A theory of civilisation

Contents

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Part I Chapter

I. ANCIENT GREECE : : : ee ee II. Earty RoMAN CIVILISATION. 5 ees IIJ. Tuer Aucustan AGE ' : : ok SS IV. THe DECADENCE OF ROMAN CIVILISATION se eS V. Tue Dark AGES : ; eho ob VI. THE CHRISTIAN CIVILISATIONS . : mea ts"

PART II I. ANCIENT EcypT . ; oe $1) II. BupDHISM ; ; ‘ ; TeRERO III. Istam , ; ; : eee IV. CoNFUCIANISM . ; ; . 206 V. ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU. y ee ee

CONCLUSION ; Pe

Introduction

Way did the civilisation of ancient Greece and Rome decay and die? That is a question which must occur to every mind that studies the history of classical civilisation. Why did that former period of knowledge and culture, of vast intellectual and artistic achievement, fail to pass by a direct path of ascent into our modern civilisation? We know that there were intellects at work in the world then which were not separated by any real gulf of difference from the intellects that have crowned our modern civilisation. In every purely intellectual point the great men of that period were not inferior to the great men of modern times—or, at any rate, were not utterly inferior to them. In poetry—epic, lyric, dramatic—Greece and Rome have left us models which we have barely surpassed. In sculpture we have never reached 7 the perfection of Greece. Of classical painting we possess next to nothing, and we know so little that it would be rash to claim for the modern world an overwhelming superiority of craftsmanship. In architecture we may look proudly on Chartres or Ely ; but, with thoughts of the Parthenon and of the temples of Paestum, we dare not claim an_ intrinsic superiority for Christian architecture. And even in the latter days of the great epoch of Greco-Roman civilisation, Tacitus, that most perfect craftsman of prose literature, gave the world in his Annals a work that some of us may well think has never been equalled.

Why did this civilisation collapse utterly, as though the superstructure was too heavy for the foundation?

The advancing waves of barbarism, we are told, broke through the barriers, and spread like a rising tide of savagery over the Roman world. Yes, but why did that happen at this period? Have we any real reason—a reason, that is, that we have not reached ex post jacto—for supposing that barbarian Power was greater in the fourth and following centuries of our era than in the hundred years that centre round the principate of Augustus? We read of the irresistible stream of immigration pouring in from the east, and beating upon the barriers of the Empire. Yet. the Byzantine Empire, which might seem to have been more at the mercy of the barbarians, succeeded in keeping a tottering head above the waves for yet another thousand years. Indeed, every reader knows that this is not a sufficient and convincing answer. We all know that Roman civilisation was rotten to the core; that the evil came from within, not from without; that the Roman world was weakening all the time, and could at last do nothing against barbarians whom Caesar and his legions would have swept away like chaff.

It has been the same with every civilisation that has been evolved in the countless ages of written and unwritten history. Greece and Rome only followed in the tracks of Nineveh and Babylon. Does the same fate le before us in spite of the seeming strength and solidarity of the civilisation that to-day is encompassing all the world? No doubt, to any unimportant provincial governor of classical Rome, the idea that Roman civilisation could pass away, and melt into the barbarism which we find, say, in the seventh century would have seemed preposterous ; in just the same way it would seem preposterous to a modern colonial governor that the totality of modern civilisation could fade within a few centuries into a soulless, unproductive savagery. Yet that is what happened to Rome, and that is what analogy tells us may happen to our own culture.

Now can we form any _ notion—however tentative and falsified by misconception—why all the earlier civilisations have thus passed away, leaving only dead sepulchral fruits for antiquarian scholars of a later age? The answer to that question must be of interest to us, because from it we may hope to see whether the same forces of dissolution are working amongst us which dissolved those earlier civilisations. |

But the question. cannot be answered in a few words of conclusive demonstration. If that were so, the answer would have been found, studied, discussed long ago in all its endless ramifications by the great intellects that have preceded us. For no philosopher, no biologist, no anthropologist could have failed to take an interest in the road up which mankind is toiling.

