A history of the mental growth of mankind

Preface

The Delphic maxim, that " to understand man as he is, we must' know what he has been,"^ is not less true of him as a species than as an individual. In studying ourselves, we should take into account, not only what we thought and did as children, but also what our remote ancestors and relatives did, in the ruder phases of culture. We cannot obey the Socratic command, "know yourself," without comparing ourselves with other men, not only those near us but also those far from us, in space, time, and intellectual condition. In so far as we do not understand other men, in so far we do not understand ourselves. Everything human interests us ; and all the main features of human life, even in the lowest savages and fiercest barbarians, are highly instructive to us. The aboriginal Australians, the Bushmen, the Fuegians, and the Eskimos are our brethren, possessing the like feelings and passions with ourselves, and differing from us mainly in education, inherited drill, and property. They enable us to see what we might have been under different circumstances. The most repulsive customs, — constant warfare, torture and mutilation of prisoners,

PREFACE.

cannibalism, human sacrifice, witch-burning, religious persecution, and driving slaves to death, — all these are the deeds of men constituted mentally as we are. And although we find many facts indicating that, on one side, we are near akin to the most ferocious brutes, yet on the other, we also encounter many evidences that our intellectual and moral nature stands alone in unapproached and sublime superiority, far above everything else in animated nature. All the glorious achievements of humanity are to be counted in the credits of every man. We appreciate their value ; perhaps, under the most favorable circumstances, we, ourselves, might have originated them, or made some material contribution to them. The inventions of articulate speech, edge tools, fire-kindling apparatus, tillage, pottery, weaving, and metallurgy, the domestication of animals, the discovery of letters, the discipline of armies, the organization of states, the production of immortal books, and the great triumphs of the industrial and ornamental arts, — all these should be passed in review to understand what man has been and what he is.

The history of man as I conceive it, should give satisfactory replies to questions like these : Is the development of his species in culture a necessary result of his mental constitution ? Has it been continuous from his first appearance on the earth ? Has it shown itself in all the departments of life ? Has it been governed exclusively by natural causes and uniform law ? What have been its chief features in different ages and countries ? What relation in time and causative or developing influence did tillage, pasturage, bronze, iron, print- 4 ing press, steam, slavery, nobility, despotism, constitutional freedom, fetichism, worship of ancestors, idolatry, polytheism, and monotheism, bear to general progress and to one another ? What did men eat ? How did they clothe themselves? What were their industrial arts ? What were their social and political institutions ? What were their moral and religious opinions ? How did the later grow out of the earlier phases of culture ?^ For what important contributions to culture are we indebted to the various races, nations, and periods ? What influence have conspicuously famous men exerted on culture ? What departments of thought and occupation have been cultivated with the most success in different ages and countries, and what have been their relative values to humanity? Into what categories should we divide universal history for the purpose of getting the clearest, most comprehensive, and most correct conceptions of its character and development ?^

If I mistake not, the study of the story of culture will prove conclusively that there is a steady growth of knowledge, thought, and ethical feeling, of industrial and ornamental arts, and of social and political institutions, accompanied by a correlative decrease of ignorance, folly, prejudice, superstition, crime, war, and social spite. The principle of this development is one of the great natural laws, deserving in its irhportance to be classed with the laws of the inherence of force in matter^ the combination of the chemical elements in definite proportions, cosmic evolution, gravitation, biological evolution, the conservation of energy, and the correlation of the physical and psychical forces.

The proof of this law of human advancement will carry with it the implications that our mental constitution has innate capacities for endless development ; that progress is a natural and necessary product of humanity ; that no limit can be fixed to the onward march of our race in any direction of thought ; that the achievements of the past are mere trifles to those that are to enrich the future ; that the discomforts of life will continue to diminish, and its enjoyments to increase ; and that the ennobling tendencies and influences will become more potent in every succeeding age.

Although there is much reason for the dislike with which the literary community regards the disposition to needlessly coin new words and to give new definitions or new limitations of definition to old ones, still such coinage and definition are sometimes required for the convenience of readers as well as of writers, and under the impulse of what seems to be such a necessity, some definitions, not recognized in our dictionaries generally, are here accepted.

