CHAPTER XII.

OF CIVILIZATION.

§ 1. AMONG the terms enumerated by Archbishop Whately as standing in need of definition, and as being constantly "used without any more explanation or suspicion of their requiring it, than the words 'triangle' or 'twenty,'" is not embraced that important one which heads this chapter; yet is there none, wealth alone excepted, that is more frequently both used and misused. Of the many who have undertaken to furnish civilization's history, in our own and other languages, not one has even essayed to supply a definition of the thing itself that might enable his readers to recognize it whensoever and wheresoever it might be found. Mr. Guizot, it is true, gave to his readers certain fancy sketches by whose aid they were, as he thought, to be enabled to make at the least some approach toward its identification; but that he himself had not attained to any clear idea of the constituents of a real civilization would seem to be proved by the fact that, when desiring to bring before his readers the period when Rome was most rapidly advancing in that direction, he should have selected one at which the small proprietors had almost disappeared from the land; when the soil of Italy had become the property of a few great houses;

when palaces abounded, filled with slaves; when the elder Cato fattened slaves for market; when to propitiate the gods human sacrifices were renewed; when the city population was hourly becoming more dependent on free distribution of the corn of subject provinces; and when gladiatorial games, maintained at the public cost, were more and more required for their amusement; preparation thus being made for the barbarism so speedily thereafter exhibited in the destruction of the great cities of Corinth and Carthage; in the proscriptions of Sylla and Marius; in proconsular tyranny like to that of Verres and Fonteius; and in the almost universal pauperism and demoralization of that people which in earlier and better times had given to the world men and women of whom Cincinnatus and Lucretia might be taken as the types.* Facts like these being accepted as proofs of advancing civilization, in what direction should we look when seeking evidence of its decline? The question is one to which the venerable historian would certainly find it somewhat difficult to make reply.†

* "Take, for example, Rome in the splendid days of the Republic, at the close of the second Punic war; the moment of her greatest virtues, when she was rapidly advancing to the empire of the world-when her social condition was evidently improving."-Hist. of Civilization, p. 14.

"war

†That like causes tend to produce like effects, and that history tends constantly to reproduce itself, will be obvious to all who remark the close correspondence of the results at different periods of unceasing fare," as exhibited in the Rome of the past and the Britain of the present. As was then the case, the small freeholder has now disappeared from the land, his place being filled by the day-laborer, with "no future but the poorhouse." As then, a proletariat now fills the place that had once been occupied by men like those of Naseby and Marston Moor. As then, the

*

§ 2. Voluminous as is Mr. Buckle's work, he nowhere finds place for any definition of the thing whose history he seeks to place before his readers. In lieu thereof they are told that progress is greatly dependent on the question as to whether men eat rice as in India; potatoes, as in Ireland; maize, as in Mexico; bananas, as in the countries further south; or meat, as in Northern Europe. The reward of labor, as they are told, is always low in hot climates where vegetable food abounds; always, on the contrary, high in those colder climates where animal food is a necessity of life; these assertions being made in face of the facts, that close on his right and left stood two little countries, Belgium and Ireland, the one ranking among the most prosperous of Europe, the other meanwhile exhibiting famine as almost the normal condition of Irish existence; just as is now the case with those unfortunate Hindoos who, as has been shown, habitually eat putrid fish because of a tax on salt so heavy as to preclude them from availing themselves of its services for preservation of the animal food with which their rivers so much abound.†

space between the higher and lower orders of society is now a constantly widening one. The facts of the earlier and later periods of civilization above referred to are one and the same, with little exception other than this: that considerable portions of the contributions of subject Provinces and States were then applied to maintenance of games by which the Roman people could be amused; whereas, no part of the contributions of the poor Hindoo, none of the profits of the opium trade or salt monopoly, is applied to the amusement, and little to the instruction, of those of Britain. * History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 46, 47.

See ante, note to page 342.

Of all European countries there is none that more strenuously than Belgium has resisted the tyranny of the British system, and hence it is that civilization has there so steadily advanced. Of all the countries of the world there are none that equally with India and Ireland have been compelled to blind submission, and hence it is that, widely separated as they are, and widely different as are their climates and their national characteristics, the facts presented are of so close resemblance; the Irishman selling his pig because too poor to eat it, and the Hindoo allowing his fish to run to waste because too poor to pay the tax on salt.*

Turning his eyes westward, and back to the days of Cortes, Mr. Buckle might have seen maize-eating Mexicans cultivating the land, living in towns, and fabricating cloth; the meat-eaters of northern prairies meanwhile being driven by actual want to frequent robbery and murder of their more prosperous and civilized southern neighbors.

Elsewhere, at the moment of writing, he might have seen Pennsylvania and Virginia standing side by side, perfectly agreed in the consumption of both animal and vegetable food; but differing as did the poles in reference to the reward of labor. The one had been consistent in its efforts at bringing together societary positives and negatives, and

* See ante, note to page 342.

+ Mr. Buckle's theory having made it necessary to place Indian corn, or maize, among the products of hot climates, he seeks to restrict its cultivation within the limits of 40° north latitude; doing this in face of the fact that the chief seat of its cultivation on this continent is north of 38°.

had, therefore, grown in force. The other had been equally consistent in its efforts at keeping them asunder, and hence the weakness that has since been manifested.

Most of all important, however, in our author's eyes was that "general aspect of nature" which, as he assures his readers, "produces its principal results by exciting the imagination, and by suggesting those innumerable superstitions which are the great obstacles to advancing knowledge."* On the fanciful basis thus established he erects his edifice: then exhibiting it in huge volumes abounding in expressions of opinion on the part of himself and others, but presenting for consideration no single one of the important facts in reference to the English movement that have been here submitted. Those of his readers who seek for information relative to the "theological basis of predestination, and the metaphysical basis of free will" may perhaps be gratified; but widely different will be the case with such as desire to know how it had been that Saxon churls had freed their necks from the degrading collar; that their descendants, self-reliant and self-respecting, had been enabled to do battle for their rights at Worcester; that the chain of serfdom had so soon thereafter been fitted to the ankles of those very men by means of an Act of Settlement; or why it is, that a "proletariat" clamoring for protection against its masters now fills the place once occupied by men against whom + Ibid., p. 10.

* Ibid., p. 29.