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CIVILIZATION
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CIVILIZATION
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The word " civilization " is an obvious derivative of the See also:Lat. civis, a See also:citizen, and See also:civilis, pertaining to a citizen
.
Etymologically speaking, then, it would be putting no undue See also:strain upon the word to interpret it as having to do with the entire See also:period of human progress since mankind attained sufficient intelligence and social unity to develop a See also:system of See also:government
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But in practice " civilization " is usually interpreted in a somewhat narrower sense, as having application solely to the most See also:recent and comparatively brief period of See also:time that has elapsed since the most highly See also:developed races of men have used systems of See also:writing
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This restricted usage. is probably explicable, in See also:part at least, by the fact that the word, though distinctly See also:modern in origin, is nevertheless older than the See also:interpretation of social See also:evolution that now finds universal See also:acceptance
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Only very recently has it come to be understood that See also:primitive See also:societies vastly antedating the See also:historical period had attained relatively high stages of development and fixity, socially and politically
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Now that this is understood, however, nothing but an arbitrary and highly inconvenient restriction of meanings can prevent us from speaking of the citizens of these See also:early societies as having attained certain stages of civilization
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It will be convenient, then, in outlining the successive stages of human progress here, to include under the comprehensive See also:term " civilization " those See also:long earlier periods of " savagery " and " barbarism " as well as the more recent period of higher development to which the word " civilization " is sometimes restricted
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Adequate See also:proof that civilization as we now know it is the result of a long, slow See also:process of evolution was :put forward not
long after the See also:middle of the 19th See also:century by the Savagery students of palaeontology and of prehistoric archaeoba togY• A recognition of the fact that primitive See also:man
barbarism
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used implements of chipped See also:flint, of polished See also: To some extent it has been possible to do so, largely through the efforts of ethnologists who have studied the social conditions of existing races of savages . A recognition of the principle that, broadly speaking, progress has everywhere been achieved along the same lines and through the same sequence of changes, makes it possible to interpret the past See also:history of the civilized races of to-See also:day in the See also:light of the See also:present-day conditions of other races that are still existing under social and See also:political conditions of a more primitive type . Such races as the Maoris and the See also:American See also:Indians have furnished invaluable See also:information to the student of social evolution; and the knowledge thus gained has been extended and fortified by the ever-expanding researches of the palaeontologist and archaeologist . Thus it has become possible to present with some confidence a picture showing the successive stages of human development during the long dark period when our prehistoric ancestor was advancing along the toilsome and tortuous but on the whole always uprising path from lowest savagery to the See also:stage of relative enlightenment at which we find him at the so-called "dawnings of history." That he was for long ages a See also:savage before he attained sufficient culture to be termed, in modern phraseology, a See also:barbarian, admits of no question . Equally little in doubt is it that other long ages of barbarism preceded the final ascent to civilization . The precise period of time covered by these successive " Ages " is of course only conjectural; but something like one See also:hundred thousand years may perhaps be taken as a safe minimal estimate . At the beginning of this long period, the most advanced See also:race of men must be thought of as a promiscuous See also:company of pre-troglodytic mammals, at least partially arboreal in See also:habit, living on uncooked fruits and vegetables, and possessed of no arts and crafts whatever—nor even of the know-ledge of the rudest See also:implement . At the end of the period, there emerges into the more or less clear light of history a large-brained being, living in houses of elaborate construction, supplying himself with See also:divers luxuries through the aid of a multitude of elaborate handicrafts, associated with his See also:fellows under the sway of highly organized governments, and satisfying aesthetic needs through the practice of pictorial and See also:literary arts of a high See also:order . How was this amazing transformation brought about ? If an See also:answer can be found to that query, we shall have a See also:clue to all human progress, not only during the prehistoric but also during the historic periods; for we may well believe that recent progress has not departed from the See also:scheme of development impressed on humanity during that long See also:apprenticeship . Ethnologists believe that an answer can be found . They believe that the See also:metamorphosis from beast-like savage to cultured civilian may be proximally explained (certain potentialities and attributes of the See also:species being taken