History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3. Henry Buckley
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Название: History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3
Автор: Henry Buckley
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
isbn: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44493
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Such is the wonderful regularity which history, when comprehensively studied, presents to our view. And if we compare Mexico and Peru with those countries of the Old World which have been already noticed, we shall find, as in all the civilizations anterior to those of Europe, that their social phenomena were subordinate to their physical laws. In the first place, the characteristics of their national food were precisely those met with in the most flourishing parts of Asia and Africa. For although few of the nutritious vegetables belonging to the Old World were found in the New, their place was supplied by others exactly analogous to rice and dates; that is to say, marked by the same abundance, by the same facility of growth, and by the same exuberant returns; therefore, followed by the same social results. In Mexico and Peru, one of the most important articles of food has always been maize, which, we have every reason to believe, was peculiar to the American continent.195 This, like rice and dates, is eminently the product of a hot climate; and although it is said to grow at an elevation of upwards of 7,000 feet,196 it is rarely seen beyond the fortieth parallel,197 and its exuberance rapidly diminishes with the diminution of temperature. Thus, for example, in New California, its average yield is seventy or eighty fold;198 but in Mexico Proper the same grain yields three or four hundred fold, and, under very favourable circumstances, even eight hundred fold.199
A people who derived their sustenance from a plant of such extraordinary fecundity, had little need to exercise their industrious energies; while at the same time they had every opportunity of increasing their numbers, and thus producing a train of social and political consequences similar to those which I have noticed in India and in Egypt. Besides this, there were, in addition to maize, other kinds of food to which the same remarks are applicable. The potato, which, in Ireland, has brought about such injurious effects by stimulating the growth of population, is said to be indigenous to Peru; and although this is denied by a very high authority,200 there is, at all events, no doubt that it was found there in great abundance when the country was first discovered by the Europeans.201 In Mexico, potatoes were unknown till the arrival of the Spaniards; but both Mexicans and Peruvians lived to a great extent on the produce of the banana; a vegetable whose reproductive powers are so extraordinary, that nothing but the precise and unimpeachable testimony of which we are possessed could make them at all credible. This remarkable plant is, in America, intimately connected with the physical laws of climate; since it is an article of primary importance for the subsistence of man whenever the temperature passes a certain point.202 Of its nutritive powers, it is enough to say, that an acre sown with it will support more than fifty persons; whereas the same amount of land sown with wheat in Europe will only support two persons.203 As to the exuberance of its growth, it is calculated that, other circumstances remaining the same, its produce is forty-four times greater than that of potatoes, and a hundred and thirty-three times greater than that of wheat.204
It will now be easily understood why it was that, in all important respects, the civilizations of Mexico and Peru were strictly analogous to those of India and Egypt. In these four countries, as well as in a few others in Southern Asia and Central America, there existed an amount of knowledge, despicable indeed if tried by an European standard, but most remarkable if contrasted with the gross ignorance which prevailed among the adjoining and cotemporary nations. But in all of them there was the same inability to diffuse even that scanty civilization which they really possessed; there was the same utter absence of any thing approaching to the democratic spirit; there was the same despotic power on the part of the upper classes, and the same contemptible subservience on the part of the lower. For, as we have clearly seen, all these civilizations were affected by certain physical causes, which, though favourable to the accumulation of wealth, were unfavourable to a just subdivision of it. And as the knowledge of men was still in its infancy,205 it was found impossible to struggle against these physical agents, or prevent them from producing those effects on the social organization which I have attempted to trace. Both in Mexico and in Peru, the arts, and particularly those branches of them which minister to the luxury of the wealthy classes, were cultivated with great success. The houses of the higher ranks were filled with ornaments and utensils of admirable workmanship; their chambers were hung with splendid tapestries; their dresses and their personal decorations betrayed an almost incredible expense; their jewels of exquisite and varied form; their rich and flowing robes embroidered with the rarest feathers, collected from the most distant parts of the empire: all supplying evidence of the possession of unlimited wealth, and of the ostentatious prodigality with which that wealth was wasted.206 