Man And His Ancestor Part 8

When and where the most important of discoveries, that of fire, was made, it is impossible to say. Fire arising from natural causes, such as conflagrations started by lightning, no doubt early taught man the advantage of this agency as a protection from cold, but the artificial production of fire was a process too intricate to be arrived at by undeveloped man except as a result of accident. It has never been achieved, as we have seen, by the Andaman Mincopies. The rudiments of the fire-making art were possessed by primitive man. In chipping flints into arrow or lance heads sparks must frequently have been struck from the hard stone, and at times these may have fallen upon and kindled inflammable material. The rubbing requisite in shaping and polis.h.i.+ng war clubs may have yielded a heat occasionally causing fire. In boring the holes necessary to make the needles found among primitive implements, a process resembling that of the fire-drill must have been employed. In short, it is not difficult to conceive of more than one way in which the fire-making art could have been gained by accident, though it may have been late in coming, since some, perhaps all, of the arts described were not attained until the Glacial Age. Once possessed, this important art would scarcely have been suffered to disappear. With its aid man could defy the effects of the glacial chill, so far as its direct action upon his body was concerned; and with it he also gained a new and efficient means of defence against carnivorous animals, which have ever since feared fire more than weapons.

The discovery of methods of artificial fire-making was perhaps preceded by a utilization of the flames caused by lightning and other natural causes, the fire being conveyed by torches from hearth to hearth and kept alive with sedulous care. Even after artificial methods of fire-making were invented, our savage ancestors were exceedingly careful to keep their fires alive, as the Mincopies are to-day, and this heedful attention left its traces until very recent times. So important was the apparatus for kindling a flame deemed that in India the fire-twirl was made a G.o.d and became one of the chief deities of that polytheistic land. In many other places, especially in Persia, the element of flame was raised to the dignity of a deity and wors.h.i.+pped among the higher G.o.ds. Among the semi-civilized Americans the peril of the loss of fire gave rise to a serious religious ceremony. At certain set intervals all the fires within the limits of a tribe or nation were extinguished, and a period of gloom, despondency, and dread of the malignant powers succeeded. Then the "new fire" was kindled on the temple altar, and the flame was conveyed by swift messengers from hearth to hearth throughout the land. This done, the period of gloom was followed by one of general joy and festivity. The malignant deities were banished; the G.o.ds of light and warmth were dominant again; happiness and security had returned to man.

The beginning of the use of clothing, of artificial shelter, and of fire formed one of the most vital periods in the history of human evolution.

Coincident with them was the production of a much greater variety of implements than had been previously possessed, and many of these much superior to the older and ruder forms. The struggle with the glacial cold had roused man's mind out of its old sluggishness, and brought it actively into operation in devising means of counteracting the perils of his situation and fitting him to the new conditions of existence.

Among the important steps of progress was very likely a considerable advance in the use of language, enabling the men of that period more readily to consult with and advise one another, to give adequate warning of danger, to aid in the chase or in industrial pursuits, to educate the young and impart new ideas or teach new discoveries to the old. The mental powers of the best-trained individuals then as now served the whole community, and nothing of value that was once gained was likely to be lost. Discovery and invention at that early period probably went on with interminable slowness as compared with the progress in later ages, yet even then new ideas, one by one, came into men's minds, and step by step the methods of life were improved.

One important effect of the glacial chill needs to be adverted to. The severity of the weather was not the only thing to be provided against.

The discovery of fire and the invention of clothing and habitation were not enough to insure man's preservation. For the severe cold must have greatly changed the conditions of the food supply, and the man of the period found it a difficult matter to obtain the first necessaries of life. The easy-going man of the earlier age, living amid an abundance of fruits and vegetables and surrounded by numbers of game animals, or dwelling beside streams which were filled with easily taken fish, probably found the question of subsistence one of minor importance. The coming on of the Glacial Age made this question one of major importance.