Cultui^e, the intellectual growth of mankind. All the German histories of mankind are called histories oi Kidtur. Progress has the same signification, but has other meanings, and therefore culture is the better word. It is aot here used in its Hmited sense of high refinertient.*

Cultural^ relating to culture.

Culturestep, a stage of culture, suggested by the German Kulturstufe.

Culture-historical, relating to the history of culture, suggested by the German Kultur-historisch.

Savagism, the lowest of the three main culturesteps, the general condition of men whose best edge tools are made of stone. The savages include the aboriginal Americans, north of the Aztec territory and south and east of that of the Quichuans, the Pacific islanders, most of the Malays, and the Africans south of. the Sahara. These Africans are in an impure savagism ; they possess metallic tools, but in social, political, and religious institutions, and in mental development, they are savages. Savagism includes two subordinate or mmor culturesteps, the non-tilling and the tilling.

Non-tilling culture, or non-tilling savagism, the condition of tribes which do not till the soil. Such are' the Australians, Tasmanians, Bushmen, Andamanese, Fuegians. Lower Californians, and^ome other Western Americans.

Tilling culture, the condition of savages, who cultivate, the soil.

Slave-tillage, tillage by slaves;

Slave-tilling, adjective of slave-tillage.

Barbarism, the second of the three main culturesteps, the general condition in which we find nations possessing metallic tools with either hieroglyphics, hereditary priesthood, or caste. Barbarous are the Aztecs, Quichuans, ancient Egyptians, Hindoos, Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Jews, Persians, Etruscans, Gauls, Teutons, Tartars, and the modern Chinese, Japanese, Hindoos, and Mohammedan nations. Barbarism includes the minor culturesteps of bronze and iron.

Civilization, the highest of the three main culturesteps,

including four minor grades.

Greek civilization or culture, the condition of the ancient Greeks and Romans from 530 b. c. till 450 a. d.

MedicBval civilisation, the condition of Europe from

Press culture, the condition of Europe from 1450, when the printing press came into use, till 1770 a. d.

Steam culture, the fourth and last of the grades of civilization, the condition of the Euraryans from 1770 a. d. until the present time.

Since the word polygamy means plural marriage, and may indicate the marriage of one woman to several men, or of several women to one man, the word polygyny is here preferred, to signify a matrimonial system in which one husband has several wives.

Euraryans, the Aryans in Europe and their descendants in other parts of the world. The Euraryans include the Celts, Teutons, Greeks, Latins, and Slavonians, and exclude the Persians, Afghans, Armenians, Belooches, Hindoos, and other Asiatic Aryans. The Euraryan nations being near akin to one another in blood, speech, and culturestep, closely associated in business and polity, and possessing the present and prospective mastery of the earth, need some distinctive and comprehensive title. No other has been proposed.

Industry, productive toil of all kinds, including commerce, navigation, transportation of freight and passengers, banking, agriculture, mining, and metallurgy as well as manufactures. We have no other word for this comprehensive and important idea.*

Industrialism^ the spirit of industry as defined in the preceding paragraph.

The phrase, stone age or culturestep, means the condition of tribes which had edge tools of stone and not of bronze; the bronze age ended when iron came. The non-tilling culturestep ceased when tillage began ; the press culturestep when the steam engine became potent as a source of mechanical power. At no time after the introduction of tillage were all tribes or nations in the same state of culture, nor does the use of the term bronze age or iron age imply that they were.

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the evolution of the universe, of the earth, and of animal and vegetable life, and to the language, literature, and religion of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Hindoos, and Hebrews. In each of these branches lO PREFACE.

numerous important additions to our knowledge have been made within half a century. Not less interesting and instructive than the new information in these departments, is that acquired in reference to the history of culture, to which the attention of the reader is now invited.

In 1875, I published "A Brief History of Culture," for school use ; and of that work, this may be considered an amplification ; but since in this I have not copied a paragraph of that, and since the material and scope are different, I have taken a new title.

The notes have been placed at the end of the volume, where they will not distract the attention of the general reader, for whom they are not intended, and where they can be consulted without inconvenience by the scholar seeking verification of my statements, or for fuller information. Care has been taken to call attention to the best books and most suggestive passages relating to every branch of culture mentioned prominently in this work. J. s. H.

San Francisco^ September gtJi, i8Sg.

Chapter I. Introduction

Section. Page.