Immediately below this class came the people; and what their condition was, may be easily imagined. In Peru the whole of the taxes were paid by them; the nobles and the clergy being altogether exempt.207 But as, in such a state of society, it was impossible for the people to accumulate property, they were obliged to defray the expenses of government by their personal labour, which was placed under the entire command of the state.208 At the same time, the rulers of the country were well aware that, with a system like this, feelings of personal independence were incompatible; they therefore contrived laws by which, even in the most minute matters, freedom of action was controlled. The people were so shackled, that they could neither change their residence, nor alter their clothes, without permission from the governing powers To each man the law prescribed the trade he was to follow, the dress he was to wear, the wife he was to marry, and the amusements he was to enjoy.209 Among the Mexicans the course of affairs was similar; the same physical conditions being followed by the same social results. In the most essential particular for which history can be studied, namely, the state of the people, Mexico and Peru are the counterpart of each other. For though there were many minor points of difference,210 both were agreed in this, that there were only two classes – the upper class being tyrants, and the lower class being slaves. This was the state in which Mexico was found when it was discovered by the Europeans,211 and towards which it must have been tending from the earliest period. And so insupportable had all this become, that we know, from the most decisive evidence, that the general disaffection it produced among the people was one of the causes which, by facilitating the progress of the Spanish invaders, hastened the downfall of the Mexican empire.212
The further this examination is carried, the more striking becomes the similarity between those civilizations which flourished anterior to what may be called the European epoch of the human mind. The division of a nation into castes would be impossible in the great European countries; but it existed from a remote antiquity in Egypt, in India, and apparently in Persia.213 The very same institution was rigidly enforced in Peru;214 and what proves how consonant it was to that stage of society, is, that in Mexico, where castes were not established by law, it was nevertheless a recognised custom that the son should follow the occupation of his father.215 This was the political symptom of that stationary and conservative spirit, which, as we shall hereafter see, has marked every country in which the upper classes have monopolized power. The religious symptom of the СКАЧАТЬ
Vidaca being the most southerly point of the present Peruvian coast; though the conquests of Peru, incorporated with the empire, extended far into Chili, and within a few degrees of Patagonia. In regard to Mexico, the northern limit of the empire was 21°, on the Atlantic coast, and 19° on the Pacific.
A question has been raised as to the Asiatic origin of maize:
‘Maize, indeed, grows to the height of 7,200 feet above the level of the sea, but only predominates between 3,000 and 6,000 of elevation.'
M. Meyen (
‘Sous la zone tempérée, entre les 33 et 38 degrés de latitude, par exemple dans la Nouvelle Californie, le maïs ne produit, en général, année commune, que 70 à 80 grains pour un.’
‘La fécondité du Tlaolli, ou maïs mexicain, est au-delà de tout ce que l'on peut imaginer en Europe. La plante, favorisée par de fortes chaleurs et par beaucoup d'humidité, acquiert une hauteur de deux à trois mètres. Dans les belles plaines qui s'étendent depuis San Juan del Rio à Queretaro, par exemple dans les terres de la grande métairie de l'Esperanza, une fanègue de maïs en produit quelquefois huit cents. Des terrains fertiles en donnent, année commune, trois à quatre cents.’
‘La pomme de terre n'est pas indigène au Pérou.’
And has been used ever since for food. On the Peruvian potato compare
Humboldt (
‘Je doute qu'il existe une autre plante sur le globe, qui, sur un petit espace de terrain, puisse produire une masse de substance nourrissante aussi considérable.’ … ‘Le produit des bananes est par conséquent à celui du froment comme 133: 1 – à celui des pommes de terre comme 44: l'
The only science with which they had much acquaintance was astronomy, which the Mexicans appear to have cultivated with considerable success. Compare the remark of La Place, in
The works of art produced by the Mexicans and Peruvians are under-rated by Robertson: who, however, admits that he had never seen them.
‘The members of the royal house, the great nobles, even the public functionaries, and the numerous body of the priesthood, were all exempt from taxation. The whole duty of defraying the expenses of the government belonged to the people.’
Ondegardo emphatically says, ‘Solo el trabajo de las personas era el tributo que se dava, porque ellos no poseian otra cosa.’
Mr. Prescott notices this with surprise, though, under the circumstances, it was in truth perfectly natural. He says (
The Mexicans being, as Prichard says (
See in
That there were castes in Persia is stated by Firdousi; and his assertion, putting aside its general probability, ought to outweigh the silence of the Greek historians, who, for the most part, knew little of any country except their own. According to Malcolm, the existence of caste in the time of Jemsheed, is confirmed by some ‘Mahomedan authors;’ but he does not say who they were.