R MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD- HISTORY MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD- HISTORY BY ANDREW REID COWAN LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 3& STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1914 All rights reserved PREFACE A BOOK at once so ambitious in its title and so unpretentious in its bulk may make an unusually strong call for a preface. A word of explanation may therefore be given as to how the volume was written and is now being published. The author has always been specially interested in history, and, in the end of the day, has read, in the best sources open to him, the story of every country that has left an express record ; he has also followed up the literature devoted to historical reconstruction upon the material remains of the ancient civilisations where no direct story has survived. He has, how- ever, to confess that he was often overwhelmed with the mere details in the very unequal narra- tives that go by the name of history, many and many a time being quite unable " to see the wood for the trees." In order to get a better bird's- eye view of the human movement he, in the midst of his general reading, studied all the classical books that attempt to ascertain the " Science of History," from the works of Montesquieu, Vico, and Voltaire, down to Buckle and his able advocate, Mr. J. M. Robertson, Ratzel and his equally de- voted disciple, Miss Semple, whose work, Influences vi PREFACE of Geographic Environment, is one of the most suggestive books ever published in this con- nection. But, after having mastered all the best authorities, it still appeared to the present writer that a great deal in connection with the larger aspects of the human movement 1 either remained unexplained or was erroneously presented. Fail- ing light or leading in any authoritative quarter, he had perforce to seek out explanations for him- self. For years he tried to work out " master- clues " in all the directions where these still seemed desirable, and in the long run, after following up many false scents, he hit upon what seemed to be the guiding ideas of which he was in search. Not content with testing their validity in every way known to him, the author submitted his views to several scholars of repute. As they are of opinion that the ideas outlined stand for a substantially novel co-ordination in historical dynamics, it has been thought well to submit the views to public criticism. It is the author's hope that the work (which has been written in the most condensed form possible) may throw some fresh light on the grander aspects of history, which, despite all that has been written up to this point, quite apparently still stand in need of illumination. 1 See " Bibliographical note " for an indication of the nature of these ideas, also the " Recapitulation," where italics indicate the special view of the writer. CONTENTS CHAP. FAOS PREFACE V I. ADJUSTING THE ISSUES ... 1 II. ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE . 13 III. THE DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION . 31 IV. THE NOMAD IN WORLD HISTORY (1) THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS . 44 V. (2) EUROPE 73 VI. (3) AMERICA 120 VII. THE PASSING OF NOMADISM . . . 150 VIII. THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY . .167 IX. THE SEA IN CIVILISATION . . .190 X. SEX IN HISTORY 218 XI. THE CONCOMITANTS OF TILLAGE CIVILI- SATION 226 XII. THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION . . . 240 XIII. THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION . . 286 RECAPITULATION 310 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . .315 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE . . .319 INDEX 327 vii NOTE A " CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE " will be found at the end of the volume. It has been drawn up to supplement the argument submitted in the following pages. Any reader who has not the historical sequence of events clearly in his mind may find it advantageous to refer to the Table, which is necessarily condensed, since a full epitome would have made a small volume in itself. MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY CHAPTER I ADJUSTING THE ISSUES IT is calculated that, in the beginning of the twen- tieth century, the Earth supports a human popu- lation of about a billion and a half (1,500,000,000). When one takes account of the crowded conditions of great capitals like London, New York, Paris, and Berlin, and thinks how fractional these cities are compared with the provincial populations of the world, thinks how some " old " lands are so densely populated as to set up great streams of emigration to " new " countries, one is apt to be impressed by the multitudinousness of humanity working out endless agitations like the illimitable waves of the sea. But, from another point of view, the human mass spread over the whole planet may sink into insignificant proportions. It is estimated that, if the billion and a half human beings were all crowded together so as to allow only standing room for 2 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY each, they could yet be accommodated in an area equal to the Isle of Wight. If the population of the Earth should increase three or four fold (which some estimate to be about its full capacity), an English county of about the average size could still accommodate the enormous total. We thus see how the search for a living and for general elbow-room has resulted in the diffusion of the human race as wide as the planet itself. It is only in very recent times that the census has been resorted to in civilised countries, and any kind of systematic attempt made to sum up the grand human total. In Asia the census results are instructive mainly as regards India, where the population has notably, even alarmingly, increased under the " pax Britannica " ; but there seems no doubt that the population in Japan, China, and other Asiatic countries has been increasing up to the level of about the lowest standard of living on the planet. The peace imposed by Russia in her Asiatic empire seems to be having the same results of multiplication of the human species as in India. In Europe, Russia herself has added most notably to her population, and the process shows no such sign of slackening as has happened most markedly in France, where, but for immigration, there would probably be an actual annual decline of the popu- lation. In Germany, Britain, and other countries the tendency is to much slower increase of the ADJUSTING THE ISSUES 3 human mass. Whether that is a good thing or a bad it is not necessary meantime to settle. The estimates of the population of Africa remain very vague, but the continent is credited with a total of about a hundred and thirty millions. The ceaseless tribal wars of Africa have probably held the population more in check there than anywhere, and there is every chance that, despite the wastage of European exploitation, the people will tend to multiply at a greater rate than ever in the past, under the controlling influence of the whites. It falls to be noted here that in the " Old World," the population has increased almost wholly from within the various continents and countries, there being practically no overflowing of the greater ethnic bounds. It is quite different when we turn to America. When that continent was " discovered," it pro- bably contained a much greater native population than now. The ravage wrought in the old Aztec and Inca empires was probably as fierce and calamitous as ever befell any portion of the human race. The tendency now, however, seems to be for the autochthones to increase alongside a mixed population with final ethnical results that are not yet apparent. But, outside of Central America, the " white " population is increasing at an even greater rate, not only by native vitality, but by the tremendous emigration from Europe into 4 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Canada and the United States in the North, and Argentina most markedly in the South. So, too, with Australia. When it was discovered it was found to be occupied by very " low " tribes of blacks, so sparsely sprinkled over the great island continent as "to give no more sense of vitality to the scene than do flies in empty cathedrals." Even yet the nature of the country has prevented the whites from multiplying as they are doing in Canada and the fertile lands of the States. Cali- fornians and Australians dream ceaselessly of the covetousness of the yellow man as regards their empty territories, and it remains to be seen if the white races can effectually pre-empt their homes against the Celestials who might make the wilder- ness to rejoice and blossom like the rose, but who at the same time, it is believed, would completely blight the " Caucasian " character of the civilisations. In the twentieth century the continental distri- bution of the human race is estimated as follows : Asia, the largest of all the land masses of the globe, contains more than a half of the total somewhere about nine hundred millions ; Europe is calculated to have some four hundred millions ; Africa perhaps one hundred and twenty-six mil- lions ; America nearly one hundred and fifty ; and " Oceania " perhaps not quite six millions. From the point of view of density of population, how- ever, Europe heads the list, having about 106 in- ADJUSTING THE ISSUES 5 habitants to the square mile ; Asia has 58, Africa 11, America 9, and Oceania about 1'7. History (in the sense of more or less reliable re- cords) opens very unevenly as regards the different continents and races. Africa shows the greatest extremes. Egyptian records go back from eight to ten thousand years, whereas the centre and south of the continent have only been brought within the search-light in our time, and that, too, less in the consciousness of the natives than of the intruding whites, who are constituting themselves, not only the makers of history, but its recorders. Rolling mists of fancy enshroud Indian history more thickly perhaps than in any other case, but it is calculated that the " Aryans " settled in the country some two thousand years before the time of Christ, and there are very confused records until the time of Asoka (the "Buddhist Constantine "), who lived about 260 B.C. Then thick darkness settles upon the country for over a thousand years, when the " pear-shaped peninsula " re- emerged into the open tumults of which history is mainly a record " the story of social intumes- cence rather than of the calmness and stability of the greater deeps," as someone has put it. Japanese records do not go back nearly so far as Chinese, which are more ancient than any saving those of Egypt and Mesopotamia Chaldea being the rival for the palm of antiquity with the land 6 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY of the Pharaohs. European history begins with the Greeks some hundreds of years before the time of Christ, and, though there was slackening of the current, the stream of fact flowed on unbroken until it broadened out into the main artery of world-history. American records only carry us back a comparatively short period before the time of Columbus, and there is reason to believe that the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been very long established, though they may have been but the last of a succession of civilisations of which the memory had become obliterated, and, as in the Old World, left but indirect memorials of their superseded activity. Regarding the density and distribution of the world's population when history opens earliest (whether in Egypt or Mesopotamia), some ten thou- sand years ago, we know practically nothing. The Egyptians themselves have survived perhaps less modified than any other historical peoples ; but the Mesopotamian races, who manifested a much broader civilisation, have disappeared almost as completely as the Lost Ten Tribes. The Chinese have a legend that they came in a "Hundred Families," apparently from the neighbourhood of Mesopotamia (the " Far West " of those days), and the " Aryans " streamed into India through the north-western passes, though it is questionable if they "originated" in the dreadfully inhospitable ADJUSTING THE ISSUES 7 Pamirs. Whether these invasions were of com- plete nations, to the wholesale extinction or depres- sion of pre-existing populations, we do not know, though it is hardly likely. Even in the case of America, the Spaniards were very few in numbers, and made no great ethnical impression for genera- tions, though they destroyed on one of the largest scales. But their firearms gave them an advan- tage which probably was relatively greater than in any previous conflicts between races, and their orthodox zeal, perhaps, was unsurpassed by the fiercest of old Assyrian kings. And in America, despite everything, the Indian remains in the majority in many of his ancient haunts. In the Mediterranean world there were numerous comings and goings of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Berbers, Greeks, Romans, and " barbarians " generally from the hinterlands of Europe and Asia, down to the advent of Mongols and Turks in comparatively modern times, when a certain ethnic stability may be said to have settled upon the world, saving for the cases of America and Australia as already in- dicated, and also Africa, which, to all appearance, had many ethnic tumults within its darker confines similar to those of the other continents. But, de- spite all the historical " intumescence " indicated, it is considered likely that the great " continental ridges " of humanity, so to say, may have remained practically unchanged for many thousands of 8 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY years. That is to say, the " black " races during all that time have centred in Africa, the " brown " (if one may so dub the Hindus) in India and the adjacent countries, the "yellow" in Eastern Asia, the " white " in Western Asia and Europe, and the so-called " red " in America. There may have been wavering of the boundary lines, but it may not be unprofitable to remember that there has been substantial stability of the greater ethnical masses if we take colour as not only the most ostensible but the broadest test. The distinction of humanity just hazarded, though by no means finally sufficient, is probably more satisfactory than any other current classifi- cation. No differentiations seem to be conclusive, neither distinctions founded upon " long-heads," " broad-heads," or " medium-skulls," the texture of the hair, the angle of the eyelids, or other phy- sical trait, nor classification into " Turanian," 'Dravidian," "Aryan," "Latin," "Teuton," or the like, which imply rather affinities of speech with perhaps no real relationship in blood. How fallacious the linguistic test may prove can be thus " envisaged." If all existing records were swept away as to the negroes of the United States, they would be classed as " Aryans " simply because they spoke English ! l 1 For the danger of fallacy regarding " race," see hereafter (page 82 note). ADJUSTING THE ISSUES 9 The immense differences observable in humanity on the one hand between a full -grown savage who may eat dirt deliberately, be unable to count beyond the fingers of one hand, have little or no thought for the morrow, and but the feeblest re- collection of the past, and the case of a Pascal, who set and solved mathematical problems for himself while still a child, or that of a Newton who co-ordinated the principles of the Solar system led at one time to the belief that different races must have had different " origins." This belief has tended to become obsolete under the play of the evolutionary theory, which not only contends that all men are kin and that all differences are ascribable to the " environment " in the widest sense of the term, but that Man is descended from quasi-human specimens, and these from animal ancestors who had still " lower " animal pro- genitors, and so on back to the primal forms of life whatever they may have been like, and whether they " originated " from a seminal ocean or were borne to our planet by meteors, or wafted on the wings of the cosmic winds. 1 It is not necessary here to take sides for or against the theory, but to note what is now put forward as a cardinal con- sideration in the present connection. 1 Arrheniua and other authorities are inculcating the idea that Life may exist as indestructible germs throughout the cosmos. Snyder, The World Machine. 10 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY No race of men yet discovered, however " low " they might otherwise be, have been found to be ignorant of the use of " tools " in the sense now intended. Ants, bees, birds, and beavers can manipulate matter in an astonishing enough manner, but it is done entirely by means of their organs proboscis, beak, tooth, or claw. Man alone can consistently use a part of matter not organi- cally connected with his body to modify other matter indefinitely. In a word, " Man, the tool-using animal," is about the best definition we could have of the species. 1 Some writers consider that it is sociability rather which raised man above the brute. But what Professor Giddings calls " con- sciousness of kind " is an elemental fact in life going down to the very roots of animate existence ; and it is arguable that ants, bees, and some other species are really more sociable than man and could give him " points " in communal harmony. 2 1 Benjamin Franklin seems to have been the first to suggest this definition. It was Beaumarchais who said " that which distinguishes man from the beast is drinking without being thirsty, and making love at all seasons." Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, p. 24, says this is not quite correct. Some other Frenchman has said that " Man is the only animal that beats his wife." This seems to be literally true according to Letourneau (La Femme), but, like the other attempt, errs in being facetious rather than " scientific." a Prince Kropotkin's book Mutual Aid gives many instances of animal altruism. The idea that language is a radical human differentiation has been given up since the rudiments of it at least obtain in some of the lower orders. In the matter of sound production, indeed, the human larnyx is much inferior to some ADJUSTING THE ISSUES 11 The anthropoids, from whom man is supposed to have derived, are not remarkable for their gregari- ousness, and the human race as a whole is perhaps more given to civil war than almost any other species. On the other hand it would be a mistake to say that " war is Man's state of nature," and to suggest that he only circumvented it by a " Social Compact " in the sense of Hobbes or Rousseau. Primitive tribes like the Fuegians seem riveted together as tightly as steel in their little " clans " ; and advance in intelligence and power over nature may, in man's case, have stood rather for a departure from sociability than an advance into intenser harmonies. In any case it remains true that Man's tool-using power is a thing that radically differentiates him from the animal. How, when, or where it was acquired we do not know, but we can roughly trace its main develop- ments. It may first have expressed itself in the ability to wield a branch, a stick, or the thigh-bone of a dead animal or compatriot. But, if so, none of these primitive tools have survived the weather- ings of time with any hall-mark showing their use in that way. Stones, however, exist hi great abundance in all the continents, showing that man advanced from the ability to chip them in the most other species, the parrot for instance. With many savages to- day language depends so intimately on gesture that speakers cannot comprehend each other in the dark. 12 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY rudimentary form to an artistic shaping and polishing which civilised races can hardly improve upon. The " lithic " periods are calculated to have lasted, not so much for thousands as hun- dreds of thousands of years, and the Stone Age still reigns inviolate in some obscure corners of the world. In the end of the day, however, some genius dis- covered the malleability of the metals 1 and the world advanced with almost cumulative rapidity through bronze to iron and all the innumerable refinements of to-day. With metals the era of real civilisation may be said to have begun, since there was gained against the environment a leverage which has proved endlessly progressive. Man, however, still remained subject to the general play of the cosmic forces, and to their special incidence in the various climates or localities of the planet. It now becomes the object here (given the case of a tool-using animal spread over all the Earth having radiated from centres which must remain unknown, followed routes of dispersion which we cannot retrace, and suffered Iliads of conflict of which we can only dream) to try and elucidate positive factors of progress or retardation in the vast medley of human affairs. 1 Metal working implies the use of fire, which was of course a cardinal discovery, but it comes under the definition already attempted of the manipulation of matter by extra-organic means. CHAPTER II ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE AT this point it becomes necessary to come to as clear an understanding as possible regarding certain terms that must henceforth figure largely in the discussion. There is no agreement among scientists as to which of the existing races of men is the " lowest " in the human scale Fuegians, Botocudos, Aus- tralian black-fellows, Hottentots, and others figuring in that capacity according to the fancy of the ob- server. It is not necessary here to try and settle that somewhat thorny point. 1 As already indicated, 1 While the rarity of fossils of an intermediate type between man and apes is ostensibly due to the intense weathering that goes on at the surface and the lack of preservative agencies, it requires a different consideration to understand why no inter- mediate types should have persisted as living species. It is here suggested that the explanation may lie along these lines : if the earliest men were arboreal in their habits, then a descent to the level ground would stand for an epochal parting of the ways. Struggle might continue among the tree-dwellers, but the immi- grants to the plain would be led off upon a wholly different line of development which might cause no clashing between the forest haunters and the pioneers in the open. Among these latter, however, struggle would intensify as population increased, and the less fit (or most ape-like) would tend constantly to be annihilated without once dropping into a grave of chemical preservatives. But, as the fully developed man had no quarrel 13 14 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY all races, however low, had the tool-using faculty, and indeed the despised Australian black-fellow evolved that most rechercht of all primitive weapons the boomerang which few civilised men can throw, let alone are capable of having invented. Some of these primitive tribes are bloodthirsty enough in disposition to strangers at least, if peace-loving amongst themselves ; others, however, are more gentle and inoffensive than the bulk of Christians, but here they will be all slumped together as " savages " from the point of view of our special test, comparatively low tool-using power over their " environment." Power of a higher grade involves the distinction of " barbarian," which is the next stage in a universal classification ending in " civilised." While the pigmies of the Central African forests are savages, their more brawny negro neighbours may be classed as " barbarians " (even if really more bloodthirsty in disposition), with the forest-dwellers, these would be spared while the inter- mediate types upon the plains were exterminated beyond even geological recovery. It is at least possible that some animal types might have evolved in a brainy direction, but, man having got the start, for whatever reason, it is obvious that from the first he would instinctively crush out all competition that threatened his hegemony, like the Turk " bearing no brother near his throne." Man is thus destined to remain supreme on earth unless there be a descent of superior beings from Mars or some other planet. Whether human evolution has practically come to an end is a question that time alone can settle. Thou- sands of years hence there may be such change as to necessitate the designation of "superman" compared with existing condi- tions. ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 15 because their tool-using capacity has enabled them to enter on at least the rudimentary stages of settled agriculture. Where agriculture in still higher forms and general settled industry mani- fests itself, there we have " civilisation " from the present point of view a category which includes everything from the ancient Egyptian down to the modern American. Though these distinctions of " savage," " barbarian," and " civilised " may not be quite clean-cut in thought, though they may tend to overlap, and different observers may class given cases differently, yet they may be of service in the present discussion, always keeping in mind that it is comparative mechanical efficiency which is the groundwork of the test. Moral and religious ideas, if brought into the consideration, might give different valuations, but these are points which are completely eschewed meantime in favour of the tool -using test. It may not be amiss, however, to state that, in the writer's opinion, other things being equal, the more peace- fully inclined a nation is in its general mechanical power, the more civilised may it deserve to be called. Up to the present moment China the oldest, broadest, and vastest of human agglomera- tions has proved ineffective against the impact of Europe, which consists essentially in armed superiority. It is questionable if our general social system is better than that of the Celestials, and 16 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY there are those who maintain that the Chinese epithet of " barbarians " is deservedly applicable to the Western nations. At any rate, if China only gains most markedly in armaments (as is not improbable judging by the analogy of Japan), it is questionable if the world can be bettered by the enlistment of thirty million soldiers, for that is what will result if the Celestials arm upon the European scale. That simply, however, by the way. Scientists tell us that once upon the Earth tropical conditions appear to have obtained uni- versally, reaching from pole to pole, the evidences having been dug up in abundance at both ex- tremities. This, however, was long before the human period, during which the existing distri- bution of land and sea has not been altered on any grand scale. If climate has altered latterly, it may have been for the better, since the ice-pack appears to have retreated towards the pole, giving greater play to the threatened human populations. It may then be taken for granted that the climatic disposition of things has not altered at least during the later human periods. If the three- fold division of savage, barbarian, and civilised can be applied to men, the existing triple dis- tinction may also apply to climates " frigid," "temperate," and " torrid." Both the poles have been discovered in our day. While the dtbris of an ancient continent is found ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 17 in the Antarctic, it is far withdrawn towards the pole itself, there being no great land mass between it and the tapering ends of America and Africa and the broad base of Australia. Though there is animal life in the Antarctic, man probably has always been wanting in that great waste of waters. Such land as protrudes from the ocean was utterly inhospitable to the human race, and life to-day is insupportable on Kerguelen, and none too attrac- tive even on the Falkland Islands and Tristan da Cunha. In a word, while penguins have flourished in the frigid south, the " tool-using animal " has found no place for the sole of his foot no leverage for his mechanical faculty. It was somewhat different in the frozen north. There Europe, Asia, and America and the " island conti- nent " of Greenland cluster round the pole, and, though the cold is equally extreme, there is at least solid ground beneath the feet all round the Arctic Circle. But it, too, is utterly inhospitable except on kindlier margins which give sustenance to rare fisher-folk or reindeer-rearing peoples. But, on the whole, the great " tundra " regions of the earth are only in less degree inimical to human settle- ment than the iceberg areas of the south. It is only man's power of manipulating matter in the making of snow-huts, sledges, kyaks, and the like expedients that has enabled him to exploit, to far within the Arctic Circle, the animals of those regions. B 18 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY While they were equipped by nature for polar existence, he is only so by " Art " a consideration which suggests that the far north can hardly be considered a " centre of human origins." Indeed it is almost inconceivable that men should have sought out these regions except under the most dire compulsion ; and it is speculated that Esqui- maux, Samoyedes, Lapps, Inuits, and other hyper- boreans may have been pushed gradually toward the poles by stronger or fiercer southern peoples who may have been following up the last retreat of the ice in Europe and America, and became gradu- ually adapted to the " conditions of everlasting frost in years bisected by a winter of darkness and a summer of light without heat." Manifestly the mechanical faculty, with all its potential reactions upon social life, had no power of expansion under such conditions. Such minerals as may exist in the Arctic regions (and they are not lacking appa- rently) are smothered in the frozen ribs of the earth beyond the reach of profitable exploitation. Even stones were of little or no avail, and man was thus shut up to the manipulation of " organic " tools won from the carcasses of the animals upon which he preyed, showing, however, marvellous ingenuity in the process. 1 Then again, though flowers may 1 The fishing tackle of the Esquimaux was found to be better than any civilised invention. Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment, p. 624. ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 19 flourish in chinks even of the Greenland ice-pack, there is no vegetation which can supply a direct diet for mankind. The moss upon which the rein- deer feeds takes years to renew itself, and the search for fresh pastures may lead tribes so far apart that the wilderness of snow and ice may close in upon them in such utter isolation as to obliterate the memory of their kind. A band of Esquimaux once encountered by Ross were stupefied at sight of him, for they thought they were alone in the world. Thus another of the greatest stimuli to progress is lacking in the north the friction of communities, customs, and cultures. For it may be well to bring in here such a consideration which has become a commonplace of sociology, and there- fore need not be descanted on at length. But it may be mentioned that, while progress in civili- sation from the first is obviously to a great extent by way of the contact and clashing of peoples, habits, and ideas, there may be little or no benefit from the intermixture of too disparate types. Thus the crossing of whites and Australian blacks, or Boers and Bushmen, may stand rather for degradation than advance ; but, as Egyptians and Babylonians vitalised each others' systems, and the Greeks refined upon both, as the Japanese have refined to some extent upon the wholesale borrowings from Europe, so, on the whole, cross- ings in nearly all the white stocks and that 20 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY clashing of ideas which has now become world- wide, are the very stuff in which " progress " consists. If all men derived from a common stock there is no " pure " race in the world except that hypothetical fountainhead which, in its turn, would only be arbitrarily so, since it links on to some other source of life, and so on once more back to the primal germs. But the point now is that a " pure " race among men might not even be a desirable thing biologically, crossing perhaps (under the qualifica- tion mentioned) being not only the antiseptic of decay but the positive stimulus to advance. In the world of ideas at any rate friction and intermixture are the breath of life to progress in the realms of thought. The considerations advanced, though somewhat summarily handled, show us at once how " climate" as regards sub-polar man has not only made him what he is but may continue to shape his existence pretty much as it is to the end of time. Despite his mechanical endowment, " nature " holds him to the " savage " condition as already defined. And, though altruism might be forced upon the tribes by the hardships of their existence to an extent greater than in the case of more civilised men, it might stop short with the clan. So that, even in the Arctic wastes, the snows were too often dyed with human blood under motives of covet - ousness of place or property or racial repulsions ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 21 due to differences in habit or speech, or, it might be, a sheer unreasoning lust of destruction. For repulsion seems to equate with attraction from its starting-point in the gravitational theory up through all animal life on to man, whose " reason " seems unavailing so far to eliminate the blood-feud from his existence. Such it has been, and such it may ever be, though it is sincerely to be hoped that, in the future, racial and communal repulsions may exhaust themselves in the field of commerce, athletics, and in cultural and scientific competi- tions, without the dread arbitrament of war. For, up to the present, the tool-using faculty of man has too often in the first instance taken a weapon- wielding turn, and even to-day flying machines are being almost solely developed with a view to the destruction of human life and propeity whenever the opportunity may arise. Mechanically men may have become extremely civilised, but morally many of them are near enough the savage. The considerations above set out, if they account but for the merest fraction of the human race, include a not inconsiderable portion of thejand surface of the planet. We shall, now turn to the discussion of the extreme opposite in climates the tropics which involve at least as much territory as the " tundra," but an immeasurably greater num- ber of human beings. By " tropics " is meant in the present connection all regions of maximum 22 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY heat and moisture combined. The hottest and wettest places are not upon the equator, but, for hundreds of miles north and south of the line in Africa, America, and some parts of southern Asia, great heat and great moisture combined evoke a vegetational force l whose coercive power upon man is inferior only to that of the polar colds. This is a feature insisted upon by Buckle in his classic work, and is one of the most valid (or, at any rate, least disputable) of the broad conclusions at- tempted to be wrought out in his famous book. The Amazon river system the mightiest in the world remains for the most part untamed, impene- trable jungle, " the vast fertile plains caught in a swoon of vegetation which nothing human can as yet dispel." New Guinea the largest island in the world is perhaps even a " tougher tropical nut to crack," though the hostility of the natives is pro- bably of greater consequence there in repelling attempted advances of the whites. The moun- tains in the interior of the islands, like the hills and plateaux of Central Africa, have perhaps contributed to the support of relatively greater populations than in the Brazilian plains. Africa, however, has only yielded up its innermost geo- graphical secrets in our own day, their revelation 1 The wild animals and insect pests to which the vegetation gives hospitality form, of course, no inconsiderable part of the trouble in the tropics. Mosquitoes, gadflies, and the like make life almost intolerable in some regions. ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 23 delayed to a great extent by the jungle, though the big tariffs of the petty tyrants aided in the blockade travellers from the coast having to start weighed down with luggage which was in great part simply backsheesh. Even in parts of India and China, the jungle is too much for man, and if any human being could tame it, the Celestial is probably the person. Almost everywhere throughout the moister tropics, though man has universally at- tained to tool -using power, the might of the forest and jungle not only defies mechanical advance but tends completely to stereotype his mental status. Even civilised man, with all the extra-human aid of steam, is still powerless in face of the jungle ; and, even if specific tropical diseases can be elimi- nated, it is very questionable if the peculiar lassi- tude of the climate can be overcome by the whites, who wilt into complete ineffectually under the vast atmospheric depression of the equator. The savagery and barbarism characteristic of those vast regions are therefore directly the result of climatic conditions which may or may not be overcome in the future, but which certainly are master-clues for scrutinising the history of those regions (or rather the lack of it) in the past. Great heat without moisture, as quite inhibiting vegetation, is still more inimical to human advance, keeping population almost as sparse as in the " cold " deserts round the pole. Thus the dry 24 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY deserts of Australia, America, Africa, and Asia (Europe is cursed with very little land of this type) have remained throughout the ages alto- gether unpopulated, or very sparsely inhabited on their rivers, or in the rare oases, and that too by " natives " lower in status than the boreal races and as savage as any tropical tribes. The Austra- lian black-fellows, 1 the Hottentots, the Californian Indians, and the Fuegians are perhaps to be con- sidered even lower in the scale than the Botocudos of Brazil, or the pigmies of the Central African forests. As there is not, however, the same lassi- tude to contend with in hot deserts, as in the moist tropics, they can be settled easily enough, where- ever sufficient water is available, by races from the temperate regions. Thus Egypt and Mesopotamia were peopled from time immemorial by races of a high type who may have expelled lower grade " natives," for it is questionable if the ancient fellah and Chaldean peasant were autochthonous. So, in the north of Africa, savage peoples may have disappeared before the great Berber races who have been in possession of the Saharan margins throughout history, but may have originally de- veloped in more temperate climates. The native races of California are almost completely intruded upon by the whites, as are the blacks in Australia 1 The native Australian, however, haa relatively high cranial capacity. ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 25 and the Hottentots in South Africa, though the " true negroes " show signs of increasing rather than diminishing. Hot dry regions therefore may favour civilised intrusions to a relatively greater extent than the jungles with their utter lack of elbow-room and everlasting vegetable precocity. Frigid and torrid regions and the deserts of the earth (whether of hot or cold type) account for the greatest proportion of the solid land of the globe, and have this in common that hitherto they have set rigid bounds to human expansibility, which has found unlimited possibilities only in the temperate regions of the world. To their con- sideration we now turn. The fact that the continents are massed mainly in the northern hemisphere gives a relatively smaller share of " temperate " landscapes to the south. Australia may be considered temperate as regards its oceanic exposures south and east, but the island continent as a whole is not to be so classed. Its most inviting margins were turned towards the southern waste of waters from which nothing human could emerge. Its most forbidding features con- fronted the Asiatic coasts, which, though teeming with people, sent out no effective swarms to the con- quest of the continent. Northern Australia repelled alike the comparatively unadventurous Chinese ob- sessed with the attractions of their flowery land, and the more daring Malays, who yet scouted 26 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY to enormous distances. Malay blood probably runs in the veins of the Polynesian peoples and the in- habitants of New Zealand, who had found a home in one of the most temperate of lands, even if placed " farthest amidst the melancholy main," thus permitting only a minimum of those culture contacts here held to be so essential to indefinite social progress. The white peoples have probably to thank the excessive grimness of Australia's northern aspects for pre-empting the island through- out the ages for their ultimate benefit. The tem- perate lands of South Africa have an uncertain rainfall over large areas, and there is unmiti- gated desert here and there. The fertile areas were thus separated from each other with astrictive results as regards agricultural civilisation, while the natural antithesis between tillage and pas- toralism, to be commented upon at greater length hereafter, would tend to retard the march from savagery and barbarism into full civilisation. The jungles occupying the centre of the continent also, if not acting as a complete barrier to human mobility, at any rate demanded the maximum of adaptation to conditions the movement from the dry north to the temperate south being longitudinal as in South America, whereas in Eurasia there was possible a latitudinal flow of population, products, and ideas, involving only a minimum of climatic adaptation, which seems to have had its bearing ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 27 in inducing the earlier general civilisation of these continents. America south of Brazil, compared with South Africa, tapers more elegantly towards the pole, is altogether less "massive," and is now manifesting itself as, on the whole, more temperate and fertile than the comparable " sub-continent." But it, too, gave rise to no striking civilisation in situ, except in so far as the empire of the Incas, pierced like a wedge on the west. And it is to be noted that both the Inca and Aztec civilisations arose in essentially " temperate " climates, for, though torrid conditions prevailed in both lands, the considerable elevation above the sea modified the temperature irrigation being in large part the basis of both civilisations, which were essen- tially agricultural. We see, however, that the area forming the modern United States and Canada, in general climatic conditions and fertility of soil, is much more propitious to tillage civilisation than the ancient pre-Columbian area, where alone culture which really deserved the name of " civilisation " manifested itself. Ancient Peru was perhaps the most striking longitudinal empire that ever existed, stretching for about two thousand miles along the drought-stricken west, with, of course, very con- siderable variety in climates despite the general dryness of the country. Yet, despite this and the many physical barriers in the shape of an inhos- pitable coast, mountains of everlasting snow, and 28 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY deep transverse valleys impeding the longitudinal movement, one of the most wonderful of civilisa- tions developed in independence within sight of the vast and lonely Pacific. Similar remarks apply to Mexico, the disposition of the country there impeding latitudinal movement to an almost maximum extent, even the advent of railways failing to perfect mobility. Yet here an autoch- thonous civilisation also manifested itself as strik- ing as that in the south, though the empires apparently evolved in ignorance of each other's existence. For, narrow and comparatively short as was the isthmus which separated them, the jungle acted as an impassable barrier. The diffi- culty in constructing the Panama Canal shows how tremendous the barrier remains. But, while civilisation arose and developed in Mexico and Peru, 1 North America remained practically a wilderness. In the west, of course, the desert accounts for the stagnation, but the eastern coasts were well watered and highly fertile in parts, while sufficient rain fell over the prairies far into the " Middle West," and the virgin soil was so prolific that " if you tickled it with a hoe it laughed with a harvest " ; and there was not the same obstruction to the latitudinal flow of population as in Mexico, 1 And also in Yucatan and other parts of Central America, where comparative dryness made the jungle not too unmanage- able. ZONES OF CULTURE AND CLIMATE 29 for the primeval forests clothing the slopes of the Alleghanies were difficult but not impassable, and were small in area compared with the wholly unobstructed plains. 1 And yet North America, when it was " discovered," was populated almost in the sparsest possible degree, and that too by some of the fiercest savages or barbarians that ever existed. It was thus not the most temperate latitudes in America that earliest gave rise to civilisation, although, later, they carried it to the very highest grades of efficiency. And the same remark applies to the Old World. If civilisation did not originate in Mesopotamia earlier than in Egypt, it yet seems to have sprouted earliest in Eurasia in the Tigris-Euphrates river-system. It apparently began in India and China before it flowered notably in Europe, even if Grseco-Roman culture in the end surpassed every previous mani- festation of scientific and intellectual activity. The Mediterranean civilisations suffered dire eclipse under the attacks of the barbarians, but when culture recovered its breath in Italy, its inspira- tions began to pass to the nations of the west and north, which, for centuries now, have held the in- tellectual and scientific hegemony of the world. Here, then, is a great parallel as regards the culture 1 The Red Indians " negotiated " the Alleghaniea and forests easily enough, and part of the difficulty of the white " crossing " consisted in first of all rooting out the forest tribes. 30 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY of the Old World and the New. 1 And the problem that now confronts us is leaving out of reckoning lands of polar cold and tropic heat (whose unorigin- ality is already sufficiently accounted for) why did civilisation originate in one " temperate " centre rather than another ? And can any " law n or principle be laid down for the divagations which it has displayed in history ? 1 That is in " civilisation " beginning about equal distances from the equator, and spreading polewards while gaining in efficiency as it advanced. To begin with, the drift of civilisation seems to have been from south to north (except in South America, where the Incas carried the light southward), though latterly it is true that " westward the course of empire takes its way " if " empire " here means civilisation. But it was not always from east to west. Civilisation went eastward with Alexander, and Russia, with all her faults, is civilising in Central Asia. Culture was apparently not only determined by inorganic climate, but by the nomadism shaped thereby as hereinafter insisted on. Charles Comte (Traite de Legislation), seems to have been one of the first to note the northward trend of civilisation. CHAPTER III THE DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION AT this point it becomes necessary, or at least expedient, somewhat to supplement our idea as to " the tool-using animal." A two-fold principle is held to be at work con- stantly in the inorganic world that things will remain in equilibrium until some fresh force upsets the repose, and that that force will always take the line of least resistance. Nature, it is held, works in terms of the " Law of least effort," a principle which accounts equally for the zigzag of the stream and of the lightning flash. There can be no doubt that this " law " may have wide enough applications in the organic world, and among men as included therein. The ten- dency to inertia explains not only the fact of social equilibrium, but gives a clue to the erratic character of any forces that may break in upon the general harmony. For, after all, repose is the rule rather than the exception in society, and revolutions never fulfil expectations and never take the straight course that their promoters may have desired. 31 32 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Reform can never be in straight line because of inequalities in the social media. Alimentation is the first great permanent fact in life, and, wherever it is easy, the tendency to inertia may be overpowering. Thus some tropical races literally require only to put out their hands for the wild fruit hanging over their heads to satisfy all their bodily wants. Here there may be practi- cally no struggle for life so far as concerns the means of subsistence. But the easy fruition of desire may induce perfect mental lethargy aided, of course, by the sheer lassitude of the atmosphere. So that, if man " originated " in the tropics, the greater elbow-room and relative unfruitfulness of the more temperate regions may have been neces- sary to the sharpening of his intelligence. On the other hand, the severity of semi-arctic conditions, though developing his instinct for prey to the highest point, left neither leisure nor afforded sufficient comfort, company, and the friction of ideas to develop civilisation in that terrestrial extreme. While, as a general rule, man may, as regards his aliment, act on the principle of " greatest gain with least effort," we have here to take into account an idea which may be held somewhat to qualify the general proposition even if it may apply to the orders beneath man. It is being seriously argued nowadays that, while some men may eat merely DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION 33 to live merely to repair the waste of previous exertion in the general case the organism tends to store up more energy than it requires in a merely " utilitarian " direction. 1 The body, so to say, is perpetually storing up " surplus capital," but is equally under an impulse to spend it in a different direction as it goes along, even as a bank does not keep the gold it draws in idle in its cellars, but im- mediately puts it out to usury. So with the body, although the individual may simply and riotously squander his stores. It is in this source probably that we are to look for the rise of " Art " in the widest sense of the term. For, if energy were always applied to the upkeep of sheer existence, it could not expend itself in non-utilitarian ways which may be broadly dubbed " aesthetic." In the young of men and animals the instinct expends itself in the universal instinct of " play," but, later on, may express itself not only in the gaudy colouring of the butterfly, the mid-day song of the lark, and the midnight passion of the night- ingale, but equally in the corroboree of the native Australian, in the dance of the dervish, in the rough drawings of mammoth and reindeer by the most primitive man as well as the picture by Raphael, in the earliest savage recital and the last play by Shakespeare. Along with the tool-using power 1 Bergson lays great stress upon this idea in some of the books expounding his " philosophy." C 34 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY exclusive to man we have to picture him from the first as endowed with an " artistic " instinct, whether or not rooted in surplus energy and held in common with the lower animals a power which led him from the joyful if rude painting of his primitive caves to the construction and adorn- ment of his mightiest temples and palaces. Now this " instinct of workmanship " towards other than strictly utilitarian ends may have influenced man's motives in relation to two main aspects of his life which have had the very profoundest effect on society the domestication of animals and the practice of agriculture. We know as little of the origin of these customs as of the invention of tools. And the domestication of animals may not be so much prehistoric as pre- human, since ants have trained aphides precisely to act the part of cows in the human economy they being valued for their " milk." l Whether or not primitive man went to the ant in this con- nection we do not know, but, at any rate, domesti- cation of animals was effected in various directions in different parts of the world. The bones of the dog are earliest found in association with man, and that animal may have been first subjected, if not 1 Ants also practise slavery in the most systematic fashion, not only raiding other hives for bondmen like the Arabs in Central Africa, but rearing up subjects from captive species, like planters in the old slave States of the South (see hereafter, page 230). DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION 35 for food, probably for companionship. Dog and man may have been instinctive partners in the chase for ages, as lions and jackals still, or Hottentots and certain birds in the hunt for wild honey. The dingo (a species of dog) was found in Australia. And not only drought but the faunal poverty l of that country must obviously have handicapped the natives in any attempt to rise above the savage line. There were no animals either to yield milk or act as burden-bearers or for haulage purposes, and dairying and agriculture were impossible. Some races of tropical South America are credited with an extraordinary power in the taming of animals, and some of their villages are said to be so many private zoos, but the beasts have no utility except perhaps as "watches," and are more likely an expression of their taste in " living art." 2 In South America indeed there were no such domesticable animals as in the Old World. The horse, which was once abundant in the country, had died out far back in prehistoric times. But the fossils found in the strata give the animal the best "genealogical-geological tree" on record. It is traceable back to an animal with two toes, which had an ancestor with three, whose progenitor 1 The island ia, however, exceptionally rich in its flora, but not in seed-bearing plants. 8 Humboldt somewhere speaks of a South American tribe that was destroyed to the last man, and only a tame parrot survived to perpetuate the idiom of the race. 36 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY had four the line ending in an animal of about the size of a fox with the rudiments of a fifth toe, five evidently being the " perfect number " in this connection. Two-toed horses still occur as " sports " Julius Caesar is said to have ridden such an animal, which was thus as great a portent in biology as his master in politics. The Peruvians had tamed the llama, which however was used only as a burden-bearer all through their hills. 1 In ancient Mexico man himself was the " beast of burden," as he still tends to be despite the advent of the railway. It was on the backs of porters that the old, and apparently immense, trade of Mexico was conducted, and the cheapness of the human machine still makes it a competitor with the locomotive. The domesticability of the North American bison remains not very certain, although the possi- bility of it is alleged to have been proved. 2 In any event it was simply preyed upon by the Red Indians a process that was only intensified by the arrival and advance of the whites, who brought with them their cattle, much more profitable for domestic exploitation. Those who mourn the disappearance of the buffalo should remember 1 A wild species, the vicuna, was hunted for its prized wool. The llama was a creature of the heights, and could not survive upon the plains. The ancient Peruvians, who never abused it in any way, gave out that it turned towards the rising sun like a good Inca, even as some Arabs have pretended that camels turn towards Mecca. * Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment, p. 63. DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION 37 that the fauna of North America has been increased rather than diminished by the enormous multi- plication of tame and semi-wild hordes of cattle. In the far north of America the Esquimaux had not tamed the reindeer as the Eurasian hyper- borean had done. Dogs instead were used for hauling the sledge, which was the only vehicle known to the New World, for the wheel had not been invented in pre-Columbian times. The Old World was thus specially favoured from this point of view, and the cow, the horse, the ass, the sheep, and other animals were harnessed on to the domestic economy of mankind with the most profound reactions on social life in the more favourable climates. In India the cow is the object of worship still, while it is the great binding oath with the Dinkas of the Nile, who erect hos- pitals for their sick cattle while allowing their own kind to die in the gutter. As regards the domesti- cation of animals, it is suggested that Man, in some cases at least, could not have had a directly utili- tarian motive. The regular and increased milk- power of the cow for instance is a thing that could not be foreseen, and domesticity may thus have come about as a bye-product, so to say, of primi- tive religiosity, the animals probably being at first kept and tamed for sacrificial purposes. 1 The 1 In like manner it is hazarded that clothes originated, not for keeping out cold, but by way of ornament. 38 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY religious or artistic motive may thus have mingled with the utilitarian from the start. In any case we see how one continent was favoured as against another from the point of view of initial animal endowment. As regards agriculture it also may have been an " accidental " discovery from the promiscuous sowing and harrowing of " wild " seeds with in- creased productivity again resulting as an un- intended gain. 1 Once more, Australia is seen to be handicapped in its flora from the edible point of view. But South America had the potato, which, transplanted into the Old World, has become the staff of life to Germans even more than to Irish. In North America maize was apparently cultivated by some of the fiercest nomadic Indians, but, once again, the moral of too easy fruition seems to apply. Few or no cereals are sown with less trouble, demand less care, and are so prolific in their yield. The woman could do all that was required for the variant in the Red Indian larder, leaving the men absolutely free to hunt the buffalo or their fellow-men as the mood took them. Maize therefore had little or no power in fixing a com- munity upon the soil wherever there was any in- centive to roam. It was no counter attraction to 1 Though there is an animal analogue to the domestication of beasts, there is none as regards agriculture, in which the use of tools comes more effectively into play. DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION 39 the hunt after bison "whose flesh contained every bone of contention," and whose migrations set up corresponding human eddies that might spread almost from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Though, in ancient Peru and Mexico, agriculture had a bind- ing and civilising power not incomparable to what it had in the Old World, it attained its maximum effects in the latter continents, and, not merely ostensibly, but actually first attained to full settled form and dimensions in Egypt and Mesopotamia for a reason already indicated, and now to be fully outlined. If, in the frigid and torrid zones, " Nature " in the sense before defined rigidly held man down, in the temperate fertile regions of the earth it was rather Man himself who was the constant menace to the stability and progress of civilisation in all its higher forms. We do not know for certain whether man was a vegetarian before becoming a carnivorous animal. It is quite possible at any rate that hunting may have been resorted to universally. The idea once obtained that the next stage was to the pastoral, and from that to the agricultural and industrial ; but the case of the Red Indians has shown that the shepherd was not necessarily the forerunner of the ploughman. 