1. Man's Antiquity 17

2. Simian Relations 20

3. Size, etc 23

4. Acute senses 24

5. Vitality 25

6. Habits 27

7. Savagism disappearing 27

8. Savage history 29

Chapter II. Ethnology

9. Races 32

10. Australians, etc 34

11. Negroes, etc = 35

12. Malays 35

13. Polynesians 36

14. Americans 37

15. Mound-builders 38

16. Aleut Mounds 40

17. Pleistocene Europeans 44

18. Danish Mounds 46

19. Swiss Pile Dwellers 47

Chapter III. Industry. •

21. Non-tilling culture 52

22. Tilling savagism 54

23. Spear, bow, etc... 56

1 2 CONTENTS.

Section. Page.

24. Clubs, etc 58

25. Omnivorous 61

26. Bread and meat 62

27. Daintiness 64

28. Salt and clay 65

29. Cannibalism 66

30. Cooking 70

31. Meals 73

32. Grinding 73

33. Water and milk 74

34. Beer, etc ^ 75

35. Narcotics 77

36. Hunting 79

37. Birds 80

38. Fishing 81

40. Villages 85

42. Furniture 90

43. Baskets and mats 92

46. Tillage 95

47. Implements 98

48. Milk-yielders 99

50. Pottery 104

51. Thread, cloth, etc 105

52. Leather : 107

53. Traffic 108

54. Metals 109

55. Industrial achievements no

56. Industrial development 118

^7. Natural progress..* 118

CONTENTS. 13

Chapter IV. Social Life

Section. Page.

58. Promiscuous group 121

59. Relationship Nomenclature. 124

60. Feminine clan 126

62. Australian Exogamy 130

63. Feminine clan survivals 132

64. Masculine clan 136

65. Capture 138

66. Polyandry 139

67. Polygyny 141

68. Girl's position 142

69. Wife's position 142

70. Marriage, etc 145

71. Brother adoption 147

72. Couvade 149

73. Infancy 147

74. Son-in-law shyness 151

75. Womanhood 152

76. Modesty 152

77. Nudity 153

78. Clothing 154

79. Ornaments 156

80. Hair-dressing 157

81. Oil and paint 159

82. Tattoo 160

83. Mutilation 162

84. Social development 168

14 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V. INTELLECTUAL LIFE. Section. * Page

85. Capacity 170

86. Preponderant present 175

87. Early maturity 176

88. Jollity 176

89. Politeness 178

90. Salutations 179

91. Education 182

92. Morality 184

93. Amusements 186

94. Poetry 187

96. Medicine, etc 193

97. Vocabulary 195

98. Sounds and signs 199

99. Grammar 203

100. Rapid change 204

loi. Intellectual development.... 205

Chapter VI. Polity

102. Headless group 207

103. Freedom 207

104. Unstable headship 210

105. Stable headships 211

106. Industrial chiefs 212

107. Assemblies, etc 212

108. Confederacies 213

109. Retaliation 215

no. Retaliation restricted •• 218

111. Despotic chiefs 220

112. Succession 221

113. Ordeals 222

114. Property 224

115. Slavery 226

116. Nobility 228

117. Political development 229

CONTENTS. 15

Chapter VII. Military System

Section. Page.

120. Trophies . 236

121. Fortifications 237

122. Initiation 239

Chapter VIII. Religion

123. Spirits 245

124. Imaginary world 247

125. Devout fear 250

126. Next life 254

127. Burial, etc 257

218. Mourning 259

129. Soul worship 262

130. Totemism 265

131. Fetishism 266

132. Ancestor worship 269

133. Offerings 270

134. Sacrifices 272

135. Human sacrifices 273

137. Idolatry 282

138. Divine intercourse 284

139- Worship 287

140. Priests 291

141. Sensitives, etc 295

142. Sorcerers 297

143. Sacerdotal functions 300

145. Revenue, etc 304

148. Temples 311

149. Religious development 316 jC CONTENTS.

Chapter IX. Review

150. Culture services ^ 319

151. Grades of culture...,. 320

152. Some characteristics... 322

153. Departmental relations 325

154. Queer customs 328

155. Benefits of war 330

156. Benefits of slavery, etc 333

157. Benefits of religion 334

158. Uses of evil 336

Notes .. 339

List of authorities 373

A History of Mankind.

