarded by the people as G.o.ds. They were the head not only of the state but of the religious system, and consequently through this double heads.h.i.+p were enabled to rule with absolute sway. The priesthood, together with a few n.o.bles, represented the intellectual and social aristocracy of the country.

Next to them were the warriors, who were an exclusive cla.s.s. Below these came the shepherds and farmers, and finally the slaves. While the caste system did not prevail with as much rigidity here as in India, all groups of people were bound by the influence of cla.s.s environment, from which they were unable to extricate themselves.

Poorer cla.s.ses became so degraded that in times of famine they were obliged to sell their liberty, their lives, or {159} their labor to kings for food. They became merely toiling animals, forced for the want of bread to build the monuments of kings. The records of Egyptian civilization through art, writing, painting, sculpture, architecture, and the great pyramids, obelisks, and sphinxes were but the records of the glory of kings, built upon the shame of humanity. True, indeed, there was some advance in the art of writing, in the science of astronomy and geometry, and the manufacture of gla.s.s, pottery, linens, and silk in the industrial arts. The revelations brought forth in recent years from the tombs of these kings, where were stored the art treasures representing the civilization of the time, exhibit something of the splendors of royalty and give some idea of the luxuries of the civilization of the higher cla.s.ses. Here were stored the finest products of the art of the times.

The wonders of Egypt were manifested in the structure of the pyramids, which were merely tombs of kings, which millions of laborers spent their lives in building. They represent the most stupendous structures of ancient civilization whose records remain. Old as they appear, as we look backward to the beginning of history, they represent a culminating period of Egyptian art. Sixty-seven of these great structures extended for about sixty miles above the city of Cairo, along the edge of the Libyan Desert. They are placed along the great Egyptian natural burying place in the western side of the Nile valley, as a sort of boulevard of the tombs of kings and n.o.bles. Most of them are constructed of stone, although several are of adobe or sun-dried brick. The latter have crumbled into great conical mountains, like those of the pyramid temples of Babylon.

The largest pyramid, Cheops, rises to a height of 480 feet, having a base covering 13 acres. The historian Herodotus relates that 120,000 men were employed for 20 years in the erection of this great structure.

It has never been explained how these people, not yet well developed in practical mechanics, and not having discovered the use of steam and with no {160} use of iron, could have reared these vast structures.

Besides the pyramids, great palaces and temples of the kings of Thebes in Upper Egypt rivalled in grandeur the lonely pyramids of Memphis.

Age after age, century after century, witnessed the building of these temples, palaces, and tombs. It is said that the palace of Karnak, the most wonderful structure of ancient or modern times, was more than five hundred years in the process of building, and it is unknown how many hundreds of thousands of men spent their lives for this purpose.

So, too, the mighty sphinxes and colossal statues excite the wonder and admiration of the world. Especially to be mentioned in this connection are the colossi of Thebes, which are forty-seven feet high, each hewn from a single block of granite. Upon the solitary plain these mute figures sat, serene and vigilant, keeping their untiring watch through the pa.s.sage of the centuries.

_The Coming of the Semites_.--While the ancient civilization at the mouth of the Euphrates had its origin in primitive peoples from the mountains eastward beyond the Euphrates, and the ancient Egyptian civilization received its impetus from a Caucasian tribe of northern Africa, the great civilization from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River was developed by the Semites. Westward from the Euphrates, over Arabia, and through Syria to the Mediterranean coast were wandering tribes of Arabs. Perhaps the most typical ancient type of the Semitic race is found in Arabia. In these desert lands swarms of people have pa.s.sed from time to time over the known world. Their early life was pastoral and nomadic; hence they necessarily occupied a large territory and were continually on the move. The country appears to have been, from the earliest historic records, gradually growing drier--having less regular rainfall.

So these people were forced at times to the mountain valleys and the gra.s.slands of the north, and as far as the agricultural lands in the river valleys, hovering around the settled districts for food supplies for themselves and their herds. After {161} the early settlement of Sumer and Akkad, these Semitic tribes moved into the valley of the Euphrates, and under Sargon I conquered ancient Babylonia at Akkad and afterward extended the conquest south over Sumer. They found two main cities to the west of the Euphrates, Ur and Eridu. Having invaded this territory, they adopted the arts and industries already established, but brought in the dominant power and language of the conquerors. Four successive invasions of these people into this territory eventually changed the whole life into Semitic civilization.