1 1 Peisker, founding upon other authorities (Cambridge Mediae- val History), suggests that the shepherd came after the agri- culturist in Asia. Even if that be so, the antagonism hereinafter enlarged upon must still have obtained between the hunter and 40 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY The Indians were agriculturists in varying degrees, and fishermen also to some extent, while remain- ing chiefly hunters. No pastoralism intervened in their case, probably because of the lack of domestic- able animals, although the dog hung about the native wigwams. Though pre-Columbian America had its mighty hunters, the shepherd was unknown until the arrival of the whites, save in so far as the ancient Peruvians herded the llama, as already indicated. In the Old World, however, while hunt- ing subsisted throughout historic times, pastoralism took on a still greater development and maintained a semi-nomadism which became the curse of tillage cultures down to modern times. For there is a broad natural antithesis between the instincts and interests of the hunter and shepherd and those of the agriculturist. In whatever way the tool-using animal discovered the force of tillage and settled into its practice whether spurred by sheer in- dividual hunger, greed, or family feeling, or im- pelled also by that " instinct of workmanship " of which mention has already been made agri- culture from the very first must have implied individual fixity to the plot and social settlement on the soil such as had not been experienced until then. It might not long stand for greater the tiller, the essential nomad and the essential pacifist. If shepherding came after agriculture, it would tend probably to the regression of culture in so far as that was founded upon tillage. DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION 41 material well-being, taking the community as a whole, for population would soon press upon the new means of subsistence, causing a standard of living perhaps no higher than in antecedent com- munal stages ; but relative density of population and comparative fixity of habit it must have im- plied from the first. The psychology of the tiller would also become affected, and, if it may really have altered for the better as implying decrease of pugnacity, it often at the same time stood for decreased virility, a lowering of the general will- power by the loss of the ruder initiative character- istic of semi-nomadic peoples, and induced by the necessities of their existence. Hundreds of con- temporary cases and thousands of historical in- stances illustrate the truth indicated, which may seem too obvious to require being insisted on. 1 As the ancient Egyptians succumbed before the intrusive Shepherd Kings, so the " hoe people " of the Niger and Upper Nile to-day have been fre- quently conquered by the herdsman of the African grasslands. The advantage was all on the shep- herd's side. There was nothing to tempt the tiller from his fields into the steppes or up the mountain 1 The story of Cain and Abel, so far as it implies that the tiller was the fiercer nature, lacks vraisemblance if intended for general application. Of course if the Jews were themselves pastoralists, it was natural enough for them to invert the psychology of the case. As Reclus somewhere says, " the first homicide is the first slander." 42 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY side. Punitive expeditions could bring no booty with them, and might readily involve disaster But the wealth hoarded in the villages or cities of the agriculturist acted as a perpetual lure to the nomad, who might be acting on the principle of greatest gain with least effort enriching him- self quickly without renouncing the joys of his roving life. Sense of greater freedom in pastoral existence may often have acted as a check upon impulses towards the ways of settled civilisation. The Dutch of agricultural and commercial Holland, when transplanted to South Africa with all its hunting and shepherding, came to loathe intensive culture and town life, rejoiced in the spaciousness of the veldt, and trekked farther and farther from civilisation. 1 It is the last phase of an immemorial antagonism which, in more sharply contrasted circumstances, may lead still to constant broils, as in Kurds and Albanians preying upon the people of the plains. There is no reason why stock-raising and tillage should not supplement each other in national economy, as is the prevailing tendency in our day ; but, on the other hand, the antithesis between pastoralism and agriculture, however broadly motived, is a master-clue in world-history, not only accounting for the degra- dation or fall of nations and empires, but for the early emergence of civilisation in one quarter of 1 See also page 195. DETERMINANTS OF CIVILISATION 43 the world rather than another. For, on the as- sumption that tillage is more favourable to civi- lisation than semi- or entirely nomadic systems, and that it came after hunting or shepherding as the case might be, then agriculture could flourish most in quarters best protected from the predatoriness apparently inherent in the opposing systems. And it is now suggested that Egypt and Mesopotamia, ostensibly the oldest civilisations, were really so, not so much because of aboriginal fertility of soil, as because they were the most sheltered and essen- tially " temperate " nooks in the ancient world. CHAPTER IV THE NOMAD 1 IN WORLD-HISTORY (1) The Primary Civilisations WHERE the settlers of Egypt and Mesopotamia came from we do not know. 2 But it is thought likely they must have been intrusive races. For, if we may judge by the condition of the Upper Nile 3 still and the reedy desolation of the ancient Babylonian sites to-day, the original condition of the rivers must have been in great part swampy, unwholesome, and not naturally fitted for human habitation. In short, wholesale reclamation may have been a condition precedent of the agriculture of the regions, which, by nature, were less fitted for tillage than the " loess " lands of China, the " black earth " belt of Russia, and the virgin soil of the North American prairies. But the immense 1 The word is here used to include not only hunters but shep- herds who may be only semi -nomads. a The earliest inhabitants of Mesopotamia were apparently neither " Aryan " nor " Semitic " but " Turanian " hypo- thetically of kin with Mongols, Chinese, and Turks rather than with the more westerly peoples. 8 And also the delta. While there is sudd in the higher regions, there are even yet " sour swamps " at the mouths. 44 THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 45 territories mentioned were open to the predatori- ness of the nomads, while Egypt and Mesopotamia were better protected by nature than almost any other corners of the ancient world. A band of deserts stretches diagonally across the Old World from Senegal to Siberia, beginning with the " hot " type the Sahara, the greatest of wildernesses and ending in the " cold " sterility of the Siberian tundras. Egypt and Mesopotamia are included in this great diagonal, and occupy the "armpits "of the great peninsula of Arabia which joins Africa to Asia. Both countries are practically rainless, but watered by rivers which annually overflow their banks as a result of the sun's northward march over the line, causing the snows to melt in the Abyssinian and Armenian highlands. The tides of mud carried down by the rivers and de- posited upon the shores gave ceaseless fertility to the inundated margins at least after they were reclaimed. How and why man set about the work of reclamation we do not know, but it must have involved enormous labour on the dusky earliest races, comparatively greater perhaps than is now going on in Panama. Probably also the worst " plagues of Egypt " were undergone long before the days of the children of Israel, whose presence in the land is not yet vouched for by a memorial of any kind. The labour that went in Egypt to the erecting of obelisks, sphinxes, and pyramids, and 46 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY in Mesopotamia to the erection of mythical Babels or too real palace-temples, was factitious and mis- directed compared with the work of winning the Nile, the Euphrates, and Tigris. The real heroes of the country are not the kings who have per- petuated their braggart deeds in chiselled granite or sun-dried brick, but the dim millions upon whose labours the land was redeemed and cultivated to the last inch of soil and the last drop of water. 1 The anonymous labourers may, to begin with, have had other incentives to toil than the monarch's will or the overseer's whip. The wild animal and vegetable life of the rivers could not possibly nourish an abundant population, as the melancholy ruins of Babylon again testify. So the mere pressure of population might be a sufficient spur to the tool- using faculty already probably developed in the races, and the result was, if not the origin of agri- culture, its bourgeoning perhaps to an extent that long remained unparalleled. 2 For the popu- 1 Compare Ferrero as to Rome : " It is now sixteen centuries since the disappearance of the Roman Empire, and though in the pages of too many modern historians the mighty host of the workers lies concealed and contemned behind the dominant person- ality of a few soldiers and politicians, their work has lived after them. On the plains and hillsides of Italy to-day vineyards, orchards, and olive groves shake out to the wind the last sur- viving trophies of the world-conquest of Rome." Greatness and Decline of Rome, vol. i. p. 312. 2 The suggestion of Draper (Intellectual Development of Europe), that the regularity of the overflow of the rivers evoked agriculture, is beside the point if the land was swampy originally, THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 47 lation had perhaps almost nothing to fear from the nomad less probably in the Nile Valley than in the Tigris-Euphrates system, causing Egypt perhaps to be won earlier than Mesopotamia. There is almost no nourishment for man in the unmitigated desert surrounding Egypt. The rare Bedouins, who eke out a scanty subsistence, never had the mass force necessary to conquest, and, though harassing to some extent, may rather have contributed to ad- vance in filtering into the land and varying its stocks, which seem always to have been mixed, if showing less variety than in many other lands. The sea in ancient times was a sufficient barrier, and it was only in Greek times that it was effectually penetrated. An Ethiopian dynasty campaigned down stream and conquered the country. Though that was the beginning of the end of Egyptian independence, the conquest was yet at the hands of essentially agricultural or commercial peoples and had to be redeemed in greater or less degree. The extreme probability of that vetoes the idea of regular inundation being the evocative or primarily conditioning factor. The regularity of the Tigris-Euphrates inundations to-day indeed stands for non-cultivability and malaria. Besides, the Nile gave no ab- solutely certain return, famine punctuating the history of the country more notably than in the " loess " of China. It was a famine which made the fame of Joseph. As afterwards noted (page 125), the lands of eastern North America are in a remark- ably certain climate as to rainfall, and have never suffered from agricultural famine. The necessity, however, for economising water in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and arranging as to its dis- tribution, would aid in the political unification of the countries, and tend to stabilise their culture. 48 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans. There was preda- toriness certainly in their attacks, but, saving for the fact of continuous subjection, no such degradation of the civilisation as was wrought by the nomads in other quarters. That nomadism was only a real menace from the east by way of the Sinaitic peninsula, across which a wall was built to ward off the barbarian attacks as in the north-west of of China and Hadrian's Wall in Scotland. Few really nomadic invasions, however, were able to pierce the Syrian deserts, though the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings x came from that quarter conquer- ing the country, but being ultimately expelled, as were the Moors from Spain, the Tatars from Russia, and the Manchus from China. 3 The im- pulses to agriculture in Egypt being as hazarded and the opportunities as suggested, civilisation did develop in Egypt in its most magistral primary forms. It has long been the custom to regard the Egyptians as the most conservative of peoples, and they themselves latterly came rather to take pride in their reposefulness compared with the 1 It is supposed that it was under a Shepherd King the Jews became installed in Goshen. 2 The Egyptians, of course, were not blameless as regards sur- rounding nations. They had previously manifested " imperial- istic " tendencies, fighting Hittites and other peoples with the confused gusto inherent in all peoples. For aggressiveness may be considered a primum mobile of all communities, but there may be all the difference in the world according to which way the conquest goes subjection by a civilised or barbarous victor. THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 49 hustling and garrulous Greek. But the conclusion is quite patently out of joint. The Egyptians demonstrably progressed from the power merely to chip flints to the faculty of erecting temples and pyramids that remain the wonder of the world, and the mechanics of whose construction are by no means free from mystery even yet. And the people invented so much in lesser forms, from wigs to false teeth (and even perhaps the lightning-conductor), that they have gone far to justify the idea that there is nothing new under the sun. To say of such a people that they are essentially conserva- tive is needlessly to deepen a difficult enough problem to resort gratuitously to obscurantism when at least glimmerings of light exist in other directions. In ancient times it is hardly likely that many ideas would pierce the desert and fer- tilise the riverain culture. The civilisation of Egypt, probably more than in any other case, stands for development in situ " in a closed vase " as some critic suggests. But the vase cannot always have been " closed " in any ab- solute sense of the term. Along the long, long ribbon of water there must have been, to begin with, sufficient variety in blood, habit, and general ideas to set up that friction which spells progress in life. There must have been not only initiative but direct encouragement of it once, as well as all round receptivity, for nobody nowadays believes 50 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY that gods rose out of the water and imposed in- ventions or abolished cruelties amongst the sons of men. It was not Deity but the British Govern- ment which took the locomotive into India, and abolished thuggee and suttee. This primitive progressiveness is not inconsistent with the fact of later stagnation when the centralised country may have exhausted all the possibilities of improve- ment from within, and needed the stimulus of other not too disparate cultures to spur it to still higher attainments. But nothing like that ever came in the peaceful guise that was so essential to fruition, and Egypt's stagnation in later times is the mark more of political subjection than of utter cultural blight. For, if Egypt's isolation favoured her progress in primitive times, it rather marred her chances in every way when the general advance in science enabled other nations to pierce the desert zone and overwhelm her, not only by the sheer force of numbers, but by the application of greater initiative drawn from wider and more mobile sources than operated in the Nile valley, whose sand-ringed horizons, and rock-ribbed river flowing eternally under cloudless skies, may certainly tend to a social stability which may be stamped with " primitive " features to the end of time. It re- mains to be seen, however, if Egypt, under the world-wide impacts of to-day, may not again grow " original," at least in minor forms. Nothing at THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 51 anyrate is likely to deprive her of the primitive palm in civilised inventiveness. Similar considerations apply to Mesopotamia, the seat of the other immemorial civilisations which are perhaps rightly regarded as " primary." Here, however, there were two great twin rivers, and the land between 1 them yielded probably a greater cul- tivable area than the narrow verges of the Nile. But Mesopotamia was not so well fenced round with deserts as Egypt, being specially vulnerable on the north-east, whence have emerged the greatest predatory invasions known to history. Hence Mesopotamia may have evolved agricul- tural civilisation later than Egypt, and perhaps maintained it on a more precarious tenure. As already indicated, we do not know who were the earliest inhabitants of the land, though the origi- nators of the tillage culture seem to have been of " Turanian " stock as mentioned. At that time the " Semitic " and " Aryan " types were probably mewing their mighty and extremely savage youth. At any rate, when these conquerors did arrive, it is questionable if their advent was to the real elevation of the culture. The " Semitic " Assyrians, who had probably been pastoralists originally, are unsurpass- able for the rudeness of their sentiments. Their kings positively gloried in the cruelties they con- stantly practised, destroying peoples and shifting 1 Mesopotamia means " between the rivers." 52 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY them about on every side like cattle. 1 But they incurred sudden and obscure destruction. Nine- veh was so utterly destroyed that Xenophon could make nothing of the ruins when he passed by with his Ten Thousand two hundred years later. The conquerors of Assyria are described as " Scythians " or " Medes," though it is doubtful what stock they represented. It was probably a blast of fury from the great plains of predatory energy in inner Asia, which may have blown in similar blight a hundred times previously in history. Babylon, which had been subject to the Assyrian yoke, was either not reached by the invaders or better defended, or spared for reasons of tribute or otherwise. It was the nucleus of the really massive agricultural energy of the region, and it perpetuated its pecu- liar civilisation in all its brilliant viciousness if in constant subjection to the more or less predatory communities without. After the Assyrians came the Medes and Persians, then the Greeks under Alexander (who was perhaps the most civilised of " Barbarians,") followed in succession by Parthians, Romans, and Saracens, until, through neglect or the violence of the rivers' flow, or of Mongols, the canal- 1 One Assyrian king thus exults : " Every second person was killed. I constructed a wall before the great gates of the town. I skinned the chiefs of the revolt, and covered the walls with their hides. Some were built living into the masonry, others crucified or impaled along the wall." What a bulletin de victoire, importing as much essential horror as the pyramids of skulls constructed later by the Mongols in Central Asia ! THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 53 systems were overwhelmed in ruin, and the once fertile area converted into unhealthy swamps. Predatoriness thus gained upon tillage in one of the most propitious haunts of civilisation in the world. And misrule has kept the district blighted down to our own day. It remains to be seen if modern science can recreate cultures originated and developed thousands upon thousands of years ago by the dim " Turanians " of the time. 1 Attention is sometimes drawn to the fact that a certain parallel exists between Southern Europe and Southern Asia as respects the peninsulas pro- jecting from their bases. In each case there are three main peninsulas the Asiatic all larger than the European in proportion to the mass from which they spring. The Iberian peninsula corresponds in situation to Arabia, which it also resembles in its " massiveness " and comparative lack of rainfall. The Balkan peninsula at the other extremity of the Mediterranean corresponds to the ultimate pro- jections formed by the Malay States, Siam, and Annam, the resemblance being heightened by the cortege of islands flanking each peninsula on the south-east. In the parallel Italy corresponds to 1 The Turks are of " Turanian " origin. If they are descended from the same stock as the originators of Mesopotamian civilisa- tion, there must have been sad enough degeneracy. But of course the distinctions into " Turanian," " Aryan," and the like are of linguistic significance only, and extremely precarious at that. 54 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY India, which indeed has been called " the greater Italy of the East." In both cases a single large island lies close to the mainland, the coast-line in both cases is but feebly " articulated " ; ranges of mountains give backbone to each peninsula (re- latively more highly developed in Italy) ; in both cases a great level flood plain has been formed by the rivers in the north-east corner of the country, while in the north the boundary is formed by a tremendous semi-circular rampart of hills respec- tively the highest in the various continents the Himalayas, of course, being also the highest in the world. In India, however, nature operates on a grander scale than in Italy, with a correspondingly greater subjection of the human material. It was De Quincey who said that " in India Man is a weed." And certainly " weediness " of a pronounced type is a general characteristic of the race. Some ascribe this to the perpetual diet of rice, though millet and other seeds are largely eaten, and the Chinese, whose staple food is rice, are almost as " tough " as the Hindu is " weedy." Climate, however, may be the essential influence if the crucibles are still too deep for chemical analysis. Buckle ascribes the almost delirious imagination of the Hindu to the colossal scale of nature, but here again we must be cautious. If India has given birth to an almost monstrous mythology, whose cardinal doctrine is reincarnation, the cor- THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 55 rective was supplied from the same source, and Buddhism, with its " mighty negative of Nirvana " has uttered the most simplifying of all religious dogmas. Here, however, it is not now a question of the effect of climate upon the imagination, but simply of the intruder upon the native culture. Though in some parts of the classic monsoon land the jungle remains difficult to contend with, yet, in prehistoric times, men also had attained to tillage in the vast triangular lands. The Indian plains, however, are not favourable to pasturage, which also has little countenance on the margin of the deserts, and is practically confined to the hills. Quite apparently the mountaineers of the Ghats operated on the chronic predatory plan, and, while they may have assisted in retarding the advance of civilisation in India compared with the develop- ment in Egypt and Mesopotamia, they were too few in numbers permanently to daunt the men of the plains. The mountaineers of the Hima- layas were perhaps even less effectual probably because, like the condors of the Andes, they had difficulty in descending to sea level, and certainly because of the lack of unity characteristic of all mountaineers, and due, of course, to their cantonal isolation. 1 It was through the north-west passes that the greatest menace to independence and civilisation came. Thither came the pastoral 1 See hereafter as to the " Highlander in History." 56 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY " Aryans," whose influence upon the physique and intelligence of the " Dravidian " stocks remains very conjectural. It is probable, however, that the immediate effect may have stood for degrada- tion of the civilisation attained to, and, if the result was not the creation of the caste system, it prob- ably meant such a tightening of the rivets as to spell additional tendencies to immobility, with every possibility of actual degeneration which stagnation sometimes implies. The Greek in- vasion did not reach beyond the Indus. It was thus hardly a ripple on the surface of Indian life. It might have acted as a refining influence in Hin- dustan if it had had any real power of penetration, since it represented the most mobile ideas of the time, even if Alexander was degenerating into Asiatic absolutism. A masterful man appeared in Asoka, as already mentioned ; but then the peninsula sinks absolutely beneath the historical horizon for a thousand years, submerged perhaps by some new tide of barbarism surging through the north-west passes. The Saracenic invasion, which dragged the country from its millennial ob- scurity, is probably on the whole to be regarded as an elevating influence, resulting not only in brilliant ruling dynasties, but giving the country its greatest religious variation which, even if it leads to turmoils, leads also to thought and the friction of ideas which may spell progress in the end. The THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 57 invasions of the Mongols (who were real nomads), even if less murderous than exemplified by these Asiatic hordes in other quarters, stood not only for the most naked predatoriness that ever existed, but operated upon the greatest scale known in history. With the mention of the Mongols indeed we reach the inner clues of Eurasian history from the present point of view. For, though the battle of tillage and pasturage was fought obscurely in minor forms all over the world, inner Asia was the generative centre of the predatory invasions whose ample waves have left imperishable marks upon the civilised history of the old world. But it may be well to lead up to that consideration by a sum- mary discussion of the remaining relevant cases. China is not such a distinct " geographical unit " as India, being neither so well delimited by the sea nor by such clean-cut mountain systems. But its location on the vast and lonely Pacific, and the tremendous, if confused mountain barriers on the south-west running into steppes and deserts north- wards, make of it also a world apart. Though it is considerably cut up by hill systems in the in- terior, their separating power has been more than counterbalanced by the unifying effect of great navigable rivers with which no country is better endowed than China. It is to them probably that the immemorial federation of the land is mainly due, since there is not really so much homogeneity 58 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY of race as was once taken for granted in Europe. There are probably as great ethnic extremes in China as in Europe. But the unparalleled cohesion which the Celestials have displayed for thousands of years was probably due less to any inherent racial genius in that direction than to the seclusion of the country as a whole, giving it comparative peace to work out its own destinies in terms of the inward unifying geographical conditions. Even in China the centrifugal forces have been constantly at work, with the result of occasional civil wars and revolutions which, if judged in terms of the destruction of life and property, put the French Revolution utterly in the shade. To-day, when the country has turned republican (a really tre- mendous fact however precarious the general position), the forces of disunion are again manifesting themselves, though it is likely the old result will ultimately accrue domination of the whole country from the north, which appears to have relatively greater ethnical and geographical power even as in India and some European cases Italy and France for instance, while Prussia lords it over Germany. 1 It is probably also to the isolation and essential unity of the Celestial empire that it achieved an unparalleled feat in civilisa- tion the practical elimination of the soldier. In 1 This was written before Yuan-Shi-Kai's northern forces had prevailed over Southern recalcitrance. THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 59 a territory little smaller than Europe, and with a population nearly as great, there was no dead- weight of armaments, such as the west has never ceased to labour under from the dawn of history, which is increasing to the breaking-point, and which, alas, has been foisted upon the east as the superior sign of our vaunted civilisation. China, too, had long anticipated the west in promulgating the doctrine of "La carrier e ouverte aux talents,' 1 '' for as there was no dead-weight of armaments as in Europe, neither was there a mountainous burden of caste as in India. In China a man could rise from the lowest grade to the highest, not only theoretically but in reality. It is true that the system contained essential elements of caste, that favouritism and corruption were rampant in the country, and the mode of examination as the test of merit had become obsolete, puerile, and ludi- crous, but it was at least something to have pointed a way which western peoples in their affected superiority are being slowly constrained to follow. Verily, China, which also invented printing, gun- powder (?) and the compass, must have possessed not only initiative but tremendous progressiveness in the past, and, like Egypt, only " stagnated " through lack of the forces of peaceful variation from without as well as within. For, as we shall see, what came from outside tended always to be warlike, destructive, and degrading. There is 60 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY every likelihood that the opening up of China, which has been slower than that of Japan simply because of her greater massiveness, will cause the fountains of initiative again to flow, and progress resume its advance in its oldest eastern home. But it will be a thousand pities if the haunts of ancient peace are to echo to the tramp of soldiers in imi- tation of the west. If, as already mentioned, China arms on the European scale, she may one day have thirty million soldiers. That may stand for advance, but, in the opinion of the present writer, it is progress backwards. The object, however, meantime is not to " sociologise " the whole case of China, but to show that her immemorial tillage (the oldest, broadest, and most enduring in history) was, despite her isolation, also flawed by nomadism. While in the Chinese empire there is relatively a considerable amount of desert, in China proper there is practically none. The monsoon indeed, through the disposition of the land, is more genially pervasive in China than in Hindustan, while the jungle is even less of a menace. The whole country is not only fertile, but in the north the " loess " l or yellow lands are of incomparable productivity, and never require manuring. Unlike Egypt and 1 The theory is that the " loess " is a wind deposit from the Central Asian deserts accumulated throughout geological ages to depths of many hundred feet. THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 61 Mesopotamia, therefore, China originally would probably afford areas for tillage that did not require to be won from the violence of the river or the power of the jungle, though, with the lever- age attained to in the open, everything would be conquered under the increasing pressure of popula- tion. In the end the country was won for tillage, not only throughout the vast plains, but also thousands of feet up the sides of the mountains, upon whose originally barren ribs vegetation had been grafted with a determination and success greater than anywhere else in the world. From the beginning of history, therefore, tillage has not only been universal in China until scarcely a weed was left or an inch of ground untroubled by the spade, but the literally religious devotion to the soil ended in the practical exclusion of the horse, cow, and sheep from the national economy. 1 China, however, is the paradise of pigs, which are useful for devouring the immense vegetarian offal of the country. The Celestial civilisation is thus seen to be tillage incarnate the " Son of Heaven " himself inaugurating or celebrating the religious rites which to a great extent centred on the soil. This agricultural devotion upon practically a 1 So also in Japan, though, where the sheep might probably be allowed to browse on the mountains, the natural grasses (bamboo) not only fail to nourish the animals, but rather quickly exter- minate them. 62 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY continental scale was probably never seriously disturbed or interrupted by any pastoralism within the national bounds. For that could only emanate from the mountains, and, as we shall see hereafter, the highlander has never been the serious menace to tillage culture that the pastoralist of the great plains has proved himself to be. It was the man of the grass -lands and steppes whose irruptions caused degradation of culture with a range and force almost as of atmospheric de- pressions. And, within historic times, he has laid his heavy hand upon China, though the flowery land, in its greater isolation and impenetrability, suffered perhaps less than Europe, whose " Dark Ages," as we shall see, were caused directly by the nomad, who, whatever his motives, upset the Eurasian equilibrium that had obtained for centuries. Mention has already been made of the diagonal band of drought stretching from Senegal to Siberia. The result is practically unmitigated desert in Africa and south-west Asia except where culti- vation is rendered possible by artesian wells in Algeria, rivers like the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates, or the heavy dews of " Araby the Blest." From the Atlantic to the Caspian, pasturage is practically confined to the mountains. But, from the northern slopes of the Caucasus, almost level lands stretch west, north, and east, forming the greatest un- THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 63 broken plain in the world. The Ural Mountains are a simple bisection rather than a barrier, and are the only considerable elevation from the shores of the Atlantic well nigh to those of the Pacific and the polar ocean. The rainfall is sufficient on the western European plains until well within the borders of Russia, whose black earth belt is com- parable in fertility to the " loess " of China. 1 While trees abound in the northern European plain, in the south and east the nature of the soil prevents them taking root, and Russia thus to a great extent remains one of the openest countries in the world. Where the rainfall becomes insufficient the steppe begins, and, for hundreds of thousands of square miles in Europe and central and northern Asia it alternates with desert patches as barren as the Sahara. Though game exists here and there, and the hunter is not unknown, the steppes are the paradise of the pastoralist. The general insuffi- ciency of the rainfall had so predestined them. It is thought that, in Asia, short periods of relative moisture may alternate with periods of greater drought the Bruckner cycles, as they are called, after the scientist who wrought out the apparent movement. It is also speculated that this part of Asia is suffering from a progressive desiccation, and the many sand-buried cities discovered in 1 The origin is ascribed to the withering down of the grasses of the plain, " a vegetable cemetery," as it has been called. 64 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY what is now hopeless desert lend colour to this view. The theory of increasing drought remains, however, a doubtful speculation, and it is pointed out that it would be a mistake to assume that the buried cities represented a contemporaneous activity. The shifting of a river, or the tapping of its waters nearer the source, might lead to frequent aban- donment of sites and the building of new towns, and ruins might thus accrue out of all proportion to the area of actual cultivable soil. 1 In any case these ruins are eloquent of the universality of the instinct towards J tillage wherever the conditions were in any way^ favourable. Since the beginning of history, agriculture has tried to gain upon pure pasturage, as it is doing peacefully to-day most conspicuously in the " new " lands of America, Australia, and Africa. The Chinese and Russians are gaming upon it to-day in its greatest terrestrial lairs, but the Asiatic nomads (whose summer and winter pastures may be separated by enormous distances 2 ) have not only tended chronically to prey upon the helpless tiller of the soil, but have periodically gathered themselves together like locusts, and burst forth to every point of the compass in storms of decivilising fury with which there is nothing in history to compare. There is 1 For an able discussion, see Peisker's contribution to the Cambridge Mediaeval History, vol. i. * The Kirghiz may travel 2000 miles in one season. THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 65 very considerable ethnical variety throughout the Asiatic steppes, and the races manifested constant feuds of nations or tribes at least until the Russians imposed a general peace. In these circumstances it is not easy to understand how such enormous federations could take place of so many disparate peoples, scattered over such tre- mendous distances, who not only renounced all old scores, but agreed to the suppression of exist- ing conflicts of interests, which are always plenti- ful enough. Theoretically, the peoples living most closely on the famine line would tend to be the most aggressive, and any intensification of the process of desiccation would cause a mass move- ment towards fresh pastures. The irruption, of course, would hardly remain unopposed, and might be defeated or diverted ; on the other hand, it might result in a federation ad hoc and cause a movement of the fused masses towards still richer regions, and so on into the very heart of the tillage civilisations. We do not know if the Huns, who burst into Europe in the early Christian centuries, had been set on the move by some in- tensification of drought in their Asiatic home, but at any rate they gathered up, in snowball fashion, the debris of the nations they defeated, and the host worsted by Aetius on the Catalaunian fields seems to have been composed of a score of nations, E 66 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY " Teutonic " as well as " Turanian." l That is the earliest westward irruption of which we have any very definite information. But it was probably typical of earlier invasions of which no memory remained. We shall deal with the Hunnish terror in its place, but, meantime, our concern is with the influence of the nomad in the orient. For the reason already stated, the mountaineers of Thibet not only were no menace to China, but were, on the contrary, dominated by the Celestials. The danger to China lay on the north-west frontiers, through whose unprotected gates the " Hundred Families " had themselves probably poured into their promised land. It was a door at which the pastoralist never ceased to knock, and sometimes burst quite asunder. The most notable invasions before that of the lately displaced Manchu dynasty were the Mongol irruptions started under Ghenghis Khan. Drought does not seem to have been an element in the imperialising process set up by that most terrible of men, and history throws almost no light whatever upon the secret of the success of the " Inflexible Emperor," who had the most victorious of military careers, and constructed the greatest and most compact empire ever reared 1 It is arguable that the Huns may have been a weaker race than some other Asiatic nations with whom they had been struggling, and may have been thrust forth into Europe (Peisker, work cited ) . But looking to what the Huns achieved, the races re- maining in Asia must have been very strong and ferocious indeed. THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 67 by a single genius. There is nothing in history to compare with the almost uniform success of Ghenghis Khan and Tamerlane, whose horse- men pranced victoriously from Pekin to Poland and into the very heart of Hindustan. Their strength apparently lay in their self-contained mobility and capacity to combine all methods of warfare, as well as select them according to circum- stances. Mongol generals carved their way from the heart of Asia through the ranks of European chivalry, and returned circuitously but undefeated to the capital of the empire thousands of miles away. The exploits of a Napoleon are really puny in comparison with such deeds of derring-do ; but, while the fame of the Corsican waxes in the imagina- tion of Europe, the names of Sabutai and Jebe are known only to scholars. But there is another side to the medal of Mongolian success. These implac- able shepherds caused the most wanton destruction of life and property, killing apparently for the mere lust of blood, and erecting enormous pyramids of skulls as memorials of their military magnificence. On every road radiating from the predatory capitals great swathes of destruction were cut involving the desolation of innumerable cities and the conver- sion of unoffending peoples into immeasurable carrion. Whatever the reason, the Mongols appear to have shown themselves less demoniac in China than in their raids west and south, perhaps because 68 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the muddy soil and lack of roads were unfavour- able to the advance of the horsemen, and the population was not only denser, but, being rela- tively homogeneous, could not so readily be made to tear itself to bits as in other quarters for the Mongols seems to have exploited racial hatreds to the last degree. Yet the irruptions were appa- rently brutal enough, and stood for degradation of the immemorial tillage culture at least immedi- ately. But we must give even the devil his due, and, quite apparently, when the first evils were overcome, the new infiltration of races and habits tended to regeneration of the stagnating culture. Kublai Khan's reign is probably symbolic of progress on other than merely " imperialistic " lines. 1 Be that as it may, the Chinese had good reason to dread the shepherd hordes ensconced beyond the north-western frontiers. It was there that the great wall was built which is often declared to be the mightiest work of man. Ineffectual as it was to stem the nomads, it remains the symbol of the greatest of historical antagonisms that between the shepherd and the ploughman. Only one -other " primary " civilisation remains to be scanned before proceeding to the influence of the nomad in other directions. It is that 1 The Tatar invasion of Russia (see page 115) was also not without its good sides, though the bad is held to have out- weighed the benefits. THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 69 of Persia, which manifests itself as an instructive intermediate type of culture. Persia lies within the diagonal zone of drought already referred to. And its deserts, though relatively small, are as desolate and awe-inspiring as anything on the planet. Here are no bountiful rivers as in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China, but only snow- fed streams that mainly lose themselves in sand. But it is supremely eloquent of the strength of the tillage impulses, that in Persia almost every avail- able drop of water is used in cultivation, and that too in a land where pastoral ism surrounded agri- culture on every hand. As the country, however, is essentially tableland running everywhere into mountain, and the plains are hopeless deserts, there were no locust-like formations of pastoralists as in the grass-lands to the north. The agricul- turist in Persia suffered perhaps more from the constant nagging than from complete submersion in the Mongolian manner. Hot as Persia is (a maximum has been registered near the Gulf), the dryness of the air and the elevation of the land make the country bracing enough. The physical type, therefore, does not show the " weediness " of the Hindu. On the contrary, the intimate mixture of races and systems has evidently caused a constant ethnical reintegration, causing Persia to rise oftener from its political ashes than any other country in history. Its tillage, not being 70 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY preponderant, did not give the same massive fixity as in the other agricultural civilisations. The country, too, has openings towards the " five seas " of antiquity Black Sea, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Caspian, the distance between the last two being only three hundred miles. Persia therefore was a concentration point as regards products and influences flowing from Africa, Europe, and Asia, and trade routes were established within her borders from time im- memorial. So in the veins of her civilisation there flowed the force of the trader as well as that of the husbandman and the shepherd. This central position of the country and intimate union of internal forces enabled it, in the earlier disposition of things, to campaign in any direction it might chose. With these fundamental considerations in hand, we can understand how Cyrus founded the greatest of early predatory empires. His effort probably implied organising genius of the highest order in quelling all the internal tendencies to disunion. But the prospect of plunder and lord- ship has seldom failed to act like a charm in this direction, and rulers have often purposely made the nation imperialistic because of the trouble to them in its remaining simply domestic. 1 The 1 Shakespeare gives classical expression to the idea in the advice tendered by Henry IV to the son who was to become the hero king of English history. THE PRIMARY CIVILISATIONS 71 assiduity of Persian aggressiveness can thus be easily understood. The country not only remained a thorn in the flesh to Greece, but seduced that country from republicanism to despotism of the most august type. While Greece tumbled into confused ruin, Persia rose from her prostration for the reasons indicated, and, in " Parthian " guise, held up her head even against Rome, and often belaboured Byzantium. She collapsed completely, however, before the Saracens. But the Arabs were not only not barbarians, but rather the heralds of a culture superior to the native Iranian. Persia, however, under Islam, demonstrated not only its receptivity, but its power of initiative in giving to Mohammedanism its one great heresy Shiism. The Mongols deluged the country with a tide of mud, but Persia rose even above this incubus, and manifested not only independence but the old hapless aggressiveness until she became caught as in a vice between Russia and Britain the one essentially an agricultural, the other predominantly a commercial power. The former advantage of her geographical position has become disastrously transformed, since she is now easily surrounded by forces with fronts which she cannot possibly over- come, and working from bases which she cannot cut across. Persia, indeed, may parallel the fate of Poland in the new balance of ethnic and political forces. But the country must always remain one 72 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY of the most striking figures in history. Not only was she less passive than the other primary cultures in face of the common menace of nomadism, but she actually drew political strength from pas- toralism and used it, not wisely but too well, in ag- gressions again and again renewed which naturally bred reprisals and everlasting unrest. But Persian overlordship was not only not flawed with Mongolian excesses, but the tendency within was essentially to reprobate the forces that made for disturbance. The Zend-Avesta made cultivation of the soil a religious duty, and, in the later ages of Persian history, the person feared and hated was the semi- nomadic Turkoman, in those ruthless raids which the Russian has at last made impossible. The most striking religious metaphysic which has ever been employed is the dualism elaborated in Persia the struggle between good and evil, between Ormuzd and Ahriman. In a secondary sense at least, it has come to be symbolical of the age-long strife between " Iran " and " Turan," between the peaceful husbandman and the cruel and insatiable nomad, who was at once the curse of Persia and a source of the old imposing virility. For " there is a soul of good in things evil." CHAPTER V THE NOMAD (continued) (2) Europe IN many respects Europe may be considered the most favoured among the continents. The Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, " the long intervention of the Mediterranean," the Altantic " with its Baltic bulge and polar tentacles," give the continent a matchless " oceanic " position. There is therefore practically no desert in Europe, though the rain- fall is uncertain in the Iberian peninsula and in eastern Russia. Steppe land is at a minimum compared with central Asia. And though the Alps, the core of the continent, are not inconsider- able in height, they do not form " centres of re- pulsion " like the Himalayas or the Pamirs, which even birds avoid in their flight. West and south of the great Russian levels and Prussian plains, the development of the surface tends rather to beauty than to infertility. Moreover, no coast -line is so highly " articulated," and therefore good harbours are plentiful, along with navigable rivers facilitating commerce from the inmost centres of the country 73 74 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY almost to every point upon the circumference, The broad result is that man has had freer develop- ment here than in any other continent, " nature " having less coercive power over him than in Africa, Australia, Asia, or even the two Americas. Why then, in culture, did the continent ostensibly lag behind the north-east nook of Africa and all the other primary civilisations we have already scanned ? To say that the races were " by nature " unoriginal is to give no explanation of how they not only came to acquire culture, but to climb to the supremest heights of civilised attain- ment. We have seen that, behind the historical medley, the " continental ridges " of humanity have remained practically unchanged, including, of course, the European block. For we shall see reason to believe that the drifts and irruptions from the east, though considerable, had far less influence upon breed than on culture. The sober view of the case seems to be that the original European races were all potentially capable of pro- gress, but were simply hampered by special con- ditions. What these conditions were we, of course, can never actually know. But positive factors of explanation may lie along such lines as these. The whole of southern Europe is mountainous, and, although the systems are more " negotiable " than the Himalayas, the Kuen-lun, or the Cordilleras, they must have been difficult enough in early times, EUROPE 75 indeed practically bisecting Europe in ancient days and causing peninsular life to evolve out of harmony with the " hinterlands." 1 Then, again, the forests seem to have been considerable, and the valley bottoms and plains marshy and malarial, as many of them still remain. The general " fragmenta- tion " of the country would thus lead to a pro- longation of the hunting and pastoral stages, and tillage would gain but slowly, not only through want of great fertile nuclei, but also through lack of protection from predatoriness on whatever scale. 2 Even in later Roman times forests and quaking bogs abounded in " Germany," striking terror to the very soul of legionaries. The woodlands there- fore might be as great an obstacle to advance in tillage in these times as the eastern forests of America to the Pilgrim Fathers, and probably encouraged methods of warfare similar to that of the forest Indians. Where the trees ceased on the borders of the great Russian plains, the pastoralist 1 Most of the navigable rivers also drain away from the Mediterranean, and the eastern cultures had little help from them in piercing to the hinterlands, though, of course, culture, once having got hold of the sources, tended to diffuse itself down- stream. 2 The pile dwellings of Swiss and Italian lakes are in their essence protective structures. Man did not require such shelter from beasts, but only from his fellow-men, and we thus see how " Man's inhumanity to man " has operated from the beginning a blind struggle often enough, but patently motived at times through the simple fact of disparate economic systems now being insisted on. 76 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY would have to be faced in all his ferocity. Travel only becomes difficult on these plains in wet weather such as that experienced by Talleyrand when he was following up Napoleon, and six horses failed to drag him out of the mud " the worst hole the astute diplomatist ever was in," as some one has remarked. The great rivers of the country, of course, still availed for travel, when, in the genial season, rain made the country a sea of mud. In winter, when the rivers were frozen over so was the mud, and even the swamps became traversible by the frost. Indeed, winter in Russia is the great season of travel. But the open horizons never seem to have presented any real obstacle to the advance of even the greatest masses of men. Here, then, was a still broader highway for conquests than that afforded by the plains of northern China, and there was evoked a device similar to the great wall, though Trajan's effort is utterly puny in comparison with the Celestial barrier against the barbarians. So long as Europe re- mained uncultivated there would be no great plunder for the pastoralist, for it is tillage alone that makes wealth superabound at any rate, until these days of the exploitation of coal and iron, when manufactures are a still greater source of wealth. For centuries upon centuries, therefore, the country may have laboured simply under local antagonisms its population and its riches thin- EUROPE 77 ning out west and south to the surf of the Atlantic, which was but a waste of waters until the dis- covery of America shifted the whole centre of gravity to the Occident. But, when Greece and Rome began to manifest power and riches, their stores not only roused the predatoriness of the nearer " barbarians," but tempted tribes out of the very heart of Asia. Whether Greece was originally peopled by way of the Balkans, rather than over the open ^Egean, we do not know. Certain it is that we find that mixture of races which is always in evidence at the opening of a country's history. Wherever the races came from, it is probable, from what has already been said, that the greater impulses to culture radiated from Egypt and Mesopotamia, being filtered through all the meshes of Asia Minor the home of obscure but imperial Hittites, of trafficking Phrenicians, and still pastoral Hebrews, of Semitic and Aryan cultures innumerable. The Greeks of Europe refined upon these, not because they were " miraculous " in their intelligence, which some scholars put forward as an " explanation," but simply because their relative freedom from the tyranny of kings and priests permitted an efflores- cence which was denied to the vaulting human spirit in other directions. The mixture of races, the mountainous character of the country which induced diversity, while at the same time the long 78 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY withdrawing gulfs encouraged the friction of cus- toms and ideas along with every exchange of material products these and other prosaic enough considerations should account for the Grecian out- burst, which is only marvellous in the sense that the human intelligence is " miraculous " to begin with. 1 Given an all -impulsiveness of the human spirit which cannot be denied, special manifesta- tions are simply a question of particular condi- tions, in which relative liberty to energise is always of the essence of the case. Thus ancient Guatemala left an epic 2 as well as ancient Greece, while Ice- land, with all its loneliness, gave birth to heroic poetry when Greece had become utterly dumb liberty being once more a condition in the evoca- tion of the Sagas. The creative forces in Greek culture were practically those in operation else- where, though commerce (in which the Greeks piratically supplanted the Phoenicians) was of special account in their civilisation, that again 1 Freeman committed himself to the belief that the average ancient Greek was more intelligent than the average British mem- ber of Parliament of his time. This seems to be scholarly extrava- gance ; the Greeks had quite apparently their asinine qualities, but we cannot dogmatise about averages either as to enlightenment or density, since the materials for a comparison do not exist. The average German is to-day more intelligent than the average Russian, but that is clearly a case of educational systems and relative freedom of expression. The Slavs are potentially as intelligent as the Teutons if occasional genius is a test, and general cranial capacity a sign. 2 The Popol-Vuh. EUROPE 79 being obviously a result of the total geographical conditions. But it is less the constructive than the disturbing and degrading influences with which we are now concerned. Modern researches are making it plain that Grecian culture is arranged in strata, one bed overlying another until we reach down to primitive man. The causes of the various supersessions we do not know, but the decivilising power of the nomad is probably not quite discon- nected with the case. The Dorian invasion was probably such an irruption of semi-savagery, en- trenching itself most firmly in Sparta, which was one of the most isolated valleys in Greece. The Spartan ideal was predatoriness incarnate, first as against their own helots (whom they may or may not have weeded out by slaughter), and next against the rest of Greece, which it was sought deliberately to terrorise, though Athens may have been by no means blameless in connection with the civil war which paved the way for the Mace- donians. It is notable that Philip's subjects were the most pastoral of Greeks, and the forcible uni- fication of the peninsula by Alexander was on all fours with the reintegrations in Persia already referred to shepherd, ploughman, merchant, and seaman uniting in an attack on " the old enemy," whom the expedition of the Ten Thousand and the exploits of Spartan kings had shown to be by no means invulnerable within its own borders. 80 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY The Greek empire, however, had not the geogra- phical unity of the Persian, and, after the most confused of historical welters which even the clear eye of Niebuhr could not penetrate, the whole monstrosity was caught as in a vice between the renascent power of Persia and the growing force of Rome. Greece proper fell a complete prey to the western and more pastoral conquerer, who absorbed her Mediterranean colonies and destroyed the " Semitic " rival Carthage, whose strength lay, not only in commerce, but also in an intensive agriculture which shocked the soul of Cato, who ceaselessly demanded the destruction of Carthage. It was all predatoriness, if upon a higher plane than that of the mere pastoralist of a " civilised " type indeed, which the nations of to-day have not renounced, and the bearings of which will be dis- cussed hereafter. But Rome herself was destined to perish, not alone by inward corruptions but by forces whose primary movements are traceable to the inmost lairs of pastoralism in the steppes of Asia. If the thought and art of Greece are historical miracles in the estimation of some people, the might and majesty of Rome are no less so with others. But a moment's consideration will show that Rome was neither the earliest of empires, nor the greatest in area, nor included the greatest number of human beings, nor lasted the longest. Persia not only EUROPE 81 made a bid for " world empire " earlier than Rome, but partially succeeded again and yet again after Rome had been completely stricken to the dust. China, as already indicated, manifests the most massive and persistent cohesion in human annals. Saracens and Mongols constructed empires with a celerity far greater than the Romans, even if their work was not so long-lived. All kinds of races, indeed, have shown themselves capable of empire- building in greater or less degree dark-browed Egyptians, obscure Hittites (the only people who seem to have succeeded in creating an empire centred in Asia Minor, 1 which moreover lasted longer than Rome 2 ), bragging Assyrians, volatile Greeks, stern Romans, pliable Hindus, stodgy Chinese, adventurous Malays, and still more daring Arabs, negroes even in the heart of Africa. The fact is that aggressiveness being a primum mobile of all communities, it seems much more difficult to suppress the imperial instinct than to allow it free course and be glorified or the opposite. 3 And 1 Reclus points out how Asia Minor geographically is not well fitted to stand alone as a political entity or be the seat of central Government. L'Hotnme et la Terre. J The Hittite empire is supposed to have lasted for over a thousand years. It was apparently utterly destroyed by the Assyrians, who themselves suffered a no less complete disaster, as already mentioned. 3 However degraded and subject a race may appear in the eyes of another, it is seldom that any community regards itself as essentially inferior. Thus the Veddah of Ceylon is proud in F 82 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the Romans neither " invented " law nor were they the first to codify it on a considerable scale. The " Code of Hammurabi " has given the quietus to that somewhat puerile idea. If Roman legislation is a conspicuous thing, it was because the need and the opportunities were peculiar, and gave special chances to that genius which lurks in all communi- ties and only requires liberty and encouragement to evoke to the fullest extent. 1 And it is question- able if the pressure of Roman law in later European life is not often more a curse than a blessing, in its engrained conservatism adding to those delays which are inherent in every system. At any rate, the extreme, and considers himself no man's inferior, while the Australian black-fellow has a similar idea of his own importance. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. 