The supply of fruits and vegetable substances was greatly decreased by the biting chill, and the number of food animals was correspondingly reduced; while through much of the year the effects of frost drove the fish from the streams, and cut off effectually this source of food. Man was brought into a situation in which only the most active exertion of his powers of thought could preserve him from annihilation.

He now found the exercise of the art of hunting more difficult than ever before, one that needed a new development of courage, cunning, alertness, and endurance, the scarcity of animals obliging him to make long journeys and attack the strongest creatures. Whether or not he possessed the poisoned arrow, which the Pygmies now find so effective, cannot be said, but in all probability he was forced to invent new and more destructive weapons, a necessity that gave fresh exercise to his powers of invention. So far as our actual knowledge goes, the art of chipping stones into weapons and implements was not possessed before this period, and it may have been a result of the severe exigencies of the situation and the mental stimulation thence resulting. This art is not possessed by any of the Pygmies, the nearest approach to it being the splitting of stone by fire and using the splinters as weapons. Very likely preglacial man was similarly dest.i.tute of this art.

Under the severe strain of the glacial conditions the weak and incapable doubtless succ.u.mbed to the cold and deficiency of food; the strong and capable survived, gained superior powers, devised new weapons and implements, and became adapted to a new and decidedly adverse situation.

From long depending, in considerable measure, on his physical powers, man came to trust more fully than before in his mental faculties, the result being a much greater variation in the size and activity of his brain than in other portions of his physical structure. While it had become more difficult to find and capture food animals, he was at the same time in greater danger from carnivorous beasts, which were forced by partial starvation to overcome their dread of man. He was thus obliged to become as alert and ready in defence as he was in attack, to a.s.sociate himself more fully with his fellows in his hunting excursions and his other labors, and to adapt the forms and forces of nature still more to his needs, his career as a tool-making animal being greatly stimulated by the necessities of his situation.

It is conceivable that the art of agriculture may have been one of the outcomes of the situation in which man now found himself. The decrease in the food supply must have put all his powers of invention to the test, and the probable diminution in number and productiveness of food plants may have served as an instigation to the cultivation of useful plants, and the preservation of their products, where possible, for winter supply. It is not unlikely that in this way and under this stimulation agriculture began, and that it made its way subsequently from this locality to more southern regions. In this, however, we cannot go beyond conjecture.

It seems useless to pursue this topic further, since the absence of facts forces us to confine ourselves largely to suggestions and probabilities. We have arrived at two definite hypotheses: first, that the original stage of man's progress upward from the apes was completed when he gained dominion over the animal kingdom and attained the condition of the forest pygmies; second, that an advanced stage was reached when he achieved the conquest of nature, so far as overcoming the exceedingly adverse conditions of the Glacial Age was concerned. At the close of this period of frigid cold man emerged as a higher being than the forest nomad or the agricultural people of the tropics, possessed of much superior arts and implements and with largely enhanced mental powers. The long and bitter struggle for existence through which he had pa.s.sed had lifted him to a much higher level in the upward progress of life.

He was a savage still, and at the close of the struggle he settled down into a second stage of stagnation. The conflict was at an end, he was the victor in the fight, he could rest upon his laurels and take life easy. In addition to his mechanical gains, man had advanced much in social and political relations, and continued to advance until his primitive form of organization was perfected. At the end of it all we find him existing under two conditions, depending upon differences in the character of the country in which he lived.

In the steppes and deserts of Asia and the deserts of Africa he was a nomad herdsman, his life being spent in the care of his flocks and herds, his political organization the patriarchal, his possessions few, his needs small, his mind at rest, his progress largely at an end. Thus he still lives, and this organization and mode of life still persist, little affected by the long centuries that have pa.s.sed and not greatly modified by the many wars in which he has been engaged. Mentally, the man of the steppe and the desert is to-day little advanced beyond his predecessors of thousands of years ago.