Later a branch moved north and settled higher up on the Tigris, founding the city of Nineveh. The Elamites, another Semitic tribe on the east of the Euphrates, founded the great cities of Susa and Ecbatana. Far to the northwest were the Armenian group of Semites, and directly east on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean were the Phoenicians.

This whole territory eventually became Semitic in type of civilization.

Also, the Hixos, or shepherd kings, invaded Egypt and dominated that territory for two hundred years. Later the Phoenicians became the great sea-going people of the world and extended their colonies along the coasts through Greece, Italy, northern Africa, and Spain. So there was the Semitic influence from the Pillars of Hercules far east to the River Indus, in India.

Strange to say, the mighty empires of Babylon and Nineveh and Phoenicia and Elam failed, while a little territory including the valley of the Jordan, called Palestine, containing a small and insignificant branch of the Semitic race, called Hebrews, developed a literature, language, and religion which exercised a most powerful influence in all civilizations even to the present time.

_The Phoenicians Became the Great Navigators_.--While the Phoenicians are given credit for establis.h.i.+ng the first great sea power, they were not the first navigators. Long before they developed, boats plied up and down the Euphrates River, and in the island of Crete and elsewhere the ancient Aegeans carried on their trade in s.h.i.+ps with Egypt and the eastern {162} Mediterranean. The Aegean civilization preceded the Greeks and existed at a time when Egypt and Babylon were young. The princ.i.p.al city of Cnossus exhibited also a high state of civilization, as shown in the ruins discovered by recent explorers in the island of Crete. It is known that they had trade with early Egypt, but whether their city was destroyed by an earthquake or by the savage Greek pirates of a later day is undetermined. The Phoenicians, however, developed a strip of territory along the east sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean, and built the great cities of Tyre and Sidon. From these parent cities they extended their trade down through the Mediterranean and out through the Pillars of Hercules, and founded their colonies in Africa, Greece, Italy, and Spain. Long after Tyre and Sidon, the parent states, had declined, Carthage developed one of the most powerful cities and governments of ancient times. No doubt, the Phoenicians deserve great credit for advancing s.h.i.+pbuilding, trade, and commerce, and in extending their explorations over a wide range of the known earth. To them, also, we give credit for the perfection of the alphabet and the manufacture of gla.s.s, precious stones, and dyes; but their prominence in history appears in the long struggle between the Carthaginians and the Romans.

_A Comparison of the Egyptian and Babylonian Civilizations_.--Taken as a whole, there is a similarity in some respects between the Egyptian and the Babylonian civilizations. Coming from different racial groups, from different centres, there must necessarily be contrasts in many of the arts of life. Egypt was an isolated country with a long river flowing through its entire length, which brought from the mountains the detritus which kept its valleys fertile. Communication was established through the whole length by boats, which had a tendency to promote social intercourse and establish national life. With the Mediterranean on the north, the Red Sea on the east, and the Libyan Desert to the west, it was tolerably well protected even though not shut in by high mountain ranges. Yet it was open at all times for the hardy invaders who sought food for {163} flocks and herds and people. There was always "corn in Egypt" to those people suffering from drought in the semi-arid districts of Africa and Arabia.

Nevertheless, while Egypt suffered many invasions, she maintained with considerable constancy the ancient racial traits, and had a continuity of development through the pa.s.sing centuries which retained many of the primitive characteristics. The valley of the Euphrates was kept fertile by the flow of the great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which, having a large watershed in the mountains, brought floods down through the valleys bearing the silt which made the land fertile. But in both countries at an early period the population encroached upon the natural supply of food, and methods of irrigation were introduced to increase the food supply. The attempts to build palaces, monuments, and tombs were characteristic of both peoples. On account of the dryness of the climate, these great monuments have been preserved with a freshness through thousands of years. In the valley of the Euphrates many of the cities that were reduced to ruin were covered with the drifting sands and floods until they are buried beneath the surface.