Introduction

Section i. Man's Antiquity. — Man has existed on the earth certainly forty thousand and perhaps two hundred thousand years.^ In the pleistocene era, when periods of subtropical warmth, continuing each for thousands of years, alternated with others of glacial cold in central Europe, he dwelt there. In the last of at least four warm interglacial periods of that era, the climate of the Northern Hemisphere was so mild that the vegetation in latitude 75° N. was about the same as that now found twenty degrees nearer to the equator ; and the lion, the hippopotamus, the kaffir cat, the hyena, and many plants of subtropical character lived as far north as England. The woolly elephant or mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and the sabre-toothed tiger w^ere also there, but these animals, now extinct, may have been able to endure the severe winters of the northern temperate zone. The era or the last era of the subtropical mammals in northwestern Europe was followed by the reappearance of the great ice sheet, at which time the land there had a considerably higher elevation than now ; and then the land sank, the cUmate became milder and the ice melted, but the elephant, the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, the lion, and the tiger did not return. Another subsidence of the land occurred and in the midst of this era, man, with polished stone tools and presumably with tillage, made his appearance. Again the land in England rose, this time to an elevation about fifty feet above its present level, and numerous small glaciers appeared in the British and Scandinavian mountains. Still later the land sank to thirty feet below its present level, and then Europe took its present shape, but this occurred so long before our time that no record or tradition of the changes in the form and area of the continent has been preserved among its people.

Geikie, Croll, Lyell, and other learned and able scholars who have written about the antiquity of mankind, believe that our species has existed on the earth at least two hundred thousand years. Some authorities who have investigated the history of oriental nations tell us that presumably not more than fifteen thousand and perhaps not more than ten thousand years have elapsed since the introduction of bronze tools began to lift men from savagism into barbarism. Not three thousand years have passed since some of the Greek states emerged from barbarism into civilization. All mankind spent perhaps one hundred and eighty thousand years in savagism ; and during part of the last twenty thousand years, a small proportion of our race has been in higher conditions of culture. The development of tilling from non-tilling culture was an achievement of greater difficulty and demanded more time than that of barbarism from savagism.

SEC. I. MAN'S ANTIQUITY, I9

The earliest traces of men have been found in Europe and North America, because in those continents there has been the greatest amount of mining and excavation, under the inspection of highly educated men ; but it does not follow that the earliest men lived in those continents. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that the human race first appeared in the torrid portions of Africa or Malaysia,^ where the black race, the nearest human relatives of the highest brutes, the anthropoid apes — and presumably older than the more highly developed yellow and white races, are indigenous. Reasoning from the changes observed in later ages, we infer that these primitive black men were smaller in body and brain, and more ape-like in their forms and faces, than the Africans of modern times.

Of the men who lived more than twenty thousand years ago, it may be said that we know nothing save that they lived and had edge-tools of stone. We find their bones, their arrowheads, their flint knives or scrapers, and the marks of their tools or weapons on fossil wood or bone, and very little more. These remains furnish much material for remark to the archaeologist, but little for the historian.

All men belong to one species. All races of humanity are indefinitely fertile in their crosses with one another. In all tribes and nations and in all stages of culture, man has the same general features of physical form and mental character. He has the same number of pulse beats and of inhalations in a minute, the same average temperature, the same wants, the same passions.^ In his most primitive condition he contained the potentialities of speech, industry, society, polity and religion, as they now appear. He was a struggling, toiling, reasoning animal.

with a capacity for and an irresistible impulse towards continuous and unlimited mental progress. He was so constituted that he could enjoy keen plea^sures and endure bitter sorrows ; that his days should be fringed withsmiles and tears ; that life should be dear to him ; and that his attachment to it should increase as his generations multiplied.

By his physical and intellectual qualities, man isr. enabled to obtain his food, to preserve his life, and to make his permanent home in every zone, and in every continent. He can live where ether boils and where mercury freezes in the open air. The land animals, the birds, the aquatic mammals, and the fishes of every zonefurnish food nutritious to him. He can reach all parts of the earth's surface save those within a few degrees of the poles. He dominates over the globe, occupies most of it, and it is by his sufferance that many of the other occupants are permitted to live.