1 This implies that no " race " has absolutely fixed mental traits. No two observers can agree as to what is the essential characteristic of any given race, while any alleged trait never applies universally. In so far as apparent traits seem prevalent, they are to be explained rather in terms of environment than of double doses of original sin or the opposite. In a word, the idea of " race " as ordinarily conceived, lends itself to endless fallacy in fancy theories of " Celticism " and the like, which have gone far to ruin books like Taine's English Literature, and Motley's and Mommsen's Histories. There is neither " typical Jew " nor " typical Teuton." Dr. Fishberg has found that only about 15 per cent, of the Jews have the hooked nose, which seems more common among Armenians than Hebrews. Herr Hauser has also found that not 80 out of the 400 members of the Reich- stag have true " German features." " Race " is largely a fallacy physically as well as mentally, except in contrasting " conti- nental ridges " of humanity. In short it is a master-clue in history to avoid the conception of the immutability of race. (Finot, Le Prejuge de Race ; Robertson, Saxon and Celt.) EUROPE 83 thinkers like Voltaire, Letourneau, and others hazard the notion that the judgments of a Mo- hammedan cadi often import more justice than the elaborations of the west which have their source in Roman legislation ; and, to crown all, it is stated that " the strictness and celerity of Hottentot justice are things in which they out- shine all Christendom." 1 In short, it is not too much to say that a master-clue in world-history is to keep the Romans and Greeks in their place, not to allow their achievements, however admirable, completely to obsess us, and to apply rational explanations to what they have added to the general deed of man. The process of early civilisation in the Italian peninsula is historically clearer than in the Balkan termini settled by the Greeks. For Greeks them- selves colonised southern Italy to such an extent that it was called " greater Greece." But their numbers and cohesion were not sufficiently great to enable them to unify the peninsula upon speci- fically Hellenistic lines, and political hegemony went to the ruder races of the north. The process was probably not unlike that in South Africa in our day, where the rural Boers not only dominated the more progressive English before the war, but have resumed power since their defeat. The temporary British domination is an analogue to Pyrrhus 1 Westennarck, work cited. 84 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY victorious but essentially frustrate. The Boers have the virility especially characteristic of pas- toral peoples, and they do not lack initiative, but it went most readily in a martial direction. Their use of the horse in the way of remounts made them as mobile as Mongols and almost as self-contained on their pastures, while they bought the best of guns, invented barbed wire as a defence, and generally resorted to ruses which would not have discredited the ingenuity of a Red Indian. The Boer analogy is probably not inapplicable to the Roman farmers, who seem to have been as comparatively rude in their time as the South African Dutch to-day. There is at least vraisemblance in the legend that Rome began as a haunt of bandits, but, if so, it developed essentially as a community of small fanners, who made war upon their neighbours as much to save themselves from being preyed upon as to exploit in their turn. We do not know what superiority in weapons, tactics, and the like gave the Romans an accumulating advantage, but it is reasonable to suppose that their tenacity and general virility, as against the more civilised sections, arose in some measure from their being a nation of small free farmers, while their greater cohesion upon a plain crowned only with smaller hills made them victorious against the highlanders of the peninsula, upon whom weighed the usual curse of cantonal EUROPE 85 separateness. 1 These farmers, too, held a strategic position on the banks of a river issuing from the mountains, but navigable from their city right down to the sea, if only for the small craft then necessary. The hills on the Tiber were not only easily fortified, but the city which arose upon them was sufficiently far inland to be protected from that piracy which tended to be a curse of the coast towns. The Apennines too, while they contained a good deal of predatoriness in disunion, served to screen the Romans from the greater predatoriness that had begun to operate hi the European hinterland and to search for plunder in every peninsula of the Mediterranean. Only once in ancient times did the screen of races and hills prove ineffectual to the Romans, when the " Gauls " did what Hannibal failed to do took the city and put it to ransom. The Romans profited by that " terror " to complete their forti- fications, and themselves went forth conquering and to conquer in virtue of their central position in the peninsula, and the peninsula's central situation on the great inland sea. After Rome had become mistress of the mainland (perhaps not alone by 1 So the Turks have remained powerful not so much in virtue of their own strength, as because of Christian divisiveness, which the Balkan peoples have not even yet renounced, being still swayed by differences in race, language, religion, and geographical barriers, and all sections aro of course equally aggressive and greedy on their own account. 86 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY conquest but also by grudging adhesions similar to the union of Scotland and England) she came to grips with the only other first-class power left in the Mediterranean Carthage. That great mer- cantile state had, however, nothing but mercen- aries at its command no independent farming classes such as served under the Roman standards. Thus, though the Roman armies were utterly defeated and could not stand up against Hannibal in the open, Rome still triumphed because of the abundance of her fighting material, and because the Carthaginians could not effectively enlist the help of the other Italian states, who, though they might have a grudge against Rome, had still less love for the Africans. With the conquest of Carthage the Mediterranean practically became a Roman lake, and, under the hegemony of the power centred in the Italian peninsula, civilisation took on an amplitude until then unknown round all the borders of the central sea. For, though a price had to be paid for it, the peace imposed by Rome gave chances to agriculture and mercantilism greater than in any previous times. The Romans not only dominated Greek and other peoples more essentially civilised or keen witted than themselves (as Turks still do Armenians), and from whom they had largely derived their culture, but they radiated their science, even if in constant military form, among the nations then occupying " the back- EUROPE 87 woods of Europe." The tribes inhabiting ancient Germany and the Atlantic coastlands and islands appear to have been in a condition not unlike that of the Red Indians of the Atlantic States on the arrival of the whites engaged in hunting, fishing, and an agriculture probably little less rude than the maize culture of the American natives. And perhaps, racially and linguistically, they were even less coherent. This diversity the Romans exploited to the utmost, as did the French and English in America. Still it was not without im- mense trouble that the Roman outposts advanced to Ultima Thule and the Teutoburg forest. And, while the Roman rule might stand for comparative degradation in Greece, it stood for essential civi- lisation among the northern barbarians. 1 These largely enlisted in the Roman ranks, and readily enough fought against their wilder compatriots, 2 or took part in the almost endless tumults inside the enormous shell of the imperial structure which, despite its political symmetry corresponding to fundamental forces of geographical union, became seamed with every vice of which domination is capable. The Roman farming class largely dis- 1 So Russia to-day, if she tends to barbarise Europe, at the same time civilises in Asia. * The German races seem to have shown a special desire to fight their compatriots rather than other enemies of the empire. See the authorities discussed in Coulanges, L'Invasion Ger- manique. 88 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY appeared under the competition of the more fertile lands, and the extension (if not creation) of lati- fundia. 1 The virility of the capital also degene- rated under the corrupting stream of tribute that flowed constantly towards Rome, and the dilution of the population by the influx of slaves and adventurers of all sorts. In the end governing talent was manifested mainly by provincials or actual barbarians, and factitiousness and corrup- tion abounded on every hand. But it is question- able if, with all that, Rome would have fallen of its own dead weight, so to say. For it is a master- clue in world-history that no empire or nation has ever collapsed through its own internal viciousness. Viciousness may be the condition precedent of collapse, but the actual upsetting force always came from outside, and the convincing proof that "Rome" might have dragged on indefinitely (or the empire have evolved more or less peacefully into a con- geries of nations 2 ) lies in the fact that it was only the western segment of the empire which gave way. The eastern half, with its centre in Byzan- 1 Large estates only " ruined " Italy in the economic sense of favouring pasturage as against tillage. Latifundia persisted in the eastern half of the empire which did not fall to the bar- barians like the west. Hence large estates were not a determining cause of the collapse. The small farmer, too, was not quite extinct in Italy when the empire fell. (Coulanges, Recherche*. ) 2 The division inaugurated by Diocletian (" that great organis- ing genius"), was a more or less purposive response to irre- pressible centrifugal tendencies. EUROPE 89 tium, not only persisted, but lasted for another thousand years that is to say, for a longer space of time than " Rome " itself had flourished. Furthermore, in Byzantium every vice charac- teristic of Rome was not only manifested, but in some cases actually intensified slavery, caste, large estates, ignorance, immorality : nothing was bettered, but some things rather worsened, in the eastern empire. 1 And yet it persisted in brilliant viciousness for a millennium, defying every attack of the barbarians until that delivered by the all- conquering Turk, who triumphed only when poli- tical centres of gravity had shifted, and for reasons to be glanced at in their place. Manifestly, there- fore, the cause of Rome's downfall is essentially 1 The quarrels between Pagans and Christians have often been pointed to as a cause of political debility. But, as these were more bitter perhaps in the east than in the west, once more we are foiled in trying to lay hold of a factor that radically differ- entiates the fates of Occident and orient. A like remark applies to the condensed criticism of Professor Haverfield (Quarterly Review (1912), vol. 217, p. 327) regarding " the medical dis- coveries which suggest that the mosquito and not the barbarian ruined Greece and Rome." Greece, however, was not " ruined " as here suggested, since, merging into Byzantium, the polity lasted for a thousand years after the collapse of Rome. Greece even had its revenge upon the west in the days of Belisarius, when Rome became subject to the Emperor in Constantinople. And malaria (presumably induced by the mosquito) did not con- fine itself to Italy, while we are absolutely at a loss to know whether it was not rather a result of the political decline than a cause. Always we are thrown back upon " Nomadism " as a distinct vera causa, with geographical considerations as less tangible factors of explanation, as noted on page 93. See also page 160 as to the later importance of " Greek fibre." 90 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY to be sought for in the rupture of the equilibrium between her powers of resistance and the bar- barian attack. And, once more, Asiatic nomadism is an essential clue in the problem. Roman military science, though hard put to it at times, generally triumphed against the semi-nomadic tribes cantoned in Europe Marius and Csesar whining eternal renown for victories gained over such foes. As already indicated, however, the Roman tactic largely consisted in enlisting the barbarians and using one nation to balance the rebelliousness of another, as Iroquois and Al- gonquins were deliberately opposed in America. It is questionable, therefore, if the European tribes could ever have overcome the empire of their own power and inclination. For many of them were inclined to look upon it rather with reverence and awe, and the dream of some of their leaders was merely to keep it going on the old lines with but a transfusion of blood. Though we are largely groping in the dark it seems reasonable to believe that the " Germanic " tribes cantoned in central Europe were becoming sedentary under Roman example and tuition, were clearing their woods and draining their swamps like American pioneers later, and that the continent might have been won for agricultural civilisation centuries earlier than actually happened but for the uncontrollable barbarism of the dim Asiatic backgrounds. In EUROPE 91 the early Christian centuries the great plains disgorged westwards a barbaric tide impelled either by drought or set on the move after the completion of some inward imperial process, and instinctively marching forward for fresh booty as hordes of lemmings and buffaloes migrate in millions towards the sea. The Huns, who were more barbarous than the Goths, as the Goths were more barbarous than the Romans, burst into Europe. They crumpled up the immense king- dom l of the centenarian Hermanric, and, gather- ing up the dtbris of the defeated nations, surged towards the Atlantic. Though Attila was defeated in Gaul, he seems to have remained practically as powerful as before. Turning south and east he destroyed Aquileia and actually threatened Rome, but was dissuaded for whatever reason. Had he lived, it would probably only have been to the end of creating a greater atmospheric depression of the Mediterranean civilisation than actually occurred. As it was, the Germanic tribes, dis- banded under the enormous pressure which had originated perhaps beyond the Oxus, broke through the far-flung Roman barriers, and began a vigorous cantoning of themselves within various parts of 1 It seems to have been very great in area if not in population, and shows how the imperialising process was at work indepen- dently amongst barbarians to whom residence on a great plain gave powers of union unknown to the naturally dislocated tribes westward. 92 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the huge body politic, which it became their idea to exploit in the immemorial fashion but to the profit of a new caste. 1 Already the immense structure had become practically bisected because of the co-existence of two different gravitational points, near the bases of the Alps and the Balkans respectively, and ministering to two worlds of west and east differing wholly in speech and much in economic interest and racial and religious ideas. While Rome fell, Constantinople not only con- tinued but actually began to flourish more than ever, and, until the advent of the Saracens, was the only centre of light and leading in the obscured Mediterranean world. The different fates of the capitals are to be explained less in terms of psychology than of geography and economics. Constantinople is one of the most " inevitable " capitals of the world, occupying a unique concen- trating position at the junction of two continents and two of the greatest inland seas. No point was more clearly predestined as an entrepot, and no situation lent itself so admirably to defence from the military point of view. Better than Rome, it could not only draw sustenance from its immediate surroundings, but its continental 1 As to the numbers of the invaders see Coulanges' L'Invasion Oermanique, and note, as therein insisted, that there was no immediate recognition of political collapse, the social and political transformation being gradual rather than cataclysmic, at any rate in " Gaul.' EUROPE 93 granaries were not only more accessible but less easily cut across than the Roman lines of aliment. Thus, while the barbarians battered in vain at the eastern gates of the empire, they made enormous breaches in the west, and when Genseric and his Vandals captured Carthage and stopped the grain supplies from north-west Africa, Rome col- lapsed became frustrated like an annuitant sud- denly deprived of a pension. Pastoralism, with its origins in the steppelands of inner Asia, thus gained ground not only over the beginnings of tillage civilisation in the great Russian plains, but also in the western woodlands and clearings right down through the Iberian and Italian penin- sulas to the very fields of Carthage. Learning disappeared, culture became utterly obscured, com- merce degenerated once more into naked piracy, war became more and more sectional while becoming more and not less ferocious ; in a word, the Dark Ages descended upon the greater part of Europe. These may not have been so black as they are sometimes painted, but it is common ground at any rate that there was very sensible decline which it is here suggested was due fundamentally to a triumph of relative nomadism over tillage the climate and ethnos of central Asia over those of western Europe. That may have been inevitable, but at any rate it was only temporary. The barbarians rotted down, or 94 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY were so completely absorbed in all the more southerly lands they conquered that to-day there is hardly a trace of the " Teutonic " type in North Africa, Spain, or Italy. They died and gave no sign, though it is not impossible the ethnic im- pression may ultimately have stood for good as well as harm in fashions that we cannot discover. 1 1 Mommsen said that the barbarians " regenerated " the empire. It was natural of course for a Teuton to belaud the races to which he belonged. But no case whatever can be made out for " regeneration " in any valid sense of the term except what is allowed for in the text. The immediate result was de- generation all round degradation of the native stocks, and corruption of the conquering. Paulus Orosius (vii. 43) is the authority for the statement regarding Athaulf, the able suc- cessor of Alaric : " he [Athaulf] was wont to say that his warmest wish had at first been to obliterate the Roman name, and to make one sole Gothic empire, so that all that which had been Romania should be called Gothia, and that he, Athaulf, should play the same part as did Caesar Augustus. But by much ex- perience he was convinced that the Goths were incapable of obedience to laws, because of their unbridled barbarism, and that the State without laws would cease to be a state. He had chosen to seek glory in rebuilding its integrity and increasing the Roman power by Gothic forces, so that posterity should at least regard him as the restorer of the empire which he was unable to replace. Therefore he strove to avoid war and to establish peace." Athaulf 's immediate successors held like views. Westermarck (work cited), shows how the Teutons would not allow their children to become instructed in Science lest they would become effeminate, writing and reading being considered shameworthy on the part of gentry. There is no proof that barbarians have ever been more moral essentially than agri- culturists and town-dwellers. More masterful indeed they may always have been, but that is about all that can be said. No- madic Asia to-day, according to Vambery and others, is a sink of iniquity, as were some parts of mediaeval Europe. (Coulanges, IS Invasion Oennanique.) EUROPE 95 Barbarians did not cease irrupting for centuries. They came not only from the east and surged right up to the walls of Constantinople, but swarmed out of Scandinavia as pirates not one whit less ferocious than Huns or Mongols. It cannot have been drought which set the Norsemen on the move, though it may have been scarcity however caused. But at any rate they plied their trade with an activity and daring which are un- paralleled in the predatory annals of the sea, scouting to enormous distances from their northern base, and founding dynasties here and there which lasted for centuries. In their case too, however, the political impression was probably out of all proportion to the ethnic, and who is of Norse descent to-day in Sicily or even Normandy no man can say. It speaks volumes for the strength of the tillage impulses that they revived in Europe, under such enormous distractions from east and north. But revive they did, and were even stimulated by influences which, though predatory in their origin, became transmuted into great civilising forces. The Saracens suddenly inter- vened in the culture-history of the world. Arabia is another very distinct " geographical unit " indeed made quite a world apart by its long saline projections and its hopeless deserts. Cultivation of the ground is only possible along the oceanic margins, east, south, and west, but on a 96 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY very confined scale, though the most has been made of the opportunites from time immemorial. The country is not all desert in the interior, yielding pastures on which browse steeds and camels of classic renown. The pastoralist here survives as in the time of Abraham or still earlier, tribal wars going on in the immemorial nomadic fashion only one great locust -like formation having taken place in the peninsula under the immediate successors of Mohammed. The prophet was a " commercial traveller," and, though unlettered, had a very con- siderable practical knowledge of the world beyond Mecca. Whether or not his " mission " was due to a diseased imagination, as has been alleged, a soi disant prophet is by no means a rare thing in society which is constantly throwing up its re- deemers whether in religion or morals. The Koran indicates that Mohammed had his forerunners in Arabia itself, who seem to have met with the short shrift that so often attends upon innovators, however moderate. Mohammed's own mission was on the point of foundering more than once, while no Christian, at any rate, credits the assertion that its ultimate success was due to the favour of Provi- dence. The causation of the case remains utterly obscure, so far at least as the conversion of Arabia itself was concerned. There is more ground to go upon as regards the unparalleled swiftness with which the doctrine of Islam spread beyond the EUROPE 97 native bounds. Some of the ancient Arabs, at least, may have remained fetichists as some modern provincials are declared to be to-day, but the leaders of the new doctrine, at any rate, were fer- vent believers as well as the bulk of their followers. " Paradise lies under the shadow of swords," was a Moslem proverb, and death in battle was to be rewarded by instant transference to the sensuous heaven of the prophet's imagination. And, in so far as the religious motive might not apply, the gospel of plunder was as nakedly avowed as by the young Napoleon to the army of Italy. The Arabs had all the initiative which semi-anarchic conditions of society could yield, and evidently refined upon the ancient methods of warfare even as the French revolutionary armies had to impro- vise methods which turned out to be improvements and helped them to resist the embattled might of Europe. In both instances it was largely a case of "La carrier e ouverte aux talents" And the Arabic strength concurred with real weakness in the powers nearest to the centre of the new religion. Persia and Byzantium were exhausted in fighting each other, and the mania for uniformity displayed by the latter power caused not only bitterness but made the sectaries favour the invaders. The Arabs, too, preached a new social and economic evangel no believer in the one God and His prophet could remain a slave, but would, by his 98 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY act of faith, raise himself to equality with freemen with the chance of the fruits of his toil being better assured to him. 1 Little wonder, then, that the Saracen invasion swept on with the rapidity of a prairie fire. Province after province was lost to Byzantium as much by defection as conquest, and Persia was completely overcome. Within a genera- tion of the Hegira a great empire had been created, and, a hundred years after the prophet's death, his creed was being proclaimed from India to the Straits of Gibraltar. Though propagandist and predatory in its inception, Islam was not essentially intolerant, nor wholly concerned with the amassing of spoil. The Arabs were never very numerous within their own country, and it is probable that only a mino- rity went out to the conquests. Provincial talent, therefore, must have recruited the forces in no small degree. And the general movement, so far from being inimical to tillage and obscurantist in thought, began to apply science in both directions, with the result that Saracenic civilisation, absorb- ing and refining upon much ancient lore, shone with a glory as pronounced in its brilliance as contemporary Europe was remarkable for its gloom. For the Golden Age of Islam concurred with the Dark Ages of Christianity. It seems to be the 1 In modern times Arab slave raiders systematically limited the spread of Mohammedanism in Africa, so as to maintain sufficient infidel preserves for the purpose of continued slavery. Keane, The World's Peoples. EUROPE 99 case that, but for the impact of Saracenic science, Europe would have sunk to deeper depths of de- gradation than even were touched. At any rate, there is no doubt there were many borrowings from the " infidels," who, in agriculture, industry, and commerce, scored successes of the most memorable kind. It was probably in Spain that the efflores- cence had its most striking display. Intensive agriculture was carried to perfection, manufactures of all sorts were engaged in, learning was encour- aged, the lady doctor was not unknown ; great, clean and well-lit cities flourished in Spain, and the amenities of life were pronounced at a time when brutality, dirt, and superstition were the general appanage of feudal Europe. It took the Spaniards seven hundred years to recover their country from the Moors, but it took them only a generation or two to reduce the whole land to a condition of pastoral waste and of hide-bound intolerance. 1 The Moors civilised Spain, the Spaniards brutalised it, and, once again, it is Ormuzd fighting with 1 " A company of sheep farmers of high rank, called the Mesta, contrived in the course of time to obtain rights of pasturage over the whole of Spain, with power to convert arable lands into pasture " (Yeats, Growth dkc. of Commerce). The Church in Spain had always been eagerly on the side of the crusade for the re- covery of lost possessions and power. It thus gained immense credit in connection with the reconquista. When there were no more Moors or Jews to contend with, the vast engine of the Inquisition, invented to cope with heresy, was naturally turned against all inward suspicions of heterodoxy, and thus the brains of Spain were sterilised for centuries. 100 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Ahriman tillage and fruitful exchange overcome by the gospel of pastoralism and plunder. Preda- tory as the Saracenic movement was in its origins, it became almost instantly transmuted into a high civilising influence, and the Arab outburst is almost the only thing of its kind which, from the present point of view, lends itself to almost unqualified historic commendation. The untutored Arabs in bursting out from their deserts had no intention of promoting learning, industry, and art. But that is what their intervention resulted in. Like bees, they unintentionally fertilised the flowers which they sought merely to rob of their honey. Italy was only partially conquered by the Saracens, though they overran the whole country as mercenaries in the pay of " Christian " poten- tates. There was therefore not the same war to the death between native and Moslem ideas and methods. The Italians, indeed, appear to have learned much from Saracenic science, and the economic life of the peninsula began to revive upon lines healthier far than the old imperialistic times, agriculture coming again to the front, and commerce attaining an amplitude thitherto un- dreamed of. An enormous commerce circulated in the Saracenic east. 1 Europe coveted the spices and condiments of the tropics and the delicate fabrics of eastern art. While Constantinople 1 See note on page 275. EUROPE 101 largely served the Russian hinterland as regards these products, Italy became the mediator for the rest of Europe and her greatest republics Venice, Genoa, and Pisa lived mainly by the transit trade, the inland towns exploiting rather the native agriculture, and manufacturing on their own account, while Florence specialised also in banking. And, hand in hand with the economic revival, Italy, when it had brewed out its heavier barbarian ingredients, entered upon a new spiri- tual life worthier, because freer, than the old, and culminating in all the glories of the renaissance. In architecture, in painting, in sculpture, in litera- ture, in art generally, the Italians manifested a power and versatility which have proved almost inimitable. It is true that the republics were not only consumed with jealousies, but quarrelsome to the last degree, engaging in interminable con- flicts and reprisals which are beyond all historical unravelling, and which make so much of their history " but bloodstained sandheaps of ignoble incident." But, as the quarrels lasted over seven hundred years, and population, trade, and wealth tended to increase rather than decline, it must be the case that the republics fructified each other's life even more than they mutilated it. 1 Otherwise Italy should soon have been reduced to the con- dition of Germany after the Thirty Years' War. 1 Compare Sismondi. History of the Italian Republics. 102 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY The real blight was to come from the outside. Spain, not content with thrusting out the Moors and monopolising the New World for herself, poured her redoubtable infantry into the peninsula. It was " the last day of Italy," and a blight less complete but even more bitter than the Moorish settled on the country. And again the essential pastoralist dominated and flouted a culture which he could neither appreciate nor tolerate. The Spaniard, brutalising himself, must needs in his imperial lust brutalise all round the political horizon, like the Mongol in miniature which he really was.*j France, if not such a perfectly distinct geo- graphical unit as Italy, is even better dowered as regards climate, general fertility of soil, and versatility of products. Gaul, in fact, was almost the finest province of the Roman empire, and became civilised in corresponding degree. But, in the general disruption, it became rebarbarised 1 Not, however, so much by any " damnable heredity " of race as because the climate is like that of Central Asia in its aridity, and induces not only similar economic methods, but a comparable mentality. Such tendencies can only be overcome by taking thought, as the Moors did while they were in Spain. They have largely ceased to do so since they retreated to Morocco. But, what ancient Berbers did the modern Spaniards are now being induced to do when they are no longer distracted by the curse of " empire," never so unprofitable as in their case. If Italy had been united it would not have been conquered, but the Pope and the German Emperor gave the Spaniards their chance. Italy's unification to-day shows that the race was not divisive " by nature " any more than other peoples. EUROPE 103 perhaps even to a greater extent than Italy itself, as not only lying nearer the barbarian latitudes, but as having opener gateways of invasion on the north-east. It is only there that the geo- graphical delimitation is weak. The Alps and other ranges make distinct enough boundaries on the south-east, the Mediterranean in the south and the Atlantic in the west, while the Pyrenean ridge is not only the most clean-cut in Europe but one of the most effective boundaries in the world, as being only easily " negotiable " at its extremities. Though the Romans conquered Gaul operating from the south, the country since then has gene- rally tended to be dominated from the north. The Auvergne and Cevennes ranges formed no barrier either way, since their trend is longitudinal not transverse. But, as the rivers flow south, it was easier to operate down the stream than against the current. The mountainous character of southern France besides not only tended to divisiveness, but also comparative sterility. It was therefore in the northern plains that cohesion and wealth became centred, and ended in domina- tion to the foot of the Pyrenees and the shores of the Mediterranean. Though, after the fall of Rome, France suffered invasions directly from the east, it was from the opener country in the north that there issued the barbarians who were effectually to dominate the country and give it its modern 104 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY name. We do not know if the Franks were purely " Germanic " in origin, nor what were their numbers relative to the native stocks. But there is no doubt whatever as to their general ferocity and their comparative virility, at least to begin with. The Merovingian dynasty, after a palace record of almost unparalleled horrors, ended in an inanition that has become classical in the clipping of the curls of the last yellow-haired king on his supersession by the " Mayors of the Palace." Whether the new dynasty was purely " Frankish " we do not know, but at any rate a great organising genius arose in the person of one of its members Charlemagne. Presumably the natural agricul- tural wealth of France had been remanifesting its power in the midst of the barbaric welter, while the subject populations, under the play of the greater geographical features of the land, might be groping towards the lost political unity. At any rate the country was the first to achieve a certain cohesion after the general collapse in the west. With these elements of comparative wealth and unity Charlemagne, himself an illiterate, made France the basis for a great double operation, the suppression of Lombard heresy begun by his predecessors, and the propagation of Christianity among the heathen. " The Saxons were killed in cohorts and baptized by brigades." Many of them, however, remained utterly recalcitrant, and, there EUROPE 105 seems reason to believe, took refuge in " Scandi- navia." It is probable, therefore, that Saxon revengefulness helped to prime Norse predatori- ness, and the piracy which made itself manifest in France before Charlemagne's death may have been in part the backwash, so to say, of his conti- nental aggressiveness. It is possible that, but for the Norsemen, the progress of France towards full agricultural cohesion might never have been seriously disturbed. The struggles for the succes- sion certainly weakened the country and the Norsemen (who in so far as they were politically united were only so by the temporary bond of plunder) took full advantage of their opportunity to harry the land worse almost than anywhere else. Its greater wealth was not only a special temptation, but the broad, navigable rivers led into the very heart of the country west and south. The armed galleys therefore devastated into the very bowels of the land Paris itself being laid under siege for a whole year. The result was general social and political relapse merging into the poetical chaos of feudalism, 1 which had its most striking developments in France, probably because of the relative wealth and leisure for its display. Spain was too much preoccupied with the Moors to 1 " The feudal anarchy which history has called with un- intended irony, the Feudal System." Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders. 106 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY indulge in feudalism for its own sake, though it was, of course, a force in the peninsula ; Italy was too preoccupied with industry and commerce to allow the passion its fullest formal play ; Ger- many was too barbarian, and, like the other northern countries, too poor to rival the magnifi- cence of the French, Burgundian, Flemish, and Nor- man knights. For Vikings had cut out an enormous fief for themselves in Normandy, forming an ethnic wedge which kept the country asunder long after the practical absorption of the intruders. Normandy was a chief bone of contention in the Hundred Years' War with England one of the vainest and most ill-starred struggles ever engaged in between tillage cultures, which brought both to a measure of desolation such as only Mongols could equal. France recovered faster than England from that imbroglio, and never thereafter halted seriously in her advance. It is true that she did not simply " cultiver son jar din," but engaged in wasteful and exhausting imperialism, not merely to reach her ** natural " boundary on the Rhine, but to pass be- yond it in the Alps and " to abolish the Pyrenees." But, possessing the richest diversified soil in Europe, and occupying the intellectual centre of the west, she has continued to re-elaborate the ideas that flowed in upon her from all sources while originating many of her own, and has thus made herself a leader in civilisation with a singular EUROPE 107 power of initiative as well as recuperation. And the peasant is the base of the indestructible pyramid. The feudal fetters were as tightly riveted in France as they were once magnificent, but, when the peasant freed himself from them in the most pic- turesque of revolutions, it was to the end of first defying the might of Europe, then almost con- quering it, then being defeated in turn, but re- covering completely from the several Napoleonic debacles. If the small farmer was the backbone of republican Rome, he is, even in greater degree, the strength of republican France. It is one of Charlemagne's great titles to fame (if not to foresight) that he was the first head of the " Holy Roman Empire " perhaps the most distracting existence in history. Its evocation is a tribute to the might and majesty of the earlier empire, and to the strength of the impression which continued to fill the minds of men. But, if the first empire had an obvious enough natural symmetry, the second had none discernible to the eye of history. If the first empire included a great deal of factitiousness, the second one con- tained almost nothing else. It corresponded to no broad reality, religious, racial, or economic. To quote once more Voltaire's imperishable char- acterisation, " it was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire." But still it was something, how- ever difficult it may be intellectually to " envisage " 108 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY it. Lawyers are in the habit of invoking what are known as " legal fictions " for the determination of otherwise insoluble problems. If, for instance, a father and son both perish in unknown fashion in a shipwreck, some codes presume, as determining the succession, that the younger, and presumably stronger person, survived the older if only by a second, although of course the contrary might be the case. So, the Holy Roman Empire might be described as the greatest of historical fictions, invented to determine political and religious suc- cessions, which, however, become more and not less contentious by the application of the tests. The Pope wanted to destroy the heretics and secure a patrimony for the Holy See, while the Emperor was not averse to honour and flattery and whatever aggrandisement could come from the disposal of other people's property. So there was concluded the greatest " deal " known to history, ending in the greatest of distractions. For, in the old economy, there were not separate heads of Church and State as in the revived empire. From the very first, Emperor and Pope began to dispute about their different spheres of influence, and the process became charged with corruption, fraud, and downright forgery. In short, the Holy Roman Empire was a vehicle for the irreconcilable predatoriness of Popes, princes, and peoples ; and it is only from that point of view that it concerns EUROPE 109 us now, since it certainly was a grievous thorn in the side of civilisation. Though the title of Em- peror originated in a Prankish dynasty, the centre of political gravity soon shifted into Germany for reasons which no historian known to the present writer has indicated, let alone exhausted. Perhaps, however, the civil wars in France and, more especially, the Norse invasions had something to do with the migration of the title. Germany and Italy really lay closer to each other in the sense that the peninsula was more easily entered through the eastern than the western Alps. This is the reason probably why the imperial dignity not only settled in the Austrian line, but why that power so often gained ultimate advantage against France in their struggles on the Lombardy plain. Germany never has been really unified in her history, for Austria remains detached from the northern system. One might in fact conclude that the Germans had a special genius for disunion, but it would be a slur upon the race to conclude that, by nature, they are incapable of complete cohesion. Once more it is a case of conditions. In the days of Hermanric the east Teutons had apparently a real power of federation, ostensibly through the unifying effect of the great plains which then were their appanage. 1 1 While the " Slavs " in Russia are unified by the same deter- mining influence, cognate races in the Balkans are as disjointed as it is possible to be just because of the different milieux. 110 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY The more highly diversified character of central Europe split up the tribes in almost endless fashion, there being no great geographical determi- nants as in France. Hence the country persisted in a political segregation more complete almost than any in history. The " Scythian " and Hungarian barbarians pulled the people in one direction that mainly of defence of their hearths ; the exposure on the Baltic and the Atlantic gave them simply piracy for pastoralism ; while wealth tempted outwards over the Rhine and through the Alps. There never was a country with such centrifugal tendencies naturally. And in addition to this there was the essentially artificial distrac- tion of the Holy Roman Empire. There was not only immense, but sometimes insuperable diffi- culty in electing a head ; when elected there might be every inclination to disobey or openly defy him, and no effective imperial compulsitor was ever elaborated. 1 In addition to the insuperable difficulty of reconciling German interests, there 1 " When in 1757 an imperial notary came to the Prussian envoy, Baron von Plotho, to present an official intimation that the kingdom of Frederick the Great had been put to the ban of the Empire, the baron, ' that very commendable parliamentary mastiff,' coming out in his dressing-gown, ordered his servant to fling the notary downstairs " (Fisher, quoting Carlyle). The Empire latterly became a machine for grinding out ponderous frivolities. " Ten voluminous memoirs were composed upon the question as to whether a particular ecclesiastical delegate had the right to occupy a particular seat " (Rambaud, Let Franqais sur le Rhin). EUROPE 111 was the difficulty (also insuperable but with still sharper points) of adjusting relations with the Pope. Pelion was heaped upon Ossa with a ven- geance. A prince in Germany might be hostile to the Emperor, but find his own subjects (or at least sections of them) rather favourable to the greater head of the house ; or, he might incline to the Emperor's side, and find his own people pulling steadily against him : the Emperor himself might find that his dignity alienated his own subjects in the ratio in which he tried to act well his superior part, or bred alienation in other directions if he favoured domestic against imperial interests ; in the quarrels between Emperor and Pope, many German princes and peoples felt inclined to back the Holy See, while in Italy republics and peoples (already all at variance among them- selves) might back the Emperor against the Pope, with no more stability, however, throughout the immense fabric than there is in the shape of clouds : there never was such a criss-cross of human currents, spiritual and secular, in this mortal world. The wonder is, not so much that Germany remained divided, as that she achieved the considerable sectional harmonies attained to with occasional hollow symmetry in imperial authority. Dis- union is not in itself necessarily a bad thing, and in Germany and Italy it tended to promote initiative and foster progress on certain lines the number 112 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY and excellence of German universities, for instance, being clearly a result of political separateness and emulation. But the repercussions of Germany and Italy upon each other in mediaeval times were on the whole inimical to the culture of both peoples, giving Spanish brutality its chance in both countries in the end of the day, when Charles V and his successors dragooned in every direction, and the precious metals, won by infinite prehistoric labour in the mines of America, went to the financing of the most gigantic of efforts to crib, cabin, and confine the culture of the whole of Europe. Thus if nomadism menaced and thwarted German civilisation from the east, Spanish pastoralism and priestcraft maimed it from the south and west, while the Holy Roman Empire remained astride the broad shoulders of Teutondom like an old man of the sea until he was rudely pulled to the ground by the usurper Napoleon Bonaparte. Only another section of Europe remains to be scanned from the present point of view. We have seen how the stresses and strains set up by the Hunnish invasion caused reactions throughout nearly the whole of Europe, involving not only the downfall of the western segment of the empire but the degradation of culture in its ancient orbit. In the resettlement that slowly took place it has been noted how Italy took the lead in science inspired not remotely by Saracenic impulses, EUROPE 113 which were so essentially cultural, and which in- vaded not only Italy, but penetrated Spain in Moorish forms that left an indelible impress on the land. It has been noted how France, for the reasons indicated, manifested considerable culture and cohesion which were drowned out by the pre- datoriness from the sea, and how Germany, pulled in half a dozen different directions, was also mainly saddled with the burden of the Holy Roman Empire. Out of the long mediaeval welter, Spain emerged first as the strongest political unit in Europe. But her triumph over the Moors stood essentially for resurgence of pastoralism as against tillage, and the country, backed up by the plunder of America and the wealth of the low countries, tried to tyrannise completely, with fatal results to herself finally, but with no end of depression as regards tillage, industry, and culture in the nations more directly affected. But the devastation wrought in the west was small when compared with what had been going on in the east of Europe. As before indicated, Asiatic hordes had not ceased to surge westward, and Avars, Bulgars, Serbs, Magyars, Chazars, and nondescripts swept through the Russian plains, without, however, reaching to the Atlantic like the Huns. Whether that was due to an increase in density of popula- tion, the elaboration of better means of defence, or the like causes, we can only surmise. Henry H 114 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the Fowler is credited with being the founder of German cities, though it is declared he merely stimulated a tendency to burghal concentration l at work before his day. In any case the creations, however modest, would probably serve to screen the populations against the hordes from Asia. The general tendency of the invasions was rather southwards towards Constantinople, the cynosure of all barbarian eyes. Norsemen even descended upon it from the Baltic through the Russian plains, and, as some Vikings came also by way of the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bosphorus, the " hardy nation " circumscribed Europe, as has been often pointed out. The " lower empire " always had its hands full, but Constantinople was always more than a match for the barbarians whose un- stable kingdoms and pulpier religions tended constantly to disappear before the rigid Byzantine system. However inelastic it may have been, it was, on the whole, an influence for civilisation, even as the bureaucratic system of Russia to-day is a civilising force in Asia if not in Europe. The Greek form of religion radiated northwards through the enormous plains, dissipating barbaric ideals as did Catholicism in the west, and thus splitting up the allegiance of Christianity to the full and making of it " a hemispherical creed." But there was a cultivation of the soil as well as of the soul, ^Beclus, work cited. EUROPE 115 and there is every reason to believe that in the Russian plains (so favourable for agriculture in the black earth belt) tillage was making headway in the later Middle Ages, and the land might have been won for civilisation centuries earlier than actually happened but for the barbarism of pastoral Asia. As the eruption of Krakatoa coloured the sunsets for years, so what were to prove the ulti- mate human explosions in the grass-lands of Asia tinged the horizons of history for centuries. Enough has already been said regarding the Mongolian invasions in their effect upon Asia, and it only remains to note that the result in what is now Russia was perhaps even more destructive. The civilisation of Russia was drowned out as by a tide of mud. The " Golden Horde," as it came to be called, settled on the plains as in a vast camp, and the hapless peasantry were ground between the upper and nether millstones of native boyar rapacity and tribute-extracting khans. The open treeless plains favoured the operations of cavalry, and the Tatar was even more of a horseman than the cowboy of to-day. It therefore took the Russians, operating from the more wooded centres round Moscow, centuries to expel the Tatars, but, in the end, the land was purged of a predatoriness of the most baleful type. For, though the native system which supplanted the Tatar was far from admirable, it at least gave chances to tillage culture 116 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY greater than under the Asiatic yoke. Russia, be- cause of its vastness and essential rusticity, has greater difficulties than any other European coun- try in working out its own civilised salvation, and has need of all the peaceful culture contacts that can be bestowed ; and it was because the Tatar, even less than the boyar and the bureaucrat, stood for progress, that it was well from the present point of view he was thrust back into his steppes. While the expulsion of the Moors from Spain signified a set back in civilisation according to our definition, the extrusion of the Tatar stood rather for an advance in culture. If the west receded, the east advanced, saving in the Balkans. There an old stock from the steppes entrenched itself so firmly that it still remains. The Turks are still masters of Constantinople. It has been pointed out how essentially civilis- ing the Saracenic irruption immediately became, and how tillage benefited from it in the highest degree. Mesopotamian methods seem to have been applied generally, and Bagdad indeed became the centre of a Caliphate, powerful because of the ex- treme agricultural wealth of the region. Towards this promised land the pastoralists of Asia tended constantly to drift. In the grass-lands of Asia enormous combinations of nomad energy seem to have occurred of which we have extremely little knowledge, since they became quickly dissipated EUROPE 117 like clouds on the utmost horizons. It seems to be the case, however, that pastoralists living on the nomad margins sometimes feared the incur- sions of the inner barbarians as much as they them- selves were dreaded by the tillers of the soil. Thus the ancestors of the Turks are said to have scented danger in their original homes from the still further removed Mongolian peoples, and fled from before it if not in the pellmell manner of the Goths before the Huns. It was these bands of warriors concen- trating in Asia Minor, who lent virility if not grace to the Islamic cultures, and formed the righting material which helped to hold the Holy Sepulchre against the chivalry of Europe. The Osmanli were the latest " Turki " stock to drift into the western fighting ring. Small in numbers originally, the Ottomans seem not to have been so much a great mass force as to have acted as a leaven of the most powerful description upon pre-existing martial material. They specialised in warfare as successfully as the ancient Roman themselves, mani- festing the same power to rise above perhaps even greater defeat than that at the hands of Hannibal. Tamerlane, a not less ferocious con- queror than Ghenghis Khan, utterly defeated the Turkish army on the plains of Angora, and took captive Sultan Bajazet, even if he did not immure him in a golden cage. But the Ottomans soon rose above that disaster, and recommenced their 118 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY conquests westwards with stronger temptation than ever to go forward since, in the Mesopotamian rear, all was becoming desolation apparently through the depredations of the Mongols, though the point is not quite clear. Constantinople might have been saved, as was Vienna by a co-operation of forces when the Turks were even stronger than in the days of Mohammed the Conqueror. But help the Greek Emperor could not obtain, though he searched Europe as assiduously as did Thiers when France was in extremis. The Spaniards were still occupied with their own crusade against the Moors, the Russians with theirs against the Tatars, Eng- land was exhausted with the Wars in France, Europe was still suffering from the reaction of the older Crusades, and effective help there was none in the west. So the Turk, who had already sur- rounded Constantinople, took the city by storm when " Greek fire " no longer availed to repulse the infidel. Thus Islam not only obtained an immense boulevard in the territory of Christendom, but an essentially unprogressive culture laid hold of the soil and almost the best strategical site in the world. In the extreme peninsulas of Europe pas- toralism prevailed in the same moment, the one in Christian the other in Mohammedan guise, show- ing how the matter transcends even religion. If the Moors were progressive compared with the Spaniards, the Turks were reactionary even com- EUROPE 119 pared with Byzantines. Whether the Turk will ever be completely expelled from Europe remains to be seen, but it might not matter so much from the present point of view that he remained infidel if he became civilised. 1 And perhaps he might have been so to-day but for European jealousies. The Turks are not hopeless if the Christians were really helpful. 1 The Moors show that Mohammedanism is not inconsistent with progress, as did also the Mogul empire later in India. CHAPTER VI THE NOMAD (continued) (3) America IT has already been stated that Africa has only been fully discovered but yesterday, while its al- most utter lack of internal history prevents us from knowing how the antithesis between tillage and pastoralism worked out in the dark continent. It is inferrible, however, that Africa simply con- firms the case of Asia and Europe. For, as already noticed, the " hoe people " seem constantly to have suffered from the pastoralists, and it is remark- able that the nearest approaches to civilisation in Africa were in regions freest from vegetational and pastoral coercion. Timbuctoo seems to be the analogue of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. But the case is too obscure to enlarge upon, 1 and the present survey may be completed by a sum- mary consideration of the American continent, which is not only better vouched for historically, but seems to give crowning demonstration of the theories now sought to be established. 1 See Semple's Influences of Geographic Environment for some details. AMERICA 121 Though the general belief, as already stated, is that America was peopled from the Old World, probably by way of Behring Straits, there is no certainty whatever on the subject. And, from the present point of view, it does not matter whether man originated in the Old World, or in the New, as some other theorists maintain. The notable thing is that, whatever the centre of man's origin, he had searched out all the great continents and islands before the dawn of history. The " New " (or " Old ") World must therefore have been " discovered " long before the historic dates. And, if primitive man could reach from Eurasia into America (or the other way about), it seems to make very probable the expedition of Norse- men in the Viking age, especially its accomplish- ment by stages from Norway to Iceland, Iceland to Greenland, and Greenland to the mainland. Even if the invaders were not, like the first British colony, devoured by the inhospitality of the climate or the attacks of the natives, their disappearance might still be accounted for by complete absorp- tion in the native stock. If a few Indians had landed in Norway (even if the Vikings had spared them), what chance had they of perpetuating their stock or erecting unquestionable memorials of their arrival in Europe ? America, in fact, may have been " discovered " not once but frequently before Columbus, if not from Europe, then by way of the 122 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Pacific, whose " black stream " has, within his- torical times, landed castaways from Asia on the coast of California. But all that by the way. The real question now is given the presence of a " tool- using animal " in America, what are the influences that may have helped or hindered him in the pro- cess of civilisation as already defined. It may be summarily stated that the processes of the Old World seem to be closely paralleled, if nearly always on a smaller scale, in pre-Columbian America, for, of course, it is the autochthonous features of the case with which we have to do, since the European intervention has stood at once for ex- tinction, reversion, complication, and abridgment of processes such as probably never happened before in the history of the world. The " tundra " in America is relatively more largely developed than in the Old World, while the area subject to the extreme heat and moisture of the tropics is also comparatively as great, Brazil, indeed, having become the classical tropical forest of geography and the popular imagination. The inhibitive power of these extreme climates has already been sufficiently commented on, and accounts for the sparsity of population and the low nature of the native cultures still to be found in the north and centre of America. In the tem- perate zones both of South and North America, there are, as has now been manifest for generations, AMERICA 128 vast level grassy plains or prairies of a natural fertility comparable to the black soil of Russia or the " loess " of China. But at the discovery of America these plains were very sparsely peopled, 1 and not tilled at all except in the east by the rudimentary maize culture of the Indians. Some of the tribes in the eastern states apparently combined fishing with hunting and a rude culti- vation of the tribal patches. There is reason to believe that some of these tribes were tending to become sedentary under tillage influences, and they might have become completely so but for the whites, whose advent was such a cataclysm for the whole native populations. In the eastern states of America there was less space for roving than behind the Appalachians, where the buffalo browsed on the great plains. The comparative lack of game, or relatively greater difficulty in securing it, may have been an inducement to some eastern tribes to resort to tillage, however rude, to supplement their diet. It is also probable that the tribes given to fishing would thereby be kept from wandering far from the tide-waters into the interior, where enemies lurked in the primeval forests that stretched far inland until they died out on the prairie. Does not the fact that tillage 1 It is alleged that the Red Indians of the north never totalled more than two or three hundred thousands (men, women and children), or less than a city the size of Edinburgh or Baltimore. 124 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY failed to stabilise itself where it seems to have had a pronounced enough tendency lead to the con- clusion that, in the New World as in the Old, nomadism was the enemy in even intenser degree perhaps than in Eurasia ? And it is here undiluted nomadism with which we have to deal, for, as already remarked, pastoralism was practically un- known in pre-Columbian America, and the hunter was supreme. We know little of the ethnic drift before the arrival of the whites, but the simple continental build of the country favoured move- ment practically over the whole mass, and some tribes appear to have wandered almost from the Arctic Circle to modern Mexico, working slowly down the great hollow plains and becoming inured to the heat as they went along. 