for granted) as the result of accumulated changes that found their initial impulses in a See also:half-dozen or so of See also:practical inventions . Stated thus, the explanation seems absurdly See also:simple . Confessedly it supplies only a proximal, not a final, See also:analysis of the forces impelling mankind along the pathway of progress . But it has the merit of tangibility; it presents certain highly important facts of human history vividly: and it furnishes a definite and fairly satisfactory basis for marking successive stages of incipient civilization . In outlining the story of primitive man's See also:advancement, upon such a basis, we may follow the scheme of one of the most philosophical of ethnologists, See also:Lewis H . See also:Morgan, who made a provisional analysis of the prehistoric period that still remains among the most satisfactory attempts in this direction . " Morgan divides the entire See also:epoch of man's progress from bestiality to civilization into six successive periods, which he names respectively the Older, Middle and Later periods of Savagery, and the Older, Middle and Later periods of Barbarism . See also:Crucial developments . The first of these periods, when mankind was in the See also:lower status of savagery, comprises the epoch when articulate speech speech. was being developed . Our ancestors of this epoch inhabited a necessarily restricted tropical territory, and subsisted upon raw nuts and fruits . .They had no know-ledge of the uses of See also:fire . All existing races of men had advanced beyond this See also:condition before the opening of the historical period . The Middle Period of Savagery began with a knowledge of the uses of fire . This wonderful See also:discovery enabled the developing Pire race to extend its See also:habitat almost indefinitely, and to include flesh, and in particular See also:fish, in its See also:regular See also:dietary . Man could now leave the forests, and wander along the shores and See also:rivers, migrating to climates less enervating than those to which he had previously been confined . Doubtless he became an See also:expert See also:fisher, but he was as yet poorly equipped for See also:hunting, being provided, probably, with no weapon more formidable than a crude See also:hatchet and a roughly fashioned See also:spear . The primitive races of See also:Australia and See also:Polynesia had not advanced beyond this middle status of savagery when they were discovered a few generations ago . It is obvious, then, that in dealing with the further progress of nascent civilization we have to do with certain favoured portions of the race, which sought out new territories and developed new capacities while many tribes of their quondam peers remained static and hence by comparison seemed to See also:retrograde . The next See also:great epochal discovery, in virtue of which a portion of the race advanced to the Upper Status of Savagery, was that of the See also:bow and arrow,—a truly wonderful implement . Bow and The possessor of this See also:device could bring down the arrow . fleetest See also:animal and could defend himself against the most predatory . He could provide himself not only with See also:food but with materials for clothing and for See also:tent-making, and thus could migrate at will back from the seas and large rivers, and far into inhospitable but invigorating temperate and sub-See also:Arctic regions . The See also:meat See also:diet, now for the first time freely available, probably contributed, along with the stimulating See also:climate, to increase the See also:physical vigour and courage of this highest savage, thus urging him along the paths of progress . Nevertheless many tribes came thus far and no further, as See also:witness the Athapascans of the See also:Hudson's See also:Bay Territory and the Indians of the valley of the See also:Columbia . We now come to the marvellous discovery that enabled our ancestor to make such advances upon the social conditions of his forbears as to entitle him, in the estimate of his remote descendants, to be considered as putting savagery behind him and as entering upon the Lower Status of Barbarism . The discovery in question had to do with the practice of the See also:art of making pottery (see See also:CERAMICS) . Hitherto man had been possessed of no permanent utensils that could withstand the See also:action of fire . He could not readily See also:boil See also:water except by some such cumbersome method as the dropping of heated stones into a wooden or skin receptacle . The effect upon his dietary of having at See also:hand earthen vessels in which meat and herbs could be boiled over a fire must have been momentous . Various meats and many vegetables become highly palatable when boiled that are almost or quite inedible when merely roasted before a fire . Bones, sinews and even hides may be made to give up a modicum of nutriment in this way; and doubtless barbaric man, before whom See also:starvation always loomed threateningly, found the crude pot an almost perennial See also:refuge . And of course its use as a cooking utensil was only one of many ways in which the newly discovered mechanism exerted a civilizing See also:influence . The next great progressive See also:movement, which carried man into the Middle Status of Barbarism, is associated with the domestication of animals in the Eastern hemisphere, Domestic animals. and with the use of See also:irrigation in cultivating the See also:soil and of See also:adobe bricks and stone in See also:architecture in the Western hemisphere . The See also:dog was probably the first animal to be domesticated, but the See also:sheep, the ox, the See also:camel and the See also:horse were doubtless added in relatively rapid See also:succession, so soon as the See also:idea that See also:captive animals could be of service had been clearly conceived . Man now became a herdsman, no