In sculpture, painting, and in art, as well as in permanency of her mighty pyramids, sphinxes, and tombs, Egypt stands far ahead of Babylonia. The difference is mainly expressed in action, for in Egypt there is an expression of calm, solemnity, and peace in the largest portions of the architectural works, while in Babylonia there is less skill and more action. The evidences of the type of civilization are similar in one respect, namely, that during the thousand years of development the great monuments were left to show the grandeur of kings, monarchs, and priests, built by thousands of slaves suffering from the neglect of their superiors through ages of toil. Undoubtedly, this failure to recognize the rights of suffering humanity gradually brought destruction upon these great nations. If the strength of a great nation was spent in building up the mighty representations of the glory and power of kings {164} to the neglect of the improvement of the race as a whole, it could mean nothing else but final destruction.

While we contemplate with wonder the greatness of the monuments of the pyramids and the sphinxes of Egypt and the winged bulls of a.s.syria, it is a sad reflection on the cost of material and life which it took to build them. No wonder, then, that to-day, where once people lived and thought and toiled, where nations grew and flourished, where fields were tilled and harvests were abundant, and where the whole earth was filled with national life, there is nothing remaining but a barren waste and drifting sands, all because men failed to fully estimate real human values and worth. Marvellous as many of the products of these ancient civilizations appear, there is comparatively little to show when it is considered that four thousand years elapsed to bring them about. Mighty as the accomplishments were, the slow process of development shows a lack of vital progress. We cannot escape the idea that the despotism existing in Oriental nations must have crushed out the best life and vigor of a people. It is mournful to contemplate the destruction of these mighty civilizations, yet we may thoughtfully question what excuse could be advanced for their continuance.

It is true that Egypt had an influence on Greece, which later became so powerful in her influences on Western civilizations; and doubtless Babylon contributed much to the Hebrews, who in turn have left a lasting impression upon the world. The method of dispersion of cultures of a given centre shows that all races have been great borrowers, and usually when one art, industry, or custom has been thoroughly established, it may continue to influence other races after the race that gave the product has pa.s.sed away, or other nations, while the original nation has perished.

_The Hebrews Made a Permanent Contribution to World Civilization_.--Tradition, pretty well supported by history, shows that Abraham came out of Ur of Chaldea about 1,900 years before Christ, and with his family moved northward into {165} Haran for larger pasture for his flocks on the gra.s.sy plains of Mesopotamia. Thence he proceeded westward to Palestine, made a trip to Egypt, and returned to the upper reaches of the Jordan. Here his tribe grew and flourished, and finally, after the manner of pastoral peoples, moved into Egypt for corn in time of drought. There his people lived for several hundred years, attached to the Egyptian nation, and adopting many phases of the Egyptian civilization. When he turned his back upon his people in Babylon, he left polytheism behind. He obtained conception of one supreme being, ruler and creator of the universe, who could not be shown in the form of an image made by man.

This was not the first time in the history of the human race when nations had approximated the idea of one supreme G.o.d above all G.o.ds and men, but it was the first time the conception that He was the only G.o.d and pure monotheism obtained the supremacy. No doubt, in the history of the Hebrew development this idea came as a gradual growth rather than as an instantaneous inspiration. In fact, all nations who have reached any advanced degree of religious development have approached the idea of monotheism, but it remained for the Hebrews to put it in practice in their social life and civil polity. It became the great central controlling thought of national life.

Compared with the great empires of Babylon and Nineveh and Egypt, the Hebrew nation was small, crude, barbarous, insignificant, but the idea of one G.o.d controlling all, who pa.s.sed in conception from a G.o.d of authority, imminence, and revenge, to a G.o.d of justice and righteousness, who controlled the affairs of men, developed the Hebrew concept of human relations. It led them to develop a legal-ethical system which became the foundation of the Hebrew commonwealth and established a code of laws for the government of the nation, which has been used by all subsequent nations as the foundation of the moral element in their civil code. Moses was not the first lawgiver of the world of nations. Indeed, before {166} Abraham left his ancient home in Chaldea there was ruling in Babylon King Hammurabi, who formulated a wise code of laws, said to be the first of which we have any record in the history of the human race. The Hebrew nation was always subordinate to other nations, but after its tribes developed into a kingdom and their king, Saul, was succeeded by David and Solomon, it reached a high state of civilization in certain lines. Yet, at its best, under the reign of David and Solomon, it was upon the whole a barbarous nation. When the Hebrews were finally conquered and led into captivity in Babylon, they reflected upon their ancient life, their laws, their literature, and there was compiled a greater part of the Bible. This instrument has been greater than the palaces of Babylon or the pyramids of Egypt, or great conquests of military hosts in the perpetuation of the life of a nation. Its history, its religion, its literature in proverbs and songs, its laws, its moral code, all have been enduring monuments that have lasted and will last as long as the human race continues its attempt to establish justice among men.