1 The Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, though consider- able physical obstacles, were by no means absolute impediments to the latitudinal flow. It was the desert more than the height of the western hills which limited the tribal movement in these regions. On the east, neither the Appalachian ridges 2 nor the primeval forest seemed to have proved impene- 1 After the discovery of America the far-famed Tuscaroraa came from South to North to complete the confederacy of the " Nations." * It was their breadth of about three hundred miles more than their height which made them formidable to the white, always more heavily accoutred than the Indian. It must also be re- membered that the red man himself was a tremendous barrier to the westward " crossing." AMERICA 125 trable. In this vast continental quadrangle, there- fore, there was not only more unbridled nomadism than in Asia, but even less protection for the development of the tillage instincts wherever these might crop out among the " tool -using animals." The eastern states of America are not only well watered, 1 but possess one of the finest river and lake systems in the world, which latterly permitted a commercial movement as striking as the agri- cultural activity of the country. Yet the Atlantic states, which carry the bulk of the American popu- lution to-day, had less protection from predatori- ness than India or China, and were more hopelessly bedevilled by the nomad than the Russian plains by the pastoralist. To all appearance the nomad would neither settle himself nor allow other tribes showing more inclination completely to subside into tillage. Of course, the eastern states of the New World did not contain loot like that of India, China, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. But, relatively, the lure may have been as great, if not always from west to east in America, at any rate, as between one famine-stricken district and one not so blighted, east, south, west, or north as the case might be. Though the tribal repercussions are unknown to us, there is no doubt that famine (due to the failure of animals, not crops) 1 " There is no record of widespread famine in North America due to the failure of the rains." Dickson, Climate and Weather. 126 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY constantly stalked the life of the Indian, whose legends are full of the horrors of that starvation to which Longfellow has given such a famous set- ting in Hiawatha. The hunter requires an even greater area for his sustenance than the pastora- list, and his diet is even more precarious. The general result in America was that enormous re- gions were required for the maintenance of but small tribes which were separated from each other by " marches," greater far than those which were once considered necessary in the economy of Europe. 1 In such a state of society it is not diffi- cult to see how famine at any one point would act as an expulsive centre of population with reactions perhaps to the farthest horizons. The menaced tribes would seek out fresh pastures, would mili- tantly endeavour to displace their nearest neigh- bours if resisted, or try and carve a way beyond the human obstruction. Intensification of the desert drought in the west might send the buffalo east, south, or north, or it might migrate for reasons as inscrutable as those that prompt her- ring to-day. The buffalo would draw the hunter with it, and tribal conflicts would thus tend to 1 Marches, of course, did not originate in Europe. Xenophon found them in his expedition into Asia (Grote's History), and the practice is still kept up in the Soudan (Ratzel's History of Man- kind). Marches were purposely created by the Spaniards to keep the Moors at a distance. Wellington also made a " march " in Portugal to keep back the French, as Vercingetorix ravaged the country to try and rout out Caesar. AMERICA 127 be chronic, involving ethnic reverberations almost from sea to sea. Thus, because of the absence of physical barriers, attempt after attempt at tillage culture, wherever it tended to show itself, might be drowned out by ever renewed tides of barbarism originating perhaps thousands of miles away from the extreme margins of devastation, as with the Hunnish and Mongol invasions in the Old World. 1 Thus the condition of society in pre-Columbian America, north of Mexico, can be understood as far as it is possible without the actual facts to pierce down into the nature of things. We may not be able to understand why there should have been such broad, determined antagonism between the nomadic and sedentary instincts, between the hunter's and shepherd's life and that of the agri- culturists. But there it is, written large over the face of universal history, manifesting itself still in Africa, if on a minor scale, and subdued or completely overcome in Eurasia and America prac- tically only in our own day. Taking it as a fun- damental fact of past history, we see clearly how the areas forming the United States and Canada of to-day were a savage wilderness at the time of their discovery, because the climate, though tem- perate, was mainly propitious to the hunter's life, 1 Beclus (Universal Oeography) mentions that the Seminoles within historical times seem to have abandoned tillage and re- verted to hunting because of nomadic persecution. 128 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY because movement was easy over the whole con- tinental quadrangle, and because asylum for tillage there was practically none. The only exceptions to the last statement prove the rule. In America there are " hot " deserts similar to those of the Old World. But they gave harbourage only to some of the lowest specimens of humanity. The Califor- nian Indians, who may have been driven into their recesses by the stronger tribes in the central plains, are not only among the most degraded of races, but show remarkable ethnic and linguistic variety results presumably caused by meagre diet and cloistration. For, though there are rivers in the western deserts, they do not bountifully overflow their verges and keep even bank and stream as in Egypt and Mesopotamia ; they are, instead, lost in frightful gorges carved out through geological ages by the wasted energy of the river. The water is lost in the impassable canons which have a maxi- mum depth of about a mile. Here, of course, tillage was impossible. Farther inland, however, the waters of the Missouri were available for irrigation of the desert as in Egypt and Mesopo- tamia, and here was discovered the tribe of the Mandan Indians devoted to tillage. The singula- rity seems only capable of explanation in terms of the " instinct of workmanship," finding not only expression but development in virtue of relative protection from that nomadism which desolated the AMERICA 129 rest of the continent. The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, who were also practically sedentary, have their agriculturism likewise ex- plained in terms of relative shelter from nomadism. How fierce and strong that nomadism was, the whites knew to their terrible cost from the moment they set foot on the land. While the Indians of Peru offered practically no resistance to the Spaniards for reasons afterwards to be glanced at, and Cortez too triumphed with relative ease, the Indians north of Mexico offered a resistance out of all proportion to their numbers so obdurate, so sanguinary, and so picturesque that it has left an indelible mark in history. The nomadism of the Indian conserved his initiative to the very utmost, and in wiliness, endurance, self-command, and power of divination of the obscured workings of nature and the human mind he has never been equalled. Laconic as a Spartan, he could yet be as eloquent as a Demosthenes when the need arose to convince his peers. For Red Indian society being " republican " to the fullest possible extent, the tribe was really the Parliament, and oratory was common while loquacity was rare. 1 Even 1 Some people however, say that Red Indian eloquence is not devoid of " Spreadeagleism," a " Yankee " trait, which is some- times attributed to the consciousness of living in a vast and de- veloping continent. But at best that can only be part of the explanation. The Russians, who live amid as ample physical and historical horizons, are not conspicuous for what has also been called " popular bounce." The factors of social equality, 130 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY before the arrival of the whites with their horses the mobility of the foot Indians seems only to have been limited by the oceans. They readily adopted the use of horses and firearms l which increased their mobility and those general powers of resist- ance overcome in our own day. For it was num- bers and mode of life which told in the end. 2 It was a pity the displacement involved so much in- justice and cruelty which might have been (in great part, at least) avoided by care and patience. Even if these had been fully exercised, it is question- able if the inevitable supersession could have been on the whole peacefully accomplished, looking to the recalcitrance of the material operated upon, the age-old result of an environment specially favour- able to pugnacity. If the remnant of the red-skins takes ultimately to civism, as is not unlikely, the race may none the less completely disappear in the political republicanism, and competitive industrialism seem to be contributory agents. Every man has a right to speak, and " cries up " his country, his state, his party, or his wares to the highest possible (or impossible) point. The " hustling " habit, once originated, has compelled everybody to live up to the express standard, and " to think, speak, and write in capital letters.'' 1 Though the Indians had no arsenals and no inclination to manufacture rifles for themselves, their wants were supplied abundantly by the cupidity of traders and through the mutual jealousies of the whites Spaniards, French, Dutch, and British anxious to circumvent each other by whatever means. Many Asiatic and African tribes are still armed through this " seepage " of rifles from the very centres of civilisation. 1 The Indian was probably overcome as much by the loco- motive as the rifle. AMERICA 131 vast bubbling racial cauldron of the United States. 1 But, in any case, the Indian will have left a memory among the most forceful in human annals. For innumerable centuries he maintained a nomadism which defied the spontaneous advance of civilisa- tion in a country now become one of the greatest theatres of human activity, while his ensanguined resistance to science at the hands of its most able exponents has burned into American annals a body of romance which will continue to glow, not alone in native records, but also in world literature to the end of time. The " temperate " lands of South America are not nearly so well developed as in the north, while the tropical area is disproportionately greater in the south. There are areas, however, which corre- spond to the prairies of the north, and, though nomadism was greatly restricted in its range and power, it manifested itself precisely as in the north. It is needless therefore to go into the matter in detail, though it may be mentioned that the Araucanians, who correspond most closely to the red man of the north, manifested perhaps an even greater power of resistance against the whites, and were given up as incorrigible until they be- came absorbed into the Chilean confederacy upon 1 The red-skin is not treated as a pariah like the negro. His lineage is recognised as legitimate even if his alliance is not greatly coveted. But the door of absorption is not " banged, bolted and barred " as with the black man. 132 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY a basis of equality which has been more readily conceded in South than in North America. 1 For the Spaniards have manifested greater ethnic hospitality than planters and puritans in the north, while the Portuguese in Brazil assimilate Indians and negroes of the jettest black. The conditions of course were radically different from the first. The cavalier and roundhead stocks tended to be a majority from the very first as against the natives, and there never has been at any time such partial engulf ment of the " Caucasian " as happened in the more densely peopled countries, conquered rather than colonised by the " Latin " peoples of the Iberian peninsula. The Appalachians, with their lurking braves, long dammed back the British advance. On the other hand the French, whom fate landed in the grandest estuary in the world the St. Lawrence which led into the finest lake- chain on the planet, were enticed to the heart of continent by the easiest routes. As the French colony was neither properly alimented from the homeland nor tempted to recoil upon itself by physical barriers, but, on the contrary, lured on to the exploitation of the fur trade in the immense glaciated regions at its command, there was a disposition to fraternise with the native races, and 1 With the emergence of llaneros and guachos in South America, the native Spanish governments had problems of nomadism to deal with, arising from the recalcitrance of Creoles as well as Indians. AMERICA 183 even assimilate with them, which did not exist on the mountain-walled Atlantic seaboard. Thus the French, too, showed racial accommodation, though that, and their general geographical situation, signi- fied diffusion of energy, which was their ultimate un- doing when issues were joined with the concentrated colonial force of Britain. But that again rather by the way. The remaining aspect of the American case is to find out why cultures really deserving the name of civilisation should have only developed, if not exclusively sprouted, on the plateaux of Mexico and the mountain sides of Peru. When it was recognised that America was really a world apart from the Old, and completely sepa- rated from it by the oceans, a great deal of philo- sophic as well as popular wonder was expressed over the fact that it was inhabited by human beings, and theories, remarkable mainly for their fanciful- ness, were indulged in to explain the phenomenon. But, as Voltaire sensibly said, since we really know nothing as to human origins, we should have no more been surprised at man being in America when it was discovered than at flies also being found there. In similar fashion many people have held up their hands in wonder that, out of the oceans of native American barbarism, two distinct and apparently disconnected islands of civilisation should have reared themselves, one north and the other south of the line. But it is really only part 134 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY of the unfathomable mystery as to the origin and development of man's tool-using power which, as already urged, can but be taken as a universal postulate. Given that aboriginal faculty as in all the other cases, there is nothing really mysterious in its special development in ancient Mexico and Peru. Their cases are not inscrutable, though they are singular in one very remarkable aspect. In no part of the Old World do mountains appear to have favoured primacy in culture, or its peculiar development at least on the American scale. For Abyssinia and the communities on the slopes of Kilimanjaro seem rather to be analogous cases, but not so strikingly developed as in the New World. Mountains generally, indeed, are rather favourable to the perpetuation of pasturage, and the upkeep of the predatoriness which becomes so readily incarnate in that mode of life, though, as we shall see, mountaineers, in the very nature of the case, never could combine like the steppe- dwellers, and drift in locust-like swarms to the veritable consumption of civilisation. How, then, did elevated table-lands and rock}^ mountains prove themselves so specially propitious to culture in the new world ? Once more it is simply a case of the climatic and other conditions favouring the tillage instincts as against the merely nomadic and predatory. Mexico is the classic land of the "three climates" AMERICA 135 tierre caliente, tierra templada, and tierra fria, or hot, temperate, and cold regions respectively. The coastlands are almost insufferably hot and dry, but there is much less development of plain than of plateau and hill, and, on every hand, the tem- perate region is soon reached by a midway ascent of the innumerable mountains. While Mexico lies, on the whole, within the zone of insufficient rain- fall, there is considerable precipitation in some parts in the wet season. Though there are hardly any rivers worthy of the name, the mountain tor- rents feed considerable lakes, and are capable of being trapped for irrigation purposes. As there were no wealthy peoples upon the plains to be robbed systematically, as by the Kurds to-day and Rob Roy in the eighteenth century, any in- clination to predatoriness could not be perpetuated from that baneful source. In the absence of such a temptation, and probably under the spur of the increase of population as well as the general " instinct of workmanship," tillage had oppor- tunities here quite lacking in the great plains of the north. At whatever point agriculture began in Mexico, it would tend to persist. For, generally speaking, the country is very difficult to traverse ; less so longitudinally than latitudinally. Indeed it was once so difficult to cross America that some Mexicans preferred to make the journey by the trans -continental railways in the States and the 136 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY connecting lines of steamers. 1 Each agricultural canton therefore would not only have a natural defence in the lie of the ground, but would also have a correspondingly weak motive to raid its neighbours because of the same difficulty of attack. Once begun, therefore, tillage would tend to spread throughout the area of the cultivable plateaux, especially considering that it was only the hunter who would be displaced, not the shepherd, since no domestic animals existed to give rise to the pastoral stage of existence. And in each case the hunters would be a negligible force defeated in detail, so to say because of the mountainous character of the land, being incapable of that mass-resistance of the buffalo-hunter on the prairies. Everything conspired, then, to the crea- tion of this island of culture in Central America rising above the waves of nomadism in the north and the profundities of vegetation in the south. The cantonal development of the country, too, would give rise not only to racial but cultural variations, the contact, commingling, and clashing of which, as we have seen, is of the very essence of progress. Mexican civilisation is therefore not only no more mysterious than the process any- where else, but is actually seen strikingly to con- form to the law of culture being in inverse ratio to nomadism, however that may be determined. Pre- 1 Chisholm, Handbook of Commercial Geography. AMERICA 137 datoriness, however, was not quite absent from the Mexican system when it was pounced upon by Cortez and his merry men. The country had nothing to fear from the vegetation -engulfed inhabitants of the south. But the broad band of deserts in the north does not seem to have been an absolute protection from continental invasion. From time immemorial, indeed, there may have been a longitudinal flow of population from the north, getting broken up, however, and sifted out as it proceeded southward, in the growing com- plexity of the mountain systems. Such infiltra- tion indeed may have been beneficial at times in adding fresh blood or fire to the cultures, if drained of any original fierceness. It is just as likely, however, that it may have been essentially pre- datory, and, if not destroying culture wholesale as did the Mongols, living upon it and degrading it as did Tatars and Turks. Indeed there is every reason to believe that the Aztec dynasty was an intrusive race of conquerors from the north which had displaced milder kings, and was despoiling essentially more civilised peoples. The older races had not only memories of a happier age, but the nursing of their ancient animosities was a reason which enabled the Spaniards to triumph against what might otherwise have been tremendous odds, though the country would probably have fallen to Spain in the long run. It is surmised that the 138 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY horrible system of human sacrifices which was in vogue on the advent of the whites may have been an Aztec innovation, and perhaps was actually deepening, as sacrificial systems tend to do despite, it may be, an advance in intelligence in some other directions. 1 If so, the civilisation might be essen- tially " decadent," as Letourneau somewhere pro- nounces it to have been. In that case our moral remains clear to the very end the nomad de- graded culture in Mexico, when he got the chance, just as in Eurasia. And our moral culminates in the case of Peru. Modern Peru is but a fragment of the old Inca empire which had its capital in Cuzco. While it was essentially a mountain civilisation, like Mexico, it was unique as regards its social system. In Mexico, while there was considerable cultivation of the ground, " mercantilism " also obtained in the country, commerce and the " money economy " being manifested in the system. It was an in- dividualist state of society compared with that of Peru, where "regimentation" obtained to the greatest extent ever known in any great community, even if it may not deserve the epithet of *' social- ism " that has so often been applied to the system. 2 1 Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. This author quotes an opinion to the effect that the ancient city of Mexico, under the Aztec dynasty, was but " a robber stronghold." 8 Payne, History of the New World called America. This author thought out for himself a distinction between " natural " AMERICA 139 There society was arranged on a decimal plan, there being rulers of tens and rulers of hundreds up to the Inca, the glorious child of the sun who ruled over all. Private property in the ordinary sense did not exist. The means of subsistence were assured to everybody in return for the work which all were bound to perform. That might be said to be the cardinal feature in Peruvian civilisa- tion. Everyone had his fixed place in the social system, the individual had to remain in his native parish and tied to his assigned vocation, and spies were everywhere guarding against transgression. Social mobility was at a minimum, though of course it tended to be the same in ancient China and in modern Russia ; while in India the caste system has given a stability to society as consider- and " artificial " sources of food (the former typified by hunting and shepherding, and the latter by tillage), by means of which he sought fundamentally to differentiate between stages of society. The present writer only came across this speculation after he had come to his own conclusions. Though Payne's idea is of cardinal importance, the language in which it is handled seems to be " unscientific." It is just as " artificial " to bring down game with weapons, or herd and milk animals and despoil them of their wool or hides, as to deliberately sow seeds and reap the produce. Tillage was just as "natural" to man as pastoralism, which was neces- sarily practised on a tool-using basis. Indeed, tillage, as involving in the end far greater masses of men and covering larger areas of land, might be said to have become the more " natural " con- dition, since it is the expression of a more imperative fundamental tendency of humanity. It is the natural antithesis between the two systems which is the great differentiating factor in history, as insisted upon in these pages a point wholly missed by Payne, who was yet in sight of what the present writer considers the great clue. 140 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY able as in ancient Peru. But still the magnitude of the Inca's sway alongside the minutiae of its regulations constitute something really unique in social experiments. Whether this so-called Social- ism had been preceded by an individualistic state of society, or had evolved uninterruptedly from a primitive condition in which things might be held in common, we do not know ; and it is not such questions that concern us now. Presuming once more the tool-using faculty, the problem is how did tillage develop to such a wonderful extent in ancient Peru ? Again, the great differentiating element seems to be protection from nomadism, and the special predatoriness that it implies. Peru, unlike Mexico, is only washed by the sea on one side, but what the country lacks in breadth it gains in length. It is in fact the only strictly longitudinal empire that ever existed. On the eastern side of the Andes the moisture, borne in all the way from the Atlantic, beats down upon the Brazilian lands, causing them to be caught in that eternal vegetable swoon so inimical to human progress, as already descanted on. 1 Eastward of the Andes, man simply plunged into illimitable steaming lassitudes became utterly confounded 1 Of course the whole of Brazil does not suffer from tropical luxuriance due to the combination of great heat and great moisture. The province of Ce&r& is troubled with drought rather, but the statement holds true regarding by far the greater part of the country. AMERICA 141 in forest and jungle traversable only by the rivers which, though the greatest in the world for length and volume, remain the least ruffled by human energy. The western side of the Andes is as remarkable for aridity as the eastern for humidity. In some parts the climates seem sundered as if only by the blade of a knife or the breadth of a wall. 1 The greater part of the Pacific slope in South America is practically rainless in conse- quence of the Andes draining the last drop of moisture from the inflowing Atlantic vapours, and the winds tending constantly to blow seawards on the Pacific, yielding no vapour for condensation on the western ridges. Though similar conditions prevail elsewhere, the contrast of climates in South America is the most clean-cut in the world. While the Andes plunge at points right into the sea, there is a prolonged but narrow develop- ment of a coastal plain on the Pacific, but utterly arid and uninviting for the most part. It is an inhospitable coast. For, not only are the harbours few but, despite the almost endless sunshine, the waters of the ocean are extremely cold in conse- quence of the incessant polar drift, called the Humboldt Current after the great naturalist. 2 1 Reclus, Universal Geography. 1 It is now being called the " Peru Current," and it is suggested that its coldness is not due so much to actual Antarctic drift as to cold upwellings from the lower oceanic depths which replace the warmer surface waters blown seawards by the prevailing winds. 142 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Calm as the waters are in appearance, they there- fore do not attract as in the Polynesian islands. They were not inviting, either for utility or pleasure, for the fisher or the voyager. The sea, however, seems to have been an element in the federation of a country that stretched in strips, however narrow, for nearly two thousand miles, or about the distance fron New York to San Francisco indeed the most wonderful confederation of the time. The Incas had raft -like contrivances which could not merely creep along the coast and supple- ment the terraced roads upon the sides of the hills, 1 but also seem to have reached as far out into the Pacific as the Galapagos Islands that is to say, about five hundred miles. This was nothing, however, to the venturesomeness of the Polynesians, whose matchless maritime environ- ment not only stimulated their mechanical in- genuity, but tempted them to enormous distances over the wide Pacific. The sea therefore in Peru rather tended to thrust man back upon the land as regards his powers of exploitation. The general aridity of course was not favourable to animal life, and the hunting stage of existence would be con- sequently abridged. While the llama was domesti- cated, it was only used as a carrier along the upper slopes, and there was therefore nothing corre- 1 These roads are said to have been greater in area than those of ancient Rome. Reclus, UHomme et la Terre. AMERICA 143 spending to the pastoralism of Europe nor to the unbridled nomadism of North America with its " buffalo basis." Wherever, therefore, water gathered in lakes, or where the streams tending towards the Pacific could be tapped for irrigation, everything prompted to the cultivation of the native potato, maize, &C. 1 And so, however man arrived in Peru, sooner or later he would not only be induced to live mainly by tillage, but the culture (once at least it had absorbed any local predatoriness which could only have manifested itself on a petty scale) was perhaps better protected from nomadism than anywhere else in the world. There were no continental centres of expulsion as in Eurasia and North America. The Amazonian jungles could send out no savages from their vege- tational wastes. And, even if primitives ventured upland from their valleys, the Andes would have stopped them like a wall, not only by their height but by the mere effects of increased altitude. For, though the Andean system is peopled to an extraordinary height above sea-level, acclimati- sation seems to be required to some extent, and the human strata suffer considerably by any great change of levels. 2 This fact might perhaps tend to 1 The guano beds had been exploited by the Incas for the benefit of the whole country. Their existence must have been a factor in stimulating agriculture. * The Peruvian Indians have comparatively great torsos and extra lung power, as a result of their high altitudes. (Semple.) 144 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY social stability in the past, since it would prevent irruptiveness whether from below or from above. Commingling of the stocks could, however, still go on in peace not only vertically but longitudi- nally, and there might always be sufficient friction to induce progress at least up to a certain point. The considerations indicated probably account for the fact that tillage had such an enormous development in ancient Peru. No ethnic depres- sion of any magnitude could flow in upon the country from the outside, while any that gained admission would tend to dissipate its ferocity in trying to propagate itself in a land so extremely narrow and long, and perhaps laid with transverse difficulties every few miles. So that tillage, having triumphed in Peru from end to end, the docility of mind which characterises the culture would affect the inhabitants to a maximum extent. And that is exactly what we find at the conquest in remarkable degree. The first and last thought of the peaceful people was the productiveness of their soil, until space was grudged even for the dead in the fertile patches. War certainly was not unknown, but it was waged by the Incas against the really more savage margins in order forcibly to bring them within the pale of civilisa- tion, exactly as Europe pounced upon Africa in the last century, with civilisation on its banners but gain not divorced from its motives. But the AMERICA 145 Inca empire had no competitors as regards its " mission." It was therefore essentially a pacific civilisation in not requiring to maintain a dis- proportionate armament for the maintenance of that western bugbear the balance of power. It is possible that it was this unique position which enabled it to elaborate the measure of State Socialism which it manifested. It is generally conceded that any such development can only come in Europe as a result of disarmament ; or, at any rate, that freedom from military distraction is particularly favourable to sociological experi- ment. This is one of the reasons why things have gone so far in New Zealand, which was non- militant until but yesterday. 1 It is a hundred chances to one that the militarism now entered upon, however tepid, will tend to handicap the work of social experiment. That may be good or bad, and the point is not under discussion now. But the instance of modern New Zealand may throw light on the case of ancient Peru. It has often been asked if the Inca civilisation was " higher " than the Aztec or Central American cultures. It is a question that is difficult if not impossible to answer, since the conquest may not 1 Of course there were other co-operating factors, e.g. the remoteness of New Zealand from the European labour markets, which saved the trade unions from dilution of their powers, and enabled them to carry matters with a higher hand than in Europe. K 146 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY only have destroyed essential elements of compari- son, but it actually caused the greatest confusion in the things that survived. In making the assessment, too, it is impossible to work out a common denominator as regards the mechanical, intellectual, and moral aspects of the case. Some Caucasians contend that China, just because of her " pacifism," was really more civilised than Europe itself. So, even if ancient Mexico were more mechanically advanced than pre-Columbian Peru, it might not be morally so, since it had not transcended human sacrifice nor softened out the worst features of individualism and mercantilism. The things are imponderable perhaps, and the question really vain. It is passed by now at any rate for the purpose of applying the broader test held in view throughout, though also based upon an assumption, that tillage generally stands for higher civilisation than nomadism or pastoralism, and is a more desirable thing. Mexico and Peru both demonstrated to what heights tillage could carry men in a continent more isolated as a whole than the Old World group and equally as cloistered in its more propitious parts, and that absolutely without the help of iron, with no co-operation of animals in Mexico, and only the feeble assistance of the llama in Peru. Both cultures developed in essential peace. Yet both were overwhelmed by one of the most dreadful of human irruptions AMERICA 147 merciless, devouring, and destructive almost as any from Asia We have already called the Spaniards " Mongols in miniature," not to repro- bate the race for an original sin, but simply to suggest the master-clue to their activity. The climate of the Iberian peninsula, as has been in- dicated, is not dissimilar to the steppes of Asia, and naturally favours pastoralism as against tillage and the special mentality characteristic of the ruder life of herdsmen and shepherds. The expulsion of the Moors, while a tribute to the tenacity of the resurgent native stocks, implied from the present point of view real decline in culture, in diminishing tillage and population, and giving ever fiercer and fiercer rein to the pre- datory instincts. Tools decreased in Spain, and weapons multiplied. Heresy disappeared, and orthodoxy reigned supreme. Moors, Moriscos, and Jews vanished from the scene, but so did tillage, industry, and commerce. A nation of soldiers, shepherds, and swaggerers took the place of highly varied and essentially fructifying cultures. It is open, of course, to say that the agricultural- commercial civilisation was less worth preserving than the system superimposed upon it, which con- sisted essentially of bandits, bigots, and beggars. A chacun son choix ! But the point now is that pastoralism was locally once more triumphant in history, and at an epoch of the world when its 148 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY victory was big with the fate, not alone of the nations of the Old World, but still more heavily with the unoffending nations of the New. The dons, predatory and ferocious as Mongolian khans, for the same essential reasons, subjected Italy as we have already seen, and set about dragooning on every hand. Fate gave to them an even ampler theatre for their insatiable activity. The trade- winds carried Spanish caravels and galleons towards the semi-desert latitudes of the New World, where tillage cultures based upon irrigation, as was the agriculture of the Moors, had been flourishing for lonely centuries which no man can number. The conquest of the Moors was not motived so much by a lust for wealth as by blindly patriotic and religious ideas. The conquest of Mexico and Peru, on the other hand, was barbed at every point by the most utter and abandoned cupidity the desire for barbaric gems and gold. And so hand- fuls of Spanish adventurers, equipped with horses, firearms, indurated ferocity, and unbridled initia- tive, laid about like demons in the hunt for precious metals, utterly heedless of the blood they shed or the cultures they entombed. The depth of their rascality on the one hand, and the sufferings of their victims on the other, we may never know. Some Spaniards appeared to kill for the very sake of killing, or for that of religion, according to their idea of it, "despatching twelve natives daily in AMERICA 149 honour of the twelve apostles." l While in Mexico the Spaniards abolished human sacrifice to the foreign gods, they continued to sacrifice heretics in honour of their native deity. The cruelties of a continent cry eternal shame upon the aggressors out of the pages of Las Casas. It was a two-fold tragedy which the discovery of the New World involved. Fate led the Dutch, French, and English to the temperate shores of the north, where the nomad held immemorial sway from sea to sea. While predatoriness and cruelty were not excluded from their motives and practice, the agriculturism and commercialism for which they stood implied an advance in tillage and industry from the first moment, and laid the foundations for the broadest and best forms of civilisation which the world has known or perhaps can know. But if the white man stood for tillage culture in the north, he represented but naked predatoriness in the south. Indeed the triumph of Spain in America was the last great outburst of pastoralism in a world which has not outgrown predatoriness, but which at last seems to have completely super- seded the ancient menace to civilisation incarnate in the older order of things. The causes of that supersession we shall now seek briefly to explore. 1 Las Casas, Bancroft, Reclus. CHAPTER VII THE PASSING OF NOMADISM THE tool-using faculty of man, however acquired, is to be regarded from the first as operating in double-edged fashion, so to say as a weapon of offence or defence, as well as a " tool " properly speaking devoted to construction rather than destruction. If man was better able to contend against vegetation and the beasts of the field, he would at the same time make the tool become a vehicle for the indulgence of the pugnacities specially distinctive of the species. It has already been remarked that " Man is the only animal that beats his wife," and there is no species more prone to tear itself in bits, by no means always for mates, food, place, or property, but also, as it would seem, for the sheer love of destruction. In the human family repulsions are specially barbed in the midst of the attractions which man shares in common with the animals. Since, however, the human species has tended to increase in numbers from the very beginning (if with almost unspeakable slow- ness in the earlier stages), it must be true that the attractive forces of society have become stronger 160 THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 151 than the destructive, otherwise the species would have remained stationary or its numbers actually declined. Despite, therefore, the destruction of communities, races, nations, or empires, or their impoverishment or degradation, there can have been no general decline of human population, and no world-wide contemporaneous degradation of the various cultures since the " continental ridges " settled into their places. In fact, broadly speaking, declinations may have been local rather than world-wide, despite the tremendous depres- sions by nomadism which we have just passed in review. For if there was decline at one point, there may have been advance at another. If barbarism overtook Europe, new forces of civilisa- tion came to life with the Saracens the golden age of Islam, as already observed, being contem- poraneous with the dark ages of the west ; when Mohammedanism declined in force and culture, the western nations forged to the front, and, in the end, are drawing the whole world in their wake. Obviously there never can be any complete history of the art of war. Not only must the origin of strategy, tactics, and weapons remain obscure, but the decline and development of systems must, in larger part, remain unknown. It is safe to say that by far the greatest number of battles remain mysteries as regards the decisive factors of the case. It was thought, for instance, 152 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY that the battle of Bannockburn was a fairly well vouched for case, but a recent analysis 1 not only indicates how much must remain obscure but tends completely to upset many old theories as to the action and the forces that determined the issue. Even the battle of Waterloo, regarded as so epoch- making, remains in doubt as to numbers and other details ; while there is no agreement as to whether Napoleon's defeat is to be ascribed to the morn- ing rain, Wellington's perspicacity and tenacity, Grouchy's failure to appear, Bliicher's retarded yet opportune arrival, or faulty arrangements on Napoleon's part rather than his stomach complaint, or any combination of these considerations. But, true as all that may be, there are certain broad conclusions regarding warfare which are not seri- ously in doubt. It appears to be the case, for instance, that, though other things might remain equal, any considerable increase in the efficiency of weapons might give an overwhelming advan- tage to one nation against another. Thus the re- mains discovered in Greece point to the conclusion that the bronze-using peoples went down before invaders, perhaps hailing from the north, who wielded weapons of iron ever so much more efficient for attack. Indeed, the invention of iron and steel may have caused as great social cataclysms in the 1 By Mr. W. M. Mackenzie, M.A., The Battle of Bannockburn. Maclehose & Son. THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 153 ancient world as the sudden introduction of fire- arms into the new. The use of iron, of course, was general in the Old World before the curtain of history rises in its several places, and all that took place up to the invention of gunpowder was simply refinement of weapons and the method of using them. And it is notable in this connection, that nations might be remarkably slow in learning the secrets of other peoples' victories. The Spartans grew fossilised in their methods, and seem to have profited nothing by the first Theban victory over them. The Romans learned only slowly in their conflicts with Carthage, while other nations seemed wholly unable or unwilling to adopt Roman methods, which included mobility as well as solidity, and caused the Macedonian phalanx to be scattered like chaff before the wind. While Roman methods evolved nearly out of all recognition before the end of the empire, they had shown the usual stubbornness to change ; and it is probably true, as one historian says, that part of the secret of the empire's endurance lay in the fact that there was no great antagonist in the field after the conquest of the Mediterranean rivals. 1 We are deplorably ignorant of the elements of the Huns' success against Goths as well as Romans, but probably horsemanship was a vital factor in 1 See Ferrero (Greatness and Decline of Rome) as to " luck " having favoured Roman expansion, and the amount of it on Ceesar's side. 154 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the case. At any rate the Gothic victory over the Emperor Valens was due to the barbarian cavalry, and the horsemen thereafter became dominant in Europe for a thousand years, until the English longbow and the Swiss lance gave things a new complexion. The French never seem quite to have mastered the secret of the English success, and, though Scotch leaders had picked it up, neither kings nor Acts of Parliament were powerful enough to wean the population from football and golf to archery. 1 While the French revolutionary generals invented a good deal which helped the peasant armies to triumph over Europe, not even Napoleon himself seems to have grasped the significance of the British formation in line and steadiness of fire. Militarism indeed shows the conservative tendencies inseparable from all insti- tutions, and even a moderate refinement may spell enormous technical advantage, as the Prussian needle-gun over the French in 1870. Broadly speak- ing, however, it is perhaps true to say that the defence has been tending to gain upon the attack. During the Middle Ages this was most pronounced in more than one sense. The knight could encase him- self so completely inhis armour that, though it might be possible to smother him, it was often impossible to thrust him through with lance, sword, or dagger. 1 The ancient Egyptians seem to have relied for victory on their archers as much as the mediaeval English. THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 155 King Philip was unhorsed at the battle of Bouvines, but could not be despatched as he lay prone upon the ground. In the battle of Bremule" (1119), out of 900 knights engaged in battle only three were killed, so completely were they clothed in iron. 1 It is true, however, that there was often an in- disposition to kill where that might have been possible, for a living knight was much more valu- able than a dead one, and he might be purposely spared in order to be held to ransom man, horse, and trappings. The motive of booty indeed, either as to single prisoners or of the general baggage train, was no small cause of mediaeval indiscipline, often transmuting almost certain victory into total rout. The mailed horseman was only terrible to the less well armed infantry, who might be slaughtered like sheep by the " gentle " knights, whose chivalrous code did not inculcate what was practised by the warriors in the Mahabharata, where men in chariots only fought with men similarly equipped. 2 As with the 1 Tacitus, Annals, iii. 43-46, gives an account of an obscure insurrection in Gaul in which some recalcitrant gladiators were so heavily armed that they could neither fight nor run away, and lay helpless as logs when toppled over by the more lightly- equipped legionaries. 2 At the battle of Crecy the bowmen on the French side were ridden down by their own knights, it is said at the instigation of the King, who ordered " that rubbish to be cleared out of the way " in order to let the horseman on with, of course, the most frightful results. 156 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY knight so with the feudal castle and walled towns. "By 1300 the defensive had obtained an! almost complete mastery over the offensive, so that famine was the only certain weapon in siegecraft." 1 Some qualification of this statement might require to be made in view of the tremendous victories of the Mongols not only before this period, but of the Tatar triumphs later under Tamerlane, though as to the technical secrets of these successes we remain grievously unenlightened. The inven- tion of gunpowder, however, made the feudal castle at least a solecism, though under the genius of Vauban the fortifications of towns became so elaborate that the defence tended once more to gain upon the attack, and starvation again became the only certain method of victory down to the siege of Paris. To-day it is held that it requires three or four soldiers to oust one from a strongly defensive position. With these considerations in hand, let us try and ascertain their bearing upon the later history of nomadism. The hordes of hunters and shepherds who desolated civilisation in the manner already rapidly reviewed had negative as well as positive advantages on their side. The elemental condi- tion of their life conserved initiative if it obtruded 1 Oman, The Art of War in the Middle Ages (an excellent study). Dodge has a History of the Art of War which covers the ground from classical to Napoleonic times. THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 157 ferocity, while tillage rather sapped will-power and induced passiveness of mind. Hunters and shepherds tended to remain hard as steel ; agri- culturists might become as soft as pulp, especially if the tillage were of an intensive character, did not include mixed farming, and had strictly confined limits as in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The des- potism, too, characteristic of tillage governments might reduce patriotism to the merest passive form a desperate clinging to ancient ways without any active resistance either to foreign aggressors or native tyrants. The internal history of the primary civilisations is punctuated only by palace revolutions not a single one in name of what we have come to consider the elementary rights of man. Even the struggles for liberty in ancient Greece were only on behalf of handfuls of citizens, and left untouched the pullulating mass of slaves. What resistance could be expected from men who had neither part nor lot in the political game, and for whom one tyranny might be as bad (or as good) as another ? Everything therefore conspired to favour the nomads when the prospect of plunder not only subdued all inward disunion but gave that continental cohesion which only predatoriness could inspire in such naturally incoherent and widely diffused groups. In the ancient conditions therefore the prospect of plunder could spur to action far more decisively than could the fear of loss. So 158 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY in the Old World mere handfuls of horsemen could impose their authority from Pekin to Poland over innumerable millions of peaceable peasants, while in North America before the discovery the peasant was "powerless to be born," just because of in- corrigible nomadism which had not even the horse to help its mobility. So much for the comparative psychology of the case. Another consideration of a different character is of the essence of the case. The armour of the knight was a costly business ; only the fewest number in the community could afford such martial furniture, which, in many a case, represented but the sweat and labour of the unrewarded and subject peasant. But the mail-clad knights were really useless against the nomads, who careered round them to their ultimate extinction throughout the Crusades, and never were kept back in any other quarter by these " anarchic towers of steel," as some historian has called them. In fact, within the vast lairs of nomadism every essential existed for effective martial equipment until firearms became a really effective force in warfare. All the pastoral peoples had sufficient seams of iron ore, and primitive enough smithies sufficed for the forging of swords, the heads of lances, the points of arrows, and the other smaller essentials of the nomadic military train. In other words, the tillage civilisations had no advantage whatever in the matter of THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 159 armaments, either as to efficiency in making or power of upkeep. The wastage of weapons was not great until the invention of firearms made the cost progressively ruinous. Swords, spears, and arrows not only last long enough, but may be replaced with comparative ease. But powder that is fused by the pulling of triggers is as irrecover- able as the snows of yester year, while bullets are practically as irreplaceable. As guns have in- creased in size, the initial expense has not only become greater but the life of the weapons them- selves has become shorter, and to-day Dread- noughts, built to suit the size of cannon, may be practically obsolete before they are launched. Firearms, therefore, it will be seen, helped to turn the scale in favour of the sedentary communities, whose agricultural or commercial wealth (or both combined) tended to give them a cumulative ad- vantage against the dwellers in the steppes who had not the means to manufacture powder or forge guns, and who had not the wealth to purchase war material. 1 In other words, firearms not only greatly increased the power of the civilised defence but also enabled the tillage cultures gradually to turn the tables on the nomads until they have become completely subdued throughout the world to-day. 1 The Boers never could have armed themselves as they did but for the tax upon the mines. Before that source was open to them, they had to hoard their ammunition like some Central Asiatic shepherds. 160 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY A rapid review of the historical facts of the case will make this conclusion plainer. We have seen how, in the earlier stages of history, desert conditions alone were propitious to tillage, and even these barriers did not avail in the end to keep out the barbarians, who had apparently developed military science and found practically unlimited range for their depredations in the Old World. Thus Egypt was conquered by the Hyksos, and ultimately passed completely under the yoke, though not always of more savage peoples, for Greeks, Romans, and Saracens stimu- lated the culture in many ways if the Turk and the Mameluke in the end rather debased things. Babylon was preyed upon by tigerish Assyrians, whose cruelty was avenged upon themselves by still fiercer hordes of Medes or Scythians, and at last Mesopotamia was made utterly desolate by the hoofs of Mongol horsemen. We have seen how the rise of Greece and Rome stood for the advance of culture if not without immense drawbacks ; but in the end the western half of the empire, with all its acquired science, could not withstand the intensification of the barbaric strain set up by the invasion of the Huns from Asia. But, while Rome fell Byzantium persisted, protected not only by her greater natural advantages, but, at some of the most critical moments in her history, by the mysterious " Greek fire." The Saracens cursed THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 161 that for their failures before the walls of Constan- tinople, and its effectiveness really made it the equivalent of firearms in those times. We do not know whether it was an expensive method of war- fare, but its jealously guarded secret made it a capital means of defence if of little account for offensive purposes in the field. We have seen how Europe, labouring under the blows of Gothic, Prankish, and other barbarians, suffered new agonies for centuries under the strokes of the Norse- men. The ebullition in Europe died down, not only because of exhaustion on the part of the aggres- sors, 1 but by the corrective of Saracenic science upon native tendencies in that direction, and that growth towards nationality which was the greatest work of the Middle Ages. So, though Europe outside Italy and Moorish Spain conserved much ignorance and brutality, the new wine of civilisa- tion had begun to run in its veins, and progress was bound to accrue. It is not at all certain, how- ever, that the west, becoming civilised, could have elaborated a permanent means of defence against Asiatic barbarism without some great advance in mechanical ingenuity which would give wealth a determining advantage against comparative 1 It was impossible in the nature of the case that Scandinavia (an inhospitable and sparsely peopled country naturally) could send out pirates for ever. The wastage of life at sea, in battle, and by desertion of the homeland, was bound in the end to rob the country of its strength and pugnacity. L 162 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY poverty. The Mongolian invasions that took place in every direction in the thirteenth century point cogently to such a conclusion. 1 For it is not at all clear that, after having defeated the chivalry of Europe upon the plains of Poland, the shepherds were so exhausted as to be unable to go farther west. The only clear reason why the Mongols halted was because their leaders had to return to Asia for the election of a new khan, and the struggles that began over the succession gave Europe a chance which otherwise it might not have permanently enjoyed at any rate if the whole tide of conquest had been turned in its direction instead of being diffused over nearly the whole of Asia. As it was, Russia was held in thrall for centuries, and, two hundred years after Ghenghis Khan, Tamerlane repeated (if indeed he did not surpass) the exploits of the " inflexible Emperor." It is probable that " nomadic ages " would have recurred constantly in history, as " ice ages " apparently have done in geo- logy, but for the advance in man's tool-using power expressing itself in firearms, destined to become so comparatively expensive in their maintenance. It is true that the firearm was not unknown in Tamer- 1 Old Chinese edicts forbade the supply of iron to Mongols, and the Russians forbade the use of guns by Bashkirs. The Russians also were so much alive to the need of setting a thief to catch a thief, that farming was forbidden to the friendly Cossacks so as to keep them better up to the nomadic fighting level. See Semple and Ratzel. THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 163 lane's day, but efficiency only accrued slowly, and it took time to overcome the usual military inertia. Indeed the Turks, for whatever reason, showed themselves ahead of Europe in the exploitation of the new arm, and not only captured Constanti- nople but a great deal of European territory after guns were available for the western defence. But the Christian nations subjected could neither arm themselves effectively nor quell those inward dis- sensions upon whose chronic manifestations the Turk has survived ever since he entered Europe. The repeated defeat of the Ottoman under the walls of Vienna not only shows what could have been done elsewhere, but when Prince Eugene later took the field against the Turks his victories were due in no small degree to the improvements in gun- fire which he was wise enough to make use of, but which the now decadent Turks did not adopt then, and have always been behindhand in appreciating since. Russia, the most predominantly agricultural country in Europe, with enormous resources in men and money, even if the gold is largely borrowed, served itself heir to the greatest part of what fell from the enfeebled hands of the Turk. Not only so, but Russia, the European nation held longest, most oppressively, and latest under Asiatic thrall, 1 has completely turned the tables upon her ancient 1 That is, if Turkey is to be considered a European rather than an Asiatic power. 