In the more fertile regions of the earth man had become an agriculturist, each clan holding its section of the earth as common property. A different though primitive form of political organization arose here, that of the village community, in which there was no distinction of rich and poor, all men were equal in rights and privileges, all were content with their situation, and the mental condition was largely that of stagnation. This political condition we find to have been widespread over the earth, alike in the eastern and western hemispheres, as the one into which all developing agricultural communities emerged, and in which they persisted unchanged until forced to adopt new relations through a new influence still to be described. As the patriarchal clan is persistent on the Asiatic steppes and deserts, so is the village community on the Russian plains and among the Aryans of Hindostan. It has been generally overcome in other localities, but it was broadly extended until within comparatively recent times, and traces of it may still be found in many parts of the earth.

The political organization of these primitive communities of herders and farmers was of the simplest. Over the herding clan a patriarchal chief presided, his authority based on his position as representative of the ancestor of the community. The head man of the agricultural clan was elected by the free choice of his fellows, his equals in rank and station. But the supposed most direct descendant from the clan ancestor was apt to be chosen. In both cases the political organization was of the family type, being but an extension of family government, and the widely prevailing system of ancestor wors.h.i.+p had much to do with the reverence in which the chief was held and the authority which he exercised.

The development of this phase of human progress did not stop here.

Kingdoms and empires arose as direct resultants of this condition of affairs. In some localities, such as Egypt and Babylonia, the great fertility of the soil in the time gave rise to a dense population, largely gathered in towns and villages, where industries other than agriculture developed and closer social relations existed. The simple organization of the village or the clan was not sufficient for such a population, and a more intricate governmental system arose; but it seems to have been simply an extension of the older system of chieftains.h.i.+p, based on the family or paternal relation, and on the growth of religious influence and priestly control. It seems, in fact, to have been through the influence of religious ideas that men first rose to power and became supreme over their fellows.

We have no concern here with the development of religious systems, other than to say that in the primitive agricultural community a succession of ideas of man's relation to the unseen arose, yielding, in addition to the widespread ancestor wors.h.i.+p, a system of shamanism, or belief in the presence and power of malignant spirits, and one of fetichism, which developed into mythology, or wors.h.i.+p of the great powers of nature. What we are concerned in is the fact that from these religious conceptions a priesthood everywhere arose, beginning in the simple conjurer or the healer by spells and incantations, and developing into a priestly establishment whose leading members had a vigorous control over the people through their beliefs, fears, and superst.i.tions.

This priestly system was the basis of the first imperial organization.

Kingly authority was not gained at first through power over men's bodies, but through influence over their minds. There is much reason to believe that the chief of the clan or tribe, who led in its public wors.h.i.+p and was looked upon as the representative of its divine ancestor, retained the influence thence arising as the tribe developed into the nation, adding the power and position of the high priest to that of the tribal chief.

There is abundant evidence that in this simple and direct manner the imperial organization everywhere grew out of the primitive village and patriarchal systems. In the early days of Egypt, before its era of conquest began, the Pharaoh was the high priest of the nation, weak in temporal, strong in spiritual power; and the political organization in general probably grew out of the sacerdotal establishment. Very likely the Babylonian kingdom was organized in the same manner, though wars and changes of dynasty have obscured its early state. In China the patriarch of a nomad horde became emperor of a nation retaining ancestor wors.h.i.+p as its chief religious system. He held, and still holds, the position of father of his people, the representative of the original ancestor, and high priest of the nation.

In India the priestly establishment was differently organized. It was a democracy instead of an aristocracy. There was no high priest to seize the reins of government. As a result, no empire arose in India. A simple outgrowth of the tribal system developed, each tribe under its chief, while the priesthood as a whole remained the real rulers of the people.

If we come to America, we discover a similar condition of affairs, the head of the religious establishment becoming everywhere the head of the nation. This was the case in Mexico, where the Montezuma was high priest, and derived his power largely from this position. It was the case in Peru, where the Inca was the direct representative on earth of the solar deity. It was the case with the agricultural communities of the southern United States, whose Mico was at once high priest and autocrat. It was doubtless the case with the Mound Builders, of whom these communities were probably the descendants.