If we look with a pervasive eye at the history of the European world during the last two thousand years, three things appear to stand

INTRODUCTION TL out as the central pivots round which the individual events may be grouped conveniently.

First, the spread of the Greco-Roman power and civilisation, which, after reaching a climax, fell into decrepitude and death.

Second, the birth, growth, and ultimate dissemination of the Christian faith.

Third, that renewal of civilisation whose commencement has by common consent been called the Renaissance: the term, of course, imphes rightly or wrongly that our modern civilisation is essentially a re-birth of the Greco-Roman civilisation.

Let us try to see whether any causal connection can be traced between these three leading events.

It is at once obvious that the birth and growth of Christianity synchronise to a remarkable degree with the climacteric point and the beginning of the decay of the Roman empire.

We must be careful here not to let the wide range of our modern point of view mislead us. We have all heard in our childhood that Christ came into the world exactly at the moment when the events of Roman history were most singularly favourable to the dissemination of the Christian faith. That is true. But, looking at this statement with the unprejudiced eye of logic, we can see that it is also possible to express the same truth from the other side, and say that when events became ripe for the promulgation of a new religion, a new religion arose which we happen to know by the name of Christianity. It seems easier to accept the latter statement, which is rational, than the former, which is _ ultrarational. Darwinian philosophy has shown us that secular change is the necessary concomitant of individual life; for every individual, from the highest man to the lowest zoophyte, varies from every other individual, and the resultant of countless variations must itself vary.

Perhaps we may say that a higher type, therefore, necessarily continues to come into existence in aeternum. Changes in temperature, in humidity, in the composition of the atmosphere, are so gradual from day to day, from year to year, from century to century, from aeon to aeon, that it may be that some type of life will evolve itself to meet the most extreme conditions that we can imagine: but such speculations must remain purely hypothetical for us. Coming back to that which concerns humanity more closely, let us try to see what it is that marks out the man of the first century—or of the twentieth century—from the man of the seventh century. The distinction, to which attention especially is called here, is the loss of religious faith. It is clear from the literature of the first century that then Rome no longer possessed the old faith in the old gods of Olympus. The Romans no longer possessed the psychic illusion of their ancestors. The result of this loss was a slackening of the obligations of morality. The man who in earlier days had faith in the reality of the Olympian hierarchy necessarily was guided in his conduct by that faith; and, so far as that Olympian faith taught a higher morality than that of obedience to physical appetite, thus far the gods of Olympus guided the individual believer in them to take his stand upon a higher plane; and so we are not incorrect in using the expression analogically that the soul of Rome was of a higher - nature than the soul of Gaul or Britain.

Is it not this psychic illusion which distinguishes the progressive nation from that which we call the unprogressive—unprogressive by comparison, that is-—-because any progress that may be taking place in its development is so slow that we cannot trace its effects in historical action? As the loss of this psychic illusion synchronises sufficiently closely with the apparent decay of Roman civilisation, we may accept the conclusion, not as proved but as probable, that the loss of faith was connected in some way with the failure of progress.

With a decay of faith in the verity of the Olympian myths the Roman lost the guiding principle which had led him to stand upon a higher plane than his barbarous neighbours. There is no question here of claiming any supernatural spiritual truth for the myths of Greece and Rome: it is a mere statement of a materialistic evolutionary theory. With the | loss of his psychic illusion each individual, in his own conduct, acted under influences of physical appetite, which were in no way superior to the influences that worked upon the neighbouring barbarian; indeed, frequently the Roman was under inferior influences, because, where the Roman had lost his old faith, and had no new faith to take its place, the barbarian had for the most part some psychic illusion, which, however inferior to the Olympian verities, was, at any rate, superior to the nullity of the new Roman atheism or agnosticism.