164 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY foes. The conquest of Siberia began with the ex- pulsion of the Tatars. With the resources which accrued rapidly in Russia, the country, which occupies the geographic centre of Eurasia, began a conquest of the nomads, which has ended in their complete subjection in all their ancient haunts. Ferocity, initiative, and horsemanship no longer availed against cannon and the ubiquitous loco- motive. The civilisation of Russia, so inert and monotonous on the social and intellectual side, may be anything but attractive from the more western point of view. But we should give even the devil his due, and Russia's greater military efficiency compared with her backward social status is due entirely to her special conditions. The proximity of barbarism kept her armed to the teeth as the buffer state between Asia and western Europe, while the ancient designs of Austria, Poland, and Germany did not help to allay that aggressiveness which she holds in common with all states. The comparative lack of ethnic, class, and intellectual variety is obviously a result of the special geographical conditions the great plains favouring racial homogeneity through the lack of physical barriers to the commingling of the stocks, the preponderance of agriculture giving little middle-class leaven, and all conspiring to favour that despotism under which the country THE PASSING OF NOMADISM 165 still continues. But though Russia may be com- paratively a barbarian in Europe, it is common ground that she has proved herself a civiliser in Asia, as already noted. Anything was better than the old semi-nomadic systems, with their locust-like combinations and periodical invasions of the wealthier but helpless peoples. If the Russian system does not evolve the finest flowers of civilisation, it does not at least consist with the ancient fruits of unbridled ferocity. If the Tatar once dominated the Russian, the latter now repays the old ethnic pressure, and with a vigour which is likely to remain constant, or only to yield to a system which may lead to general elevation of the central Asiatic masses as all become better in- formed by that mental intelligence and civic amenity which it is hoped the civilisation of the future will contain in its ample folds. Unlike the mercantile powers of Europe, Russia did not advance into regions radically different from her own plains and steppes. Central Asia, if arid, is still temperate and bracing compared with the " monsoon " areas of India and China, in which Europeans tend to wilt into complete ineffectually. The Slavonic colonies, therefore, which are settling in the cultiv- able wrinkles of the Siberian plains and Turcoman oases are likely to endure. It is possible that in time they may, through the play of environment, 166 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY approximate towards the Asiatic type, 1 but it is even more likely they will dilute the nomadic temperament, which is never likely to become a menace to world-civilisation as in the highly chequered past. Thus the arrival of Europeans in North America and the advance of Russia into Asia are to be considered great landmarks in human history. And no small part of the force behind each movement lay originally in the power of gunpowder, if latterly steam also greatly aided in the work of civilisation. The locomotive is constructive, and not merely destructive like fire- arms, which have hindered as well as helped civili- sation. But in conquering the nomad, gunpowder is to be blessed rather than banned. This is an offset to the harm which it has wrought among the more civilised races themselves a subject which falls to be discussed later on. 1 Ratzel mentions such cases in Transbaikalia. In the 'sixties farmers had great difficulty in overcoming the hacienda system in California. CHAPTER VIII THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY IN the foregoing pages it has been attempted to establish : (1) That extremes of heat and cold were equally inimical to civilisation in the sense defined, in not only limiting human life but in stereotyping its activities, leaving human society utterly " savage " or " barbarous " as the case might be. Here the determinant was, as it remains, atmospheric. (2) In the temperate regions man, though a tool- using animal in all regions, could best indulge what must be considered a primordial instinct towards tillage, and rear up real civilisations upon this indispensable basis. Here, while the climate rather stimulated activity, the great arresting and disturbing force was nomadism, as already dis- cussed at length. Of course the nomad was also moulded by the climate, but the effect upon civilisation was not wrought directly by the environ- ment but by the human medium moulded by it. Now the temperate regions of the world are mainly situated in the northern hemisphere, and include an enormous development of plains both in the 167 168 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Old World and the New. It was in these plains therefore that civilisation, as based upon tillage, had its chances, which, however, were constantly marred by the inhabitants of the more arid regions, as we have seen. Civilisation therefore, if it obtained its greatest development among plain dwellers, also suffered its greatest secular depressions at the hands of other plain dwellers unsettled on the soil. In judging of the historic actions and reactions of the plain, we have therefore surveyed at once the broadest and profoundest features of civilised de- velopment. But there are other features which, though subsidiary, are worthy of separate eluci- dation in the present connection. While rivers, lakes, bogs, and lesser geographical features may influence a nation's life, the greater natural determinants are the plains, as already stated, and after them the mountains and the sea. All over the world these grand natural features continue to work out disparate results which it would take a volume adequately to disentangle, compare, and estimate. Here it is only the broad features of the case that can be dealt with, in so far as bearing upon the idea of civilisation already developed in these pages. Let us take the mountain first. At once it falls to be noted that the mountains of the planet (at least the actual ridges) are but fractional in comparison with the plains. It was THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 169 Humboldt who estimated that, if the cubical mass of the Pyrenees were spread over France it would only raise the soil about ten feet, while the Alps, if powdered over Europe, would elevate the conti- nent only about twenty-one feet. Then, again, many of the ridges rise above the line of perpetual snow even in the heart of the tropics, and generally speaking it is only the lower ranges of the hills that play any direct part in human economy. The crests may catch the rain, divert the winds, and in their cloud-and-sunshine effects engage the rapture of the tourist (generally much more im- pressionable than the native), but it is the " pied- mont " which plays the chief part in the life even of the mountaineer himself. At once therefore we see that the mountaineer, in the nature of the case, is confined to an inferior rble in history compared with the men of the plains. While man's exact " centre of origin " is still a moot point, scientists on all hands seem to assume that he was originally a creature of the plains and not of the heights. All mountains, indeed, are presumed to have been originally peopled from the plains under the double pressure of too little food and too many enemies. Which was the dominating influence we cannot say, but broadly speaking the mountaineer is the refuse of the plains, using the word, however, in no invidious sense. Because of the irregularity of these upthrows and the naturally divisive in- 170 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY fluence of hills, an ethnic variety manifests itself among the mountaineers greater far than that shown by the plain populations, who have not in their midst the same physical barriers to inter- mixture. Hence mountain ranges are often great racial warehouses, so to say. While the plains of Russia, for example, tend to remarkable uniformity of type both in physique and language, the Cau- casus mountains contain perhaps more ethnic samples than any other territory, the varieties being gathered up from Asia, Europe, and perhaps even Africa. The Alps also act as a kind of ethnical museum, though the gradual slope up from Ger- many tends to Teutonic domination, since it is a law of anthropo-geography that the gentler slopes favour intrusion on their side. There is, no doubt, a good deal of ethnic variety in the highlands of Great Britain, but it seems greater still on the plains. For, in comparison with continental ranges that gather up sweepings from every side, the British highlands were only pressed upon from the eastern plains, except in the case of the Norse- man attacking by the western seas. And the plains themselves absorbed some waves from the continent that never quite surged through the hills. But, generally speaking, ethnic diversity is greater among the hills than on the plains. Though some mountains may admit of terrace culture far up their slopes, as in Japan and China, THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 171 generally speaking they have favoured the life of the hunter or the shepherd more than the farmer. Hence the immemorial antagonism between the systems manifested itself between the mountaineer and the devoted agriculturist. But in the nature of the case the predatoriness of the mountain was petty and local compared with the brigandage of the steppes. If the mountains rose out of the steppes, as in some parts of Asia, they of course were included in the pastoral economy of the plain, for the nomad may range far up even the repellent Pamirs in search of summer pasture. There was here therefore practically no differ- entiation. It was different where the mountains abutted on agricultural domains. There the moun- taineer was constantly tempted to raid and despoil the plain dwellers, like Rob Roy in the eighteenth century and Albanians and Kurds in our day. But nearly all the mountains in the world are more or less barren, inhospitable, and, it may be, difficult of " negotiation," not only from range to range but also peak to peak or side to side. 1 Popu- lation in mountainous regions tends to be very sparse, ethnic variety very great, 2 and mass mobility at a minimum. While mountaineers 1 Many mountains are inhabited only for the sake of the minerala that are always better exposed by the bare ribs of the hills. * There were more than half a hundred little states on the slopes of Kilimanjaro in Central Africa. 172 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY therefore might long harass the dwellers of the plains immediately beneath, they have never shown themselves capable of the locust-like com- bination of the Asiatic nomads, whose range and offensive power we have seen to be unique in the history of the world and their propulsions master-clues in the interpretation of civilisation. But mountaineering predatoriness, because of the natural limits to its aggressiveness, hardly ever proved permanently intractable to the inhabitants of the plains. Brave as the mountaineers might be, loving their cantonal liberty like their life, it was very frequently an undisciplined courage and independence which they manifested, and, more often than not, they ultimately succumbed to the pressure from the plains, where resided greater numbers, with greater wealth, more cohesion, and better discipline, if also often greater mass-servility. In most cases, too, the mountains could be turned or besieged, peak by peak or valley by valley, and the inhabitants, however brave, starved into sub- mission or destroyed to the last man. It has thus happened in history that the mountaineers never were great conquerors, and, though they could defend their eyries with the bravery of disturbed eagles, if conclusions were forced between them and the plainmen, more often than not the hill- men were forced into submission. Thus, despite the sectional disturbances which he has caused in THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 173 many a country, the mountaineer has never been a world-influence in politics compared with the plain dweller. Japan is one of the most moun- tainous countries in the world, but it was the land round Tokio, forming the most extensive plains, which dominated the country from time imme- morial the " Britain of the east " having been earlier imperialised than its western counterpart. 1 The plains of China dominated the mountains rather than were daunted by them, and subjection came from the plain-men outside in the shape of Mongols and Manchus. The mountain folk of the Himalayas a and Ghats had less political in- fluence in India than Greeks, Persians, Turks, and other nomads, and the invaders from over the sea. Comparatively more influential as the Persian mountaineers may often have been owing to the particular geographical development of the country, it cannot be said that they dominated the plain so much as acted in the way of a freshening influ- 1 See hereafter as to the reasons given for the long maintenance of the independence of Scotland, which latterly was beguiled instead of forced into union. * The water that drains down the tremendous slopes of the Himalayas gets collected in immense quantities at the foot, and causes great malarial trenches of moisture, the " terai " and " bhaver " that have acted as barriers both as to ascent and descent of the mountains. The Chinese once tried to invade India through the hills, but did not repeat the performance. The lesser mountains of India have probably exercised more political influence on the plains than the greatest of world- ridges. 174 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY ence, as will be discussed generally hereafter. 1 The great blue walls of the Caucasus, perhaps the most clean-cut ridge in the world, while shelter- ing more ethnic samples than any other terri- tory, never effectively dominated either the great northerly plains or the undulating Asiatic coun- tries ; on the contrary the races (which probably had at different times been pushed pell-mell into the mountains by the victorious plain-men of widely diversified stocks), while fighting tena- ciously for their freedom with the bravery but indiscipline born of their conditions, succumbed to the agricultural forces from beneath. 2 While Russia took much longer to conquer the Caucasus region than Siberia, she holds it with as secure a grip. Mountainous Greece was conquered by less mountainous Macedonia, which enshrined ever so much more pastoralism, but had practically none of the mercantilism which was at the back of Greek republicanism. 3 The Balkans were also commanded from the plains, except as regards Montenegro, specially intricate in its development and incapable of being effectively turned facts which made the country the one independent 1 Persia was partly subject to Assyria at the height of the latter's power. 1 It is notable that the Ossetes, the only people occupying both sides of the ridge, offered the feeblest resistance to Russia, evi- dently because their position on the Dariel Pass had given them the least defensible position. (Semple, work cited.) 3 See hereafter, page 270. THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 175 Christian enclave in the once great Turkish empire. Similar conditions rendered the Asturian moun- tains impregnable strongholds against the in- vaders from the plains. They seem to have been resorted to in the conquests that preceded the Moorish invasion. Though the Berbers conquered the Iberian peninsula as the result of a single fight, and swarmed round the Pyrenees well into France, they could not outflank the Christians in the Asturias. These refugees in turn would never have prevailed against the Moors had there not remained on the Iberian plains a fund of popular Spanish energy which readily joined itself up on every occasion with Asturian aggressiveness that grew with the divisiveness and even the civilised development of the Moors, who were driven to reinforce their martial elements from the more barbarous stocks of Morocco. These worsened the social if they bettered the military position, though only temporarily. For in the end the reconsolidation of Spanish masses, forces, and states achieved the eviction of the Moors, but by no means to the real advantage of the country, as already observed. The dissensions of the Moors were in part caused by the geographical character of the peninsula, cut up into natural sections, of which the provinces are the historical reflection. No country is better fitted for autonomy than Spain, and yet none has been so painfully centra- 176 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY lised, and that by the uncalculating force of the plain against the mountain. As all the Iberian mountain systems could be outflanked more easily than the Asturian (which, significantly enough, formed the kernel of Carlism that pandered to the idea of home-rule), we have here a clue as to the expansiveness of the Moorish conquest. For it was more a colonisation than a mere military occupation, which would probably have soon rotted down as did the Gothic. It seems really to have been a mixed population that achieved the reconquest, but the seven hundred years' struggle showed what a broad ethnic basis the Moorish invasion had. Where Tarik succeeded Napoleon failed completely, just because he had only military force behind him. Though his generals could outflank the mountain ranges, he had not sufficient force to turn them all at once, and in his time there was a national self-conscious- ness causing a general coherence which seemed not to exist in Tarik's day. Thus Napoleon's soldiers were only masters of the ground they stood on, since the diffused, motley, but insuppressible Spanish insurgents returned everlastingly over the hills or through the valleys to cut the lines of communication and work all the havoc of guerillas. If the lie of the land facilitated the French advance to begin with, it also availed for popular counter attacks when the French had fully committed them- THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 177 selves towards the extremities of the peninsula. However presumptuous it may seem to say so, if Napoleon had known more of the geography of Spain he might never have attempted the conquest, while had he known more of political economy he would probably have thought twice before he instituted the "Continental system," which brought the Russian trouble on his hands before he could get rid of the Iberian. No despot ever fell between two such immense stools. Eastern and southern France is much more mountainous than the rest of the country, and at one time there was not only opposition but prac- tical separation between the peoples of the hill and the plain. When issues became effectively joined, however, once more it was the plain which got the better of the mountain, though to begin with the northerners were perhaps ruder than the southerly peoples, who were in closer touch with the fructifying civilisation of Italy. It was the northmen who stamped out the Provencal heresy by a brutal crusade which helped to make southern France unprogressive. Initiative there- after belonged more to the north,which has retained its supremacy ever since. The mountaineers of the Alps (which are the highest hills in Europe) were not conspicuous in history until hundreds of years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Up to the rise of the Swiss M 178 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Federation the mountain tribes were never strong enough completely to bar the passes or resist aggression from the plains beneath. Then, how- ever, the cantons, beginning slowly and painfully to confederate, threw off the feudal yoke of Austria pressing from the east and north and the pompous pretensions of Burgundy on the west. The bravery alone of the Swiss would probably not have sufficed to make good their independence, but they in- augurated a new military method against which the more lumbering feudal levies proved powerless. The Swiss acquired a military reputation as great in its way as that of ancient Sparta, sustained as much by the slowness of other states to readjust their methods as by any progressive initiative on the part of the mountaineers. But though the Swiss worthily maintained their liberty, the com- ponent states remained almost as jealous of each other as of the foreigner (a state of things which certainly prevented the deadening effects of cen- tralisation), and they never asserted any national hegemony over the people of the plains. They, however, hired themselves out systematically as mercenaries, and the peoples which were so jealous of their own liberties had small hesitation in rivet- ing the chains of despotism in any quarter, if only the pay were high enough. It rather seems, too, that Switzerland long maintained its inde- pendence as much through the legend of its in- THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 179 vincibility as through actual impregnability, just like the Spartans before the days of Epaminondas. At any rate, when the French revolutionary wars broke out, the mountains were overrun by more than one of the greater contestants without any great difficulty French, Austrians, and Russians campaigning through the hills with little or no consideration for the traditional independence of the cantons, which indeed were deliberately despoiled to finance the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. So that after all Switzerland does not turn out to be an exception to the political pre- ponderance of the plains against the mountains. The same holds true of the Scandinavian high- lands. Denmark and the southern shores of the Baltic (which fall to be included in Scandinavia on historical if not geological grounds) probably produced the greatest number of the sea rovers known as Norsemen and Vikings. The ancient predatory movement had seemingly behind it a federalism, however loose, comparable perhaps to that of the West Indian pirates later. When the aggressive age was past, the predatory energies were transformed into struggles for supremacy within the old territorial bounds, and in these confused antagonisms the lowland country, Den- mark, with its greater population and wealth, tended to have the better both of Sweden and Norway, while Sweden, as less mountainous and 180 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY more populous than Norway, tended to dominate the latter country, which yet has come, with most people perhaps, to represent the Viking-land par excellence. It was only the other day, indeed, that Norway cast off the last links of political suzerainty. Whether she could have made good her independ- ence if Sweden had challenged the act of disruption is at least doubtful, but the countries had the good sense to consider the matter in a peaceful light, and it may be better rather than worse for the countries that, with their distinctive rather than different geographical position, cultures, and ten- dencies, they should evolve along lines of peaceful rivalry instead of in a perpetually strained and therefore unfruitful union. Would that other revolutions could be as quietly accomplished ! * Turning next to Great Britain, the only consider- able mountain ranges are in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. The Welsh mountain system was never great or intricate enough to withstand for any length of time the pressure of the forces that com- 1 The revolution in Brazil some years ago was also a bloodless one, and was probably due to " mercantilism " as well as sur- rounding example, since the monarch was of an exceptionally mild and constitutional character. And there was almost no blood spilt when Portugal itself became transformed into a republic. There is hope that constitutional and social changes may now be achieved without the sanguinariness of former times. Though the conversion of China into a republic must involve far- reaching results, it may be said to have been accomplished with little bloodshed compared with the Taiping rebellion where the reforming spirit was even less advanced. " E pur si muove." THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 181 manded the plains, and the fiercely-battling tribes ultimately had to own the English sway, though they conserved their language and traditions, and, like the Irish and numberless other races, instinc- tively maintained antagonisms to the predominant power, wherever these remained open, in religion, politics, or any other matter. The Irish moun- tains, from the point of view of historical geography, are notable for their lack of regularity, forming no great main range, but being scattered in rather confused clumps through the various provinces. They could therefore all be easily turned from the plains, and that is a reason probably why they were of so comparatively little service in the wars of independence, the bogs probably bulking as a greater factor still. In any case, the Irish were really conquered, unlike the Scotch, not, probably, because they were one whit less brave or patriotic, but solely because the geographical conditions did not hamper the enemy to the same extent as in North Britain. In Scotland, despite the very considerable de- velopment of the Grampian and other highland hills, the clans, though they could depredate, could never, because of their lack of cohesion and other drawbacks outlined regarding mountaineers, prevail in any sustained conflict with the lowlanders. The power that commanded the fertile country between Forth and Clyde and in Fife and the 182 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY north-east country thus tended to hold the clans- men completely in check. On the other hand, the transverse Cheviot range, the flanking moors, and the hills of Galloway were always a very serious obstacle to the advance of the English in Scotland, and probably formed one of the determining factors in the maintenance of Scottish independ- ence, so often menaced but never totally destroyed. Though the English frequently forced the border barrier, they had difficulty in supporting themselves in the lowlands, which might have been syste- matically stripped of all supplies, 1 while the further mountain barriers might still remain to be forced, not only in the teeth of direct opposition, but with invincible if lurking hostility in the lowland rear, which might cut the line of communication having its essential base in England. The maintenance of Scottish independence therefore was not a case of the power of the mountain against the plain, but was due to an interaction of the forces of hill and plain in Scotland itself against the more massive but never finally effective force of England, 1 The Portuguese seem to have resorted to similar methods against the Spaniards long before Wellington's campaign in the peninsula, when the French were frustrated in what seems really to have been a time-honoured method. (See Oman's Peninsular War.) While the Scotch could repair their own systematic waste by raids into England at every opportunity, it is evident the Irish, shut in by the sea, could not have recourse to such tactics. They would only have starved themselves in wasting their country. THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 183 which yet, three times out of four, had the ad- vantage in the mere military operations character- istic of the struggle. The distractions of England in France, too, were not without their effect in influencing the long-contested issue, and direct French help to Scotland cannot be discounted even if it was less effective than the intervention of Lafayette in the war with the American colonies. When the politics of the Scotch lowlands were practically in line with those of England, the highland barrier had no permanent power against the combined force of the lowland men. Mon- trose's flashy victories were of no more use to Charles I than were the gallant victories of the Pretender against the indifference or hostility of lowland Scotland, and the still more massive antagonism of practically the whole of England. In the light of these observations, and by the analogy of nearly all history, the Stuarts were foredoomed to failure in so far as, in a struggle that involved antagonism between the mountain and the plain, they placed their reliance upon high- landers rather than lowlanders. Unsuccessful as they were, however (and probably deserved to be), the hapless dynasty left in British history the last of its internal military romances. After the dis- appearance of the Stuarts warfare ceased to be civil, and became continental and world-wide. Coming last of all to America, it is notable, as 184 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY already indicated, that the mountains of the New World played practically a reverse role from those in the Old. Enough has already been said to show how and why tillage developed in the mountains of Mexico and Peru. The Cordilleras were the only asylums for the civilisation based upon intensive cultivation of the soil. In America it was the mountaineer who was cultured and ^the plain dweller who remained savage. It was the moun- taineer also who was the conqueror rather than the conquered as in the Old World. It is true there were few plain dwellers to conquer either in Mexico or Peru, but the crusades against the savagery or recalcitrance of the lower grounds seem generally to have been successful. Thus, though the role is reversed in America, the moral is identical that greater numbers and wealth could prevail against predatoriness in every form but that of the continental nomads. From what has been said, the place of the moun- taineer in history should now be clear. The great fertile plains of the world, except in America, developed tillage as against pasturage if with the infinite distractions insisted on. The moun- taineers would naturally tend to predatoriness against the dwellers in the plain, but for the reasons outlined were seldom able to maintain their posi- tion when issues were effectually joined. For the mountains, if conducive to greater virility, THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 185 could not sustain a quantitative human life that could permanently resist the pressure from be- neath, which might completely lap the ranges in its folds and outflank the mountaineers on every side. Thus, though the pastoralism of the moun- tains might modify in endless local detail the civilisations essentially based upon tillage, it had no power to transform it in mass like the irruptions of the Asiatic nomads already discussed, which have here been represented as master-clues in world-history without which doors must remain permanently closed and whole avenues of thought utterly obscured. We do not know whether it was drought rather than sheer desire that urged on the hosts from the central Asiatic plains, but they came forth with a range and power almost equal to those atmospheric propulsions of which inner Asia is also the theatre, and which cause the winter monsoons of the continent that propel the mariner southward in every quarter of the Indian Ocean. The role of the nomad in his apparently uncontrollable outbursts on imperial, or rather continental, scales, is seen to be essentially that of a destroyer, in which tillage cultures from China to Egypt and France suffered incalculable frustration and depression, though through the slowly acquired development of the defensive expressing itself in greater efficiency in firearms, population, and wealth, the irruptions have in all 186 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY likelihood not only been permanently checkmated but the invasions effectively inverted upon the barbarians. Though the mountaineer may often, on a small scale, have played the part that the nomad did on a continental, he was in the nature of the case not only far less harmful, but was a positive benefit often as a differentiating and fructifying factor in the civilisation in which he might be included. The lowlander had need of the produce of the mountains and the highlander of the comforts from the plains. 1 So the ineradic- able instinct of trade perpetually tended to frus- trate the antagonism set up by the different modes of life, and the cross-fertilisation of types and cultures, upon which progress so intimately de- 1 Though all the mountains must originally have been peopled from the plains, the lack of expansibility in the hills and the greater economic possibilities of the plains always tended to an emigration from the heights which, while robbing the mountain of its fighting material, endowed the lowland ranks in appreciable if not equal degree. Scotch highlanders came to be among the pick of the British army, although the larger pay now tempts relatively greater numbers to be policemen than soldiers. The Gurkhas are considered to be the best native soldiers in India. It may be said in passing that when, in the Middle Ages, mer- cenaries often confronted each other, they might sometimes coalesce or, according to Guicciardini, do very little harm to each other a battle being deemed " great " although it might not cost a hundred lives. At other times the engagements were bloody enough. The mercenaries might retain strong memories of their mountain homes. The French forbade under the penalty of death the playing of the Ram des vaches in the hearing of their Swiss for fear of desertion. In Canada the playing of " Lochaber no more " by the pipers had also to be interdicted. THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 187 pends, had always room for greater play in a country geographically diversified. The lowlander may temper any impulsiveness of the mountaineer, while the highlander may add " vim " to the ten- acity of the dweller in the plain. And so a mixed race of constantly commingling temperaments may evolve a highly virile and progressive people. Such a race is to be found in France, in its way the most highly diversified country in Europe, with the brightest culture on the continent and with a progressive activity that makes and keeps her at the very front of civilisation. There can be no greater contrast, geographically and cultur- ally, than between France in the west of Europe and Russia in the east. The civilisation of Russia, massive and monotonous as the steppes, might almost be said to be a reflection of the physical uniformity of her plains. More mountains in Russia might make all the difference to the politics and culture of the east, and what Russia lost in massiveness would perhaps be more than made up in keenness and mobility. But of course moun- tains cannot be dumped down at will to prevent ponderosity, and give quickening to culture. Russia must depend upon extra-geographical means l for the stimulus which she may require to 1 These exist in abundance in America (which has also an enormous development of plains), in the shape of greater racial and social diversity and cultures, and a highly developed educa- tional system with no frenzy for uniformity hi religious belief or 188 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY that constant progress in which civilisation is now held to consist. Scotland may be quoted as another telling instance of success and progress coinciding with, if not being actually caused by, geographical diversity. Englishmen admit (in the act of complaining) that Scotsmen rule, not only England, but the whole British empire and large slices of the rest of the planet. And Scotland, " land of the mountain and the flood," is an intimate mixture of highland and lowland races, systems, tendencies, and influences, and the peoples, under the play of centuries of popular education which seems to have got into the very blood of the population, certainly yield to none in intelligence, initiative, and general fitness not only for civilisation but leadership in commerce as well as in culture. Heinrich von Treitschke, echoing a point of Buckle, ascribes the lack of artistry among the Swiss mountaineers compared with Germans inhabiting only moderately sized hills, to the overwhelming aspect of nature which tends to paralyse the mind as in Hindustan. This, however, is very doubtful. For the Japanese who live in the most mountainous conditions (to say nothing of the daily earthquakes), are perhaps on the whole the most artistic of nations, and their language. There can be no greater contrast than that between the alert American farmer making the level prairie clatter with his activity, and the shiftless Russian mujik whom Tolstoy paints to the life. THE HIGHLANDER IN HISTORY 189 great volcanic cone, Fusiyama, so far from over- whelming their art, is their greatest cultural in- spiration. While generally the mountaineer may not manifest any great culture in situ, it is probably the case that the highlander (who is constantly descending permanently to the lowlands while the lowlander only mounts upward on holiday) may, by his psychic freshness, if not keenness, stimulate the genius of the plain. In other words, he may be an essential variant in the intellectual process, making and keeping diversified countries in the forefront of progress. So that the moun- taineer may really be a clarifier of culture. CHAPTER IX THE SEA IN CIVILISATION THE conclusion just stated may also be urged regarding the sea in civilisation, so far at least as it enters as an evocative factor in the case. There is really only one ocean on the planet, although the ap- proach of the continents gives it a sectional appear- ance, and makes distinguishing names a necessity. This really imperial ocean not only occupies a far greater superficial area than the world ridges, but its waters, through the medium of the sun and atmosphere, supply the moisture necessary to the vegetable and animal life upon which man's activity ultimately depends relative abundance or scarcity of rainfall having always had, as already emphasized, the profoundest bearings on human life and character. The peremptory con- sideration applicable to the mountaineer is equally true of the human life directly differentiated by the sea it must always be but fractional compared with that of the hinterlands. Vast as is the de- velopment of the world's coast -lines, after all they are but the merest fringe upon an almost incal- culably greater mass, for of course the soil im- 190 THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 191 mediately inland from the shore will make the impression rather than the ocean itself. And it is the specific differentiation only with which we are now concerned in its broader aspects. It is common scientific ground that, during the human period, there has been no geological re- distribution to any substantial extent of the dry- lands of the planet. The present disposition of the continents, with their respective festoons of islands, is therefore assumed to be prehuman. If, as is generally conceded, man radiated from one original centre, he may have peopled the Old World without entering the water. But unless he swam the Behring Straits, which is wholly improbable, he could not have made his way into America without a boat of some kind. 1 This expression, therefore, of man's tool-using faculty must have been of capital importance not only in populating one or other of the greater world ridges, but in invading the sub-continent of Australia and in peopling all the islands of the sea. 3 The sea's absolute power of separation was thus overcome at a very early stage in human existence, but it reasserted its isolating influence with tremendous 1 The ice, of course, may have formed a bridge at some time between the two continents. 1 Of course it is probable that man may have originated in an island like Java, the home of " pithecanthropus erectus," but then the observations in the text will apply with all the greater force. 192 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY force. Thus the Old and New Worlds lost conscious- ness of each others' existence, if indeed it can be said ever to have awakened properly ; not only so, but when the Norsemen apparently rediscovered America the fact was immediately lost sight of ; Greenland itself sank completely beyond the horizon of history, and Iceland was so utterly overlooked even in the beginning of the nineteenth century that the great Congress of Vienna, which rearranged the map of Europe, quite omitted to deal with this frigid morsel, which yet was the only home of poesy in mediaeval Europe. The Guanches who inhabited the Canaries, when discovered by the Spaniards had completely lost the art of boat-building in virtue of which they must have at first found the archipelago and peopled it. They were prisoners upon their respective islands, alleging that the god who had brought them there had deserted them. This is a singular, unaccountable lapse, especially contrasted with the case of the Pacific islanders, who scouted to even more enor- mous distances than the Vikings. Even the Australian black-fellows retained a certain com- mand over the sea, although they did not seek out the East Indian Islands, while the adventurous Malay races seem to have been repelled rather than attracted by the island continent, whose most arid front is turned towards Asia. The coast-line within the frigid zone shares in THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 193 the general inhibition of these regions from the cultural point of view. But it falls to be noted that, but for the sea, these regions would be much more sparsely populated than they actually are. While fur-bearing land animals tempt the lonely hunter into the farthest Arctic wilds, and a few reindeer tribes are supported by the thinly diffused moss and lichen, the sea gives sustenance in even greater degree, and the disposition is closely to hug the coast. Greenland is uninhabited except on its south-west verges, while the north-west passages are almost wildernesses in their whole breadth until the more open seas of Alaska again give ampler chances to human activity. Northern Siberia is under pretty much the same duress as North America the native populations tending to concentrate seawards in the neighbourhood of the great but sluggish rivers open for navigation only in the short Arctic summer and doomed to eternal swampiness because the water from the melting sources cannot be drained off by the still frost-bound exits. Such differentiation as there is is oceanic l rather than continental. If the Lapp is largely continental, the Finlander is less so, having been moulded not only by his innumerable lakes but also by their intimate connection with the Baltic. The late W. T. Stead, though a steady 1 At least taking into account the riverain aspects which blend with the sea. N 194 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY enough champion of Russia, reprobated the attempt to foist away the liberties of the Grand Duchy, and he not inaptly called Finland " the Scotland of Russia " in reference to the adventurousness, hardy intelligence, and comparatively high educa- tion of the natives. Here, without a doubt, the sea, with its inseparable lakes, has been a strong differentiating force, not inhibiting culture as in the other regions already discussed, but (segre- gating the communities to enable variety to have play, but not dividing them to prevent mobility or promote pugnacity) stimulating a native civilisation quite remarkable in its kind. The Finns have not only a greater literary past than their Slavonic masters, but an outlook upon the world far more progressive than the great but sluggish agricultural races of Russia, whose rulers have been searching in vain for an ice-free port upon the ocean. The aim, however, is not so much to purify the immense doughy mass within as to secure additional leverage for political aggrandise- ment without, for the abiding motive is to add, however uncalculatingly, to the heap rather than purify it. It will be a thousand pities if the pens of bureaucrats and the bayonets of mujiks should stamp out a coastal differentiation whose free preser- vation would benefit Russia more than its blight. Nowhere has the sea made a more marked his- torical impression than on the Scandinavian races, THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 195 but before taking account of the more positive instances, it may be well summarily to dispose of the more purely negative aspects of the case. Africa perhaps is the continent which has been least moulded by maritime influences, excluding at least its Mediterranean frontage. This is due to its essentially " massive " character. For the most part the great tablelands begin on the surf- beaten shore, and the harbours therefore are very few. Aridity, too, tends to spoil sites that might otherwise be favourable, as at Walvisch Bay. Even in central Africa, where the land slopes more gently from the shore and rivers run more quietly into the sea, the maritime impression is but slight. Pestilence has lain like a pall over these districts for ages, and the bars at the mouths of the rivers, and waterfalls higher up the streams, have made the continent the least penetrable from the ocean. While the rivers have moulded the native life and developed a notable enough boatmanship, the sea has availed but little for alimentation, and has proved an enemy rather than a friend. English and Dutch, the pick of the maritime nations, have been converted into complete landsmen in South Africa. For black Africa the ocean remains " The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea." Pretty much the same thing applied to the native races of India, whose distaste for the sea was due not only to the special attractiveness of the land, 196 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY but also to the fact that the peninsula is rock- bound and surf -beaten almost right round the coast. Brahminism went the length of laying a religious curse upon the ocean, and India's maritime ex- ploitation was almost wholly from the outside. Portuguese succeeded to Arabs and Malays, and French and English to these intruders, until to-day the ports (still too few) have become internationally free, and the feeble enough Lascar, whose religion laid no ban on crossing the sea, has been dragged out into the economy of the ocean. Australia, from the present point of view, may be described as an " Africa in little," its aridity and massiveness repelling not only the mobile Malayan races, but stamping the greatest of in- hibitions on the native character. Since the settlement by the whites, however, the arid char- acter of the interior has tended to fix popula- tion along the better watered coasts, and, though tillage and pasturage have combined harmoniously enough, the civilisation does not lack a maritime stamp due to a not uninviting oceanic outlook and the existence of some excellent harbours and marine stations. 1 1 Of course the circumstances of the settlement prevented any natural antagonism between tillage and pastoralism coming to a head in Australia. The dualism, however, has been noticeable even if masked, while the bushranger showed the potentiality of a system which happily civilisation made impossible in the long run. THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 197 As the remaining cases in the Old World, excepting the larger East India islands, become more positive in their characters, it may be well here to inter- calate the case of pre-Columbian America. Neither the climate nor configuration of the southern con- tinent was favourable to maritime development. In the extreme south the sea afforded some nourish- ment to the miserable natives, but on the whole west coast, as we have already seen, the sea re- pelled rather than attracted, and the extraordinary Andean civilisation was land-bound almost in the extreme. Eastward such human development as the humidity allowed was mainly riverain through- out systems unparalleled for their volume and navigability. The natives of the Amazon may never penetrate the jungle laterally more than a few hundred yards, but they voyage for thousands of miles along the rivers, and show amazing know- ledge of currents, backwashes, and all the vagaries of the stream. It was in the West Indies, naturally, that the sea had made its greatest impression upon native civilisation. If anything, it tended to ele- vate the Carib races perhaps compared with the natives of the continental regions. But as to that we know but little, since the first fury of the Spaniards fell upon the islanders, specially helpless in their penetrable islands, and an almost clean ethnic sweep was made by the vile Spanish broom. Western North America suffers from the same 198 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY general inhibition as the Andean slopes the sea repelling rather than attracting, as it still largely does in modern times. Though the Gulf of Mexico was dowered with one of the finest navigable rivers in the world, no influence from the sea could avail against that nomadism which was " almighty " in America until displaced by the dollar. The Atlantic states, with their numerous harbours and tidewater rivers leading to the Appalachian highlands, the magnificent Hudson and still more majestic St. Lawrence (which to-day lands ocean- going steamers at Chicago) were equally bedevilled from the land. The Indians of the fishy estuaries seem to have been more peaceable in disposition than the backwoodsmen and prairie tribes, and to that extent the maritime differentiation may be considered a variation that leaned to the civilised side. But any such influences were completely damped down by the continental nomadism which indeed made use of the incomparable water- ways to tighten its hold upon the land. The terrible and incorrigible Iroquois l owed their predominance to their commanding position in relation to the northern rivers and lakes. The sea therefore only became broadly operative in 1 According to Parkman, the Iroquois, who were probably the most terrible of warriors, cultivated maize to a greater extent than some more peaceful tribes, but so little fixing power had the practice that its pursuit served only to augment the strength of the nation without robbing it of its ferocity. THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 199 American history after the discovery, when it had already for the most part definitely shaped the destiny of the nations. Let us now turn to the evocative compared with the neutral or repressive aspects of the case, but still following a geographical rather than a chronological clue. We shall begin with the Antipodes, and work north and west to Europe, where the most intense historical effects have been wrought. New Zealand is much more " lost " in the ocean than Australia. But its temperate character and generally favourable coast-lines gave a more pro- nounced maritime stamp to its native races. Such civilisation as they attained may indeed have been largely shaped by the mobile influences of the ocean. There is no doubt at least as to that regarding the Pacific islanders, from whom the Maoris are thought to have derived. Numerous as the vol- canic islands, atolls, and coral reefs look upon the map, their extent is almost inconceivably small compared with the ocean in which they are set an area of only 515,000 square miles out of a total of 25,000,000 square miles. We know as much (or as little) of the origin of the Pacific islanders as of any other race. If they had not different " centres of origin," they must have been moulded disparately by their enormous habitat, since the 200 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY races differ markedly as between extremes. As the great plain of Russia, however, seems to have impressed a certain ethnic uniformity in the midst of difference, so has the great watery plain of the Pacific. The islands lie within the zone of tropical calms or trade-wind belts north and south of the equator. For the most part, therefore, they are really pacific seas, whose glassy swells break in resounding surf and tempt the almost amphibious natives " On from island unto island At the gateways of the day." With no knowledge of metals and little or no chance of hitting upon their use, the Pacific islanders yet manifested a tool -using faculty that practically ex- hausted all the possibilities of the case. Naturally they excelled in seamanship, and showed a won- derful knowledge of practical astronomy in their navigation. Of all human beings, indeed, the Poly- nesian was least of the earth, earthy. He was as much a creature of the sea as Aphrodite, even if his characteristic was a similar sensuousness. 1 For the earthly paradises of the Pacific were not free from the temptations of the primitive Eden, and their seductiveness may be fatal to others than the natives, as the history of " beachcombers" shows. The sea, therefore, while it stimulated 1 Letourneau, La Peychologie Ethnique. THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 201 civilisation up to a certain point, also debauched it as much as did the tillage of landlocked Babylon. Japan is one of the most mountainous countries in the world, only the merest fraction of the vol- canic soil being cultivable at the hands of one of the most frugal and industrious of races. No country would have been more propitious for the operations of the predatory mountaineer, but there were no animals to hunt or herd. It turns out that the native bamboo grasses are fatal to the sheep which it has been in vain sought to accli- matise on the pastures. As the islands, however, abound in harbours and shelters and the seas in fish, a pelagic diet was always called in to supple- ment the comparative niggardliness of the soil, just as we shall find in Norway. Current-strewn and typhoon-swept seas demanded daring of the highest type, and induced a corresponding virility and initiative. When Japan, in the seventeenth century, determined to keep herself unspotted from the world and called in her shipping from the high seas, fishing not only survived but was per- haps stimulated as absorbing the displaced labour. In any event the maritime habit continued, if unpretentiously, and kept embroidered on to the civilisation all the bracing influences which oceanic activities imply. The effect was seen immediately when Japan renounced her seclusion as emphati- cally as she had entered upon it. The fishermen 202 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY formed the nucleus, not only of the new mercan- tile marine, but also of the still more formidable navy, which engaged single-handed and utterly defeated the fleet of Russia, whose navy was as full of f actitiousness as that of Japan was equipped with natural fighting force. 1 If civilisation consists largely in variety of industry and the intellectual influences which may flow from social diversity, then Japanese culture must continue to have all the force which a superb oceanic position can yield. Japan, however, illustrates another aspect of the case. If the sea informed her soul even in the period of national monasticism, it did not cease to have maleficent influences upon her life and upon civilisation in general, judging culture by the mete- wand of peace and honest commerce. In a word, piracy has always been immanent in the maritime habit, and is but the oceanic counterpart of land- ward predatoriness, whether of Mongol, moun- taineer, feudal baron of the Rhine, or Dick Turpin of the English highway. The Japanese were always more or less pirates, tempted to evil if heroic ways exactly like the ancient Vikings. Doubtless the lives and exploits of pirates and highwaymen are romantic beyond all whooping, but unless the stan- dard of civilisation held constantly aloft in these 1 The naval expedition of Kublai Khan might also have been defeated by "piscine patriotism " had the fleet not been destroyed by storms like the Spanish Armada. THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 203 pages is utterly false, there can be nothing but reprobation for the predatoriness of the sea as well as of the land. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and, while we may try historically to comprehend the plunderer, we cannot excuse him, be he heathen Japanese or Viking, Catho- lic conquistadore or piratical French Huguenot or English Protestant, for the divagations have affected all races and religions. Opportunity makes the thief always, and he was a curse in the Pacific as well as the Atlantic until steam induced honesty, however reluctantly. It is only " international piracy " with which we have now to contend the spoliation of one civilised race by another. Whether we shall ever get rid of that remains to be seen. In dealing with China it must again be remem- bered that we have to do not so much with a country as a sub-continent, and one of the most densely populated on earth. Though fishing was engaged in on the Chinese coasts, the greater fertility of the soil compared with Japan, the immensely greater mass of the civilisation, and the loneliness of the Pacific outlook yielded but a feeble oceanic impression on the positive side. Indeed the hopelessness of the maritime horizons may have played a part in Chinese " stagnation," since Japan borrowed more than she lent, and was generally as pugnacious towards China as England with France. The sea therefore braced 204 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Chinese civilisation almost as little as Hindu, causing it to be preyed upon from the shores when it had absorbed the predatoriness from the plains. What energy was displayed was mainly maleficent in instituting " piracy without even patriotism,'* as it has been put. The oceanic era of China is still to come, but doubtless the country will labour forward to that vast conclusion. The Malays, happily favoured by their situation, were as mobile as the Hindus and Chinese were seclusive or lumbering. In the golden age of Islam they were the carriers of commerce and ideas throughout the spicy east, improving culture in their kind even if their system was marred by the inevitable piracy. For they ran amok at sea as well as on land. Arabia is built on the same massive lines as Africa, and has as few natural harbours as India. But, unlike Hindustan, the repellent character of the land makes the sea comparatively attrac- tive, while its arms in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea gave a protection which the open Indian Ocean lacked. Pearls and other spoils of the deep lured on to the ocean, and the Arab became the intermediary between Africa and India, wafted hither and thither by the monsoons, as the Malay was the merchantman of the farther east. Mari- time influences therefore leavened Arabian society long before Mohammed's day, and without doubt THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 205 played their part in the Saracenic efflorescence, which became so superb in many of its aspects. There is a strong smell of the ocean in the Arabian Nights, and the Old Man of the Sea is an immortal conception of Saracenic fancy. The ocean there- fore had its constructive influence in the heart of Islam, even if piracy also thwarted the fructifying power of trade. An Arab dhow freighted with African slaves is one of the most hideous of com- mercial conceptions, if not more so than erstwhile Christian complicity in the horrors of the " Middle Passage." We now come to the consideration of the Medi- terranean set on the limits of the three Old-world continents, and the everlasting witness of their concentrated attractions and repulsions. It is not only the greatest of inland seas but the greatest sea of history, and, though commercial supremacy has passed into the oceans, the cultural primacy must remain. Historically all roads must still lead to Rome, if thence into Greece, Babylon, and Egypt. The Egyptians were an intensely riverain, but not a seafaring people. The suggestion has been made that the sour swamps, barren sand-dunes, and pestilential marshes on the seaward side of the Nile delta prevented the population from taking the short step from river to marine navigation. 1 1 Semple, work cited. 206 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Doubtless these things had their influence, but the explanation is hardly sufficient. The Tigris - Euphrates system had a sweeter oceanic exit, but the " Mesopotamians " remained as much land- lubbers as the ancient Egyptians. Less stress should therefore perhaps be laid upon the repulsive- ness of the shore than the special attraction of the hinterland, and the difficulty of a community in diverting its energies into less profitable channels. The countries to be reached across the Mediter- ranean held little that the Egyptians coveted. The wood needed for boats and the spices for embalming, &c., could all be got by land transit or a minimum of navigation in the Mediterranean and Red Sea at the hands of other peoples already specialising as carriers. Egypt's passivity there- fore is in terms of the lack of an inward compulsitor concurring with an outward attraction, and is on all fours with Babylon, Hindustan, and even Persia, whose maritime history is also a case of " Snakes in Iceland." The country which reared pyramids could have built ships, even as did treeless Holland later. Egypt actually started imperialising in Ethiopia and Asia, wasting foot-pounds of energy greater than were required for the building and equipment of galleys. Probably an even slightly factitious development might have added a profit- able variation to the lumbering Egyptian system, and have given it grace and mobility as the all- THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 207 embracing sea did Athens. It might also have strengthened the country politically, though since Phoenicia, Greece, and Carthage all went down despite their sailors, it is not in the least likely that Egypt could have survived. Nature made and kept it the creature of the Nile. The primary civilisations, though flourishing on great rivers within hail of the sea, are among the least oceanic of cultures. That probably is one good reason why they are grandiose rather than graceful. Syria forms the western boulevard of the qua- drangular Arabian peninsula. From Port Said to Jaffa the sea describes one of the most perfect geographical arcs, but the shore is utterly stale, flat, and unprofitable. The country of the ancient Philistines lay in the neighbourhood of the modern Jaffa, and thus blocked out the Jews from the sea. That may have been a reason for the special sanguinariness of the conflicts between the Philis- tines (who seem to have been mariners) and the chosen people, who may have been instinctively searching for the sea, like Russia in modern times. The Jews, however, failed effectively to reach the shores of the Mediterranean. Josephus says of his countrymen that, not living on the sea but on sterile lands, they are little addicted to commerce, and devote themselves rather to the rearing of children. Philoprogenitiveness has not ceased to be a national industry, with commerce, however, 208 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY superimposed upon it to the fullest extent. But although much of the world's shipping has been constantly floating on Jewish finance, the Jews themselves have never been a maritime people. Jewish sailors are even more rare than Hebrew peasants. 