Such seems to have been the final outcome of the contest with nature, where permitted to develop in its natural and un.o.bstructed way. A series of empires of a simple type of organization arose, their rulers uniting temporal and spiritual power, and becoming autocrats in a double sense, supreme lords of body and soul. It was in its nature a persistent type.

Once reached, it tended to continue indefinitely, stagnation following the era of growth. But war and invasion have broken it up everywhere except in China, a country largely defended by nature against invasion and inhabited by an innately peaceful people. As the forest Pygmy group represents to-day the completion of the first stage of human evolution, so the patriarchal empire of China represents that of the second.

Stagnation there long since succeeded development. For several thousand years China has almost stood still. It comes down to us as the fossilized representative of an antique system, physically active but mentally inert, its organization rigidly fixed, and not to be disturbed unless the empire itself is rent to pieces.

XI

WARFARE AND CIVILIZATION

Long before the second phase of the evolution of man had been completed the third phase had begun, that of the conflict of man with man. The animal kingdom once subdued, and nature made man's friend and servant, the human race increased and multiplied until the borders of communities met and hostile relations arose between them. A fight for place began, a struggle for dominion, a fierce and incessant contest for supremacy, and for ages men locked arms in a terrible and merciless strife, in which the weak and incompetent steadily went to the wall, the strong, daring, and aggressive rose to power and control.

It was the final act in the great drama of "natural selection," which had been played upon the stage of the earth since the first appearance of living forms; the last and most ruthless of them all, for the instigating cause was no longer merely the pressure for a share of the food supply, but to this was added the l.u.s.t for power and place, the hunger for wealth and dominion, the insatiable appet.i.te for autocratic control. Millions upon millions of men were swept away by the sword, and by its attendant demons, famine and pestilence; and still the stronger and abler climbed to the top, the weaker and inferior succ.u.mbed; and the intellectual evolution of man went on with enhanced rapidity as the harvest of the sword was gathered in, and the merciless reapers of men swept in successive columns over the earth, each a stage higher in mental ability than the preceding.

This phase of human evolution is that of the era of human history.

Before its advent man had no history. It would be as useful to attempt to give the history of the gorilla as of man in the early stages of his progress. History is the record of individuality, and in primitive times equality and communism prevailed, and the individual had not yet separated himself from the ma.s.s. Man had settled into the dull inertness of a stagnant pool, and the fierce winds of war were needed to break up his mental slothfulness and stir thought into healthful activity. There must be leaders before there can be history; the annals of mankind begin in hero wors.h.i.+p; the relations of superior and inferior need to be established; and individual action and supremacy are the foundations upon which all history is built. Only by stirring up the deep pool of human life into seething turmoil and unrest could the tendency to stagnation be overcome, the best and most aspiring rising to the top, the dull and heavy sinking to the bottom, and the element of thought permeating the whole with its vitalizing spirit.

When this phase of evolution is reached, we cease for the first time to deal with species and genera in the ma.s.s and begin to deal with individuals, who now emerge from the general group and stand above and apart like great signal posts on the highway of progress. These heroes are not alone those of the sword. They are the leaders in art, in literature, in science, in thought, in every domain; the men who stand, above, supreme and s.h.i.+ning, and toward whose elevation the whole ma.s.s below surges slowly but strenuously upward. The third phase of human evolution, therefore, is that of the emergence of the individual as the leader, lawgiver, teacher of mankind, each leader forming a goal for the emulation of all below. And this condition is the legitimate outcome of war, which, terrible as it always has been, was the only agency that could rapidly break up the stagnancy of early communism and send man upward in a swirl toward the heights of civilization.

To give the history of this phase of evolution would be to give the history of mankind, and would be aside from the purpose of this work.

All that need be attempted, in support of our argument, is to present some general deductions from human history, indicating the leading features of the service man has received from war.