Now, if there is any truth underlying these

_ theoretical possibilities, before any group of human beings could rise from the dust and ashes of the dead Roman civilisation to a plane equal in height to that of the old civilisation, it was necessary for the soul of that group to find faith in some psychic illusion which could give the individual as high a guidance as the old Olympian belief. The potentialities of such faith and of such psychic illusion existed then, as at other times, in the countless superstitions of uncivilised humanity.

To use a convenient, but unscientific, analogy, the spirit of evolution had only to choose the best of these multitudinous superstitions and to educate it to play its part in the upward development of man. Evolution was capable of making the choice. It had to choose, not merely that which was best per se, but that which was best relatively to the possibilities of its dissemination as far and as widely as might be, and especially with reference to the possibilities of working up the best material to be found in the world; and this material lay in the old empire of Rome, because Rome under the old Olympian dispensation had risen to a height never reached elsewhere, and that had left in the brain-material of the inhabitants the potentiality of a superior and speedier growth.

No doubt evolution made trial of many faiths before it found that which it sought, just as evolution may be said to make many trials before it finds the desirable variation in the animal that will lead to a higher species. It found the desirable faith in Judaea. From the almost elementary facts of the life of Christ was evolved the fabric of mediaeval Christianity. In this new faith mankind found the new psychic illusion, which could take the place of the dead or moribund Olympian fables.

But it was long before the descendants of the men of the outworn Roman world reached that lowly, unsophisticated condition of mind in which they could accept generally and unreservedly the new psychic illusion. It was not till about three centuries after the death of Christ that the world found a Christian emperor in Constantine. And even then there were still sparks glowing in the embers ; Julian the Apostate, for instance, vainly sought to reinstate Olympian paganism.

The new faith differed from the old in being essentially monotheistic ; to this extent it was possible for a thinking mind to accept the notion of a Christian theocracy. But meanwhile the disruption of the Roman autocracy over Europe and the neighbouring shores of the Mediterranean had let in the barbaric invaders. Goths and Mongols swelled the ranks of the sons of Romulus, and united themselves by the closest ties to the patrician families of Rome. So Roman intellectuality sank lower as the last tatters of the Olympian civilisation were disintegrated to dust, while the dawn of the new faith was beginning to spread its light upon mankind.

Our fathers were not deep thinkers in the Dark Ages, the ages of faith ; that is why they were ages of faith ; that is why the new psychic illusion came to dominate European humanity. As the work of construction tends always to be slower than the work of destruction, the work of reconstructing the Roman civilisa- “tion was a slower process than its dissolution. The accession of Hildebrand to the papacy sometimes is taken as a convenient date from which to count the birth of the modern world : but it is only in the thirteenth century that we can trace with unhesitating certainty the arrival of the new civilisation, the Christian civilisation, which was soon to prove more glorious than the Olympian civilisation of earlier days.

It was fitting, perhaps we may say inevitable, that the Christian civilisation should first come into prominence in Italy, the old home of its precursor, rather than in Judaea, the land of its birth, for—on the principle that a prophet is not without honour save in his own country —the Jews saw too much of the real Christ to accept His divinity; it was only at a distance from the historical home of its founder that the great psychic illusion could find its necessary environment. And Judaea was farther from Rome then than it is now; and the distance continued to increase as the means of communication became less efficient with the decrease of civilisation.

After its long period of re-educating mankind the Christian faith brought forth the new civilisation in the glories of the Renaissance. In Italy this brilliant epoch of the human soul reached its meridian splendour in the times of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Leo X. During the papacy of Clement VII we see the swiftly rising shades of a coming darkness. But outside Italy events had marched more slowly. We may take the death of Shakespeare, in 1616, as marking the commencement of the decline in England.

Then an interesting state of affairs arises ; for the decline is not continuous. Christian civilisation does not sink down again into the depths. On the contrary, after a comparatively brief period of decay it commences to rise again, and reaches that gorgeous point in which we find ourselves living at the beginning of the twentieth century.