longer dependent for food upon the See also:precarious See also:chase of See also:wild animals . See also:Milk, procurable at all seasons, made a highly important addition to his dietary . With the aid of camel and horse he could See also:traverse wide areas hitherto impassable, and come in contact with distant peoples . Thus See also:commerce came to See also:play an extended role in the dissemination of both commodities and ideas . In particular the nascent civilization of the Mediterranean region See also:fell See also:heir to numerous products of farther See also:Asia,—gums, spices, See also:oils, and most important of all, the cereals . The cultivation of the latter gave the See also:finishing See also:touch to a comprehensive and varied diet, while emphasizing the value of a fixed See also:abode . For the first time it now became possible for large See also:numbers of See also:people to See also:form localized communities . A natural consequence was the elaboration of political systems, which, however, proceeded along lines already suggested by the experience of earlier epochs . All this tended to establish and emphasize the idea of See also:nationality, based primarily on See also:blood-relationship; and at the same time to develop within the community itself the idea of See also:property, —that is to say, of valuable or desirable commodities which have come into the See also:possession of an individual through his enterprise or labour, and which should therefore be subject to his voluntary disposal . At an earlier stage of development, all property had been of communal, not of individual, ownership . It appears, then, that our See also:mid-period barbarian had attained—if the verbal See also:contradiction be permitted—a relatively high stage of civilization . There remained, however, one See also:master See also:craft of which he had no conception . This was the art of smelting iron . When, ultimately, his descendants learned the wonderful secrets of that art, they See also:rose in consequence to the Upper Status of Barbarism . This culminating practical invention, it will be observed, is the first of the great discoveries with which we have to do that was not primarily concerned with the question of man's food See also:supply . Iron, to be sure, has abundant uses in the same connexion, but its most See also:direct and obvious utilities have to do with weapons of See also:war and with implements calculated to promote such arts of See also:peace as See also:house-See also:building, road-making and the construction of vehicles . See also:Wood and stone could now be fashioned as never before . Houses could be built and cities walled with unexampled facility; to say nothing of the making of a multitude of See also:minor implements and utensils hitherto quite unknown, or at best rare and costly . Nor must we overlook the aesthetic influence of edged implements, with which wood and stone could readily be sculptured when placed in the hands of a race that had long been accustomed to scratch the semblance of living forms on See also:bone or See also:ivory and to See also:fashion crude images of See also:clay . In a word, man, the " See also:tool-making animal," was now for the first time provided with tools worthy of his wonderful hands and yet more wonderful See also:brain . Thus through the application of one revolutionary invention after another, the most advanced races of men had arrived, after long ages of effort, at a relatively high stage of development . A very wide range of experiences had enabled man to evolve a complex See also:body politic, based on a fairly secure social basis, and his brain had correspondingly developed into a relatively efficient and See also:stable See also:organ of thought . But as yet he had devised no means of communicating freely with other people at a distance except through the See also:medium of verbal messages; nor had he any method by which he could transmit his experiences to posterity more securely than by fugitive and fallible oral traditions . A vague symbolization of his achievements was preserved from See also:generation to generation in myth-See also:tale and epic, but he knew not how to make permanent See also:record of his history . Until he could devise a means to make such record, he must remain, in the estimate of his descendants, a barbarian, though he might be admitted to have become a highly organized and even in a broad sense a cultured being . At length, however, this last barrier was broken . Some race or races devised a method of symbolizing events and ultimately of making even abstruse ideas tangible by means of writing. graphic signs . In other words, a system of writing was developed . Man thus achieved a virtual See also:conquest over time Pottery . Iron . as he had earlier conquered space . He could now transmit the record of his deeds and his thoughts to remote posterity . Thus See also:lie stood at the portals of what later generations would term secure history . He had graduated out of barbarism, and become in the narrower sense of the word a civilized being . Henceforth, his knowledge, his poetical dreamings, his moral aspirations might be recorded in such form as to be read not merely by his contemporaries but by successive generations of remote posterity . The inspiring See also:character of such a See also:message is obvious . The validity of making this great culminating intellectual achievement the test of " civilized " existence need not be denied . But we should See also:ill comprehend the character of the message which the earlier generations of civilized beings transmit to us from the period which we term the " dawning of history " did we not See also:bear constantly in mind the long See also:series of progressive stages of " savagery " and " barbarism " that of See also:necessity preceded the final stage of " civilization " proper . The achievements of those earlier stages afforded