_The Civilizations of India and China_.--Before leaving the subject of the Oriental civilizations, at least brief mention must be made of the development of the Hindu philosophy and religion. In the valleys of the great rivers of India, in the shadow of the largest mountains rising to the skies, there developed a great people of great learning and wonderful philosophy. In their abstract conceptions they built up the most wonderful and complex theogony and theology ever invented by men. This system, represented by elements of law, theology, philosophy and language, literature and learning, is found in the Vedas and the great literary remnants of the poets. They reveal to us the intensity of learning at the time of the highest development of the Indian philosophy. However, its influence, wrapped up in the Brahminical religion of fatalism, was largely non-progressive.

Later, about 500 years before Christ, when Gautama Buddha developed his ethical philosophy of life, new hope came {167} into the world. But this did not stay for the regeneration of India, but, rather, declined and pa.s.sed on into China and j.a.pan. The influence of Indian civilization on Western civilization has been very slight, owing to the great separation between the two, and largely because their objectives have been different. The former devoted itself to the reflection of life, the latter resolved itself into action. Nevertheless, we shall find in the Greek philosophy and Greek religion shadows of the learning of the Orient. But the Hindu civilization, while developing much that is grand and n.o.ble, like many Oriental civilizations, left the great ma.s.ses of the people unaided and unhelped. When it is considered what might have been accomplished in India, it is well characterized as a "land of regrets."

In the dispersion of the human race over the earth, one of the first great centres of culture was found in Thibet, in Asia. Here is supposed to be the origin of the Mongolian peoples, and the Chinese represent one of the chief branches of the Mongolian race. At a very early period they developed an advanced stage of civilization with many commendable features. Their art, the form of pottery and porcelain, their traditional codes of law, were influential in the Far East.

Their philosophy culminated in Confucius, who lived about 500 years before Christ, and their religion was founded by Tao Tse, who existed many centuries before. He was the founder of the Taoan religion of China. But the civilization of China extended throughout the Far East, spread into Korea, and then into j.a.pan. It has had very little contact with the Western civilization, and its history is still obscure, but there are many marvellous things done in China which are now in more recent years being faithfully studied and recorded. Their art in porcelain and metals had its influence on other nations and has been of a lasting nature.

_The Coming of the Aryans_.--The third great branch of the Caucasian people, whose primitive home seems to have been in central Asia, is the Aryan. Somewhere north of the great {168} territory of the Semites, there came gradually down into Nineveh and Babylon and through Armenia a people of different type from the Semites and from the Egyptians.

They lived on the great gra.s.sy plains of central Asia, wandering with their flocks and herds, and settling down long enough to raise a crop, and then move on. They lived a simple life, but were a vigorous, thrifty, and family-loving people; and while the great civilization of Babylon, a.s.syria, and Egypt was developing, they were pus.h.i.+ng down from the north. They finally developed in Persia a great national life.

Subsequently, under Darius I, a great Aryan empire was established in the seats of the old civilization which he had conquered, whose extent was greater than the world had hitherto known. It extended over the old a.s.syrian and Babylonian empires, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria, in Caucasian and Caspian regions; covered Media and Persia, and extended into India as far as the Indus. The old Semitic civilizations were pa.s.sing away, and the control of the Aryan race was appearing. Later these Persians found themselves at war with the Greeks, who were of the same racial stock. The Persian Empire was no great improvement over the later Babylonian and a.s.syrian Empires. It had become more specifically a world empire, which set out to conquer and plunder other nations. It might have been enlightened to a certain extent, but it had received the idea of militarism and conquest. It was the first great empire of the Orient to come in contact with a rising Western civilization, then centering in Greece.

This Aryan stock, when considered in Europe or Western civilization, is known as the Nordic race. In the consideration of Western civilization further discussion will be given of the origin and dispersion of this race.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Study the economic foundation of Egypt. Babylon. Arabia.

2. Why did Oriental nations go to war? Show by example.

3. What did Egypt and Babylon contribute of lasting value to civilization?

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