1 It was near neighbours of the Jews, however, who became the greatest mariners of antiquity. It is asserted that the Phoenicians may have mi- grated from the Persian Gulf and gone landwards to the Mediterranean. But it was on the Syrian coast they developed their striking genius for trade. If Syria was not suited as a centre of empire, it was well adapted for commerce, at least in the ancient disposition of the political forces. It was shown later that Egypt at the mouth of the river was better fitted for a natural entrepot at a point closely joining the waters of Europe and Asia. Consequently, when Alexandria sprang into being, it captured the trade of Phoenicia, and would probably have done so apart from the conquest 1 From the present point of view it is not inappropriate to observe that the Jews who emerged from the wilderness beyond Jordan were as predatory as any people who ever existed, how- ever august might be the auspices which impelled and guided them. They fastened on the agriculturists of Palestine with a ferocity which the Scriptures, so far from disguising, rather glory in, the authors indeed only regretting the occasional clemency of the political conduct. It is the bare historical truth indeed to say that the Jews, judged by their own documents, were also " Mongols in miniature," but lacking the religious toleration that characterised the Asiatic khans (see page 243). THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 209 of the Syrian towns. For it really held a better geographical position, and it was only the cir- cumstances already glanced at which prevented ancient Egypt having one of the greatest of Medi- terranean ports. And so it was on the less well- situated Syrian seaboard that the great trading towns and commercial centres appeared. Probably the evolution was from mere fishing villages into great towns, as in the case of Venice and the Dutch cities later. At any rate Sidon, Tyre, and other places rose to eminence in the ancient world as commanding the immense Asiatic hinterland, and bringing it into relation with the dim, mysterious countries of the west that bordered the great in- land sea. When we think how natural is the tendency to trade, and that it has been developing step by step with every advance in culture, though ever being frustrated by political turmoils, there is nothing really surprising in the apparition of a maritime civilisation like Phoenicia, which was simply the oceanic counterpart of the continental trading activities of which Babylon was then the centre. The rise of Phoenicia was the response to as real an economic need as the appearance of the German mercantile marine to-day, and the resurrection of the Japanese. The Phoenicians were in all likelihood comparatively few in numbers, like the Parsees in India, but they lodged themselves as solidly on the Syrian coast as the fire-worshippers 210 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY on the Hindu seaboard, and perhaps were rather the exploiters of the older populations than a homogeneous nation. At any rate, although their country was but a long narrow strip of seaboard, the towns were politically divided, and sometimes actually quarrelled, though generally speaking they seem to have had working agreements and a sort of " clearing house " in the town of Tripoli of Syria. The Phoenicians were the first great navigators of whom we have a record. They sailed to Britain for tin, and to the Baltic for its amber. They not only traded down the Red Sea and far east in India, but it is even believed the Carthaginian colonists at one time circum- navigated Africa under the auspices of an Egyptian king, as Columbus voyaged to America under the patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella. But the Phoenicians were not only great navigators and middlemen they excelled also in industry, being especially famous for their glass and their purple dyes, of which they had practically a monopoly, apparently more through the skill of their work- manship than superiority in the raw material. Homer somewhere speaks about the Phoenicians as " bringing upon their black ships a thousand frivolous things." From which it may be inferred that a large part of Phoenician trade, like that in Africa to-day, consisted in bartering useful raw materials of industry against beads and other THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 211 gewgaws that captivated the taste of the bar- barians. Peaceful as Phoenician trade probably was in the main, the merchants could evidently indulge in piracy when it suited their purposes, and could plunder and enslave like the Arabs in our day. Not only so, but they seem to have exploited the gold and silver of the Iberian peninsula with as little regard for the human material as the Spaniards themselves in later ages in America. Cortez and Pizarro avenged their ancestors by proxy. But undoubtedly the Phoenicians did much for civi- lisation, giving enlarged expression to the tool- using power of man. If they did not invent the alphabet, they at any rate seem to have improved upon it, and carried ideas into all the backwoods of Europe. And it was the sea which provoked and rewarded their ingenuity, inspiring their culture throughout, and, it would seem, charging it with a voluptuousness of the Polynesian type not unknown, unfortunately, in all the great ports to-day. The Phoenicians, being perhaps not so much a people or a nation as a highly specialised maritime caste, with counting-houses at all strategical trade routes of the ancient World, disappeared completely when their country was confiscated, and their functions destroyed or usurped by other peoples. Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Persians may have had their lineage disturbed and confused, but their links 212 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY with the past are still legible. Not so with the Phoenicians, who, without a country or such a nucleating religion as the Jews, have lapsed back completely into the ocean of humanity. Ex hypothesi, there must have been a lull in the nomadism of Eurasia to allow the Greeks of history to develop as they did. Whether such respites were due to greater moisture in the Asiatic grass- lands or greater intestinal discord we do not know. But at any rate such lulls did manifest themselves since, after the invasion of the Huns under Attila, there were only minor ones, until the tremendous outburst under Ghenghis Khan. At any rate Greeks of a highly mixed stock not only resumed cultural ways in a land civilised before their advent, but gave their system matchless historical expres- sion. And it lies upon the very face of the case that the sea was of capital account in the shap- ing of their manifold civilisation. Sparta, in its ** hollow vale," was one of the richest agricultural tracts in the whole country, and its life therefore maintained a landward stamp. On the other hand, Athens had a comparatively poor soil, and so the sea called her more than the land, with results that are written broad and deep in ancient history. It is perhaps not too much to say that the sea not only differentiated the politics of the great Greek protagonists but made Athens intellectu- ally agile while leaving Sparta landlocked in culture THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 218 as in geographical fact. But Greece as a whole, in her matchless maritime position, remained " ser- vile to all the skyey influences " ; and there is no doubt that the grace and mobility of the civilisation were in large part due to the power of the sea, not sternly hostile and uninviting as in India, but gently ramifying in a thousand ways as nowhere else in the world. The sea helped to make ancient Greece, and may largely remake the modern race, for the constructive force of the ocean has been in abeyance, not destroyed. More could be said about the sea in relation to Hellenic civilisation than in any other ancient instance, but just because it is so much more obvious, the case may be left as summarily suggested now. Carthage was a Phoenician colony, but with more tillage force behind it and no less commercial enterprise than the mother country. To a greater extent than Greece it depended upon abject slave- labour, and, not being cut up within itself by mountains or arms of the sea as in Greece, its political soil was not invaded by that relative freedom which was as the breath of life in Greek culture and so largely an endowment of the ocean. Carthage, devoted body and soul to gain, thus reaped little or nothing culturally from its mari- time position. It was mercantilism incarnate apparently, hardly sparing an ounce of its energy to art. But of course it never had any peace or 214 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY leisure wherein buds of culture could ripen into fruit. Though Rome began as a land power, the re- public was able to draw upon much technical maritime skill in the Mediterranean, which enabled it soon to triumph over the Carthaginian mercenaries on sea. But though the Mediterranean made its mark on Roman civilisation, preoccupation with the work of conquest round all the borders of the inland sea caused the maritime impression to continue to work locally rather than imperially. The fall of Rome led to a resurgence of piracy, which, however, had always been latent in the Mediterranean, requiring a strong force to sweep it clean, as in the days of Pompey. 1 The sea played its part, not only in the Saracenic efflorescence but also in the Italian renaissance. Though the inland republic of Florence became the Athens of Italy, also because of relatively free political and social conditions, the Tuscan city attempted maritime expansion, if by the senseless conquest of outports, while Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and other towns not only had their fortunes built up by the sea but imperishable art educed in the midst of 1 Pompey appears to have succeeded as much by diplomacy as by actual force (Ferrero, The Oreatnesa and Decline of Rome), and his success was not a lasting one. But compare Heitland (The Roman Republic). The long reign of the Barbary corsairs has led some historians to suspect that their piracy must have been connived at by some of the European powers, although no proof of that has yet emerged. THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 215 their marine exertions. And it was an Italian sailor who dreamed of lands beyond the open ocean, and found a route, if not to the " Zipangu " of his desire, to the great double continent that blocked the way, thus shifting many centres of gravity. Before that, however, the Atlantic had availed for good and evil in the economy of Europe for tremendous evil at one epoch. Though the broad alluvial valleys of Sweden have become largely available for tillage in modern times, their forests and swamps would impel more towards the sea in ancient times. In Norway the oceanic appeal is still stronger the mountains plunging so steadily into the sea that the cultivable ground and pasturage are at a minimum. Though Den- mark and the south-westerly shores of the Baltic are geologically so distinct from Scandinavia, they are historically confounded with the massive peninsula which they confront. The sea drew the coast peoples rather than the swampy, un- propitious land, and it needed only opportunity for the daring activity and initiative born of such maritime conditions to manifest themselves. That opportunity arrived when Europe became conva- lescent after the barbaric invasions set up by the Huns, and the Vikings bedevilled the western world again for generation after generation. The sea made them strong rather than civilised, and they only grew cultured when they renounced 216 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the piracy that was so long their raison d'etre, and the advances which the countries have mani- fested in the modern eras of peace are due in considerable measure to the sea, which can induce progress as well as piracy. With the discovery of America, history shifts definitely from the sea to the ocean, with results which it would take volumes to expound. It must suffice here to conclude with these reflections. The fishers and sailors of any country must always remain fractional to the rest of the population, but maritime pursuits on a national scale cannot but be considered as a perpetually fructifying variant in the social organism. Western Europe is the most oceanic of continents, and its intel- lectual and political hegemony cannot be dis- connected from its transcendent maritime position. So instinctively is this felt to be true that Russia is ceaselessly striving after that ice-free port which is still denied her, while little Montenegro has sought enlarged life upon the shore as eagerly as monstrous Muscovy, and Bolivia has never ceased to regret her exclusion from the Pacific. Of course political aggrandisement may be the main motive of maritime expansion ; but even if that be so, the salt of the sea seems beneficial not only to local cultures but to civilisation as a whole. The oceans do not divide as of old, but rather unite. Liverpool is in more active touch with New York than New THE SEA IN CIVILISATION 217 York with San Francisco, while San Francisco has growing ties with the east which nothing can permanently dissever. Transit over the open ocean is the easiest and cheapest of all, and civi- lisation, even if ultimately depending upon mere economy in freights, will continue to be strengthened by the all -encompassing sea. CHAPTER X SEX IN HISTORY HAVING exhausted all that can profitably be said here regarding the greater geographical determi- nants in history in their most direct application, it remains to introduce considerations implying a more intimate analysis of the structure of human society itself, its internal actions and reactions, though of course the ideas already outlined will be invoked wherever it seems necessary. It has already been insisted that sociability is not only not peculiar to man but that some animals exhibit the trait in more marked degree bees and ants in particular. It was also pointed out that man is perhaps more addicted to intestinal strife than almost any other distinct species, the very tool-using faculty which radically distin- guishes him from the animal having enabled him to work greater havoc upon his kind than the beak, claw, sting, or other offensive weapon of the animal world. It was also incidentally stated that *' Man is the only animal which beats his wife," not merely a facetious remark but a scientific truth, the historical bearings of which now come into view. 218 SEX IN HISTORY 219 Scientists tell us that the first forms of life may have been sexless, multiplying themselves merely by fission ; that sex and all that it implied was an evolution upon a previously asexual world an epoch in biology. Whether that be true or not, it is the case that, in some of the orders beneath man, the female seems to be of more account than the male. In the plant and insect worlds especially the female type is often superior in size and strength to the male. Among birds and beasts the converse is more generally the case, but even there the female may be said to exercise a certain moral sway, since it is the male who resorts to every species of adornment to please or entice the opposite sex, if not also for the sheer love of the thing a role which belongs to the woman in human society, and probably with much more of deliberate purpose in it. In some communities still also descent continues to be counted through the mother alone, a thing which seems to have been prevalent enough in ancient times judging from the frequent allusions in classical literature. 1 In these circum- stances theories are propounded that, once upon a time, woman also was the predominant partner in the human association, but lost her hegemony 1 The " couvade," that custom so absurd in civilised eyes, by which the father simulates the labours of a mother, is, by some authorities, explained as an ostentatious assumption of paternity, intended probably to stamp it on the memory in lack of registers and other civilised inventions. 220 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY for reasons which can only be speculated about. The Saturnian golden age of man is now supposed to have been preceded by an earlier golden age of woman. Of course the thing must remain specu- lative in the highest degree, although arguments for primitive female superiority are now being employed to advocate the abolition of existing in- feriority in whatever form. 1 It is this inferiority which is the grand, if grievous, historical fact. In all civilisations, as they emerge successively into view, woman is seen to be in subjection to man in greater or less degree, while the barbarian and savage societies of to-day which are without a history show the same general subjection of the female, who is often treated simply as a beast of burden or the merest tool of the despotic male. The subjection of woman, indeed, is not only a universal and immemorial fact, but pervades all climatic zones, every human race, and all grades of society. Advance in civilisation in the sense indicated in the foregoing pages might perhaps but spell intensification of the process in many instances. It is the case at any rate that, broadly speaking, among existing savages the woman approximates much nearer to the male in size, strength, and brain power than does the civilised woman to her mate. And, though she is a real 1 By Professor Lester Ward and others (see Ward's Pure Sociology for a full statement). SEX IN HISTORY 221 beast of burden in many cases, in others she enjoys a domestic and sometimes political power which many civilised women might well covet. Much as the nomad has been reprobated in these pages, and especially as regards America, the Red Indian squaws had household privileges and a say in communal affairs which would have scandalised husbands not only in China and India, but also in Russia and even some corners of modern Germany. 1 It is probably true to say that the rude conditions of savage and barbaric life kept the sexes nearer an equality, and that advance in tillage civilisation either caused woman to stagnate in comparison with her companion or actually to fall beneath a former psychic level. Culture probably had to pay that price for becoming completely sedentary. But so much the worse for civilisation ! It was stated at the very outset that tillage implied from the first a general lack of will-power and initiative in the agricultural populations compared with the nomads, and caused them, despite their greater numbers and wealth, to be the constant prey of the pastoralists until the age of gunpowder. Can there be any doubt that the subjection of woman reacted banefully upon the whole community in this connection, causing the men, despite perhaps actual advance in pure intelligence on some sides, to be but the fathers of essentially slavish minds 1 Letourneau, La Femme. 222 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY from generation to generation ? Can any com- munity maintain general psychic virility (to say nothing of advancing indefinitely in culture) when only one side of the stock can contribute to the mentality ? Will not the mother's passivity in the relation of its profundity sooner or later tell upon the community as a whole ? A single con- trast may supply a clue to hosts of other cases. It took the most energetic white race in the world, with every advantage in numbers and wealth, many generations to get the better of mere handfuls of Red Indians in North America ; while the same race, in a few pitched battles with only mere hand- fuls of white soldiers, won an empire over millions of Hindus who have since been kept in as total subjection as they themselves have kept their women-folk from time immemorial. If the Hindus wish to get rid of the British suzerainty, they will probably have first of all to rise superior to the subjection practised within. In Sparta the women seem to have been freer than in any other part of ancient Greece, a fact which probably not only accounts for their greater beauty acquired in the open air, but may also in great measure explain the extraordinary toughness of that singular culture, not unlike that of the Red Indian in some of its phases. The small peasant proprietors who made Rome great probably owed some of the strength of their system to the comparative freedom of SEX IN HISTORY 223 their wives and daughters. That was quite a different thing from the licentiousness later de- nounced by Juvenal, which was confined to the aristocracy and was on all fours with the remarkable power of woman at one time in Ptolemaic Egypt. 1 Everybody knows what Mohammed owed to old Kadisha and young Ayesha, and there is every reason to believe that the relative freedom of the Arab women not only stimulated the astounding victories of Islam but, what is better still, inspired the marvellous culture that contrasts so brilliantly with the dark ages of Christianity. Driesman somewhere says that the Saracens tended to be victorious so long as the women were comparatively free and uncloistered. There seems no doubt at any rate that leadership declined rapidly amongst the Turks when the heirs to the throne were strictly reared in the seraglio. Japanese women have always held a relatively high place in the east, and the renaissance of the people is probably 1 Marriage contracts still in existence show that Man and Wife treated with each other upon an equal footing ; it is even alleged that the woman seems often to have had the better of it, being alone able to claim a divorce, evidently through the power of inherited wealth, which was also a strong factor in the case of the Roman matrons. Thus early did woman's rights tend to become man's wrongs. The Egyptian proletariat had apparently no privilege for the females. One papyrus speaks of the weaver as " being more miserable than a woman." King Philopator seems to have destroyed the aristocratic wife's power by a single stroke of the pen without, apparently, causing any revolt on the ladies' part. 224 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY due to that as well as to the other factors formerly glanced at. European and American women are much freer on the whole than are the women of the east, and " femininity " as well as geography must be considered to have had an influence in the progressiveness and virility of the western civilisations. The induction might be greatly enlarged as to details, but it would be a mere preaching to the converted so far as the moral is concerned to the majority of western peoples, or at least thinkers. There may be great difference of opinion as to how far female " emancipation " should go, and what exactly is the " sphere " beyond which woman should not go, but there are few who now hold that the subjection of woman was a good thing and should be perpetuated in all its ancient forms. No doubt woman's inferiority, in so far as it is admitted, arrived naturally enough, and has been tacitly or even positively * acquiesced in until the modern revolt. But the same thing can be said of the slavery of man, which was also once almost universal. It was once quite " natural " for man to be a cannibal in localities and among races now quite civilised, and white 1 Nearly all reforms are difficult, and sometimes the opposition comes from those sought primarily to be benefited. Thus, in some polygamous countries, the women themselves are the most hostile to change. The chief wife would cease to command those beneath her, while the lower wives are always hoping to rise to the chief place, and command in turn even as they have been commanded. (Westennarck, work cited.) SEX IN HISTORY 225 castaways resort to man-eating still upon occasion. But the " naturalness " of the thing does not com- mend itself to anybody's intelligence now, although the argument might once have been used that, to interfere with such a sanctified habit, was cutting at the very foundations of the state. Dark- skinned reformers have been so argued against in Africa. 1 It is quite " natural " for the producing side of the community to adulterate their goods as against the consumers, but it is equally natural to try and circumvent the fraud by Acts of Parliament, however "artificial." So it is part of the positive prescription for civilisation to try and circumvent the natural inequality of the sexes, however induced originally, and, if not to give them absolutely identical powers, to let both men and women have ampler scope and breathing space for the purpose not only of maintaining but heightening initiative, intelligence, and general amenity, and so encouraging endless progress in civilisation. In any case the immemorial subjec- tion of woman is a master-clue in world-history a thing which manifests itself on every horizon, however distant vast, pervasive, almost impalp- able as the atmosphere, but requiring constantly to be taken into account as regards the ruptures of equilibrium, great or small, which form the leit-motif of universal history. 1 Keane, The World's Peoples. P CHAPTER XI THE CONCOMITANTS OF TILLAGE CIVILISATION FROM what has been said, it is permissible to con- clude that the subjection of woman was an accom- plished fact before tillage became systematically pursued in any quarter of the world. It is also reasonable to believe that, until that stage was reached, men remained practically free inter se. Where alimentation is easy, as with some tropical savages, there is no inducement for the men to subject each other, since the women are already doing any dirty work. On the other hand, where diet is precarious (woman still being the indispensable drudge), a male slave would be simply a mouth too many, and probably would be knocked on the head at the first opportunity to make a meal to his starving master. Hunting tribes have thus no need for slaves, who besides could hardly be kept in that condition. If the captive were to aliment his master he must remain free to hunt, and this freedom he would inevitably turn to his own account on the first opportunity. Thus hunters would find it more profitable to continue hunting for themselves than to trust to captives upon 226 TILLAGE CIVILISATION 227 whom an eye could not possibly be kept. We find as matter of fact that slavery is practically non-existent at the hunting stage of society. The very nature of the life favours freedom, and, although the woman may be subjected, the adult males continue to stand upon an equality. There may be neither chiefs nor leaders. If these are resorted to, their authority is generally limited. Such society may be said to be simply bisected into male and female. Government is at a minimum, and is founded upon that Custom which is inherent in the very fact of association is a characteristic indeed of all life, being but the response of organisms to prevailing stimuli. But there is no greater tyrant than Custom, because it is so difficult to reverse the physical and mental processes that have been in- duced by the environment from birth. 1 Man's power, however, has consisted in the gift of trans- cending habit, breaking away from Custom, however rarely and to whatever small an extent at any single time. But it is these breaks-away which have made human progress ; advance has always consisted in 1 New (Life Wanderings in Eastern Africa) says of the Wanika, " If a man dares to improve the style of his hut, to make a larger doorway than is customary ; if he should wear a finer or different style of dress to that of his fellows, he is instantly fined." Pro- fessor Tylor has made classical the case of the Dyaks who were also fined for felling trees by V-shaped cuttings in the European fashion. The tremendous influence of religious customs in ancient society is the theme of Fustel de Coulanges' La Cite antique. Its theory and details require revision, but the book remains a masterpiece of French prose. 228 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY defying Custom. Very frequently, however, the reformer has been killed for his pains, although in very rare cases ultimately sanctified for his achieve- ment. It is the way still to stone the prophets, and may be so to the end of time. Inventors are almost the only people who do not benefit by their ideas. Wherever hunting and pastoral habits continue, male adult equality tends to persist with centra- lised government at a minimum. " Sahara is full of sheiks " is a saying which shows that Arabs and Berbers remain as close to the anarchic state as omnipresent Custom will allow. 1 In Red Indian society not only did women lend a hand in government in some cases, but the adult males remained upon a practical equality, since the authority of the chief might simply be pro- visional and did not become hereditary. 2 There 1 Modern anarchists say that all power naturally tends to tyranny, injustice, and corruption an indictment which is per- fectly true, but whether it covers more details of life than the beneficial effects of association which are equally obvious, is a thing which has not been proved by the sectaries. Doubtless a non-coercive, peaceful association is the ideal state of society to which humanity may yet attain, but it is more likely to be by positive attempts at peaceful reconstruction than by violent remodellings from the foundations. It is difficult to see how a perfect cosmos can be reached by way of a preliminary chaos. It is to be feared that existing abuses of power must lapse from life like slavery and serfdom rather than be dynamited in the anarchist fashion, seeing how deep-seated is the social instinct despite the faults incarnate in the fact of association. 2 That is generally speaking. The Natchez, who were agri- culturally inclined, seem to have developed a system of private property and monarchism. TILLAGE CIVILISATION 229 was but little specialisation of social function because there was so little need for it no classes, no caste. The Red Indian made captives, but if it was not to torture them, it was with a view to adopting them into the tribe a thing widely practised in America. Slaves were not a desirable social expedient in the hunter's life for the reason already mentioned, and it has been found impos- sible to bend the nomad Indian to the yoke. No more stubborn piece of mental steel was ever forged by fate. In America there was no pastoral stage of life, as has been observed already, and we therefore cannot judge as to what modification would have been wrought upon society by its introduction. Doubtless, however, it would have been the same as in the Old World, where many of the tracts now cultivated were once the haunt of the shepherd, who was gradually pushed up the mountain side or limited to the steppes, but who indulged in all the revenges indicated that have dyed history red with blood and ruin. In Eurasia it is seen from the first that pastoralism consisted with less male equality than in the hunting stage of existence. The Sheik Abraham not only had his bondwomen but his bondmen also. Pastor- alism, indeed, in its classical Old World haunts seems always to have implied a considerable amount of servitude. The horizons were as wide as those of the buffalo hunters in America, but 230 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the strict separation of the pasturages by deserts often made the slave a real captive within a limited area, as shown when Hagar fled with Ishmael from before the incensed Sarah. Human flesh and blood therefore could be profitably exploited in relieving the master of the monotony of tending and milking the flocks and herds. But pastoralism, by its inextensibility would tend rigorously to limit the number of bondmen, and the system could not have the frightful development it manifested in ancient Greece and Rome by the extension of tillage and commerce. Under pastoralism, therefore, there is added a social complication. A servile class is introduced which could not but have re- actions throughout the whole body politic. The master would tend to become parasitic like those ants which get so helpless that they have to be fed and carried about by their slaves. For in this connection it is well to remember that slavery is not only prehistoric but prehuman, as already in- dicated. The origin of classes and caste is to be sought not in history, but in the animal world Life pushes towards " specialisation of function " on every hand, with degeneration of old capacities if also development of new organs. But the semi- nomadic character of the shepherd's life availed completely to conserve the initiative of the master of the flocks, his indurated ferocity indeed, induced by the rough management of stock and slaves, TILLAGE CIVILISATION 231 making him the most horrible scourge in civilisa- tion whenever he got the chance. The Asiatic shepherds, however, did not always retain the practical political equality of the Red Indian hunter. Chieftainship inclining to the hereditary tendency was manifest even in normal conditions ; while when the tribe, nation, or confederacy became wholly or mainly predatory the war lords naturally tried to make themselves absolute. For it is the nature of all power to try and enlarge the scope of its authority, and while the vassals may be recalcitrant towards their liege-lord the fact that he may have to be clothed with power, to some extent with the consent and in the interest of the contending vassals themselves, gives him a " pull " which sooner or later may end in despotism. Thus the French feudal lords, though mortally jealous of the king, were equally so of each other, and their selfish conflicts tended in the long run to imply inchoate support of the crown, which stood to win in the general confusion. When genius emerged in the person of the demoniac Louis XI and the hardly less terrible Richelieu, the turbulent nobility of France were reduced to a subjection under the Crown as pronounced as their ancient recalcitrance. 1 If the Holy Roman Emperor had not had the Pope, the Italian people, 1 So the once bellicose Roman senators became but "lordly sneaks " under the empire, and were stigmatised on this account by their overlord. 232 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY and half a dozen other irons in the fire, it is likely the same thing would have emerged in Germany. In any case, while pastoralism in its passive con- dition may imply but a simple class system and but a modified chieftainship, it but needs the binding predatory motive to fix upon the lesser spoilers the suzerainty of the indispensable war lord. Thus we have the apparition of a Caliph Omar, a Ghenghis, and a Tamerlane with ready supersession of the elective system, not only in the central Asiatic empires but even in the essentially predatory attempt of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is true that, when the steppe reverts to its true economic basis, the imperial house of cards may tumble to the ground, sheiks and khans multiply- ing by fission of every ethnic and geographic nature up to the old chaotic condition. Two hundred years after the " inflexible emperor," Tamerlane had all his work to do over again, an exploit which happily has not been repeated since, thanks to firearms as before suggested. Be that as it may, the point now is that pastoralism, in its normal condition, is not consistent with the highest possible system of classes, castes, and the magistral hier- archical order manifested under tillage since the beginning of history. It was probably in the transitional ethnic, as well as cultural and eco- nomic, stages that there originated that " Feu- dalism," which many people erroneously believe TILLAGE CIVILISATION 283 was a European peculiarity, 1 but which seems really to have once been in operation in ancient Egypt, manifested itself also in China and else- where, survived in Japan until the nineteenth century, and does not appear to be quite extinct yet in Abyssinia. Feudalism may be summarily described as but " the half-way house to despotism," " a compromise by way of concentric shells of authority " as some one has put it. In so far as it stood for the conservation of local initiative, feudalism cannot but be described as a good enough principle. But, unhappily, the local authority might only signify intensification of tyranny, for a lord might be rapacious just be- cause of his pettier needs and more stinted re- sources. Slavery must of course have been taken over from the pre-existing system, and the parish 1 Most writers on feudalism recognise that it manifested itself outside of Europe at widely separated periods of history, but they nearly all treat of European feudalism as if it were the only instance that really mattered, and insist upon its origin from a blending of Roman law and Germanic " custom." Whatever definition of feudalism be given (it seems really incapable of definition, and hardly two authorities agree on the point, Fustel de Coulanges, a great authority, only cautiously supplying a " provisional " definition in his Origine* du Systeme feodal), it will be found that the essentials are paralleled outside Europe, and therefore Roman law and German habit cannot be neces- sary generative forces. All that it seems safe to advance is that Feudalism stood everywhere and always for relative decentrali- sation in government, leaving open the question as to whether the essential relationship of individuals and groups was personal or territorial, military or civil experts manifesting hopeless dis- cord and inconsistency on these and similar points. 234 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY tyrant would work his bondmen to the uttermost not only to satisfy his aristocratic wants but to make wealth and headway against his neighbours. It thus often happened that the bondman's great desire was to become the serf of the central authority, which was more disinterested by its very massive- ness, and gained distant marginal adhesions which stood it in good stead in the endless struggle with the vassal states. 1 For the right of private war made the feudal system in Europe only legalised chaos, so to say a social equilibrium of the most unstable kind. France is the classical witness to all times. The abuses persisted long after the virtues had gone, necessitating removal by social dynamite when every peaceful effort at purifica- tion had proved unavailing. Japan also had to resort to explosiveness to purge her system of its special types of outworn methods. If feudalism gave birth to chivalry, it was a beauty that was not even skin-deep, since the knights were not only but a privileged few over a tyrannised crowd, but they were by no means always leal and sooth- fast within the bounds of their own order. " In the thirteenth century the Count of Champagne de- clared he confided more in the lowest of his subjects than in his knights." 2 1 See instances in Ward's Pure Sociology ; also Robertson's Evolution of States. 1 Westermarck (work cited). The Polish nobles were not only anarchic but thoroughly deceitful. The liberum veto became an TILLAGE CIVILISATION 235 " A gentle knight went pricking o'er a plain," but if it was to the relief of distressed damsels it was because other knights were so wicked, and there is no proof that the good cavaliers were in a majority. 1 So in the impartial eye of science the knight was often only one degree less of a robber and a butcher than the barbarian from the Asiatic steppes. The very " chastity " which was the occasional practice of the order was only the en- forced abstemiousness of the prizefighter training for the ring. In a word feudalism is a fallacy, at least as viewed generally by the public, who take their impression from Scott's Talisman and Ivanhoe: Don Quixote is as near the truth. Since feudalism existed transitionally in ancient Egypt we have not intercalated the subject now, though drawing our appraisement from the best vouched instance of medievalism. Our feudal system is supposed to have originated in the meeeting and mixture of barbarian practice and Roman law, as the fogs off the banks of Newfoundland are generated by the meeting of the cold currents from the pole with the warm Gulf Stream. Since land tenures retain still the impress of obsolete mediaeval forms, the excuse for the most violent deceptions, and undoubtedly con- tributed to the country's downfall. The outside nations in- sisted on its maintenance when they saw how well it served their ulterior ends. The liberum veto had earlier obtained in some of the orders of chivalry, and still persists among some Hima- layan tribes. 1 S Encyclopaedia Britannica, article " Chivalry." 236 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY fog of feudalism cannot even yet be said to have cleared off entirely. As indicated, it was under tillage that society took on all the complications of which it was capable, at least until the modern industrial era. But in reprobating pastoralism as has been done, it was not intended to belaud agriculture without the gravest qualifications. From the first it must have stood for a broadening and a deepening of servile conditions. It is possible that the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates may have been won for tillage by essentially free, if often " broken " men, like many of those in the backwoods to-day. But at the dawn of history the broad base of society is composed of bondmen urged to toil in their desert -ringed homes by the lash of the over- seer's whip. 2 Not only so, but men, nominally 1 Mohammed said that " wherever the plough had penetrated it always brought servitude and shame " (Peisker, work cited). It is curious that a prophet who contemned agriculture should have given rise to a civilisation which yet was essentially of a tillage type, with intensive cultivation indeed carried to greater lengths probably than ever before. The explanation seems to be that the irrigation traditions in the midst of which Mohammedanism rose were far too strong to be banned, and indeed they harmoni- ously co-operated with the mercantilism for which the prophet himself stood, to the end of enhancing civilisation in really wonderful fashion (see also note on page 275). 1 It was only in the sixteenth century when tillage had made renewed progress in Russia that the peasants were bound to the glebe by Boris Gudonov. So also men who would otherwise have been daring Vikings became enslaved in Denmark and Scandinavia when the heroic age was past, and tillage entered upon. Though slavery has thus been seen " in the making " in TILLAGE CIVILISATION 237 free, might be virtually enslaved, since an individual might have to die in the caste into which he was born, follow the occupation of his sire and the whole traditions of his fathers, and walk strictly by rule from the cradle to the grave. Life became fixed on a pigeon-hole plan endless shelves of workers, and on the topmost tier a few aristocrats and priestly functionaries doing the will of the enthroned despot, who had no limit set to his authority except by the superior tyrant, Custom, whom he could never defy with impunity. Pharaoh might wield a wide caprice, but always with the strictest etiquette. His time was scheduled more strictly than a modern railway train his rising up and his lying down, his eating, his drinking, and even the hours when he might or might not see his own wife. He might order multitudes to their doom without reason assigned, but non-compliance with Custom within his own home might suddenly give rise to a palace revolution that would consign him from the throne to the dungeon. The history of the primary civilisations is composed chiefly of pala- tial upheavals within, and predatory attacks from without. There never was any revolt on the part of the subjugated multitude for what we historical times, it may be quite true, as often contended, that it may originally have stood for relative amelioration in human affairs ; that is to say, if servitude was preferable to certain death probably followed by cannibalism, which may have been almost universal once upon a time. 238 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY now consider the elementary rights of man. The specialisation of function, which tillage had brought about, had been succeeded by stability of form, which life constantly tends to establish, if not with greater intensity at any rate with more massive impress than the conflicting tendency to mobility and change. At the dawn of history society had perfected all its essential forms, since modern industrialism seems only to be working refinement in one direction or simplification in another. In a word tillage brought about a grand hierarchical stability, marred mainly by the irruptions of the nomads or the lesser predatoriness of the tillage cultures against each other. Society was arranged from top to bottom at the dawn of history, millions of slaves and caste-bound artisans forming the base of the granitic pyramid, and the king and his counsellors the pointed top. And so things con- tinued for thousands of years. History until but yesterday is the record of the universal subjection of woman by man, and of innumerable multitudes of men by mere handfuls of their own number who, in one fashion or another, by claims as warrior or pretensions as priest, had monopolised the land, the ultimate source of power. If tillage did not enslave the woman, it at least put the shackles on the man, or tightened them where pastoralism had already forged and fixed the gyves. It complicated life, but at the same time stabilised TILLAGE CIVILISATION 239 it ; if it robbed existence of the ancient republican freedom, it at the same time purged it of pastoral destructiveness and ferocity and induced grander amenities than of old if, by the very act, impos- ing a new sheepishness on the pullulating mass. 1 Despite every drawback, the broad and toilsome path of tillage was the only possible way towards civilisation in its ampler forms, towards those greater social serenities for which man is striving with more purpose, and it is hoped more enlighten- ment, than ever. It has been mainly, if not wholly, drift in every direction up till now drift indivi- dually, socially, racially, and nationally Let us briefly see how the drift has gone until to-day even should the bark of humanity still have to proceed " By unpath'd waters to undream'd shores." 1 The sheer increase of population would tend to deepen servility under tillage. A man burdened with a large family might under misfortune tumble helplessly into slavery. . Roman farmers, too, while away fighting the battles of the state, might land themselves in such a bog of debt as would swallow them up in complete bondage. See Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, as to the maintenance of " predatoriness " in society still. CHAPTER XII THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION HISTORY dubiously begins in Egypt about 4500 B.C., when King Menes (who is said to have been swal- lowed by a hippopotamus) united the upper and the lower countries under one government probably the signal for stagnation of the culture as already suggested. For it is an invariable law in sociology that centralisation, as stinting the sources of variation and squelching initiative, aggravates every normal tendency to immobility. This tendency to centralisation, though not un- known among hunting and pastoral peoples, has its chances greatly enlarged under tillage. It has already been remarked that aggressiveness is a primum mobile of all communities, big or little. Subject as the majority in any community may be, that very subjection implies aggressiveness on the part of the dominant minority. This active or potential aggressiveness forms the permanent nucleus, not only for dominating within but energising also without. And it is a master-clue in world-history that any community, however servile towards its own masters, may readily be 240 THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 241 roused to pugnacity against neighbours, though there may be no appreciable difference in colour, speech, ideal, or general habit. 1 Always attraction is balanced by repulsion, which seems to clamour for expression outside the radius of communal sympathy. Communities have thus always been moved " Greatly to find quarrel in a straw," and to come as near as possible to exterminating each other for what may be the blindest, most inchoate, and uncalculating motives and aims. In ancient Egypt the worship of animals was universal, but different districts had their dif- ferent " totems." In one quarter the crocodile was worshipped ; in another it was sought to be exterminated, some other animal being revered instead, and so on throughout the country. These differences were not considered slight but cardinal, and fierce fights constantly took place in the name of the respective totems, even as in India to-day if with broader grounds of quarrel. Hindu and Mohammedan fight about the sacredness of the cow, as Orangeman and Catholic fly at each 1 The only peoples who are known to have lived in absolute peace are some Esquimaux, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and similar savage tribes; but Westennarck (work cited) says theirs may be a case not so much of higher morality as of lack of opportunity for pugnacity. See Ferrero (work cited) as to the imperialistic spirit of the civil population of Rome (vol. ii. p. 50). See also Aulard's French Revolution as to the ultimate " chauvinism " of the Parisian workman on " the coming of Bonaparte." Q 242 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY other's throats in support of their antipodal ideas of the pope. 1 Thus all nations seek instinctively to maintain their special speech and ideals, a thing which is worthy of all commendation. But the trouble is that in these matters there is absolutely no boundary between self-preservation and aggres- sion, and the one thing may transmute into the other at the touch of opportunity, as the electricity in the atmosphere transforms into lightning on the junction of the clouds. If Cyrus was large- hearted in his policy, Cambyses was more typically tyrannical. The Greeks fought and defeated the Persians at Salamis and Marathon in the name of liberty and independence, but immediately after- wards they not only tried to dragoon each other but also Persia itself, prompted by the universal passion of essential intolerance. And so it has been throughout history. After Bannockburn Scotland was aggressive towards England ; after the victories over Austria and Burgundy the Swiss, so enamoured of their own liberty, were not averse to subduing it in any other direction for a con- sideration. As these lines are being revised the Balkan peoples, having thrown off the aggression of the Turk, have turned their incarnate aggressiveness against each other. History, indeed, is for ever 1 Bitter fights also took place between " blues " and " greens " in Constantinople for motives perhaps less discernible than the struggles between Guelph and GhibeUine in Italy, " Hooks " and " Codfish " in Holland, or " Hats " and " Caps " in Sweden. THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 243 telling the same sorry tale the desperate clinging to local habits and ideals, and the no less desperate attempt illogically to foist these upon aggressors in turn. Aggression has been a political mania from before the time of King Menes down to the present Czar of Russia, under whom it is still being desperately tried to make men all of one speech and religion. Bad as the Tatars were, they had at least one saving grace denied to modern Muscovy they were so marvellously tolerant in religion that Christian ecclesiastics who sought out the central Asiatic khans held up their hands in horror at the utter lack of intolerance and persecu- tion. Christendom then abounded in these charac- teristics. It is probable that Mongol toleration was a calculated policy, intended to keep the subject races divided in order to continue exploiting them with all the greater ease. The Turks have done the same thing in modern times, arriving practi- cally at the same end as the Russian bureaucracy, if by an exactly opposite method. 1 But to return to King Menes. Semi-mythical though he may 1 The Chazars, who ruled in the neighbourhood of the Caspian from the eighth century, were also tolerant in religion. So were the Moors in Spain, at least to begin with. If they had insisted upon the suppression of Christianity, it is possible the reconquista might never have taken place. Asia Minor, which originated Christianity, is probably more fanatically Moslem than Arabia itself. While religious persecution sometimes but fans the flame of dissent, in other cases it has been completely successful in its uniformitarian object. Thus, while Protestantism triumphed in Holland it was extirpated in Spain, Poland, and Bohemia. 244 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY be, there is no doubt at any rate that he symbolised a very real policy of centralisation. 1 That policy has its virtues as well as the vices indicated. If it stints initiative and induces stagnation, it also tends to suppress local rapacities, and establishes social order on a broader basis if by more lumbering methods. Unhappily it gives no guarantee that the inward pugnacities shall not still find violent expression. On the contrary, as indicated, the achievement of internal union may simply be the signal for national aggression as stated. Egypt, however, was ringed about with deserts. In her immediate neighbourhood the alien populations were sparse and mean, and offered little or no opportunity for spoil, or temptation merely to military glory. Egypt too, being practically self- contained and self-sufficing, had a motive for seclusion greater than almost any other country. And seclude herself she did as a normal policy. It was probably because of this that the internal repulsions (which may be so readily, if unprofitably diverted against the" foreigner ") led to occasional upsetting of the inward political symmetry. Even if these diversions were only caused by the am- bitiousness of aspirants to the throne, as there seems every reason to believe, it is probable that 1 The need for a common policy as regards the distribution of water may have operated with special centralising force both in Egypt and Mesopotamia as already noted (p. 47). THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 245 they involved the reintroduction of variability and initiative, and were the source of the new pro- gress achieved after periods of so-called decline. For the Mesopotamian cultures which flourished contemporaneously were never quite near enough to stimulate and be stimulated to the full by the only fruitful method of peaceful intercourse. But despite everything Egypt was tempted to imperi- alism, and at times indulged in it wholesale. 1 She campaigned in the peninsula of Sinai presumably for the sake of the metals whose exploitation may or may not have been prohibited or hindered by the not numerous native tribes. She campaigned in the west, in Libya, for reasons which are none too clear. But the expeditions were apparently punitive, and might be considered unobjectionable if things had rested at that point. But tribute was exacted from these " barbarians," and, later, from the Syrian nations when the tide of con- quest turned in their direction. A Hittite empire apparently existed in Asia Minor for nearly a thou- sand years, which seems to have contended prac- tically on equal terms with Egypt. Though the specific causes of conflict are unknown there can 1 All nations given to exclusion have manifested the " false- hood of extremes." If they renounced their hermit life they became aggressive in the case not only of Egypt, but also of China, Japan, and even Corea once upon a time, though the "hermit kingdom" was always sadly buffeted between its greater neighbours. 246 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY be no doubt that sheer unreasoned and uncalcu- lating oppugnancies were at the bottom of the struggle. In short, it was the problem of inter- nationalism and all its related questions in full play thousands of years before the time of Christ. With tillage, civilisation had arrived in all its essential forms ; but it is questionable if things from that point did not mainly move in a vicious circle, or drift, and drift, and drift without real purpose, or, where that was manifest, mainly misdirected. The tillage cultures could not of course but keep themselves armed against the incorrigible nomad. All might have been well had militarism been confined to that menace. But it never was, and agriculturists engaged in interminable conflicts with each other which made them not only an easier prey to the pastoralist when he appeared, but never resulted in any real advantage to them- selves, however victorious. Imperialistic Egypt, while she was successful, may deserve to be called " great " and " grand " and " glorious," but the question is, whether historical analysis should not pierce behind such conventional terminology and de- mand a stricter standard of judgment ? Differences of opinion are of course inevitable, but the reader should not be left in doubt as to the view enter- tained here. And it is this, that, broadly speaking, under tillage civilisation the tool-using power of man had gone ahead, so to say, of his social and THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 247 political science, and that the persistence of slavery, despite the abject contentment of the mass, the unrelenting maintenance of caste and of despotism, the blind extinction of local and national liberties, and the uncalculating imposition of system upon system are witnesses more of the folly than of the wisdom of mankind. If pyramids, sphinxes, and obelisks speak to the glory of Egypt, they testify even more eloquently to the sufferings of the multi- tude upon whose dumb energies they were reared. If tribute from Libya and Syria manifests the might of Pharaoh, it equally shows his unwisdom in not seeing that homage corrupted both giver and re- ceiver in fomenting revengefulness on the one hand and breeding parasitism on the other. If the Egyptians thought that they could send out products without importing in return (or vice versa), then of course they erred as egregiously as some nations still do. It is being cogently urged to-day that war between civilised nations no longer " pays," since the gains cannot possibly recoup the losses ; for trade can be " captured " only by exchange and not by violence, con- quered provinces cannot add to the wealth of the conquerors, since they can only be profitably run for the natives, while a financial indemnity only dislocates trade and tends to hurt the receiver as much as the giver, perhaps stimulating the trade of the debtor more than that of the creditor. Not 248 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY only are these ideas assumed to be substantially true, but it is here advocated that they are of much wider historical application than their chief advo- cate seems to allow. Mr. Norman Angell 1 is in the habit of arguing that nations to-day cannot despoil each other as the Vikings looted Britain and France, since the international overflow of capital would, under depletion or disturbance, cause mutual de- pressions that would involve common frustra- tion and general economic stultification. Agreed ! But the question remains whether economic mutu- ality is really of the essence of the case. There is probably no economic tie to-day between Guate- mala and Thibet, but would it profit them greatly to find quarrel in a straw and try to conquer each 1 An adumbration of Mr. Angell's doctrine seems to be con- tained in Kant's Idea of a Universal History, where he generalises that nature will drive men to peace through the intensifying penalties of war. Mr. Angell seems rather inclined to underrate ancient economic relations. China was in touch with Rome in the days of the empire, and east and west, however obscurely, seem to have been exchanging products all the time ; the Catholic Church could not dispense with some eastern products for its ritual, while Shakespeare's rustic with " his ginger hot i' the mouth " is a psychic flash which reveals far-reaching economic relations. Of course it may be said that these were " luxuries." But it may be retorted that everything not necessary to sheer existence is a luxury, and as nearly all the nations save Britain can still feed themselves at a pinch, international modern trade may be rather an amplification than a totally new kind of re- lationship. Food dependency besides is no new thing. Athen in the time of Pericles depended upon the wheat colonies in the Black Sea, and the navy was used to protect these economic lines like the British fleet to-day. " Intercapitalism," too, is no THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 249 other if by any chance they could come to grips ? Absolutely no ! Can it be said that it " paid " the ancient Vikings to be pirates in any valid sense of the term ? If we could calculate the number of foot-pounds of energy that went to the organising of the expeditions, could estimate the wastage of life at sea and in battle, and the social reactions in the homeland (an utterly neglected aspect of the case), who can say that even Vikings remained solvent, economically and morally ? It never " paid " the Italian republics to try and " capture " each other's trade by violence, whether or not there was a certain amount of mutuality in their normal commercial relations. If financial ties existed they were dislocated ; if there were no new thing. Venetian merchants once held the body of a Byzan- tine emperor in pawn. Florentine bankers, with money derived from native popular energy, financed English kings in the Middle Ages, and their failure created a " nutter " among the nations not unlike the " Baring crisis." Jewish moneylenders accommo- dated Moors and Spaniards with Hebrew impartiality ; German financiers lent money at great distances beyond the shadow of the Holy Roman Empire ; even Berne bankers lent money in every possible direction, just as the body of the Swiss people lent itself out in every mercenary quarter ; while in the year 1742, Prussia assumed a debt upon Silesia amounting to 1,700,000 rix dollars due to Dutch and English creditors. At the height of the Continental system, too, Napoleon imported woollen goods from England for his army, and at the same time exported (in 1810) nearly a million quarters of wheat to perfidious Albion. It turns out now, too, that it was mainly Russia's trading rela- tions with Britain which caused the Czar Alexander to renounce the French alliance. So that it was international trade which landed Napoleon in St. Helena. 250 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY commercial relations there would be dead loss without even a fallacious ground for quarrel. Stimulate each other peacefully the Italian re- publics could have done (and perhaps did in greater part as already hazarded), but the proof that their struggles were vain (with or without mutuality in their economic life) lies in the fact that the cities are all prospering peacefully enough now in reunited Italy. If war was needful and profitable for them in the Middle Ages, it is equally so in the twentieth century. Equally it did not " pay " Rome to root up the vines in Gaul and impoverish the land in the supposed interest of the Italian producer, nor to conquer Carthage and sow the site with salt. Carthage existed in virtue of a real economic need, which conflicted only superficially with Roman interests, and the crown- ing proof of the impolicy of conquest lay in the fact that the city rose from its ruins under the patronage of the conquerors. 