the secure See also:foundation for the progress of the future . A multitude of minor arts, in addition to the important ones just outlined, had been developed; and for a long time civilized man was to make no other epochal addition to the See also:list of accomplishments that came to him as a heritage from his barbaric progenitor . Indeed, even to this day the list of such additions is not a long one, nor, judged in the relative See also:scale, so important as might at first thought be supposed . Whoever considers the subject carefully must admit the force of Morgan's See also:suggestion that man's achievements as a barbarian, considered in their relation to the sum of human progress, " transcend, in relative importance, all his subsequent See also:works." Without insisting on this comparison, however, let us ask what discoveries and inventions man has made within the historical period that may fairly be ranked with the half-dozen great epochal achievements that have been put forward as furnishing the keys to all the progress of the prehistoric periods . In other words, let us See also:sketch the history of progress during the ten thousand years or so that have elapsed since man learned the art of writing, adapting our sketch to the same scale which we have already applied to the unnumbered millenniums of the pre-historic period . The view of See also:world-history thus outlined will be a very different one from what might be expected by the student of See also:national history; but it will present the essentials of the . progress of civilization in a suggestive light . Without pretending to See also:fix an exact date,—which the historical records do not at present permit,—we may assume that the most advanced race of men elaborated a system of civilise- writing not less than six thousand years before the tion proper. beginning of the See also:Christian era . Holding to the terminology already suggested for the earlier periods, we may speak of man's position during the ensuing generations as that of the First or Lowest Status of civilization . If we See also:review the history of this period we shall find that it extends unbroken over a stretch of at least four or five thousand years . During the early part of this period such localized civilizations as those of the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Babylonians and the See also:Hittites rose, See also:grew strong and passed beyond their See also:meridian . This suggests that we must now admit the word " civilization " to yet another See also:definition, within its larger meaning: we must speak of " a civilization," as that of See also:Egypt, of Babylonia, of See also:Assyria, and we must understand thereby a localized phase of society bearing the same relation to civilization as a whole that a See also:wave bears to the ocean or a See also:tree to the See also:forest . Such other localized civilizations as those of See also:Phoenicia, See also:Carthage, See also:Greece, See also:Rome, See also:Byzantium, the Sassanids, in due course waxed and waned, leaving a tremendous imprint on national history, but creating only minor and transitory ripples in the great ocean of civilization . Progress in the elaboration of the details of earlier methods and inventions took See also:place as a See also:matter of course . Some nation, probably the Phoenicians, gave a new impetus to the art of writing by developing a phonetic See also:alphabet; but this achievement, remarkable as it was in itself, added nothing fundamental to human capacity . Literatures had previously flourished through the use of See also:hiero-glyphic and syllabic symbols; and the Babylonian syllabics continued in See also:vogue throughout western Asia for a long time after the Phoenician alphabet had demonstrated its See also:intrinsic superiority . Similarly the art of See also:Egyptian and See also:Assyrian and See also:Greek was but the elaboration and perfection of methods that barbaric man had practised away back in the days when he was a See also:cave-dweller . The weapons of warfare of Greek and See also:Roman were the spear and the bow and arrow that their ancestors had used in the period of savagery, aided by See also:sword and See also:helmet dating from the upper period of barbarism . Greek and Roman government at their best were founded upon the system of genies that barbaric man had profoundly studied,—as witness, for example, the federal system of the barbaric See also:Iroquois Indians existing in See also:America before the coming of See also:Columbus . And if the Greeks had better literature, the See also:Romans better roads and larger cities, than their predecessors, these are but matters of detailed development, the like of which had marked the progress of the more important arts and the introduction of less important See also:ancillary ones in each antecedent period . The See also:axe of See also:steel is no new implement, but a See also:mere perfecting of the axe of chipped flint . The Iliad represents the perfecting of an art that unnumbered generations of barbarians practised before their See also:camp-fires . Thus for six or seven thousand years after man achieved civilization there was rhythmic progress in many lines, but there came no great epochal invention to See also:usher in a new Great ethnic period . Then, towards the See also:close of what inventions historians of to-day are accustomed to See also:call the middle of the ages, there appeared in rapid sequence three or four mages . tddte inventions and a great scientific discovery that, taken together, were destined to See also:change the entire aspect of See also:European civilization . The inventions were See also:gunpowder, the mariner's See also:compass, See also:paper and the See also:printing-See also:press, three of which appear to have been brought into See also:Europe by the See also:Moors, whether or not they originated in the remote See also:East .