Sec. 2. Shnian Relations. — The negro's skeleton is relatively heavier than that of the white man ; his skulL is thicker, and sometimes in Dahomy has no sutures.*" In fighting, black men often butt each other like rams,,, and they break a stick over the head rather than over the knee. The swords of the "Spaniards were often, broken on the heads of the aborigines in Jamaica.^ The Australians break sticks over their heads,^ and they haveduels, in which the combatants exchange alternate blows on the head with stout clubs, each standing still in his turn to give his enemy a fair chance, until one is stunned. Every blow would disable if not kill a European^ The tibia and fibula in the shin are sometimes united into* one bone through their whole length in the black and more rarely in the yellow man, as they always are in the

SEC. 2. SIMIAN RELATIONS. 21

ape, Simla troglodytes. The arch of the negro's instep is low and his foot flat, resembling the foot of the ape and .suggesting the exaggeration of the burlesque song, '' The liollow of his foot makes a hole in the ground." His Tieel projects more than the white man's, so that he needs a different shoe.* Often when standing, instead of throwing his weight squarely on his flat sole, he rests on the outer edges of his feet, as do the large apes.^ The sesamoidal bones at the joints of the thumb and great toe are found rarely in Europeans and often in negroes.^

The legs are shorter relatively in the savage than in the civilized man ;^ and in the African the lower arm and liand are longer. When standing upright he can touch liis knee-cap with the point of his middle finger, while the white man cannot come within two inches of it.^ In the civilized man the tibia is round ; in many savages, including Michigan mound-builders ^ and European cave <iwellers,^° it is flat or platecnymic. The perforation of the lower end of the humerus for the passage of the ^reat nerve is found in all the quadrumana, in one-third •of the Europeans of the reindeer period, and in one per cent, of the modern Europeans. ^^

While the finger bones are longer in the negro, the ■fingers down to the separation between them are shorter, the flesh or skin extending farther from the knuckles,^^ and one of the most strongly marked lines of the European hand, that of the last three fingers, is wanting in the blacks, and is slightly marked in the yellow and red men.^^

In the narrowness of the pelvis^* and in the breadth and arched form of the chest, the negro occupies an intermediate position between the white man and the ape.^^ A comparison of the profiles of the heads of different races shows that in prognathism or projection of the lower part of the face, the black man is nearest to, and the white man farthest from the ape, with the yellow in the intermediate position. Flatness of nose and projection of teeth accompany general prognathism. The negro's occiput, instead of projecting beyond his thick neck, is on a line with it, and the same peculiarity is found in some Polynesians. The flat nasal bones are ossified with the adjacent bones in some Africans as they are in apes.^^

The women of the Bushmen tribe have a remarkable development of fat on the hips which in some cases projects out backwards six inches or more, with a nearly even horizontal upper surface. This hump, — of which engravings may be found in many scientific works, from drawings of the woman who attracted great attention at Paris in the last century as " the Hottentot Venus," — has its counterpart in some of the female apes.^^

Negroes and Australians have little calf on the leg, and anatomists say that the calf is one of the peculiar features of humanity. One of the most remarkable peculiarities of the black men, is the woolly character of the hair. Instead of being long and straight, or curly, as in white men, it is either short or kinky. In many tribes it does not exceed three inches in length, and gathers in little rope-like twists about a third of an inch in diameter. In the Hottentots, Bushmen and Papuans, the hair grows in tufts with intervening bare patches of scalp, and instead of gradually diminishing in length and thickness of growth on the temples and neck, as in the white man, it ceases abruptly, suggesting to the inexperienced European observer, the idea that it must be a wig.^^

In many tribes, the women are more muscular than the men. They carry heavier burdens, and can swim

SEC. 3. SIZE, ETC. 23

farther/^ They are accustomed to steady ton, while the men are not. And yet, in consequence of very early marriages and the custom of suckling their children for at least three years, with occasional subjection to excessive fatigue and insufficient food supply, they are wrinkled before they reach twenty-five. In several tropical countries, they cease to bear children before they have reached that age."*' With rare exceptions, they have neither finelyshaped features nor charming expression ; and the roundness of youth disappears before they are out of their teens. The beauty of the mature woman is a product of civilization. In certain tribes nearly all the children are born at one season of the year, as in many species of brutes.