1 Rome in many cases simply cut off its nose to spite its own face. It never " paid " the Greek republics to war with each other like the Italian cities after them, while Alexander's campaign was a blind commercial as well as military fury, the work of peace happily cancelling to some extent the mischief of warfare, but with no recognition that the violence was superfluous. So it never " paid " the Mesopo- 1 So of course did Corinth. THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 251 tamian cities to fight for markets or tribute in the immemorial fashion Egypt probably having set the earliest civilised example in that hope- less line. Broadly speaking, therefore, through- out history the tendency has been for ever to centralise society, however unnaturally, to the fullest extent, for ever to slur over the social problem, and to be constantly aggressive against neighbours for blindly fallacious ends. Civilisa- tion drifted rather than was guided, and the tillage cultures, so far from recognising that their only real enemy was the nomad round all the horizons, flew at each other's throats in a fashion which justifies Gibbon in saying that history is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. 1 Let us discriminate, however, and try briefly to pick out what may be considered as " cross-sections in the historical anatomy." As indicated at the beginning, Egypt and Mesopotamia in all pro- bability originated tillage culture because of their exceptional conditions, and may even have mono- polised it for ages, working out endless mechanical inventions even in the midst of their profound re- ligiosity but not really hopeless conservatism, since there was improvement in tools if little progress in 1 This is but a slight amplification of Voltaire's earlier state- ment (in Ulngtnu), L'hiatoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs." 252 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY ideals. Heavy-featured in art, heavy-footed in politics, heavily manacled in labour though the old cultures may have been, it would be altogether a mistake to rear in the historical perspective systems only of essential gloom. Though Egypt was full of sepulchres choked with mummies of men and animals, it is now being discovered from the records that the populations astride the Nile were not a hopelessly morose race obsessed with religion. Happily life can accommodate itself to the hardest conditions ; and, if the Egyptian aristocrat became preoccupied with funeral ar- rangements that might ruin his family, the com- monalty seem neither to have spent their scanty leisure in meditations amongst the tombs nor to have greatly troubled about the life beyond the grave. It was, indeed, rather a joyous population, dark-skinned and liquid-eyed, that laboured but still laughed and sang from hoary age to age under the cloudless skies, flanked by the tawny desert which was bisected by the ever mysterious beneficent river, " Flowing through old hushed Egypt and its sands Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream." And so in sand-bound Mesopotamia, with its double flood and even more prolific fields ! If there was almost bovine submissiveness of the mass, it could still clothe itself with the content of unspeculative minds, that comes like moss upon THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 253 the barest stones. If there were evolved no great humanitarian ideals, the people might still find pleasure, if not in the monstrous winged bulls, at least in the mighty hanging gardens, even as the plebs to-day ignore our museums but flock to the parks ; there were love-songs from man to maid, and folk-stories by the ancients round the hearth, if there was no popular appreciation of those legal codes, magistral as any in our day, but always better known to the people by their rigours than their intricacies ; if betterment was not even whispered of in the streets, there would, alas ! be popular rejoicings when kings were led captive after victory, and prisoners, who had never done the people wrong, were paraded through a mob indifferent as to their doom, and merely asserting the pleasures of that mass malignity from which no nation is free. So also in ancient India with its enforested despots, and still more pliant peoples. Caste did not originate in Hindustan, but, for whatever reason, it there attained its broadest and deepest setting, manifesting a thousandfold complexity beyond the defining power of any heraldry. No people perhaps ever found so much solace in a religion that was at once universal yet permitted such social seclusiveness. Caste in India is a posi- tive joy, as is also the cow, which is worshipped while woman is despised. Female subjection, 254 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY indeed, has been nowhere more extreme than in Hindustan, but custom and caste assuage every- thing, and from age to age the ryot has found content in hoarding what the tax-collector did not appropriate, or pined slowly to death in the years of famine. For tillage in India is at the mercy of the monsoon, and the masses hail its breaking with a joy known only to those for whom the seasons are a matter of life or death. Nowhere in the world is the question of sheer existence so delicately yet so massively poised as in India a factor which has always contributed to the subjection of the mass and to the religiosity which is its greatest joy. When we turn to China we have a less tropical climate and a sturdier race. At last, indeed, we have a culture in which at times the mass seems to have asserted itself as in no other primitive case. In India labour was always so cheap as to have apparently made slavery non-economical almost from the first. Slavery existed at one time in China, but was outgrown perhaps under the like economic influence, but probably also by a more explicit handling of the social problem. At any rate in China caste had not only ceased to exist as in India, but one might rise by merit from the bottom to the top of the social ladder. It is true, as already stated, that fantasy of test and corrup- tion gave no even path to merit, but China has THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 255 the honour of having inaugurated an idea which gives her a unique, and should conquer for her an immortal, position in the page of history. Despite its mandarinism, China is the only primary civilisa- tion to have reached essential manhood in the mass. Deprived as the people were of political power until to-day, the secret societies provision- ally did what the vote is now meant to perform, and gave a subterranean political training to the democracy not unlike that perhaps of French Freemasonry before the Revolution, which not only secretly fomented the agitation but trained the agitators so well that many of them manifested themselves as real statesmen the moment power passed into their hands. China, then, is a notable cross-section in the historical anatomy, not on grounds simply of natural delight in existence despite the apparent burden of life, but also be- cause of the political purposiveness in her history. A country which had perfected tillage, which gave every man a chance and made every individual a scholar, however rudimentary a country which had practically eliminated the soldier and sought peace and pursued it a country which antici- pated Europe in all the inventions of which it is so proud except that of armaments such a country is really a wonder among the nations, and the question reimposes itself, whether we are not really the barbarians and the Celestials the truly 256 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY civilised ? As regards China at any rate we have a notable cross-current in the general drift. To length of days as an empire she adds more of manhood and peaceful purpose than any civilisa- tion in history. Let that be accounted to her for righteousness ! As formerly noted, Persia is to be regarded as a type of culture intermediate between the shepherd and the tiller, a circumstance to which was ascribed the remarkable, nay unique, power of political recuperation which the country manifested until the modern era. Indeed the tyrant of Greece attained to literary felicities which are not incom- parable with the Hellenic classics, ages after Greece had become completely dumb. Persia had literary as well as political reawakenings, a thing that has not yet happened to Greece. Utterly despotic as was the most bediamonded of monarchs, it is still to be said that Persia, by her system of " Satrapies," allowed a good deal of local autonomy, which made her less hated than she would otherwise have been. But her unenlightened aggressiveness for ever handicapped any attempt at regulation of the clamant enough social problem, and Persia drifted more than China, albeit with unusual magnificence at the head of the state. It was Persian despotism which seduced Alexander the Great to his complete political ruin. It is when we come to Phoenicia that a new THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 257 consideration first appears to make a cross-section in the political, if not social, perspective of civilisa- tion. We have seen how and why " republi- canism " subsisted in hunting tribes and, if more precariously, among pastoral peoples. It is quite probable that absolute monarchy did not obtain from the first in Egypt, and the other primary civilisations reviewed, although it only is manifest in their recorded history. Before slavery settled down on the communities as a perpetual social fog, the adult males may have enjoyed such politi- cal equality as was manifest not only among Red Indian tribes but also among the German bar- barians, and is not inconsistent with rustic exist- ence so long as labour has not a dominantly servile basis. Thus the ancient Hebrews were virtually " republicans " at one time, having only " Judges " self -elected or by popular acclamation. Rome, too, was also a rustic republic, and the Boers of South Africa ran to similar methods of govern- ment for like determining reasons. 1 It is quite possible that any headship to begin with in the primary cultures was not hereditary but elective, provisional, and limited, if evolving despotically for the reasons formerly outlined. It is further probable that the towns which sprouted on the 1 The pastoral Damaras within recent times threw off the yoke of their kings presumably in virtue of the republicanism inherent in their economic conditions. (Keane, The World's Peoples.) 258 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY tillage plains may have once formed independent political centres akin to the " city state " of the Greeks, and that the wholesome friction of the cultures was a seminal force in the remarkable progress that must once have characterised the primitive civilisations. But the record of that has perished, though the " nomes " of Egypt may be a witness of a former " republican " life compared with the later absolutism. We have already indicated how aggressiveness is a primum mobile of all communities. In ancient Egypt, while it was still politically disunited, the constant aim, however inchoate, would be towards unifi- cation, and, as nature always endows one part of a country with certain advantages in general strategy as against the other districts, it will happen in the long run that union will be attained round that centre. It was lower Egypt, reputedly in King Menes' time, which put the copestone on the political structure in the Nile valley, though upper Egypt reasserted its power more than once, and perhaps on the whole in a reactionary fashion natural enough to it as the more isolated country. It was not unlike the struggle for supremacy between Moscow and St. Petersburg. In com- paratively modern times it was seen how the northern plains of France, with their focal city in Paris, marched through feudal chaos with much lurking sympathy on the ostensibly hostile THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 259 margins, 1 to a centralisation of the most rigorous description in the days of Louis XIV. So in Spain the district liberties which grew up between Moorish domination and local feudal rapacities were made use of by the monarchs to insure their triumph, and then summarily abolished at the earliest possible opportunity. Geographically no country is better fitted for home rule than Spain, yet none has been so unnaturally unified from the central plains, as already discussed. Similar pro- cesses may once have obtained in the Nile valley, in Mesopotamia, and even on the plains of India and China. If, before the days of King Menes, Egypt were ever seriously menaced from the out- side, that would tend to consolidate local patriot- isms, even if to their undoing when the danger was past. For it has always been the habit in cases of grave emergency to renounce all power into the hands of a dictator, as in ancient Rome, or a war-lord, as in the mediaeval Italian republics. 2 And despotism, once established, would tend to intensify the greater the menace from the outside. Thus, while ancient Greece was a busy hive of 1 See before, page 231. * Saul was chosen king over all Israel for military reasons, and anointed by the unwilling Samuel, whose prophecy as to the con- sequent despotism was not to remain long unfulfilled. Des- potism is frequently the child of war, the absolutism of " black Africa " seems to have been a result of the interminable strife in the dark continent. 260 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY republics, Byzantium, with the same Greeks at its head, was one of the most despotic of monarchies, to a great extent because the barbarian menace was never far from the triple walls of Constanti- nople. In any case monarchical despotism char- acterises the primary tillage civilisations from the beginning of their history, and " republicanism " only begins with Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Greece, and Rome. It was, however, mainly a European phenomenon which persisted for many centuries. Since under it the mass of the people were subjected and exploited as under monarchies (and sometimes perhaps even more effectively), 1 republicanism may be regarded simply as a despotic distinction without a difference. But still it stands for such a political variation as to call for some explanation. To all appearance it was due to the relative preponder- ance of Commercialism in the communities affected. 2 1 Histoire Generale (Lavisse et Rambaud), vol. ii. p. 133. See Heeren (Historical Essays) as to the "practical" republicanism of Phoenicia due apparently to commercial bias. a In so far, that is, as "rusticity" may not have been an earlier determining or perhaps co-operating factor. The kings of ancient Greece, Rome, and Germany were anything but des- pots (Coulanges, La Cite antique, L'Invasion germanique) com- pared with the monarchs in Egypt, Mesopotamia, &c. The words "republic" and "republicanism" have to be used with the greatest caution, since the terms may cover very different systems, from a primitive polity like that of Red Indians down through an exclusive mercantile system like that of Carthage, and a more " democratic " state like that of Athens, until we reach a centralised republic like modern France and a federalised one like the United States. Many Americans to-day contend that THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 261 Trade is a thing which has always been going on in history, since hardly any definable district can be considered absolutely self-contained and self-sufficing. Even in the " closed vase " of ancient Egypt there was a constant movement of products up and down the stream. More than that, wood, spices, and metals were required from outside, and the country, while trying to keep itself hermetically sealed, had perforce to allow infractions of its own edict. Though it was enacted that persons landing on the frontiers as traders were to be put to death, the need for alien wares led to successful smuggling and illogical relaxations of the law, as when Napoleon, at the height of the Continental system, not only winked at the smuggling of his generals but even became the greatest smuggler himself. Despots frowned upon trade because it was un warlike and mean, the ideal life being subsistence wrung from the soil by innumerable slaves, but as little barter as possible between district and district, and none at all between nation and nation. But the simple life was always being spoiled just because the nations were never quite self-sufficing. Even if Great Britain with its limited monarchy is perhaps on the whole more " republican " than the States. A more scientific terminology is greatly to be desired in this connection. The suggestion in the text is that "Commercialism" was perhaps the prevailing factor in ancient times, and the idea is to work out a somewhat neglected aspect of the dynamics of the case. (See Bibliographical Note.) 262 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY they had been actually so, human cupidity tended always to defeat the national object. Somebody inside the forbidden area coveted the things outside, perhaps just because they were forbidden, or could see ways of making profit greater than by internal operations. And so even the Egyptian system tended constantly to be undermined long before the country was thrown fully open to trade in the later ages. 1 But commercialism was never strong enough radically to modify things in the political sense now held in view. There was more of it in Babylon, which was indeed a commercial centre for centuries without, however, evolving republicanism as a result. That was probably due not only to its liability to domination from the Zagros highlands, but also because there was not the same permanent equilibrium in the internal commercial interests as elsewhere. For it is now suggested that the ancient republicanism was thus determined. In a preponderantly tillage civilisation the tyrant, however he became clothed with despotic power, practically never had any- thing to fear from the enslaved multitude. For it is a grim comment upon the plasticity of human nature and its mass impotency that no body of 1 Japan was also honeycombed with secret influences before the days of Commodore Perry, whose irruption was the occasion rather than the cause of the subsequent revolution and reopening of the country. (Reclus, work cited.) THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 263 slaves has ever freed itself by its own exertions. 1 There were certainly servile revolts in the ancient world, which, however, came to nothing, although the slaves, if they had been alive to their condition and had been united, could have engulfed their masters as the ocean absorbs the rain. But, in so far as recalcitrance was aroused, a conflict of interests might mar union from the start, so deep-seated are the repulsions of society. The leaders in the servile revolt quarrelled amongst themselves, and there seems indeed to have been no proper humani- tarianism in the movement as we now see it. The idea seems rather that slaves should merely change places with their masters (who were to be enslaved in turn) than that the race should be purged from a curse which nothing human can justify neither race superiority, economic gain, nor the tacit consent of the mass. Thus the rebels exhibited intolerance, tyranny, and cruelty from the first moment, while their leaders, aping the ways of absolute rulers, 2 lost the sympathy of even their own followers. Thus, through one cause and another, men not only remained slaves but, by far the greater part of the time, never entertained the idea of revolt. Even when they were invited to freedom they might spurn the offer, as when 1 The revolt of the Helots in Sparta came nearest success. But even in that case it was only a small minority that struggled free, with the ultimate assistance of other communities. 1 Letourneau, L'Esclavage, p. 406. 264 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Marius, in desperate grips with Sulla, offered slaves their liberty if they would join his standards. According to Plutarch, he thereby only got three recruits, so engrained had the servile habits be- come. 1 It is questionable if President Lincoln, in the crisis over the slave in America, could, had he made a similar proclamation, have got any great army through the spontaneous uprising of the blacks. Things have seldom or never gone quite in that cataclysmic fashion in tillage civilisa- tions, with their engrained submissiveness of the crowd. Even the Jacquerie which manifested itself in Europe was not at all universal, and often not inclusive of the whole district. Though far better bottomed morally, too, than the ancient slave wars, the movement was quenched in blood through defections in the ranks from the beginning, and the insuppressible conflict of interests. It is im- possible for a crowd, working up from a normal condition of supineness, to manifest anything but spasmodic coherence and defiance, while it always happens that many not only save their skins but enhance their prospects by turning traitor. Such has been the condition of the people in all ages even after slavery became expelled from the system, and it is only industrialism which has given things a somewhat different complexion, as we shall see. 1 When slavery was abolished in Algeria many preferred to remain slaves. (Ratzel, History of Mankind.) THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 265 The ancient despot, then, had virtually nothing to fear from the crowd, but only from his own kind. And challenges came not unfrequently from princes of the blood or aristocratic adventurers of what- ever kind. But whether the rebellion failed or triumphed hardly ever mattered to the crowd. For them it was a case of "Amurath to Amurath succeeds." If the despot were defeated he was imprisoned or more likely killed ; if the rebel, he was executed without benefit of clergy. Whatever happened, it was generally a case of a fight to a finish. For the bases of both combatants were the native soil from which they drew their sustenance and their soldiers. Neither king nor rebel could transport his " capital " out of reach of the victor's re- venge. It is different when commercialism enters upon the scene. Merchants trading with other countries never have all their eggs in one basket. Though their " house " might be in one country, their capital might be subtly diffused through the community or in half a dozen other lands, and no monarch could utterly confiscate the possessions of a merchant with foreign interests, however recalcitrant he might be. The capital might not only be far distant but utterly intangible, and even if visible any attempt to attach it might simply call down the wrath of a brother monarch with less love 266 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY for the trader than hatred of his despotic neighbour. Thus, grasping at a trader's gear might be more difficult than gathering up mercury spilled upon the floor. The history of the Jews is a striking illustration. They renounced tillage and took to trade, though no man knows exactly when. Their " capital " became entirely movable. All the countries in which they ever appeared could not simultaneously have resolved merely to expel them, for that would simply have been to throw your own weeds into your neighbour's garden in ex- change for his. But all the countries might have resolved simultaneously to massacre the Hebrews and confiscate whatever property made itself manifest. Then, indeed, Israel's day would have been done. But as it happened (and could only chance in this conflict-riven world), when one door closed to the Jews another opened, and their capital, being mainly movable, was easily transported with them. And, as it was their finance which largely supported Christian enterprises, they could quickly repair one loss by raising the rate for their indis- pensable capital in the quarters still open to their exploitation. Thus Christians violently relieved of obligations in one country only laid heavier burdens on other Christians, besides mysteriously sterilising their own economic processes. In this way the Jews have not only survived but prospered, for t rade gave them a vitality which tillage never THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 267 could have done. The Ten Tribes perished under agriculture, the remnant is indestructible under commercialism. The Jews are the world's " republi- cans." Let us apply their analogy to the times before they began business outside of Palestine. The impulses to trade being imperative, as we have seen, the motives to it would gain in in- tensity as civilisation radiated beyond Egypt and Mesopotamia. Especially when culture embraced the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, the forces would tend to become uncontrollable. Syria and Asia Minor are so segregated geographically that tillage could not have the massive preponderance it had in the Nile and Euphrates valleys. The sea beckoned therefore at least as much as the land attracted. The spices of Arabia, the wares of Babylon (which had begun manufacturing), the whole products of the cloudless east, were there for exportation to the peoples settling all round the rim of the great central sea semi-barbarians taken with strong odours, striking colours, and " the thousand frivolous things " of which Homer speaks. Thus the Phoenicians, however projected by fate on the narrow seaboard of Syria, became the first of mariners and led the way to " re- publicanism." The merchant class, when it had definitely emerged, would have a two-fold grudge against the despot, first, for frowning upon trade and trying to suppress it completely, and next, for 268 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY harassing it when it might no longer be kept down. For the despot, if he could not extinguish, would try to make as much profit as possible out of the irrepressible evil. Here, however, he had neither a servile mass to deal with nor recalcitrant princes or vassals who might be surrounded in their strongholds and fortresses stormed or garrisons starved into submission. The very initiative which made a man a merchant to begin with would imply a defiance with such far-reaching resources that nothing could avail against it. 1 And the merchants, of course, however diverse or conflict- ing their several interests, would have a supreme interest to defeat what was for them a common danger. So that, if insufficient concessions were granted, a revolt would be inevitable and the wealth of the class could win soldiers to its side in sufficient numbers to lay the " tyrant " low. When the question of a successor came uppermost, the instinct would be to avoid an election of a single head (which might involve another des- potism of a different kind), and to elect rather a " Committee of Trade " with a removable chairman or chairmen. There might of course be wranglings over the succession, but the tendency to equili- 1 Otto de Freisingen, the historian of Frederic Barbarossa, indignantly relates how the Italian nobility were forced by the bourgeoisie to make common cause with them, and how even artisans and people of low origin might achieve municipal power and dignity. THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 269 brium between the heads of various trades or the different financiers would always avail against despotism of the old dead-weight kind. It is no objection against this view of the evolution of re- publicanism that explicit evidence of the theory is not plentiful, for in the nature of the case the plots against monarchs would not work overtly. The rebels might, indeed, covertly favour royalism until the subtle mercantile ends were attained. The mer- chants who financed the French Revolution were loud in the profession of their loyalty, while the financiers (whose commercial interest later was to have done with republican chaos) who backed Napoleon in Brumaire but left him before Waterloo, acted with equal subtlety and secrecy on each occasion. So that, while the facts are hardly in dispute, the details remain shrouded in obscurity. History has secret springs whose working can only be understood upon general principles. It is therefore suggested that republicanism, in its most prevalent forms in the ancient world, emerged as suggested and that the theory is not only in harmony with general principles, but broadly fits all the ostensible facts. In any event, it is further suggested that, though only a few more " citizens " might thus be lifted to a higher economic and intellectual plane, the relative political freedom and elbow-room attained to still stood for the progress of civilisation. 1 Slavery 1 Coulanges, La Cite antique. 270 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY might not diminish, caste might persist, but, other things being equal, the intellectual life would tend to gain under the rule of leaders not immured in palaces and worshipped as semi-divine, but living necessarily in the open, well travelled in all likeli- hood, and, though abounding in ostentation, ad- vancing art by their emulation of each other's collections. We only know of the Phoenicians through their irreconcilable enemies the Greeks, but if they did less for thought than for mechani- cal art it was because their geographical and ethnic base was more limited than that of the Hellenic peoples. So with the Carthaginians, who are also only known to us in the writings of ir- reconcilable rivals, the Roman historians. They had a desert hinterland, a population of alien slaves and mercenaries, a mercantile obsession, and a military preoccupation in which culture could not put forth the finest fruits of the spirit. But in Greece the seas joining two continents, the plains, the mountains, and the islands combined with the trading spirit to work out a harmony of cultural forces that exhausted all the possibilities of the case. Of course there is another side to the picture. Though commercialism was so largely of the essence of the Hellenic case, 1 the Greeks 1 All the Greek states were not mercantilist, though all of them were " republican " except Sparta, which, however, might be considered practically so with its two kings (La Citi antique). It can only be concluded that the more active mercantile com- THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 271 had not mastered some of the elements of their position. They thought they could sell without buying, or import without exporting, like the densest of the Pharaohs, and sought frantically for monopolies in a fashion that the world has by no means renounced. Their very mercantilism deepened the curse of slavery, and Greece became an entrepot for human flesh to a horrible degree. Commerce in their case came to justify the excla- mation of a French philosopher that " it could not be sufficiently blessed or banned ; it is a male- factor full of virtue." It brought that war be- tween Sparta and Athens, with all the rest of Greece ranged on different sides, which was to be the ruin of the country, and paved the way for the rustic Macedonian phalanx that was only to yield place to the still ruder Romans. With all its grace and genius, therefore, even ancient Greece is seen to be but caught in the civilised drift, having struck out or perfected almost every intellectual form, but no profound or lasting social science. Aristotle, the wisest of men, could not see the essential evil of slavery, but took it as the eternal basis of society. Though Stoic thinkers hazarded the view that no men should be slaves, theirs was still but a voice in the wilderness, and civilisation had to stagger munities either forced their policy on the more rustic monarchic states, or that republicanism was adopted through imitativeness, as Brazil transformed itself into a republic and as Portugal did later " imitating an imitation." 272 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY on for centuries before that fundamental disease had been extirpated from the body politic. Rome began as a monarchy, and the legend makes out that it was the rape of Lucrece which led to the expulsion of the kings. But probably that was the occasion more than the cause of the revolution. Italy had been studded over with Greek republics, and, although Rome as a city was never predominantly mercantilist, there may have been sufficient commercialism combining with rustic republican tendencies to inaugurate a regime which was but a variation upon a hundred models. And certainly the republican state, with the inward elements of strength which have already been sug- gested and the natural centralised position which was outlined, manifested an almost unique political perspicacity and endurance according to its ideal of civilisation being by way of Roman superiority to the very ends of the world. But, as already noted, a price had to be paid for the pax Romana, and in Italy itself the intensification of slavery and the corrupting power of tribute set up social diseases which nothing but the abandonment of imperialism could have permanently cured. 1 But that renunciation was of course impossible, and, though the empire might never have fallen to bits but for the barbarians, it was an essen- 1 Many of the provincial cities seem to have led a far more healthy civic life than the capital. THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 273 tially ignoble system which would have been perpetuated. Humanitarianism, however, had be- come more explicit, if with an eye to decaying " citizens " rather than to mankind at large, for the strife of the plebs against the patricians implied only but limited enfranchisement of the people ; a vast crowd of slaves was still to be allowed to swarm upon the soil beneath the enfranchised feet. The Gracchi made desperate attempts at rustic repatriation, which were, however, defeated by the senatorial classes grown largely capitalistic if not quite mercantile in the Greek and Phoenician fashion. It was only by calling in the " mean whites," and taking advantage of senatorial divi- sions, that Caesar superimposed himself by his genius upon an oligarchy as selfish and violent as any in history, which crumbled to bits because, not being really commercial, its interests were attackable and attachable in every quarter, since Rome had become conterminous almost with the civilised world. 1 The conflict of interests within sufficed, 1 See Ferrero (Greatness and Decline of Rome) as to the com- position of Roman society at its various epochs. His book is very illuminating, but care must be taken as to some of his con- clusions, e.g. the existence and influence of " Industrialism," as to which compare Heitland, The Roman Republic, vol. L, and Robertson, The Evolution of States. Caesar is probably to be considered a successor of the earlier Greek " tyrants," who leaned upon the populace for support alike against the aristo- cratic landowners and parvenu merchants. Such " tyrants," unlike the despots in Egypt and other tillage cultures, might stimulate civilisation upon " free " enough lines. 8 274 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY however, constantly to raise up pretenders to the purple backed by every conceivable financial and ethnic interest but with the gift in the power of the strongest cohorts. The mercantilism which mo- tived the earlier republics had become confounded in an organism too great for its most character- istic display. While Roman art was not so great as Greek, the body of laws was more majestic because shaped by conditions more magistral than in any preceding case. But Roman social science left the radical problems worsened rather than solved. Slavery remained the essential curse, and Christianity really did nothing to remove it from society. The Church practised only vicari- ous piety in advising others to free their bondmen while clinging so tenaciously to its own that, in nearly every case, the last serfs to be emancipated were those of the clergy. Again it is mainly drift despite the new ecclesiastical helm. The case of Byzantium has been substantially anticipated in the present connection, her com- bination of mercantilism with august despotism being set down to the special pressure of bar- barism, 1 when she might conceivably have revived a new and better republicanism than of old. That was really to arise in resurgent Italy. It has already been indicated that Saracenic culture was perhaps of no small moment in the 1 Rarnbaucl somewhere suggests a similar explanation. THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 275 Italian revival. Its impress was not so explicitly repudiated and antagonised as in Byzantium. Islam never was " republican " in the political sense already discussed. But still it was perhaps the most democratic system that had appeared upon the scene. While it recognised slavery its limitation to the case of " infidels " stood for an immense domestic purgation ; there is no strict line between laymen and ecclesiastic as in Chris- tendom, and the Caliphs, so far from frowning down trade, were its most active promoters, 1 as keen on commerce as the German Kaiser to-day, who has therefore the esteem of the merchants to the fullest extent. 2 Despite therefore the despotism of the Caliphate, whose origin was uniformitarian, Islam once more comes in rather to relieve the gloom in the general conception. But it is with renascent Italy that a new European age really begins. If the barbarians degraded while the 1 " Their prosperity surpassed that of the ancients both in its extent and its diffusion. In their dominions commerce was free, for to restrict the trade at any place was to impose a penalty on themselves. They broke up the system of concentrating wealth upon one gorgeous emporium till it sank under the weight of its voluptuous burden, they multiplied trade marts, and made their whole dominions a hive of industry " (Yeats, The Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce). The highest in the land, too, put out their hand to agriculture as in China (Lavisse et Rambaud). * The advance of Germany, however, in the direction of " con- stitutional monarchy " is less the work of the socialists than of the bourgeoisie, who are naturally anxious to make foul or fair weather in politics as suits them best, and not an irresponsible potentate. 276 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Mohammedans rather stimulated, the break-up at the hands of Teutondom at any rate caused a reconstruction from the very foundations. Com- pared with the imperial symmetry it had two redeeming features less political despotism and less social subjection. The really vast commer- cialism embedded in Islam joined on the farthest east to the then farthest west in stronger bonds than had ever previously existed. The oppug- nancy between Byzantium and Bagdad really served the turn of politically inchoate Italy as the commercial mediator in central and not merely western Europe. Merchants therefore multiplied in the peninsula on every hand, and cities arose of a republican caste in opposition to the mon- archic despotism which was still practised at the hands of the barbarians, 1 and because of the balance of commercial interests in the towns which never was more delicately poised than in renascent Italy. Hence the turmoil, especially in the land- ward republics, which were more penetrable to all the disturbing influences of the surrounding cities, and were more diversified in their industries, with a more coherent population than the ports, which had always a considerable proportion of the proletariat on the high seas. Thus the re- 1 The idea that the northern cities owed their freedom to the Lombards is an utter delusion. (Robertson, The Evolution of States.) THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 277 publican form of government was narrow in the ratio of the city's seclusion. Venice had one of the most close-fisted oligarchies that ever existed because of her isolation in her lagoons. There, while the plebs were practically powerless against their masters, these never allowed any " Doge " permanently to usurp power. 1 Slavery had trans- muted into serfdom, which began to lapse from the social system not through any purposive effort of master or man, but apparently because it had ceased to " pay " under a new dispensation. 2 The emergence of a proletariat complicated the social problem, not merely in form but in substance, in the Italian towns. Men were now not only legally free but became politically alive, and a new, or at least more massive, assertiveness mani- fested itself involving combinations of interests, vertical, horizontal, and confused as in the strata of geology. Broadly speaking, however, there had emerged in definitive form the problem of the modern world, the struggle between Capital 1 It seems to be the case, however, that the Venetian oligarchy ruled its subjects with probably more wisdom and fairness than almost any other Italian state. (Robertson, work cited.) * Kings freed their serfs in order to get better fighting material against the nobles, and towns also manumitted bondmen for economic or political rather than purely humanitarian motives. Some nobles also had the wisdom to encourage commerce in- stead of preying upon it in the fashion which the robber barons of the Rhine have made classic (Histoire Gbierale). Henry VII favoured the merchant class in England, and it tended to back up monarchism until it became thwarted in its aims later. 278 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY and Labour, the latter now at least technically free of the servile yoke. Bourgeois and workman confronted each other in issues that are still unresolved. Republican Italy attempted all the solutions of which it was capable in its time. Florence in the midst of the struggle between em- peror and pope, republic and republic, probably went furthest of all the city states in attempts that were really heroic to set up the ideal republic to solve problems that were really incorrigible. The city, besides manifesting the most luxuriant art, engaged in varied political experiments on essentially modern lines. Always at the end of the day the bourgeoisie triumphed as against the proletariat, because of the power inherent to capital of rapidly combining its interests with its relatively few numbers, of always having the " pull " with the soldiers through its wealth, of starving out revolt and sowing dissension in the ranks of labour, unsteadier in its equilibrium because of the greater number of wills forming the combination. So it is still, even should it not always be so. Thus Italy posed the modern social problem for Europe without solving it, in the midst of an artistic efflorescence which other nations may equal but may never surpass, and whose excellency correlates with the new freedom acquired even if it were only to struggle round unsolved if not unsolvable issues. In such a marked geographical unity as Italy, it was natural that political co-ordinations should evolve covering greater areas than the city states, even if the pro- cess broadly stood for reaction. 1 What happened was that the rural states with their cruder ma- terial made headway against the more volatile and more divided towns. But, superimposed upon this inward process, came the Spanish invasion the last triumph in Europe of the essential pastora- list over the tiller and the merchant, as already amply enough descanted on. In Spain itself the lack of requisite natural re- sources, and classes corresponding thereto, and the preoccupation with the crusade, gave an entirely different complexion to the civilised drift in the Iberian peninsula. There it was drift indeed, or rather wrong-headed purposiveness in evil courses that deserved all the hardest blows of fate. Be- sides desolating America and Italy, Spain sought to dominate the Low Countries, but happily failed by a union of proletarian and mercantile energy which has few parallels in history. It has been well said that Holland was founded upon herrings, as was Venice upon salt and fishing. And a state 1 Just as the somewhat nice balance of mercantile interests within the city prevented the emergence of monarchy, so the balance of interests as between city and city must have contri- buted to their age-old pugnacities. Florence and Pisa could never agree, though their interests were not really irreconcilable any more than those of Rome and Civita Vecchia in our time. 280 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY of things developed not unlike that to-day, when the United States grows cotton and Lancashire spins it. In the Low Countries manufactures had begun with wool largely supplied from Eng- land, which then exported instead of import- ing the raw material. 1 Cities, comparable to the Italian, sprang up in the mouths of the Rhine and other rivers draining from central Europe, down which came the eastern products, and up whose currents contended the western exchanges. When the exactions of Spain grew intolerable, a secession took place, and the first Atlantic republic appeared upon the scene. The balance of mercantile forces within was as evenly poised as in Italy, and though a Stathouder was elected he was as much held in check as the Doge of Venice. By the simple practice of relative freedom of trade, Holland concentrated within herself a commercial move- ment of unexampled magnitude and variety, which induced other nations to believe that the Dutch had a special genius for business against which it was almost useless to contend. Holland showed to the world what prodigious fortune might accrue by simply allowing trade to have free course and be glorified, an idea that was carried over into the entire social system when the cry of 1 The early extirpation of the wolf in Britain is said to have favoured sheep-rearing compared with the continent. (Semple, work cited.) THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 281 " Laissez faire " was later uttered as the last word in political philosophy. The world's debt to Holland is not only liberty of trade but liberty of thought, which until then only barbaric Asiatic khans had been politic enough to allow. 1 With an art product which in its painting matches the finest Italian, the upshot is that the smallest of countries performed the greatest of deeds. Italian influences had crossed the Alps into Germany, tortured everlastingly by the spectral Roman suzerainty. Mercantilist forces began to course in the Teutonic veins, 2 but though cities rivalling those of Italy, as Augsburg and Nurnberg, arose in the land, the still vast rusticity of the country and its motley feudalism had hardly begun to give way when the religious wars made confusion worse confounded, and set the land in the rear of things for a hundred years or more. Germany did not really inaugurate the Reformation ideas as 1 Holland, however, had also manifested the spirit of religious persecution, and only later appreciated its essential futility. (Robertson, work cited.) 2 So strong did commercialism become in Europe that it not only gave rise to the Hanseatic League, one of whose main ob- jects was the suppression of piracy, but republicanism even appeared in Russia, which has remained the most despotic of European powers since the expulsion of the Tatars. Novgorod and Pskov were once all-powerful in the north in virtue of their commerce, which made them " republics " after the usual bourgeois type. They were gobbled up by the process of rural centralisation which was such a comparatively easy process in Russia owing to the nature of the country. 282 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY so many good people confidently believe. Many Italian cardinals were really more advanced in their thinking than Luther, who was an utter obscurantist in science and anything but a democrat in politics. He reviled the Copernican system, and hounded on the nobles to the destruction of the peasants, for whose new assertiveness he himself was not blameless. But Erasmus had preceded Luther, and there were French heretics before there were German Protestants. 1 But Germany, somewhat like Winkelried, gathered into her body as many of the spears of the counter-reformation as she could, and let other nations benefit by the breach which she had made. For ages she took up with a political demon who warped her whole existence, and, though she has added considerably to the general deed of man, her greatest and best work is still to do. The feudalism inaugurated (or at least most highly developed) in France long hampered her natural development. She made herself chief champion in the Crusades, and was weakened in corresponding degree, and no sooner had that drain stopped than the Hundred Years' War wrought a mutual desolation which gave Spain a political preponderance that otherwise might have been denied to her, happily for the world as well as herself. But tillage and trade had, despite 1 Guizot, Civilisation en France. THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 283 everything, made such determined strides that France's natural advantages soon brought her to the front. Her merchant classes began to gain influence in the state, but were always studiously kept in the background by the aristocracy, which paid the penalty in the Revolution when the grudges accumulated against them by the bourgeoisie found the amplest vent. 1 For the most striking if not the greatest of revolutions was essentially a bourgeois triumph. Without the middle-class the movement would have foundered completely, but the co-operation of merchant, proletary, and peasant achieved its supreme ends in a dethroned feudalism and a defeated Europe. The moment, however, that explicit socialism reared its head in the medley, it was knocked unceremoniously to the ground in the defeat of Baboeuf's conspiracy. The bourgeoisie suffered in the Napoleonic excesses, and royalism reared its crest again in the land, but not for long. It was the middle classes who de- throned King Charles, again with the co-operation of the people, but when the latter overturned Louis Philippe with a view to the establishment of a less middle-class regime, the bourgeoisie, after a moment's hesitation, recovered their courage and crushed out the movement in blood, as hap- 1 See Paul Guiraud (Fustel de Coulangea, p. 61) as to how the " Tiers -fitat " in France strove for the favour of monarchy against the nobility and clergy. 284 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY pened again in the agony of the Commune. If Italy was the innovator in the Mediterranean, France, facing both the central sea and fronting the Atlantic, became the innovator on the conti- nent of Europe. She established the peasant r&gime plus mercantilism with the control in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Her spirit soars freely in every intellectual direction, and her proletariat has made the most desperate, if not most prac- tical, attempts in modern times to solve the social problem in its own definite direction. It has really been more aggressive than in Britain, where yet industrialism is of so much more account in the economy of the nation. Less rich agriculturally than France, Britain has yet a better oceanic position, which told in her favour when the New World was laid open to discovery despite papal bulls and Spanish- Portuguese pretensions. The merchant classes multiplied rapidly in Britain, and on the advent of the Stuarts had really gained a dominant posi- tion in the state. It was London which supplied the sinews of war, if it was Cromwell who added the genius that ended the conflict. Political " ac- cident " of course helped to shape the assembly that became the Mother of Parliaments first in calling in a Dutchman who inaugurated a national debt that tended to stabilise the state by the peaceful interest of stockholders, and next in THE DRIFT OF CIVILISATION 285 allowing ministers more than ordinary scope because of the Hanoverians' ignorance of the English tongue. But in Britain, too, the bour- geoisie would have become the power behind the throne despite everything with the incalculable wealth derived from manufactures and shipping. It is incarnate in the Parliament that has become " A model for the mighty world," and it is the boast of British statesmen that it was not a deliberate device but an expedient which came to them in the civilised drift. Parliamentarianism, indeed, is Britain's special gift to the world, and it is put forward as the crowning device for any regulation that can be given to the civilisation of the future. It was only well on in the nineteenth century that Parliaments, after very grudging concessions, were either created or began to draw their authority from really popular sources. It remains to be seen if the fully developed invention will give more of purpose and popular betterment to civilisation than in " the undemocratic past." CHAPTER XIII THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION IF the views outlined in the foregoing pages are substantially sound they should serve not merely to interpret the past, but also to throw some light at least into the immediate future. It is impossible to foretell if war will ever actually break out between Britain and Germany, which have never fought each other in the past ; but it is not im- possible to predict that certain broad results will persist despite such a conflict, which would be a disgrace to the name of civilisation. It will be seen, then, that the subject can only be treated a grands traits. Let us see how it lends itself to such treatment in the light of what has already been outlined. The capital fact in modern history is that all the countries and nations of the earth have now been brought into at least mechanical touch with each other, even if the fact still involves very imperfect understanding as between extreme groups, and often, at times, the most downright hostility on the part of the most closely related peoples. While the discovery of America led to the linking up of 286 all the separated habitats of men, the colonisation was in the end to evoke new antagonisms between continents completely disconnected formerly. The United States violently seceded from Britain, and the whole of " Latin " America explosively re- nounced its allegiance to the mother countries, while in America itself antagonisms evolved where once there were none. But the fact remains that, whereas movement was formerly slowly from group to group in unconscious hemispheres, human pro- gress by the advance of science is only now limited by the atmosphere of the planet itself. It may tend to lucidity if we here split up the subject into distinctive parts. Science. Looking to the progress made within the last few generations, no bounds can be set to the tool -using faculty of man. He is now trying to " conquer the air," but the atmospheric ocean remains an extremely precarious medium. Even if man should remain practically confined to ter- restrial locomotion for all the larger movements of life, his mobility may sufficiently increase to satisfy all but the most vaulting ambitions which might desire to soar to Venus or Mars. Climate. Despite mechanical advance, climate is long likely to remain a coercive, if not an abso- lutely determining, factor in human affairs. Science may overcome the tundra and make its surface productive out of all comparison with existing 288 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY conditions, but the contingency is remote, and it is much more likely that the Arctic regions will remain valuable mainly for their pelts, and that population there will never increase much beyond its present limits. There is more hope for the torrid regions of the earth. The progress made in the study of tropical diseases gives hope that at least specific maladies may be overcome, though, even if the jungle could be tamed and its everlasting growth transformed into mechanical energy, a las- situde might remain which would tend to inhibit white settlement or keep mentality at a much lower plane than in the temperate regions of the earth. These favourable temperate areas are being ex- tended as regards their stingier soils, " dry farming " adding not inconsiderably to the productiveness of the planet. Climate, diet, &c., will of course con- tinue to work out variations in society in temperate regions, but to all appearance it will now only be on a local scale, and probably to the general betterment of civilisation as keeping up that variation on which progress so intimately depends. Never again at any rate can climate have the wholesale degrad- ing power that it exercised through the medium of nomadism, whose supersession, both in the Old World and the New, is in its way the greatest land- mark in human history. The only predatoriness that requires now to be feared is that of the tillage and industrial civilisations against each other a THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 289 subject that has already been handled incidentally, and will again be referred to in its place. Ethnic Redistribution. It was stated at the outset that, taking colour as a broad test, the " conti- nental ridges " of humanity have remained prac- tically constant in historic times saving for the white overflow into America. It is not likely that the existing ethnic order will be greatly altered, though there may be redistribution upon the margins of the grander areas. Europe is so densely peopled that saturation point has almost been reached, and only a Chinaman would think of entering as a working immigrant with any chance of bettering his lot. And the density, to say nothing of the valorous science, would be too great even for very slow infiltration of the Celestial who entertains quite other prospects. So the cry is never likely to be heard of "Europe for the Europeans." In Africa the whites have made only a considerable impression in the south, and are not likely to outstrip the philoprogenitiveness of the blacks, whose presence will continue to complicate the social problem, rendering any attempts at solution necessarily different from those in unmottled latitudes. In equatorial Africa the black man is likely to remain supreme. There never will be any question of India not remaining for the Hindus, China for the Chinese, T 290 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY and Japan for the Japanese. It is in the ancient lairs of nomadism that the greatest redistributions or ethnic conflicts may take place. The Russians have shown very considerable colonising power in Asia, as, unlike the British in India, they advanced into areas but slightly different from their own immense steppes. It is a true colonisation which the Slavs are imposing upon the erstwhile trium- phant " Turanians." The eastern stocks are con- tending strongly for victory with Russia upon the new lines. The Japanese can colonise in Korea and Manchuria, though it remains to be seen if they can really displace the natives to any consider- able extent, and whether, on the contrary, despite what may be a none too scrupulous exploitation, the native growth may not be stimulated, as by the British in India. It is probably the Chinaman who is destined to make most headway in the ancient predatory lairs, not simply because he is economy and industry incarnate, but also because of his superior numbers. He, if anybody, can make the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose, and the eastward advance of Russia will be stopped by the Chinese wall not of stone but of men. The mujik has no chance with the Chinaman as regards the wringing of subsistence from the soil. But the yellow peril is likely to be confined to inner Asia. If, however, white aggressiveness continues to goad China into militarism,, there is no saying THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 291 what may happen. What chance, for instance, of Australia continuing to hold her territory invio- late against a nation with thirty million soldiers ? Four million gamekeepers cannot possibly hold the field against four hundred million poachers. The idea of Chinese militant intrusion becomes all the more plausible when it is considered that the Celestial empire, besides being supreme in agri- culture, has much iron and the most extensive coalfields in the world. With the greatest in- dustrialism superimposed upon the greatest tillage, the expulsive power of China is really incalcul- able in the future. Australia, New Zealand, and California may not therefore be simply indulging in nightmares, whether or not the loathing of a cross between a Caucasian and a Celestial would be justified by facts. The types certainly are not too disparate in appearance, and the Chinese are really the oldest cultured people. But the question will not be settled by theory but by hard facts should the problem ever become acute. Meantime the moral for Australians and Americans seems to be that the yellow peril may be evaded, not so much by being ready to kill men as to bear children. In this connection it is to be noted that Mexicans and Brazilians do not consider the yellow man taboo as do the Californians, and as the Latin countries of the New World do not intend to be dictated to by the States, it 292 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY is probable the Celestials may be rather en- couraged than banned in Central America. If Brazil is to be populated with men rather than trees, the Chinaman would likely prove one of the toughest and most aggressive of imported species. Nationalism. In the inscrutable medley of the past, nations (in the sense of peoples having broadly distinguishable traits or institutions) have been destroyed or absorbed in the ceaseless ethnic tumult, their blood and spirit perhaps continuing to inform the conquering peoples and systems, but leaving only the barest memory of their existence. Such a people were the Hittites of Scripture, whose history is being reconstructed upon the most fragmentary memorials, even as Cuvier built up ideal skeletons of mammoths from a single bone. How many nations have perished without leaving even a sign, we can never know. Races, dialects, languages, ideals, and customs met, mingled, and contended, waxed, waned, or disappeared, according to stresses and strains which we know must have occurred in the irre- coverable past, judging by the still mutable present. Only the fittest survived. But sometimes it may have been the most fit morally and intellectually which actually disappeared. Many quiet, peace- able communities, for instance, extinguished by the Mongols must have been worthier far than their THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 298 inhuman destroyers. And probably the good may die young even in languages. For ought we know the Etruscan tongue, whose remaining symbols continue staring in glassy mystery at scholars, may have been a better medium than the once rustic Latin to which Lucretius gave sonority and Virgil grace. But one was taken and the other left. Some Italian dialects might have been really better from almost every point of view than the Tuscan, to which Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch gave classic renown ; and so with Provengal as against the langue d'oil, many German dialects as against Luther's Saxon, and even old Scotch as against old English. Mere chance seems some- times to have determined the choice, though in some cases general preponderating forces decided the issue, as, for instance, England's greater population and wealth compared with Scotland, the greater infusion of Norman-French in the vocabulary giving it polish and fitness for trade also, and so on. But for the invention of printing and the cheapening of literature, nations might have continued to drift away from their linguistic moorings without any fixed memorial of their old anchoring place. But books have had a double effect upon language, and upon nationality as symbolised therein. Literature has given world- wide vogue to the greater tongues, but at the same time has stabilised many of the pettier forms 294 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY which might otherwise have foundered completely, and they flourish now in the midst of the greater growths, like ferns at the foot of oak trees. There is never any likelihood, however, of any of these lesser forms superseding the greater, for the lin- guistic ridges are probably now as well fixed as the ethnic masses. Relative advance and retreat there must, of course, be in the great world- languages, English probably having the best chance of all through its appropriation of North America. But there is never any likelihood of there being such supersession as in ancient times, when Latin lost its hold after the fall of the empire. Even if the British empire should col- lapse, the English form of speech is almost sure to continue as a living and not merely as a learned tongue like Latin. And so with French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Hindustani, and some lesser tongues. Some ob- scurer forms may still disappear, leaving perhaps only a grammar behind in a museum ; but if print- ing has given greater expansiveness to the major tongues it has, as indicated, given stability to the minor. Last century the nobles of Hungary still stuck to Latin, but these incorrigible magnates re- nounced it in favour of the language of the crowd, even as Norman nobles took up English in the later struggles with France. As language is the most marked sign of nationality, printing has come to THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 295 reinforce it to an indefinite extent. Thus Russia will probably be foiled in the endeavour to foist her speech upon Poland. Even where a distinct form of speech may have been almost absolutely dropped, the idea of nationality may persist, as in Ireland, where only a handful now know Erse, while the majority speak English better than the Englishman himself. Geography and religion have of course played their part in the maintenance of Irish nationalism, whether or not it will ever be rewarded with the gift of Home Rule. It is not the object here to indicate as regards any given case whether autonomy should be given or with- held. But as a root principle of this essay is the value of variation in society, it is considered, on the whole, that the hardening of nationality which has taken place, and is likely to continue, will be a good thing for the promotion of civilisa- tion. The mania for uniformity which Russia has taken over from Byzantium (and even improved upon) is the worst possible thing for culture, and should be reprobated by everybody who has the welfare of real civilisation at heart. Of course Russia is not singular in her monomania, but on her vast plains and with her undiversified peasantry she has been able to practise centralisation almost to her heart's content. Should she succeed com- pletely in her uniformitarianism, it would be the worst thing possible for herself, but happily she is 296 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY likely to remain frustrate in her grandiose plans. The evocative and stabilising forces of modern science and the impossibility of keeping them outside the frontier by any ukase will tend to keep even Russia from sinking into what would be a veritable slough of despond of her own contriv- ing. Nationalism therefore has a bright enough future before it, and may not mar essential civilised amenities in asserting itself even in political separa- tion, as when Brazil bade good-bye to Portugal and Norway to Sweden. These peaceful ruptures are infinitely more recommendable than violent overlayings, as in Bosnia Herzegovina, Finland, or Korea. Militarism. With the conquest of nomadism in the New World as well as the Old, no excuse re- mained to the tillage nations for keeping up more than a sufficient police force in the nomadic direc- tions. But, as matter of fact, the agricultural and manufacturing nations have during the last century been piling up armaments in almost cumulative fashion, until Europe has long been an armed camp, and Asia and America are following suit. Herein lies a dreadful paradox. The tillage civilisations could not arm and brace themselves permanently to resist the nomad, whose predatori- ness made him the most incorrigible enemy. But, now that he has been completely hemmed in, wealth, material, initiative, and unbounded in- THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 297 genuity are being displayed by the civilised nations against each other, because of all-round distrust of an aggressiveness which yet all equally disclaim. 