At the first glance this might seem to kill the theory of the causes of civilisation, which it is the purpose of this book to explain. But that is not so, for a very little thought shows us that at the moment when the first Christian civilisation, the Catholic civilisation, was in all the glory of its zenith, a new form of psychic illusion, which alone could regenerate mankind, already was advancing to a prominent position in the thoughts of men. Protestantism was evolving itself into the new religion that was, by its new illusion, to lead humanity to higher heights than ever had been reached before. The Protestant civilisation, for reasons that we need not here discuss, took a scientific and mechanical turn. We need not suppose that contemporary mechanical ingenuity points to any superiority in contemporary brains over those of earlier civilised men. It would be, indeed, absurd to imagine that the men who appreciated Plato’s Republic when it was first written were so stupid that some of them could not have been taught easily to run a motor-car or a printing-machine. But the mechanical bias of Protestant civilisation had an interesting and important result in its application to locomotion, for this caused a vast extension of its power of influence. It caused the Protestant civilisation to react with powerful effect upon the neighbouring moribund Catholic civilisation and ultimately on the non-Christian communities, which otherwise would have been beyond its reach.

The spirit of toleration has bead in theory— though not, of course, always. in practice—a distinctive characteristic of the Protestant rather than of the Catholic civilisation. And this, also, has led undoubtedly to an increase in its influence upon peoples external to it.

It is of interest to note the results of the Catholic and Protestant civilisation in the settlement of America. The old moribund Catholic civilisation was planted throughout the Southern continent: the young, invigorating Protestant civilisation came to dominate the North. The natural advantages of the two continents are not very dissimilar ; the coastlines correspond; the river systems of both are extensive; both extend practically from equatorial to polar regions. So we can continue to draw parallels until we study the political history of the inhabitants. There the contrast is conclusive. And why? Surely because the minds of the men who colonised the North were, for the most part, under the influence of the Protestant psychic illusion, the men of the Southern continent were under the influence of the decadent Catholicism.

And now we may turn to the question of the immediate future, a most interesting question at all times, to all men. To what goal are we marching with the march of civilisation? Are we indeed ascending or descending?

In answering that question we must be closely on our guard against forming grand conclusions upon trivial and transient phenomena. Imagine a straw floating on the surface of the open sea while the tide is ebbing on a rough day. The straw rises again and again on countless waves, although it is still falling with the falling tide, and must descend inevitably to whatever level the water finally reaches. If that straw could think and speak, we may suppose that it would tell us, as it climbed some huge wave, that it was ascending, and would arrive ultimately at some unseen, unknown goal on high. It might well seem so to the straw, yet it would not be so in fact. Now we are in the position of that straw. We, as individuals, have no more effect on the trend of things, on the tide of human progress, than that straw.

It has been suggested tentatively above that civilisation always has been connected inseparably with some antecedent psychic illusion ; it is further suggested that this is an inevitable law of the existence of civilisation. Thus civilisation only exists as the resultant of faith. From this it follows that the decay of faith leads to the decay of civilisation—that civilisation must fade, and die, and decay, if faith has previously faded, and died, and decayed.

And so the all-important question for the prophet of the outcome of Christian civilisation is this: Is Christianity a living and growing faith, or is Christianity a system of extraordinary historic interest with regard to which men’s faith is moribund, which all men will be content soon to class as a mere psychic illusion ?

It would seem that our civilisation, too, must _ fade and fall. The size of our civilisation may make the dissolution slow, slower than that of the Olympian civilisation.

The prophecy of dates is a most fantastic hypothesis. But perhaps we may picture our descendants of A.D. 3000 as down in such depths as the sons of Rome reached in A.D. 1000. Then somewhere in the world the new psychic illusion must rise to power. Its coming is certain, because only from it can follow the new civilisation. And that new civilisation must come, as the result of those evolutionary laws which are older far than humanity itself. It is as inevitable as tomorrow’s sunrise. To what height man ultimately may climb, in the illimitable vistas of endless civilisations following endless and ever higher psychic illusions, we cannot even faintly imagine in our wildest dreams.