The scientific discovery which must be coupled with these inventions was the Copernican demonstration that the See also:sun and not the See also:earth is the centre of our planetary system
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The generations of men that found them-selves (I) confronted with the revolutionary conception of the universe given by the Copernican theory; (2) supplied with the new means of warfare provided by gunpowder; (3) equipped with an undreamed-of See also:guide across the See also:waters of the earth; and (4) enabled to promulgate knowledge with unexampled See also:speed and cheapness through the aid of paper and printing-press—such generations of men might well be said to have entered upon a new ethnic period
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The transition in their mode of thought and in their methods of practical See also:life was as great as can be supposed to have resulted, in an early generation, from the introduction of iron, or in a yet earlier from the invention of the bow and arrow
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So the Europeans of about the 15th century of the Christian era may be said to have entered upon the Second or Middle Status of civilization
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The new period was destined to be a brief one
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It had compassed only about four hundred years when, towards the close of the 18th century, See also: It may be doubted whether there existed in the world in the See also:year ',Soo a postal service that could compare in speed and efficiency with the See also:express service of the Romans of the time of See also:Caesar; far less was there a See also:telegraph service that could compare with that of the See also:ancient Persians . Nor was there a See also:ship sailing the seas that a Phoenician trireme might not have overhauled . But now within the lifetime of a single man the world was covered with a network of steel rails on which locomotives See also:drew gigantic vehicles, laden with passengers at an hourly speed almost equalling Caesar's best See also:journey of a day; over the See also:land and under the seas were stretched wires along which messages coursed from See also:continent to continent. literally with the speed of See also:lightning; and the waters of the earth were made to teem with gigantic craft propelled without See also:sail or See also:oar at a speed which the Phoenician See also:captain of three thousand years ago and the See also:English captain of the 18th century would alike have held incredible . There is no need to give further details here of the See also:industrial revolutions that have been achieved in this newest period of Social and civilization, since in their broader outlines at least political they are See also:familiar to every one . Nor need we dwell organiza- upon the revolution in thought whereby man has for tton. the first time been given a clear inkling as to his origin and destiny . It suffices to point out that such periods of See also:fermentation of ideas as this suggests have probably always been concomitant with those outbursts of creative See also:genius that gave the world the practical inventions upon which human progress has been conditioned . The same attitude of receptivity to new ideas is pre-requisite to one form of discovery as to the other . Nor, it may be added, can either form of idea become effective for the progress of civilization except in proportion as a large body of any given generation are prepared to receive it . Doubtless here and there a dreamer played with fire, in a literal sense, for generations before the utility of fire as a practical aid to human progress came to be recognized in practice . And—to seek an See also:illustration at the other end of the scale—we know that the advanced thinkers of Greece and Rome believed in the antiquity of the earth and in the evolution of man two thousand years before the coming of Darwin . We have but partly solved the mysteries of the progress of civilization, then, when we have pointed out that each tangible stage of progress owed its initiative to a new invention or discovery of See also:science . To go to the See also:root of the matter we must needs explain how it came about that a given generation of men was in mental See also:mood to receive the new invention or discovery . 
The pursuit of this question would carry us farther into the See also:realm of communal and racial See also:psychology—to say nothing of the realm of conjecture—than comports with the purpose of this See also:article . It must suffice to point out that alertness of mind—that all mentality—is, in the last analysis, a reaction to the influences of the environment . It follows that man may subject himself to new influences and thus give his mind a new stimulus by changing his habitat . A fundamental See also:secret of progress is revealed in this fact . Man probably never would have evolved from savagery had he remained in the Tropics where he doubtless originated . But successive scientific inventions enabled him, as has been suggested, to migrate to distant latitudes, and thus more or less involuntarily to become the recipient of new creative and progressive impulses . After migrations in many directions had resulted in the development of divers races, each with certain capacities and acquirements due to its unique environment, there was opportunity for the application of the principle of environmental stimulus in an indirect way, through the mingling and physical intermixture of one race with another . Each of the great localized civilizations of antiquity appears to have owed its prominence in part at least—perhaps very largely—to such intermingling of two or more races . Each of these civilizations began to decay so soon as the nation hadremained for a considerable. number of generations in its localized environment, and had practically ceased to receive accretions from distant races at approximately the same stage of development . There is a suggestive See also:lesson for present-day civilization in that thought-compelling fact . Further See also:evidence of the application of the principle of environmental stimulus, operating through changed habitat and racial intermixture, is furnished by the virility of the colonial peoples of our own day . The receptiveness to new ideas and the rapidity of material progress of Americans, See also:South Africans and Australians are proverbial . No one doubts, probably, that one or another of these countries will give a new stimulus to the progress of civilization, through the promulgation of some great epochal discovery, in the not distant future . Again, the value of racial intermingling is shown yet nearer See also:home in the long-continued vitality of the See also:British nation, which is explicable, in some measure at least, by the fact that the See also: |