1 For over four hundred years the races of Europe 1 Though the number is probably diminishing, there are still some people who believe in war for its own sake, Bernhardi and Homer Lea lauding it with no end of bad sociology. As already indicated, warlike races cannot be proved to be more moral than others, but only ruder in body and soul a concomitant of their greater barbarism. The most pugnacious peoples have rotted down worse than the more pacific, who generally came out better in the ethnic struggle in the long run. The militant peoples have wrought no end of degradation on the planet, as we have seen, but it is the more peaceful industrial nations who are to-day really " inheriting the earth." The argument that war makes for the survival of the fittest will not hold water, internationally or socially. War consumes the most physically fit, leaving the race to be continued by the less healthy or actually vicious. Only where all the adult males are militant can the question of " fitness " come in. This would lead us back to Red Indian bar- barism. More efficient warriors never existed, but surely pre- Columbian America in the north is not the ideal state of society. The Spartans specialised in warfare in unique fashion in ancient times. But that did not keep the race specially moral, nor make it fitter to survive in the struggle for existence. In fact, the warlike class would have disappeared completely but for the superior vitality of the women (p. 222) and recruitment from the lower orders (Coulanges, Recherches). In Germany the Thirty Years' War brought almost every adult male into the fighting ring, but the result was almost complete political and cultural impotency. The Napoleonic wars, too, made France powerless for many years, and are said to have reduced the physical standard to a very low level, which still continues. Britain, which did about least of the fighting, had most of the gain. War may be an incorrigible thing in society as but the balancing force to attraction in nature, as already indicated, but it has no rational support in any sense save that. Its irrationality, however, is probably one of the guarantees of its longevity more's the pity ! 298 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY have been settled in the places they now occupy, with the exception that the Turk, after expanding during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, has been slowly retreating since. Wars over religion, suzerainties, disputed boundaries, markets, and love of conquest or sheer pique, kept things in a constant turmoil. To every inward cause of strife there were added questions as to the partition of Asia, Africa, and America. In the three vast con- tinents only China and Japan were able to hold up their heads against the European fire-eaters. The bloated armaments of to-day are therefore a result of Europe's attempt not only to set her own house in order, but to impose her hegemony over the rest of the globe. Spain, Portugal, France, and Britain fought like animals for the prey, the lion's share going to Britain in the end of the day. Things were still ebullient when the French Revolution broke out, involving a complicated series of wars which had reflex actions all over the world, and the military fever has not only never quite abated since in Europe, but the infection has spread to the far east as well as the far west, and nations everywhere are piling up armaments mountains high, except in Africa, where the means of the nations only permit of molehills. It is now beginning to be recognised that all this stands for a terrible waste of energy, especially since it it is believed that even a victory nowadays can THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 299 substantially avail neither socially, politically, nor economically, because markets cannot be " captured " nor the sympathies of annexed provinces bought to the conquerors' advantage. Though that is the view entertained by the writer, he is not hopeful that militarism can abate in the immediate future. 1 In his opinion, the world- 1 The author of the Oreat Illusion aptly enough points to the fact that, while the duel persists on the continent, it has been abandoned in " Anglo-Saxondom," and (saving in the Balkans and Ireland) Europe has not been " polarised " by religious strife since the settlement imposed by the Peace of Westphalia ; and it is cogently asked if individuals can abandon the code duello and nations renounce strife for religious motives, why cannot the communities give up war on all the remaining grounds of quarrel, especially seeing that it can be profitable to neither victor nor vanquished ? The only answer that seems appropriate is this : The analogy of the duel and the wars of religion would shut up the pacifist to the conclusion that " force " is being eliminated from society. If it is not declining in quantity, then it is merely chang- ing its form, and our last state may be no better than any ante- cedent condition. But how can it be proved that " force " (in the sense of incessant wasteful preparation for war as well as actual explosions) is diminishing ? It cannot be done. We seem really to be dealing with imponderable elements, and, in the last analysis, even the pacifist must walk by faith rather than by sight. For it may be summarily said that in history up to this point " every political and social integration has involved a corresponding oppugnancy." Persians, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, French, Germans, and Britishers, when they united, only made war all the more vigorously against outside nations. That has always been the case in history. To-day the Triple Alliance in Europe has called forth the " Triplice," and a mili- tant union of the various parts of the British Empire can, by the whole analogy of history, only lead to corresponding an- tagonisms in some other quarters which we cannot foresee. The secular economic waste becomes greater and greater, while wars can neither be proved to be diminishing in number nor in the loss 300 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY centre of militarism to-day is not to be sought in Germany, as so many people believe, but rather in Russia. Fate made Muscovy the buffer state between Asiatic nomadism and Europe, and no races were ever so much devastated by ethnic storms because of the openness of the Russian plains to the barbaric horsemen from the steppes. Russia did a great work for civilisation in not only expelling the Tatar from Europe, but in completely sur- rounding him in his inmost Asiatic lairs. But, civiliser as she has been in the east, she makes rather for barbarism in Europe. Her enormous fertile plains make her the greatest tillage power in Europe, or, in her own way, in the world. But her level plains and undifferentiated classes make her populations among the most easily exploited on the globe a monotonous, ignorant, frowsy mass. The aggressiveness which is a primum of the human energy that they involve. We seem to be caught in a vicious circle, and, in the end, the pacifist may be left only with his sentimental aspiration as the militarist with his aggressive though equally " sentimental " desire " two incensed and mighty x>pposites " as Shakespeare says, which may never be reconciled. The hope for humanity seems to be, not so much that struggle will be " eliminated " from society, as that it will be diverted into ideal ways that will stop short of physical violence, and expend itself in constructive spiritual, economic, and athletic struggles humanity uniting in an endless series of emulations on a world-scale on the model of Greeks in their Olympian games, and even Red Indians in their " world-fairs." War may have to lapse from life, like slavery and serfdom, but still it is the part of all who recognise its essential banefulness to hasten the end by every purposive effort. THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 301 mobile of all nations has thus been handled without check by the ruling classes, who, because they are so little mercantile, are militarist in corresponding degree. Designing as Russia has always undoubtedly been, she was right in believ- ing that her western neighbours had designs upon her, since there is aggressiveness on all hands. With the nomad always on her borders, she not only always possessed a good militant excuse but also good (or at least abundant) material wherewith to remain armed to the teeth, and so she has never been pacific except on paper. The superficial area of her empire is not only greater than that of the moon at the full, but it is the most compact in the world, occupying indeed the strategic centre of the Old World, and, with modern weapons of pre- cision and no end of soldiers, it is practically impenetrable from the outside. It was with the utmost difficulty that Japan conquered in Man- churia ; and whereas she was exhausted by her effort, Russia recovered so rapidly that it is now seen her defeat was nothing more than a pin-prick on the skin of a giant. Russia threatens America in Alaska, Japan and China over tremendous boundaries, Britain in India and all the buffer states, Turkey and the Balkan nations, Austria, Germany, and Scandinavia, and, in the event of a conflict at any point, she could always have the supreme military advantage of operating on interior 302 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY lines. The speed of pacifism therefore wholly de- pends upon the rate at which Russia may recognise the futility of militarism on the part of tillage- industrial peoples, and make a real and not a false start towards disarmament, as happened after the publication of the Czar's eirenicon. In the mean- time some nations may become insolvent under the competition, but that does not at all mean that there will be general abatement. At any rate the bankruptcy of Spain and Portugal in former times led, not to mitigation of the curse, but rather to its intensification, since others quarrelled all the more fiercely over the assets. And China's impecuniosity has only called the military vultures out of the skies, for they all scent a carcass, though in the end China may become the greatest vulture herself, thanks to " enlight- ened " Europe. Though diminution of armaments is not past praying for, it is not likely to materialise for a generation or two at least, and all will depend upon Russia. When she says stop (and does it), we can all stop. The Social Problem. It was pointed out how gradually slavery seems to have lapsed from life, and through the operation of but dimly discernible forces. So long as manhood was not legally recognised, civilisation might be considered in- complete as regards even its elements, for it may never be perfect under any transmutations. Caste, THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 303 as distinct from slavery, is not only rampant in the east but is prevalent enough in the west, though, as it has been softened considerably in the Occident through the immense intellectual ferments of the time, the chances are that it will become toned down to a minimum in Europe and America, and perhaps even modified somewhat in India. But the substantial problem goes much deeper. What are likely to be the future relations of Capital and Labour ? There are those who say that socialism (as meaning the nationalisation of the land and the means of production) is for ever impossible in the nature of the case. The writer does not think so. It may not be quite accurate to call the system in pre-Columbian Peru state socialism, but at any rate it shows to what lengths social " regi- mentation " can go in a land nearly two thousand miles long. Unless, therefore, education reinforces individualism as against co-operation, socialism seems at least practicable in the future, if by no means desirable. It is not the object meantime to discuss either point, but merely to indicate the forces controlling the immediate prospects. These are the existence of bloated armaments and the apparently unimpaired power of the bourgeoisie in modern society. So long as each country diverts such a large part of its energies in a wasteful direction, the social problem cannot be handled as effectively as it might otherwise be. Reform 304 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY (which can never be precipitate, since there is nothing more difficult than to cut and carve at social bone, muscle, and sinew) requires money, and "what is used to grind the powder of militancy cannot be utilised to triturate the flour of peace." Militarism therefore is a complete dragging force, as the case of Germany in particular shows. There the socialists are the largest single body in the Reichstag, but their power hitherto has been altogether disproportionate to their numbers, to a great extent because militarism warps the whole process. For long the socialists in Germany may have to remain content with the crumbs that are thrown to them from the militarist, or rather bureaucratic, table. 1 In America, on the other hand, where there is less militarism, socialism has comparatively little hold as yet. This is due to a considerable extent to the flooding of the labour market by immigration, preventing any such solidarity in the working ranks as is mani- fested in Australia and New Zealand, whose distance from Europe prevents dilution to anything like the same extent. There, too, militarism has been of no account until within the last few years, and it may be that the militarism being introduced will turn to the comparative disadvantage of the 1 Of course, if the militarist pressure ceased in Germany, the socialist vote would also largely diminish, since it is notorious that many only vote that " ticket " by way of protest rather than complete conviction. THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 305 rankers, who will be mainly artisans in uniform, and probably some day will be found in practical opposi- tion to their fellow citizens, as happens in Europe. No greater pyschological "sea-change" can be imagined than occurs in the case of the labourer turned soldier. To-day he strikes, to-morrow he may be shooting at his own confederates. Labour assertiveness, however, is likely on the whole to increase, but its power will vary with the different circumstances of the case. In Britain, where in- dustrialism is at a maximum, it may gain victories, while in France, with a greater rustic vote against it, it may not have such substantial triumphs, and in Russia the dead-weight of ruralism may make labour (really an urban phenomenon) of no account for generations. The social question will advance with very uneven pace, and at every turn the bourgeoisie (there is really no other term for the force that emerged with mercantilism but has also a foot in the landlord camp) will have the deciding voice in the conflict. It is safe to say that that force will not be expelled from politics for at least a hundred years, if indeed it ever goes. But it would be utterly wrong to represent it as an essentially reactionary thing. If it has its re- pulsions it has also its sympathies for the force inchoately opposed to its own, and, if its wealth may frustrate social reform at certain points, its influence will be constructive and beneficial at u 306 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY others. 1 In these Parliaments which have come to stay (with improvements, it is hoped, upon the British model), the hand of the bourgeois may powerfully assist in remodelling society if never to his own explicit effacement, at any rate to a point which may be as high above mere proletary as that is above slavery. It may be the case, however, that for generations to come man's mechanical skill will continue to outpace his power of social reconstruction, just because there is in- calculable life and movement in the latter case but not in the former. And to make a new heaven and a new earth will require more than machinery. In any event society is never likely to founder again to any great local extent. Civilisation got rid of its worst bacillus in expelling the nomad. No community or nation ever perished by what might be called spontaneous combustion, though the Red Indians showed how warfare (vaunted by some as a valuable tonic in civilisation) could keep culture at the lowest level of any great tillable area on earth. 2 But though civil wars might arise in agricultural society, and stupid contests might take place between tillage nations and among industrial 1 The history of Rome, France, Britain, and many other countries shows how often sympathy and leadership in the popular interest emerged from the aristocratic ranks. 1 Schoolcraft speaks of a tribe south of Lake Superior which had become well nigh extinct by civil war, but even the vendetta in Corsica and Afghanistan has never led to extermination. THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 307 communities, yet the creative force which made the society what it was to begin with continued incarnate in the system, and might soon repair the waste which had been made. 1 In short, the self-stultification of warfare between the tillage and industrial nations, which has operated through- out history, is now having such a cumulative effect that civilisation, despite the growth in armaments, can surely never again be in radical danger from the malpractices of its own exponents. For the science inherent to humanity seems to have become essentially more and more constructive in its operations. Beginning in the primeval lore of 1 E.g. Alexander the Great's constructiveness, which happily cancelled his military furies, even if some of the cities he founded were as ephemeral as those by which Potemkin deluded Catherine the Great in her famous journey to the south. It has already been pointed out how Rome helped to raise Carthage from the dust, thereby condemning her own destructive policy. Unlike the pastoralist Spaniards, Louis XIV and Napoleon tended to be constructive in some of their conquests, though their efforts were marred by making France their chief concern, Napoleon chasing Louis from the Dutch throne because he wanted to " cultiver son jardin." No civil war outside of China was probably ever waged on such a great scale as that in America, ostensibly over " state rights " but virtually about the slave. No sooner was it ended than the work of reconstruction was feverishly begun, and, since Britain and Brazil freed slaves with- out strife, there is no reason why the waste in America might not have been avoided also. Alsace-Lorraine forms probably more of a problem for Germany than a profit ; in any case it has been reconstruction, and now concession, which have marked the " conquest." France and Germany may again " bleed like veal " over these provinces, but it will be substantially for an illusion. 308 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY the savage it could carry man to no great heights under the lassitude of tropical heats and the pressure of polar colds. But culture, based upon the intensive cultivation of the land, sprouted spontaneously wherever the soil and climate were suitable, and blossomed and flowered up to all the possibilities of the case. Thus Egypt, Mesopo- tamia, India, and China reared up hoary civilisa- tions whose roots are lost in the primitive strata of human effort, while Persia, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome, whose systems derived in part from the older lores, showed to what higher heights culture might attain to under more temperate skies and freer political conditions. Marred as the ancient civilisations were by the social diseases bound up with slavery, by every economic fallacy, and by endless international antipathies, the constructive forces at work in the Mediterranean world tended to weave together an immense civilised fabric which might never have fallen to pieces of itself despite all the sectional discords. For history knows of no cases of the complete obliteration of one tillage civilisation by another. The work of destruction and effective degradation, as we have seen, came from the unbridled ferocity of the nomad, alike in the Old World and the New. But in the end of the day the constructive forces inherent in agriculture and industry triumphed definitely against the nomad, and have been rising superior THE FUTURE OF CIVILISATION 809 to their own wayward moods of sectional de- struction, until civilisation is becoming " all of a piece," so to say, and may one day embrace all lands and peoples in its sweep. Thus, though wars and rumours of wars may long continue, science, which has stood all the storms of the past, is not likely to succumb to any cataclysm of the future. And as " constructive amelioration " has been gaining through the ages (in the successive lapsing of slavery, serfdom, and innumerable social and political inequalities, and by the enforcement of endless legislative checks against the unscrupu- lous exploiter, accompanied by efforts at raising the reward and status of the proletariat), so not only material but also social betterment is likely to be the " note " of civilisation in the times to come. RECAPITULATION IT may tend to final lucidity if the views briefly outlined in the foregoing pages are recapitulated in the most highly condensed form possible. 1. It was assumed that mankind emerged on the planet when the existing distribution of land and sea had been settled practically as it is to-day. 2. Though the place of man's origin is un- known, it is generally believed now that there was only one " centre " (probably in the tropics) from which the race radiated over the whole earth, being modified almost infinitely by the different " environments " in the long prehistoric process, which may have lasted for hundreds of thousands of years. 3. Man is not radically distinguishable from the animals by his sociability, some of the so-called lower orders being perhaps superior to humanity in this respect. 4. What fundamentally distinguishes man from the rest of life is his faculty (acquired we know not how) to use matter not organically connected with his body so as indefinitely to modify other matter in other words, to use " tools." 310 RECAPITULATION 311 5. This tool-using faculty not only antedates history, but no contemporary race of men, however " low," has been found to be devoid of it. 6. But, while man's faculty of manipulating matter gave him singular power against his en- vironment, that might still exercise an almost complete inhibition in extreme climates. 7. Thus polar cold and tropic heat have alike been inimical to human progress, the one by mini- mising extra-human life, and the other by causing a superabundance of plants, animals, and insect pests a coercion which still continues despite the advance of science. 8. It was thus only in the temperate regions of the world that progress could take place in- definitely. 9. In these regions, while, on the one hand, the climate stimulated man to till the ground (under an impulse that can only be considered fundamental), on the other hand the hunter and the shepherd, whether or not they preceded the agriculturist, tended constantly to mar the work of civilisation, which consists essentially in tillage. 10. A coefficient of the hunting and pastoral stages of existence was the maintenance of com- parative courage and virility in the mass, just as comparative docility manifested itself as a con- comitant of tillage. 11. As greater wealth (however badly distri- 312 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY buted) accumulated in the agricultural areas, there was a constant temptation for the hunter or pastoralist to despoil the tiller, whose essentially peaceful occupation made him psychically incapable of complete defence. 12. Thus predatoriness presumably manifested itself all over the world, though it was only the great open plains of the planet, centring in zones of insufficient rainfall, which made nomadism per- fectly intractable in former times. 13. Ex hypothesi, tillage could flourish most in areas best protected from nomadism a theory which accounts equally for the priority in civilisation of Egypt and Mesopotamia in the Old World and for that of Mexico and Peru in the New. 14. Whether or not drought played a vital part in the nomadic invasions emanating from Asia is unknown, but, at any rate, the propulsions account for all the degradations of the Eurasian civilisa- tions known to history. 15. In North America the simple build of the continent gave the nomadic red-skin such absolute power that he kept things completely at a savage level in areas specially fit for agriculture. 16. Firearms (accompanied of course by wealth, numbers, and perhaps a heightening of manhood) in the end of the day gave not only a perfect defence against nomadism, but enabled tillage completely to surround it in Asia and America. RECAPITULATION 313 17. The passing of nomadism is thus to be con- sidered a great epoch in human history. 18. Reasons were given for the political helpless- ness of the highlander in history compared with the nomad; despite his predatoriness, it was suggested that the mountaineer was not so much a degrading factor in civilisation as a clarifier of culture. 19. The sea also has been an active, progressive force in civilisation, despite the piracy that was immanent in the maritime vocation until modern times. 20. Turning from the consideration of external influences to the more intimate structure of society itself, it was hazarded that the immemorial sub- jection of woman to man, however induced, was a deplorable thing, and that progress lay in re- dressing inequalities, even if there was a difference of opinion as to how far " emancipation " should go. 21. It was indicated why slavery was incon sistent with the hunter's life, and but moderately compatible with the pastoral system, and how it deepened along with tillage. Slavery, caste, and gross political and economic inequality were con- comitants of agriculture ; but that was probably the price civilisation had to pay in becoming completely sedentary. 22. As against the monarchical despotism which accrued in most countries, there is only broadly outlined the classical " republicanism" which was 314 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY held to be due to a preponderance of MERCANTILISM in the community, and a rather nice balance of its own inward forces. 23. Broadly speaking, the tillage civilisations have drifted rather than been purposely and wisely guided in their activities, outward as well as in- ward ; but their conflicts inter se, though wasteful, and now believed to be wholly unprofitable from the beginning, never had quite the degrading power of nomadism, since the instinct always was to repair waste as soon as made. 24. Slavery merged into serfdom, and the latter lapsed from the world through causes which are only faintly discernible, but which were, presum- ably, in part economic, and, latterly at any rate, explicitly humanitarian. 25. While mere legal freedom was in itself a great achievement, the problem of Capital and Labour, which has been troublesome since the Middle Ages, is still quite unresolved, though on this point and the question of international re- lations, the writer is inclined to optimism rather than pessimism, even if mechanical skill may tend to keep ahead of social science. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Climate. Hann's Handbook of Climatology, trans- lated by R. de Courcy Ward, remains the authori- tative work. Mr. Ward has a book of his own, Climate in its Relation to Man, which is worth consulting. Nearly all works of " Physiography " (which are now very numerous) go into the subject of climate in greater or less degree. Anthropology. The literature of this subject is constantly increasing. But Professor Tylor's various works remain authoritative. The same is to be said of Ratzel's History of Mankind ; but the title is misleading, since it should be " Description " rather than " History." Geography. The works which have mainly been relied on are Reclus' Universal Geography (still good for permanent features), and the International Geography, edited by Dr. H. R. Mill. Nomadism. The earliest hint which the writer remembers receiving on this subject was in a criticism of a book known only to experts Charles Comte's Traiti de Legislation, which, however, really takes no account of jurisprudence. Besides noting the drift of civilisation from south 315 316 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY to north, Comte dwells on the tendency of pastoral peoples to overrun agriculturists in virtue of their ruder psychology. But neither he, nor any sub- sequent writer known to the author, deals with the rise of civilisation as being in terms, not only of " climate " but of the less or more nomadism induced thereby ; neither has anyone known to the present writer worked out the causes of the supersession of nomadism. In fact, the main object of the present book is to propound these ideas. Peisker's excellent contributions to the Cambridge Mediceval History give the best view of the influence of nomadism in Eurasia, but he does not deal with nomadism in relation to the rise of civilisation, nor to the very striking case of America enlarged on in the text. As to current views of the conditioning forces of civilisation, the reader should consult Flint's Philosophy of History, Buckle's History of Civilisation (Routledge's edi- tion), Robertson's Evolution of States and Buckle and his Critics, Miss Semple's Influences of Geo- graphic Environment and Payne's History of the New World (unfortunately left incomplete). There is no history of " Nomadism " as such, and Howorth's History of the Mongols takes little or no account of causation. Even the chapters in Lavisse and Rambaud's Histoire Ginirale are about the least satisfactory in that otherwise excellent work. BIBLIOGRAPHY 317 The Highlander in History and The Sea in Civi- lisation are perhaps treated most systematically in Miss Semple's Influences. The present writer has amplified the former topic, and brought both into organic relation to the other subjects dealt with in the text. Sex in History. The suffragette movement has called forth a wealth of " feminist " literature, causing really an embarras de richesses. Ward's Pure Sociology should be consulted for its rele- vant chapters, while Letourneau's La Femme gives perhaps the most cyclopedic view of the subject. The Development and Drift of Civilisation. The writer knows of no systematic and exhaustive treat- ment of " Custom " as a social force, the subject being treated incidentally in various branches of literature. A Glasgow professor named Millar wrote a book in 1771 on Observations concerning the Distinction of Ranks in Society, which, how- ever, does not go very deep, and there has been hardly any further penetration since, despite heroic attempts like M. Majewski's Science de la Civilisa- tion, which is so extremely "algebraic" that it has the appearance more of a work on geometry than sociology. The part that religion played in the evolution of kings is treated of in the new edition of Frazer's Golden Bough. The writer had only vague enough hints as to the origin of classical " republicanism," and his theory is 318 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY to be viewed as mainly tentative. Fustel de Coulanges' Histoire des Institutions Politiques de Vancienne France contains the completest and most rigorous study of the origins of European feudalism. Letourneau's Property and the late Duke of Argyll's Unseen Foundations of Society take the wider view of feudalism urged in the text. 1 Bryce's Holy Roman Empire and Fisher's later work (The Mediaeval Empire] should be consulted for the details of this supremely confusing conception. Readers interested in the question of slavery should read Wallon's Histoire and Letourneau's VEsclavage. As stated in the text, we are very much in the dark as to how slavery merged into serfdom, and serfdom in turn ceased to be feudal bondage with the end of which came indus- trialism and parliamentarianism. When we get to Parliaments, all the standard histories of Europe apply, besides innumerable special works, and so no special recommendations need be made except to note Mr. G. P. Goochs' excellent History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century, which should be in every student's library. All the other books mentioned in the text are worth consulting as regards the special bearings for which they are cited. 1 Coulanges incidentally states the same view in his Origines (p. xii) : "II s'est produit chez toutes les races. II n'est ni remain nigermain; il appartient a la nature humaine. 1 ' (See also monograph by Guiraud, p. 143.) CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE (" Nomadic " interventions are in Clarendon type, but only the main movements are indicated) B.C. 6000. Civilisation believed to be traceable back as far as this in Babylon, but probably began much earlier both in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Though the material re- mains found in Babylonia may indicate greater anti- quity than anything yet discovered hi Egypt, it does not necessarily follow that the Nile valley really lagged behind the Tigris-Euphrates country. Brick tablets may be even more lasting than sculptured granite blocks, and " luck " may simply have favoured longer preservation in one case than the other. In any event, Egypt's apparently completer natural protection from nomadism may really have favoured culture earlier in time and permitted a stabler development in politics. In this connection the reader should note that the ancient Egyptian cities were not walled like those in Mesopotamia. This suggests less liability to disturb- ance both from barbarism without and irruptions within. Though Mesopotamia probably stood for a broader civilisation, as noted earlier (meaning thereby a larger cultivable area of land, a greater productivity, and denser populations), the land was always much more divided politically than Egypt, and there is a greater impression of historical grandeur in the case of the Pharaohs, " whose dynasties recede into slanting majestic solitudes like the mountains of Thibet." 5000 (about). Babylon apparently invaded by a warlike " Semitic " race, perhaps from Arabia (the historical Babylonians). 4400 (about). Accession of Menes in Egypt (first dynasty, there being in all over thirty, covering a period of 4000 years). 319 320 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY B.C. 3866. Probable date of the " Step Pyramid " at Saqqarah and the Great Sphinx at Gizeh. 3766. Egyptian wars against robber tribes, and conquest of Sinai for its mineral wealth. 3733. Reign of Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid. The "Semites" in full possession of Babylonia. 3000. Wall built across Isthmus of Suez to keep out invaders. Thebes rising to power against Memphis (see p. 258). 2466. Expedition against the Libyans. 2342. Reign of Hammurabi (see p. 82) in Babylon. 2305. Lake Moeris constructed in Egypt for Nile overflow. 2000 (about). Hyksos invasion of Egypt. Supposed "Aryan" invasion of India. 1700. Elamites (mountaineers) invade Babylon. 1600. Expulsion of the Hyksos. 1420. King Amenhotep IV institutes a strictly monotheistic religion in Egypt, which, however, lasts for only fifty years, being overcome by the resurgent national forms, as was Buddhism by Brahmanism later in India. 1345. Reign of Ramses II, "The Great." The supposed Pharaoh of the oppression. Wars with the Hittites, war between Babylon and Assyria. 1193-1184. Traditional date of the Trojan War. Phoenician towns rising to eminence. 1135. Nebuchadrezzar invades Syria. 1123. Chow Dynasty in China, which evolved on " feudalistic " lines. 1100. Dorian invasion of Greece. 1075. Priests usurp rule in Egypt. 1025-953. Reigns of David and Solomon in Israel. Zoroaster in Persia. 936. Predatory raids into China of Tatars, who remain a constant menace. 814. Traditionary foundation of Carthage, and Laws of Lycurgus in Sparta. 753. Traditionary foundation of Rome (Romulus and Remus). 728. End of the old Babylonian empire by the rise of Assyria ; beginning of the subjection of Egypt by the advent of the Ethiopians. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 321 B.C. 701. Assyrian invasions of Palestine and Egypt begin. Descent of " Scythians " into Media. 655. New dynasty in Egypt, Psammeticus making com* mercial treaties with Greeks. 650. Jimmu Tenno, the first " Mikado " in Japan. 606. Scythians or Medes destroy Nineveh (the capital of Assyria, see p. 52). 605. Nebuchadrezzar in Egypt, end of Egyptian rule. 894. Solonian laws in Athens. Greece passing from " patri- archal " monarchies through " tyrannies " to " re- publics " of various types. 686. Capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar, deportation of the people, and end of the distinctive polity. 559-529. Cyrus, King of Persia. Capture of Babylon Egypt becomes a Persian province. Confucianism in China. 632. Buddha renounces the world. 510. Expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome and emergence of the " republic." 500. Beginning of Persian invasions of Greece. 490. Battle of Marathon, defeat of Persians. 480. Naval battle of Salamis, defeat of Persians. 479. Battle of Plataaa, rout of the Persians. 431. Outbreak of the Peloponnesian war Athens under Pericles. 404. Surrender of Athens and end of the war. 399-4. Spartan victories in Asia Minor against Persia (see p. 79). 379-362. Contest between Thebes and Sparta. Victories of Epaminondas. Short-lived hegemony of Thebes. 376. Borne captured by the Gauls, though Capitol not taken. 359-336. Eise of Macedonia Philip's victory of Chseronea (336). 334. Alexander the Great's invasion and conquest of Persia. He also invades the Punjab, and dies on his return to Babylon in 323. Thereupon ensued the wars of the Diadochi (successors of Alexander, see p. 80). If Alexander had gone west instead of east, the career of Rome might have been seriously interrupted. But, of course, the plunder lay in the Orient. X 322 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY B.C. 265 (about). Asoka in India spread of Buddhism. 264. When Rome had conquered the peninsula, there began the war with Carthage. 260. First naval victory of Romans at Mylse. 246. China. Building of the Great Wall, about 1400 miles long. 241. Carthage gave up all claims to Sicily, which became first Roman province. 229. Defeat of Illyrian pirates by Romans. 225-222. Subjugation of Cisalpine Gauls, who had been joined by bands from other side of the Alps. 218-201. New war with Carthage (second Punic War). Hannibal in Italy. He left in 202, and was defeated by Scipio in the decisive battle of Zama. 146. Capture and destruction of Carthage in third Punic War. Corinth also destroyed at the command of the Senate (see p. 250). 133-128. Civil disturbances under the Gracchi-aristocrats who favoured popular claims which were frustrated. 113-101. War against the Cimbri and Teutones success- fully ended by Marius. 90-82. Social war in Rome at same time as contest with King of Pontus (Mithridates). Temporary triumph of " aristocratic " party under Sulla. 67. Pompey's victory over the pirates (see p. 214). 68-61. Caesar's conquest of Gaul. 44. Assassination of Julius Caesar. 31 to A.D. 14. Augustus sole ruler Romans defeated (A.D. 9) by Arminius in Teutoburg forest (p. 87), but barbarians, though constantly trying to plunder, held completely in check for another 300 years. Again and again Rome tried to conquer Parthia (Persia), but never succeeded. India sinks from historical sight until the Mohammedan invasion, about A.D. 1000. The Roman empire (which included all the countries round the Mediterranean and the greater part of Britain) and Parthia, thus monopolise the historical stage in the western world, as do China and Japan in the farthest east. Civilisation may then have flourished in Mexico and Peru in the New World, CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 328 A.D. but it is thought these " empires " may only have existed for a few hundred years before the arrival of Columbus in 1493. 64. First persecution of the Christians. 105. Trajan wars against the Dacians and builds wall against barbarians. 117-138. Hadrian's progress through the empire, and wall built against the Picts and Scots. 166-180. Marcus Aurelius. He warred more or less success- fully against the barbarian Marcomanni and Quadi. After his death the emperors were for the most part appointed by the soldiers. 180-284. In one hundred years, over twenty emperors of various nationalities and of greatly varying merit. But despite barbarian recalcitrance and inward confusion, due in growing measure to the strife between Pagans and Christians, the empire keeps "worrying along" until 284-305 when it was re-organised by Diocletian, who made quite explicit the distinction between east and west (see p. 88). 306-327. Advent of Constantino, who favours Christians and, after the defeat of his rivals, selects Byzantium for his capital. 361-363. Julian the Apostate, who successfully wars against the Alamanni and the Franks, and dies fighting against the Persians at Ctesiphon. 375. The Huns cross the Volga. Coulanges (L'Invasion Oer- manique) holds that there had been great political decadence in " Germany " since the days of Julius Caesar, due either to inward dissension or the pressure of the Asiatic barbarians. In any event the European barbarians were unable to resist the Hunnish onset, and some "Goths" sought shelter within the eastern confines of the Roman Empire. Things having been badly mismanaged by officialdom in con- nection with their settlement, they revolted, and in 378 defeated Valens at the battle of Adrianople, the emperor being killed in the fight. The barbarian success was due to the cavalry (see p. 154). Despite X 2 324 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY A.D. this victory the barbarians made practically no bead- way against the eastern empire. For whatever reason, the western segment showed less powers of resistance (see p. 92 for suggested causes) and in 410 Alaric, leader of a miscellaneous band of bar- barians, captured Home and sacked the city. 439. Genseric, the Vandal king, captured Carthage and began active piracy in the Mediterranean, taking Borne in 455. 451. Attila defeated on the "Catalaunian fields." 453. Destruction of Aqnileia by Attila. 476. The last king of Rome (Romulus Augustulus) deposed by Odoacer, a leader of mercenaries. There remained, however, a nominal recognition of the " empire." 486. Emergence of the Prankish kingdom in "Gaul." 533-4. Belisarius destroys the Vandal kingdom of Carthage, which had undergone rapid internal decay. 644-555. Belisarius and Narses destroy the last Gothic kingdom in Italy. 568. Lombards invade Northern Italy and found a new kingdom, which lasted till time of Charle- magne (774). 590. Gregory I, Bishop of Rome. Beginning of the Papacy, which probably acquired all the greater power because of the lack of a dominant civil head in Rome, as well as because of traditional currents of feeling in favour of " the eternal city." 622. Mohammed's flight (Hegira) from Mecca to Medina. As indicated on p. 97, Byzantium and Persia, which had been rising and falling in culture and relative political force, had been fighting each other almost constantly, causing mutual exhaustion. They had at the same time to fight constantly against northern "barbarians." 632-644. Wars of the Mohammedans begin against Byzantium and Persia. Conquest of Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Persia. 656. Conquest of northern Africa begins. 673. Saracens besiege Constantinople. 677. Their frustration by " Greek fire." 325 A.D. 711. Moorish invasion of Spain and destruction of Visigothic kingdom. 718. In China incessant attacks of Tatars despite the great wall. Saracens again unsuccessful against Constantinople. 732. Defeat of Saracens at Tours by Charles Martel. 768. Advent of Charlemagne, who had diplomatic relations with Haroun al-Rasehid, Caliph of Bagdad. 800. Charlemagne crowned at Rome, emergence of the "Holy Roman Empire." 843. Treaty of Verdun, which split up the empire of Charle- magne. The invasions of Norsemen, Slavs, and Magyars added to the confusion and ultimately induced the "Dark Ages." The Mohammedan countries, though often torn with civil strife, lived on a higher plane of material culture. The re- stricted Byzantine empire had apparently more culture than the rest of Christian Europe. Italy grevr cultured before the western nations, to a considerable extent by absorbing Saracenic science. 1000. By this time the Italian republics had begun to appear. It is now being contended that there is no good ground for believing Europe was obsessed with the idea of the world coming to an end in 1000. (See Reclus, L'Homme et la Terre and Encyclopaedia Britannica, article on the Middle Ages.) 1066. Conquest of England by Normans who had gamed a footing in France more than a hundred years earlier. 1096. Beginning of the Crusades, which lasted for nearly 200 years (Acre lost in 1291 ). The Seljukian Turks, who had drifted from inner Asia, were succeeded about 1200 by the Ottomans, who had apparently retired before the Mongols (p. 117). 1206. Election of Ghenghis-Khan Conquests in China, India, Persia, Asia Minor, and eastern Europe. 1241. Battle of Wahlstatt. Mongols defeat western armies. Settlement of the " Golden Horde " in Russia. 1259-1294. Kublai Khan in China. 1300-1400. Conquests of the Ottomans in Asia Minor. 326 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY A.D. 1346. Battle of Crecy. Gunpowder in use as projecting force. 1402. Defeat of Sultan Bajazet by Tamerlane, who had re- peated the conquests of Ghenghis Khan. Mean- time most of the nations of Europe had begun definitely to take their present shape, and grew in strength, except as regards Byzantium and the Balkan nations, which continued to lose in power. 1453. Capture of Constantinople and flight of Greek scholars. It seems a mistake, however, to connect the Renais- sance with their dispersion. The commercial and cultural revival had taken place in Italy long before. The classics had proved quite unavailing to revive culture in Constantinople itself, and it is questionable if the Greek scholars did not add a final film of pedantry to the Renaissance rather than supply a great stimulus. 1462. Invention of printing and improvement in manufacture of paper (China had invented printing much earlier). 1492. Expulsion of Moors from Spain and discovery of America by Columbus (the Norsemen are supposed to have discovered it about 1000). 1498. Vasco da Gama sails to India. 1502. Destruction of the " Golden Horde." 1619-1522. Magellan's expedition round the world. Conquest of Mexico by Cortez. 1631. Conquest of Peru by Pizarro. Meantime the Spaniards were contending with France for empire in Italy, and captured Rome in 1527, sacking it worse than Genseric. 1542-1573. Tatar incursions into China. 1616. Invasion of China by Manchus. These nomadic invasions of China were apparently ren- dered possible by the comparative neglect of firearms. By means of gunpowder Europe had begun definitely to triumph against the pastoralists. With the advance of the European races into Asia, Africa, and America, the modern world, with its agricultural-commercial civilisa- tion, might be said to begin. Aggressive barbarism ceases on the one hand, while, on the other, the stream of civilised fact becomes too broad and well known to have its course delineated here now. INDEX ABYSSLMA, 45, 134, 233 Aetius, 65 Africa, 3, 195 Agriculture, 34, 38 Alaric, 324 Albanians, 42, 171 Alexander the Great, 52, 56, 307, 321 Alexandria, 208 Algonquins, 90 Alleghanics, 29 Amazon, 22 America, 3, 27, 120-149 Anarchism, 228 Andes, 140 Angell, Norman, 248, 299 Antarctic, 17 Ants, 34, 230 Appalachians, 123, 132 Aquileia, 91, 324 Arabia, 98, 204 Arabian Nights, 205 Araucanians, 131 Arctic, 17 Argyll, 318 Armenians, 45 Arrhenius, 9 Art, 33 Asia, 51, 81 Asoka, 5, 56, 322 Assyria, 51, 81 Asturian Mts., 175 Athaulf, 94 Athens, 19, 212, 214, 321 Attila, 212, 324 Australia, 4, 5, 196 Australian Blacks, 13, 19, 24 Augsburg, 281 79, Aulard, 241 Avars, 113 Aryans, 5 Aztecs, 27 BABYLONIANS, 19 Bagdad, 276 Bajazet, Sultan, 117, 326 Balkans, 174 Bancroft, 149 Bannockburn, battle of, 152, 242 Barbarism, 14 Barbary corsairs, 214 Bedouins, 47 Berbers, 24 Bergson, 33 Bernhardi, 297 Bison, 36, 126 " Black Earth," 44, 63, 123 Boers, 19, 83, 159 Bolivia, 216 Boris Gudonov, 236 Botocudos, 13, 24 Bouvines, battle of, 155 Brazil, 140 Bremul6, battle of, 155 Britain, 2, 284, 305 Bruckner Cycles, 63 Bryce, 318 Buckle, 22, 316 Buddhism, 55, 320 Bulgars, 113 Bushmen, 19 Byzantium, 88, 97, 260, 274, 276 C.ESAR, Julius, 36, 90, 153, 273, 322 Canada, 27 327 328 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Cannibalism, 224, 237 Capital and labour, 278, 305, 314 Caribs, 197 Carthage, 80, 86, 213, 250, 260, 307 Caste, 230, 253 Catherine the Great, 307 Cato, 80 Caucasus, 170, 174 Central Africa, 22 Centralisation, 240, 244 Chaldea, 5 Charlemagne, 104, 325 Charles V, 112 Chazars, 113, 243 China, 2, 15, 23, 57, 62, 203, 254 Chisholm, G. G., 136 Chivalry, 234 " City States," 258 Civilisation, 15, 306, 319 Climate, 16, 287 Clothes, origin of, 37 Columbus, 6, 121, 210 Commercialism, 260, 271, 281 Comte, Charles, 30, 315 Constantinople, 92, 109, 114, 118 Corinth, 250, 322 Cortez, 129, 151, 211, 326 Coulanges, Fustel de, 87, 88, 92, 94, 227, 233, 260, 269, 297, 318 " Couvade," 219 Crecy, 155, 326 Crusades, 282 Custom, 227 Cyrus, 70, 242, 321 DABIEL PASS, 174 Dark Ages, 93 De Quincey, 54 Denmark, 215 Deserts, 45, 62 Dickson, H. N., 125 Dinkas, 37 Diocletian, 88, 323 Dodge, 156 Dog, 34, 40 Domestication of animals, 34 Dorian Invasion, 79 Draper, 46 Driesman, 223 Dutch, 42, 195 EGYPT, 24, 29, 43-51, 205, 251, 319 Egyptians, 6, 19, 43 Epaminondas, 179, 321 Erasmus, 282 Esquimaux, 18, 19, 37, 241 Eugene, Prince, 163 Europe, 2, 4, 73 FALKLAND ISLANDS, 17 Ferrero, 46, 153, 214, 241, 275 Feudalism, 105, 233 Finns, 193 Finot, M., 82 Fire, 12 Firearms, 7, 161, 312 Fishberg, Dr., 82 Fisher, H. A. L., 100, 318 " Five Seas," 70 Flint, 316 Florence, 101, 214, 278, 279 France, 2, 102-7, 177, 187, 258, 282, 305 Franklin, Benjamin, 10 Frazer, 317 Freeman, 78 French Revolution, 107, 283, 298 Fuegians, 11, 13, 24 Fustel de Coulanges. See " Cou- langes " GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, 142 Gauls, 85 Genoa, 101, 214 Genseric, 93, 324 Germany, 2, 75, 282 Ghats, 173 Ghenghis Khan, 66, 117, 162, 212, 232, 325 Gibbon, Edward, 251 Giddings, Professor, 10 Gooch, G. P., 318 Goths, 91, 323 Gracchi, 273 Greece, 77-80, 260 INDEX 329 " Greek fire," 118, 160, 324 Greenland, 17, 193 Grote, 126 Guanches, 192 Guano, 143 Guatemala, 78, 248 Guicciardini, 186 Guiraud, Paul, 283, 318 Guizot, 282 Gunpowder, 156, 166, 326 HADRIAN'S WALL, 48, 323 Hammurabi, 82, 320 Hannibal, 86, 322 Harm, 315 Hanseatic League, 281 Hauser, Herr, 82 Haverfield, Professor, 89 Heeren, 260 Hegira, 98 Heitland, 214, 273 Henry the Fowler, 114 Hermanric, 91 Highlanders, 167 Himalayas, 173 Hittites, 48, 81, 292 Hobbes, 11 Hodgkin, 105 Holland, 279 Holy Roman Empire, 107 Homer, 210, 267 Horse, 35 Hottentots, 13, 24, 25, 83 Howorth, 316 Hnmboldt, 35, 141, 169 Hundred Years' War, 106 Huns, 65, 91, 323 Hunting, 39 Hyksos. See " Shepherd Kings. ICELAND, 78, 121, 192 Incas, 27 India, 2, 23, 54, 196, 253 " Intercapitalism," 248 Inuits, 18 Ireland, 181 Iroquois, 90, 198 Isle of Wight, 2 Italy, 100, 276 JACQUERIE, 264 Japan, 2, 173, 201 Java, 191 Jebe, 67 Jews, 45, 147, 207, 257, 266, 321 Josephus, 207 Jungle, 22, 28 Juvenal, 223 KEANE, A. H., 98, 225, 257 Kerguelen, 17 Kilimanjaro, 134, 171 Kirghiz, 64 Koran, 96 Kropotkin, 10 Kublai Khan, 68, 202, 325 Kurds, 42, 135, 171 LABOUR, 278, 305, 314 Language, 10 Lapps, 18, 193 Las Casas, 149 Latifundia, 88 Lea, Homer, 297 Letourneau, 10, 83, 138, 200, 221, 263, 317 Liberum Veto, 234 Llama, 36, 40, 142 " Loess," 44, 60, 123 Lombards, 276, 324 Longfellow, 126 Luther, 282 Mackenzie, W. M., 152 Magyars, 113 Maize, 38, 123, 143 Majewski, M., 317 Malaria, 75, 89 Malays, 204 Manchus, 48, 173 Mandan Indians, 128 " Marches," 126 Mediterranean, 205 Menes, King, 240, 243, 258, 319 Mesopotamia, 29, 43, 53, 251, 319 Metals, 12 Mexico, 6, 28, 36, 39, 134-8, 184 Militarism, 296, 304 330 MASTER-CLUES IN WORLD-HISTORY Mill, H. R., 315 Mohammed, 96, 223, 236, 324 Mommsen, 82, 94 Mongols, 52, 57, 66, 81, 325 Montenegro, 174, 216 Montrose, 183 Moors, 48, 99, 147, 175, 325 Moscow, 115, 258 Motley, 82 NAPOLEON, 76, 97, 112, 152, 176, 232, 269, 307 Nationalism, 161, 292 New Guinea, 22 New Zealand, 26, 145, 199 Niebuhr, 80 Nomadism, supersession of, 150 Norsemen, 95, 105, 114, 121, 161, 179 Norway, 215 Novgorod, 281 Nurnberg, 281 OCEANIA, 4 Oman, C. W. C., 156, 182 Omar, Caliph, 232 Ossetes, 174 Otto de Freisingen, 268 PAMIRS, 7, 171 Panama Canal, 28 Parkman, 198 Parliaments, 284, 306 Parsees, 209 Pastoralism, 40 Paulus Orosius, 94 Payne, 138, 316 Peisker, 39, 64, 66, 236, 316 Persia, 69-72, 197, 256 Peru, 6, 27, 138-49, 184 Philistines, 207 Phoenicians, 208, 267 Pigmies, 14, 24 Pile dwellings, 75 Piracy, 202, 211, 214 Pisa, 101, 214, 279 " Pithecanthropus erectus," 191 Pizarro, 211, 326 Polynesians, 142, 199 Pompey, 214, 322 Popes, 108, 324 Popol-Vuh, 78 Population of world, 1 Potato, 38, 143 Potemkin, 307 Progress, 20 Pskov, 281 Pueblo Indians, 129 Pyrenees, 169 " RACE," 20, 82 Rambaud, 110, 274 Ratzel, 126, 162, 166, 264, 315 Reclus, 41, 81, 114, 127, 141, 142, 149, 262, 315 Red Indians, 123 Reformation, 281 " Republicanism," 129, 260, 317 Rice, 54 Robertson, J. M., 82, 234, 273, 276, 277, 281, 316 Rocky Mts., 124 Rome, 80-95, 214, 260, 279, 307 Ross, 19 Rousseau, 11 Russia, 2, 115, 163, 187, 300, 305 SABTTTAI, 67 Sahara, 45 Samoyedes, 18 Saracens, 81, 95-100, 275 Savagery, 14 Scandinavia, 179 Science, 287 Schoolcraft, 306 Scotland, 181 Sea in civilisation, 190 Semple, Miss, 18, 36, 120, 143, 162, 174, 205, 280, 316 Serbs, 113 Shakespeare, 70, 300 Shepherd Kings, 41, 48, 160, 320 Shiism, 71 Sidon, 209, 260 Sismondi, 101 Slavery, 226, 263, 271, 274 277, 313 Social problem, 302 INDEX 331 Socialism, 138, 145 Spain, 99, 113, 259, 279 Sparte, 212, 222, 297 Stead, W. T., 193 Steppe, 63 Stone Age, 12 Sweden, 215 Switzerland, 178, 242 TACITUS, 155 Talleyrand, 76 Tamerlane, 67, 117, 162, 232, 326 Tank, 176 Tatars, 48, 68, 115 Teutoburg Forest, 87 Thirty Years' War, 101 Tigris-Euphrates, 29 Timbuctoo, 120 Toleration, religious, 243 Tolstoy, 188 Tools, 10, 12 Trade, 261 Trajan's Wall, 76, 323 Treitschke, 188 Tristan da Cunha, 17 Tropics, 21 Tundra, 17, 21, 122 Turkoman, 72 Turks, 52, 85, 117, 163, 325 Tuscaroras, 124 Tylor, Professor, 227, 315 Tyre, 209, 260 UNITED STATES, 27, 127 Valens, 154, 323 Vambery, 94 Vandals, 93 Veblen, 239 Veddahs, 241 Venice, 101, 209, 214, 277, 279 Vercingetorix, 126 Voltaire, 83, 107, 133, 251 WALES, 180 Wallon, 318 Walvisch Bay, 195 War, 151, 247, 297 Ward, Lester, 220, 234 Ward, R. de C., 315 Waterloo, battle of, 152 Wellington, 126, 152 Westermarck, 10, 82, 83, 94, 138, 224, 234, 241 YEATS, 99, 275 Yuan-Shi-Kai, 58 Yucatan, 28 ZEND-AVESTA, 72 XENOPHON, 52, 126 Printed by BALLANTTNK, HASSOH at Paul's Work, Edinburgh Oo. D JBRARY FACILITY A 000 278 355 3