The theory, then, which this book seeks to elucidate, of the causation of civilisation and decivilisation, amounts to something of this sort.

We will take as an accepted fact that, in the course of long ages, the almost primitive human animal has evolved for itself a certain degree of intelligence. With that intelligence comes a certain fear of the unseen, of the unknown, of inexplicable things: man comes to dread the thunder, the great winds and storms which so often bring discomfort, scarcity of food, death. He comes, too, to have apprehension of the unseen power of the dead, of the continuance of the authority of some dead leader. The individual, or the community, in whom such thoughts and fears are prevalent, is influenced in conduct by them.

Here we have, then, a primitive psychic illusion. These influences may tend towards conduct which we now call superior, or they may tend towards conduct which we would now call inferior. Perhaps we may say that they would almost always tend in the former direction, and that for two reasons: firstly, because superiority of conduct would seem really to be only the name which we give to such conduct as these primitive ancestors of ours were led to pursue; secondly, so far as there is reality in the superiority of a superior morality, so far there would always be a tendency towards the elimination of the inferior morality on the principle of the survival of the fittest. Ultimately, then, under either alternative the outcome would tend to be always the survival of the superior morality.

This superior morality would react hygienically both upon the individual and also, similarly, upon the community collectively, tending towards a higher grade of intelligence ; this implies also a higher standard of civilisation—if we use the word “civilisation ” analogically to include the primitive advance towards the condition which we in later times can classify definitely as civilisation. This superior condition of relatively intelligent civilisation would be necessarily subsequent to the spread of a psychic illusion, and actually resultant from it.

But the increase of intelligent reflection would then lead to disillusion—that is, to the decay of faith in the psychic illusion. Thus the increase of civilisation would lead to the decay of that which inspired the increase of civilisation. This would seem to bring us back again to the starting-point.

The position, however, would not be the same, although it would appear to be superficially similar. The difference would be in the potentiality of increased intelligence, which, by heredity, would be existent in the brains of © the men who composed the community. This would be true whether we believe that evolution had worked directly upon the mental capacity of individuals or indirectly by the elimination of inferior individuals or communities. So, when a new psychic illusion began to operate upon men, it would find, so to speak, its work easier; and therefore in an equal space of time, it would tend to lead to a higher state of civilisation than the resultant of the previous illusion. Consequently there would be a tendency for a new civilisation to be on a higher plane than its parent civilisation.

The collateral ramifications of the ascent of civilisation are so complex that we need feel no surprise when historical facts do not appear to tally exactly with the theoretical or ideal line of progress. But, as it happens, in our Western Civilisation—to use Kidd’s’_ well-known, but not too happy, nomenclature—we have a very normal example of this ideal progression. ‘This is one reason why it is useful to make a special study of this Western Civilisation. Another reason is that here in England we are apt to know more of the psychic illusion under which we were born and bred, and also of the history of the oboe in which we live.

So it is proposed now to enter in some detail into the consideration of the two psychic illusions which in the main have civilised Europe —the Olympian illusion and the Christian illusion—and with them to consider the evolution of the two resultant civilisations to which reference has been made already as the Olympian civilisation and the Christian civilisation. To this will be added a few chapters explanatory of the connection between some other forms of psychic illusion and_ civilisation ; these, it is hoped, will illustrate the more detailed considerations of Roman and Christian civilisation.

PART I

CHAPTER of ANCIENT GREECE

IN this book an attempt is made to trace the causes that have produced civilisation. It is evident that these causes must lie ultimately beyond the range of history, for, however far back we may trace the beginnings of that progress by which men have advanced from a primitive barbarism to a condition which by analogy we may call incipient civilisation, we can never find a state of human affairs which was not the resultant of a previous state of affairs. Thus we are compelled in our ignorance to choose by an artificial convention some definite period as a beginning, although we are well aware that the period chosen is not a real beginning in a philosophic sense of the word.