These physical variations between savages and civilized men are, nearly all, caused by differences in culture. They are results of intellectual development accompanied by different modes of life, and as such must be considered as belonging to the history of the mental growth of the species.

Sec. 3. Size, etc. — The primitive negroes were probably smaller than modern savages, who generally are smaller than civilized men. The average height of the Dokos, Akkas and Abongos is four feet and one inch ; of the Bushmen four feet and a half; of the Veddahs and Andamanese, less than five feet ; and of the Brazilian Indians, the Aleuts, the Eskimos and some savage tribes of Northern Asia, less than five feet four inches.^ The prehistoric cave dwellers of Europe were small, and the hilt of the swords of the bronze age are too short for the modern European hand.

The savage has relatively a larger alimentary system than the civilized man, and can eat more at a meal.

24 A HISTORY OF MANKINDr

The Bushmen have *' powers of stomach similar to beasts of prey, both in voracity and in the power of supporting hunger.""'^ A Yakoot or a Tungoos can devour forty pounds of meat in a day.^ Wonderful stories are told of the capacity of stomach in Comanches, Eskimos, and Australians.* Though the savage is tough and under great stimulus can travel fast and far, he dislikes steady toil and is, perhaps, unfitted for it by the irregularity of his food supply if not by the character of his digestive system or of his mind. After gorging himself he wants a prolonged period of rest. The Hottentots have been described as *' the laziest people under the sun."^ In consequence of irregularity in exertion, the Bushmen are usually suffering with famine or stuffing themselves with a feast.® The Bhils '' will half starve rather than work."'^ The Kirghiz are exemplary idlers.^ The North American Indians hate and despise regular work of every kind. They act as if they had inherited a constitutional unfitness for steady toil.

Sec. 4. Acute Senses. — In acuteness of sight, hearing, and smell, the savages approach the brutes. The North American Indian can see objects at a distance as distinctly with the naked eye as a white man can with an opera glass. There are tribes in which every individual can recognize, by its odor, the ownership of an article of clothing recently worn by any intimate acquaintance. When meeting a stranger they want to smell himV as an aid to identification. They can discover the approach of a white man in the dark by his odor, which is offensive to them as it is to their horses and dogs. Some tribes can distinguish the sexes by the smell. ^ Savages dislike odors imperceptible to the average white nostril, and they like or are indifferent to some such as that of

SEC. 5. VITALITY. 2$

the stoat, very offensive to the civilized olfactories. Many of the favorite perfumes of the black and red man fill the European with repugnance. To most savages putrid meats and vegetables and unwashed intestines of animals are not rendered unwelcome as food by their odor.*

Sec. 5. Vitality. — In the toughness of his vitality, the savage resembles a brute. The healing power of nature is stronger in him than in the civilized man. A severe bullet wound that would immediately prostrate a white man, and prove fatal to him, despite the best surgical care, will not prevent a Redman from keeping on his horse to ride thirty or forty miles and finally recovering without the aid of a surgeon.^ An Australian had his skull fractured to the length of three inches on the temple by a blow which entirely severed the temporal artery, and yet the next day he took an active part in a public gathering. Another Australian had the ulna and radius of one arm shattered so that the splinters of bone were driven down into his hand, and yet his wound healed without bandage or operation, and notwithstanding the fact that many maggots had made their appearance on its surface.^ In Abyssinia death seldom ensues when a hand or foot is cut off in the punishment of crime.* Moors, Arabs, Malays, and Redmen recover from wounds that would be fatal to Europeans.^ Savage women in Africa, in the Pacific Islands and in both Americas give birth to children with little pain, and with very brief interruption, usually of not more than an hour or two, to their ordinary occupations.

Of the relative insensibility of savages to pain, we shall find many proofs in the sections relating to their tattooings, cicatrizations and ceremonies of initiation into the classes of adults, warriors and priests. Monteiro observed in Angola that negroes suffered little pain from large wounds, and that their systems felt no such shock as do those of whites from severe amputations.^ Moseley says '' negroes are void of sensibility to a surprising degree. They are not subject to nervous diseases. They sleep soundly in every disease, nor does any mental disturbance ever keep them awake. They bear chirurgical operations much better than white people ; and what would be the cause of insupportable pain to a white man a negro would almost disregard."^