Conflict between man and man was at first vague and inconsequential. It was only after settled and organized communities, based originally on the family relation, and held together by the possession of property in common, had been formed, that war became more effective in its results.

The chief of these results, in the early days, were two: the breaking up of the old equality of power and possession, and the development of larger and more powerful communities. The head man of the village community, or the herding clan, possessed some delegated authority but no political supremacy over his fellows. Equality existed alike in theory and in fact. Battle between neighboring clans was the first step toward breaking this up. The conquered clan became subordinated to the victorious one, and the chief of the victors, as the representative of his clan, exercised an authority over the subject community which he did not possess at home. The degree of subordination differed from the mild form of tribute-paying to that of personal slavery. But in either case we see the old condition of equality vanis.h.i.+ng, and that of cla.s.s distinctions and the relation of superior and inferior arising, while the power of the chief advances from a delegated authority to an established supremacy.

The second outcome of this early phase of war was an increase in the size of political groups. The conquered were forced to aid the conquerors in war as in peace; clans combined to resist aggression; minor communities grew into organized tribes; tribes developed into nations as a result of warlike operations. This growth in political organization was a necessary and inevitable result of continued warfare.

The aggressors gathered all the strength possible. The a.s.sailed peoples did the same. Temporary alliances grew into permanent ones. Larger armies were formed, larger communities were organized, national development advanced at a rate tenfold, probably a hundredfold, more rapidly than it would have done had peaceful conditions persisted.

Side by side with tribal and national consolidation went on the growth in leaders.h.i.+p. The head man became a war chief, the war chief a king.

Success made him a hero to his people. He grew to be the lord of conquered tribes; into his hands fell the bulk of the spoils; the relation of equality of possessions vanished as the plunder taken by the army was distributed unequally among the victors. Below the princ.i.p.al leader came his ablest followers, each claiming and receiving a proportionate share in the new division of power and wealth. In short, when the era of war had become fully inaugurated, the old social and political relations of mankind were broken up with great rapidity; equality of power was replaced by inequality, which steadily grew more and more declared; equality of wealth in like manner vanished; in all directions the individual emerged from the ma.s.s, cla.s.s distinctions became intricate, and the relations of rich and poor, of king, n.o.ble, citizen, and slave, completely replaced the old communal organization of mankind.

War was the great agent in this evolution. It might have emerged slowly in peace; it came with almost startling rapidity in war, and reached a degree of power on the one hand and subordination on the other that could scarcely ever have appeared had conditions of peace prevailed.

With this growth of great nations came a rapid development in political science, in legal inst.i.tutions, in social relations. An enormous advance was made, in a limited period, in the civilization of mankind; as a result, not of the devastation and slaughter of war, but of its influence upon human organization.

It was the principle of reward for ability to which the leaders of men owed their supremacy. When nations were organized this same principle took another and very useful form. The distribution of wealth had become strikingly unequal. There were endless grades of distinction between the supremely wealthy and the absolutely poor. The wealthy were ready to lavish their money in return for articles of pleasure and luxury. The poor, in their thirst for a share of wealth, were strongly stimulated to inventive activity in producing new and desirable wares. Inequality became the mainspring of business activity; thought and inventive ingenuity were strongly exercised; a rapid progress went on in the production of new devices, new methods, and new articles of necessity and luxury; manufacture flourished, commerce increased, civilization appeared, the whole as a legitimate outcome of the conditions brought about by war.

This phase of human evolution, as may be seen, was radically different from that already considered, arising from the development of sacerdotal influence and priestly power. They worked together, no doubt. The establishment of the great primitive empires, as a peaceful process, was greatly complicated by war, which tended steadily to increase the temporal power of the ruler and enable him in time to control by the sword alone. But it is interesting to find that long after the old system was practically overthrown its shadow still lay upon the nations.