It is clear enough that the civilisation in which we are living to-day may be traced back through the period of the Renaissance and the

Middle Ages to the Roman Empire. From Rome we may pass to Greece and the culture which seems to be allied so closely to that of Rome. So far, if we are content with wide generalities, there is no difficulty.

But when we try to see what lay before the Greek civilisation the task is not so easy, the outlook is not so clear. In Egypt, in Phoenicia, in the various old civilisations of Asia we seem, indeed, to see a light that may guide us to a true knowledge of the parentage of Greek culture; but it is a vague, uncertain light, and soon is lost in darkness and doubt. We must, then, be content to say artificially that our civilisation begins on the shores of the Aegean, not because we believe that this is a true beginning but because it is in Greece that European civilisation certainly has its most primitive historical source. 1

So many learned books have been written about Greek civilisation and Greek religion that it must seem presumptuous for a writer who assuredly is far from learned to step boldly towards a gap that was filled up long ago. Yet there are still a few points that seem to be deserving of a greater emphasis than usually has been laid upon them.

Greek religion may be considered under two aspects, the mythological and the eschatological. About Greek mythology there is nothing new to be said save by the most expert scholars, for, since the time of the revival of learning in the Italian Renaissance, there has been no lack of poets and students to keep the memories of the myths of Hellas fresh and vivid. But the eschatological problems have been considered with vigour only in our own day. It is just these latter problems that have the chief interest for us in our consideration of the causes of the evolution of Greek civilisation. )

As we glance over the course of early Greek history we may note one or two points which stand out with special distinction. We see that at some period not far distant from B.C. 1000 there were in existence several important cities in Greece Proper, of which Mycenae is the most prominent. These were in a fairly advanced condition of civilisation. There was, also, in existence an important city, Ilium or Troy, in the north-west corner of Asia Minor, in a somewhat similar condition of civilisation.

At some date certainly earlier than 700 PO probably earlier than 800 B.c., were composed the /liad and the Odyssey, poems to which reference may be made as ‘“‘ Homer,” by the usual convention, without any implications as to their authorship. Homer entirely is concerned with the Trojan War and events that resulted from it.

With Homer the literature of Greece commences: with him we connect closely the Homeric Hymns and the poems of Hesiod. But after these Greek literature practically is silent until we come to the time of Simonides (b. 556) and Anacreon (fl. 530); Alcaeus and Sappho may be a little earlier, but their work has come down to us in a quite fragmentary condition. It is only with Pindar (b. circ. 522), Aeschylus (b. 525), and Herodotus (b. 484) that we come to the full glory of Greek literature. These few obvious facts with regard to early Greek literature are given here because it seems that frequently too little stress is laid on the occurrence of this silent period, between the finished artistic workmanship of Homer, on the one hand, and the equally artistic, but very different, work of the fifth century, on the other. Greek literature is treated as a simple identity, as though there was no difficulty at all in the fact that Homer and Hesiod could write with artistic finish, but that no worthy successors appeared to carry on the Homeric tradition until, about three centuries later, the very diverse, and in some ways more archaic, Aeschylus gave to the world his consummate tragedies, whose beauty and grandeur fill us with wonder, while their exasperating difficulty fills us—or some of us—with despair.

Now it appears fairly obvious that the Homeric poems somehow are connected with that older Mycenaean civilisation (we might call it also Pelasgian: it is said to form a bond of union between Neolithic times and our own civilisation) which in the main had passed away before the historic Hellas, with Athens as its chief glory, is revealed to us. The Mycenaeans are not the same as the Achaeans of Homer—Professor Ramsay has shown this clearly in his Early Age of Greece. At what period and under what circumstances the Mycenaeans combined with the Achaeans to form a Mycenaean-Achaean civilisation we do not know for certain. But apparently it was such a combination that under Agamemnon fought in the Trojan war.