The Human Race. Figuier Louis

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      The religious feeling, the notion of divinity, is another characteristic which has its origin in the faculty of abstraction. This sentiment is indissolubly allied to human intelligence. Without wishing, with an eminent French anthropologist, M. de Quatrefages, to make of religiosity a fundamental attribute of humanity, and a natural characteristic of our species, we may say that all men are religious, that they acknowledge and adore a Creator, a Supreme God. Whether the statement that certain people, such as the Australians, Bushmen, and Polynesians, are atheists, as we are assured by some travellers, and whether the reproaches bestowed upon them in consequence of this, are well-founded, or whether it is the fact that the travellers who bore this testimony understood but little of the language and signs of these different people, as has been suggested by M. de Quatrefages, are matters of relatively slight importance. The state of brutality of certain tribes, buried in the midst of inaccessible and savage countries, and the intellectual imperfection which follows, concealing from them the notion of God, are nothing when compared with the universality of religious belief which stirs in the hearts of the innumerable populations spread over the face of the earth.

      Language and writing gave birth to human associations, and later on, to civilization, by which they were transformed. It is curious to follow out the progressive forms of human association, and point out the stages which civilization has passed through in its forward march.

      Primitive societies assumed three successive forms. Men were in the first instance, hunters and fishers, then herdsmen, and lastly husbandmen. We say, populations were first of all hunters and fishers. The human race then inhabiting the earth, was but small in number, and this explains it. A group of men gaining their livelihood simply by hunting and fishing, cannot be composed of a very large number of individuals. A vast extent of territory is required to nourish a population, which finds in game and fish its sole means of subsistence. Moreover, this manner of living is always precarious, for there never is any certainty that food will be found for the morrow. This continual preoccupation in seeking the means of subsistence, brings man nearer to the brute, and hinders him from exercising his intellect upon ennobling and more useful subjects. Hunting is, moreover, the image of warfare, and war may very easily arise between neighbouring populations who get their living in the same manner. If in these eventual collisions, prisoners are taken, they are sacrificed in order that there may be no additional mouths to feed.

      So long, therefore, as human societies were composed only of hunters and fishers, they were unable to make any intellectual progress, and their customs, of necessity remained barbarous. The death of prisoners was the order of battle.

      Societies of herdsmen succeeded those of hunters and fishers. Man having domesticated first the dog, then the ox, the horse, the sheep or the llama, by that means ensured his livelihood for the morrow, and was enabled to turn his attention to other matters besides the quest of food. We therefore see pastoral societies advancing in the way of progress, by the improvement of their dress, their weapons, and their habitations.

      But pastoral communities have also need of large tracts of country, for their herds rapidly exhaust the herbage in one region, and they must therefore seek farther for pastures, in order that they may be sure of their food, when that is confined to flesh and milk. Pastoral populations were therefore of necessity nomadic.

      

      In their reciprocal migrations, pastoral tribes frequently came into collision, and found it necessary to dispute by armed force the possession of the soil. War ensued. Since the prisoners taken could be maintained with comparative ease by the conqueror on condition of their lending assistance, they were forced to become slaves, and it is thus that the sad condition of slavery, which was later on to extend in so aggravated a degree as to develop into a social grievance, had its origin.

      The third form of society was realized as soon as man turned his attention to agriculture, that is, when he began to make plants and herbage, artificially produced, an abundant and certain source of nourishment.

      Agriculture affords man certain leisure time and tends to soften his manners and customs. If war breaks out, its episodes are less cruel in themselves. The captive can, without actually being reduced to slavery, be added to the number of those who labour in the fields, and in return for a consideration contribute to the wellbeing of the tribe. The Serf here takes the place of the slave; a form of society, composed of masters and different degrees of servants, becomes definitely organized.

      Agricultural people, being relieved from the preoccupations of material existence, are enabled to foster their intelligence, which becomes rapidly more abundant. It is thus that civilization first took root in human society.

      These then are the three stages, which, in all countries, mankind have of necessity passed through before becoming civilized. The progress from one stage to the next has varied in rapidity in proportion to circumstances of time and place, and of the country or hemisphere. Nations, whom we find at the present day but little advanced in civilization, were on the other hand originally superior to other nations we may point to. The Chinese were civilized long before the inhabitants of Europe. They were building superb monuments, were engaged in the cultivation of the mulberry, were rearing silkworms, manufacturing porcelain, &c., at the very time when our ancestors, the Celts and Aryans, clothed in the skins of wild beasts, and tattooed, were living in the woods in the condition of hunters. The Babylonians were occupied with the study of astronomy, and were calculating the orbits of the stars two thousand years before Christ; for the astronomical registers brought by Alexander the Great from Babylon, refer back to celestial observations extending over more than ten centuries. Egyptian civilization dates back to at least four thousand years before Christ, as is proved by the magnificent statue of Gheffrel, which belongs to that period, and which, since it is composed of granite, can only have been cut by the aid of iron and steel tools, in themselves indicators of an advanced form of industry.

      This last consideration should make us feel modest. It shows that nations whom we now crush by our intellectual superiority, the Chinese and Egyptians, perhaps also the old inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, were once far before us in the path of civilization.

      It is quite clear that manufactures have tended to hasten the progress of civilization. It is well worthy of remark that, according as the matter composing the material of these manufactures has undergone transformation, so the condition of society has progressed. Two mineral substances were the objects of primitive manufactures: stone and metal. Civilization was rough-hewn by instruments made of stone, and has been finished by those composed of metal. Modern naturalists and archæologists are therefore perfectly right in dividing the history of primitive man into two ages: the stone age, and the metal age.

      In our work “Primitive Man,” we have followed step by step the course and oscillations of the primitive manufactures of different peoples. We have first seen that man being without any other instrument of attack or defence save his nails and teeth, or a stick, made use of stones, and formed them into arms and tools. We then saw that he made himself master of fire, of which he alone understands the use. We then saw him, with the aid of fire, supply the heat which in cold climates the sun denied, create during the night artificial light, and add to the insufficiency of his form of diet, not to speak of the numerous advantages which his industry enabled him to gain by the application of heat.

      As man progressed, the instrument formed merely of stone trimmed to shape no longer sufficed him; he polished it, and even commenced to adorn it with drawings and symbols. Thus the arts found their origin.

      Metals succeeded stone, and by their use a complete revolution was effected in human societies. The tool composed of bronze enabled work to be done, which was out of the question when the agent was stone. Later on iron made its appearance, and from that time industry progressed with giant strides.

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