The powerful war monarchs of a.s.syria led their armies to conquest in the name of the national deity, whose vicegerents they claimed to be. The autocratic emperors of Rome went so far as to claim in some cases to be G.o.ds themselves. Even in modern Russia some of this dignity pertains to the emperor, as the supreme head of the national church. Old ideas are proverbially hard to kill.

But the mission of the priesthood by no means stopped here. The priests rose to influence as the teachers as well as the leaders of the people.

The members of this cla.s.s, set aside from manual occupations, and devoted to thought upon the relations of man to the divine, played an important part in the development of the human mind. As a result of their speculative activity of thought the old religious systems sank into the background; the simple wors.h.i.+p of primitive times was overshadowed by intricate mythological systems, splendid in wors.h.i.+p and creed; cosmogonies and philosophies were devised; and human thought, once fairly set loose in this field, went on with great energy and imaginative fervor.

Literature arose as a result of this activity of thought. It took at first the form of hymns, speculative essays, magical formulas, dogmas, ordinances of wors.h.i.+p, etc. By degrees it grew more secular in form, until in the end secular literature arose. This was greatly stimulated by the conditions of inequality arising from war. In the same manner as the reward for merit in invention stimulated men to activity in the mechanical arts, so the hope of reward for literary production stirred up men to the composing of poems, histories, and other works of thought.

In both directions, physical and mental, men were stimulated to the most active exertions by the conditions of inequality in wealth and power, and the consequent desire to obtain a share of the money lavished by the rich and the authority similarly lavished by the powerful.

The broad general view here taken must suffice for our consideration of this phase of human evolution. It brings the story of the development of man closely up to the present stage of political and social organizations and relations. It may be said, in conclusion of this section of our work, that the powerful agency of war, so active and important in the past, has in great part lost its utility in the present, and bids fair to be brought to an end before the world is much older. It is no longer needed, nearly or quite all that it is capable of doing for mankind being accomplished, while the equally powerful agencies of commerce, travel, leagues of nations, and other conditions of modern origin have taken its place.

War, while yielding many useful results, has given rise to others whose utility is questionable, and whose ill-effects it will take much time and effort to set aside. The inequality of power to which war gave rise continues in many parts of the world, and the inequality of wealth shows signs of increase instead of diminution. Once useful, they have developed to an injurious extent. The result is a state of unrest, discontent, and more or less active opposition, which const.i.tutes a condition of permanent conflict, a deep dissatisfaction with existing inst.i.tutions abnormal to a justly organized society. War has become in great measure useless; but the scaffolding from which it built up the edifice of civilization remains, and stands as a tottering ruin threatening to engulf mankind in its fall.

Ever since the triumph of autocracy in the Roman empire, the ma.s.ses of mankind have steadily protested against an inequality that is alien to the natural rights of man. For century after century the struggle against undue exercise of power has gone on, and the hereditary lords of mankind have lost, stage by stage, their usurped power, until in the modern republic they have been replaced by the servants and chosen agents of the people. But the autocracy of wealth still holds its own, and is growing more and more formidable, and against this the wave of opposition is now rising. Everywhere man is earnestly and sternly demanding an equitable distribution of the productions of nature and art. What the outcome of this demand will be it is impossible to say. It must inevitably lead to some readjustment of the wealth of mankind; but only the slow process of social evolution can decide what this shall be.

We have endeavored in this brief treatise to trace the development of man from his primeval state as a tree-dwelling animal in the depths of the tropic woods, through the phases of his later condition as an erect surface dweller, his conflict with and dominion over the animal kingdom, his subsequent contest with the adverse powers of nature, and his final warfare with his fellows and emergence into civilization. Each of these contests has left its results; the first in the forest nomads of the eastern tropics, the second in the patriarchal herding tribes of the steppes and deserts, the village communities of Russia and the paternal empire of China, the third in the enlightened nations of Europe and America.

For how long a period this mighty drama of evolution has continued it is impossible to say. Its first phase must have been of interminable slowness; its second, while more rapid, still very deliberate; its third of much greater rapidity, yet extending over several thousands of years.