The kings of the Huns and Mongols excited the enthusiasm of their armies by the use of omens. When unfavourable to their plans, the omens were either disregarded or explained away by the chiefs, who were probably incredulous, but at all events possessed the resolution to rise superior to the oracles. Thus when Attila had raised the siege of Orleans, and was pressed in his retreat by a powerful army of Goths and Romans, the auguries were against him, and his troops were dispirited. But Attila, considering that a defeat would be less disastrous to him than flight, rallied the sinking courage of the Huns by an eloquent oration, in which, with consummate ingenuity, he turned the very advantages of the enemy into encouragements to himself. Their well-chosen posts, their strict alliance and close order, he affected to attribute to fear alone. He plied his people also with arguments from the doctrine of fate, and persuaded them that they were as safe in the thick of the fight as in their own tents. In the desperate battle which ensued, Attila outdid himself in personal valour, and the Huns fought furiously; the slaughter on both sides was prodigious; but when night came Attila was fain to retire within his camp. The result of the action was nevertheless creditable to his sagacity, for he was still so formidable in defeat that his enemies compared him to a lion at bay, and they dared not renew the attack.
Timour, who lived in a more enlightened age, or rather among a more enlightened people, and was himself educated in Mohammedanism, rose to a higher flight in the use and contempt of auguries. Instead of examining the entrails of animals, he consulted the planets and the Koran. When marching on Delhi his astrologers could not educe any favourable indication from the stars, but Timour refused to hamper his plans by such considerations, telling his astrologers that fortune does not depend on the stars, but on the Creator of them.
The Huns and Mongols were distinguished from other men, chiefly by their waste of human life. They may be said to have depopulated Asia. The flourishing cities that once existed in the deserts of Tartary have been utterly destroyed; the history of many of them has been lost; and where large populations cultivated arts and industry, one may now see only the tent of a herdsman in the vast solitude. The savages boasted that grass never grew where the feet of their horses had trod, and that a horse might run without stumbling over the places where the great cities had stood. The conquerors built towers and pyramids of the heads of their enemies, that is, their prisoners—not soldiers only—but whole populations whom they massacred in cold blood.
But yet, though ferocious, the barbarians were not, strictly speaking, cruel. Their systematic slaughter must be otherwise accounted for, and in a way even more humiliating to human nature. The morality of the kings, khans or emperors may be assumed to have been on a par with that of the people; it was in intellect only that they were pre-eminent. Attila, in the midst of his sins against mankind, was accessible to pity. His own people loved him. Genghis aspired to the honour of a wise legislator, and primitive though his code was, his motives for devising it were honourable. He encouraged trade so far as he knew how; patronised the sciences, and favoured the missionaries of all persuasions. He was both just and generous, and if he had but governed, instead of killing, the people he conquered, it is possible that he might have been a benefactor to mankind. Yet, in three cities alone, Genghis caused more than four millions of people to be slaughtered.
But the strange paradox comes out in more vivid colours in the character of Timour, who, compared with his predecessors, was civilised and humane. Amongst his exploits was the massacre of one hundred thousand people at Delhi. He exacted from Ispahan a contribution of seventy thousand, and from Bagdad of ninety thousand human heads to build towers with. Although a Mahommedan he did not spare his co-religionists, but slew indiscriminately all who seemed to stand in his way. When he grew old, and was satiated with blood and glory, he repented. But his repentance was the most curious episode in the monster's history. He planned a pious mission to China, and in announcing his resolve to his council, he told them that the conquests he had made were not obtained without some violence, which had occasioned the death of a great number of God's creatures. To atone for past crimes he determined to perform some good action, namely, to exterminate the idolaters of China.[18]
By what law or standard of ethics can such an abuse of the moral faculties be judged? And how can such antagonistic traits of character be reconciled?
The Mongols did not practise the cruelties that have so often disgraced more refined peoples. Tortures were exceptional among them, perhaps because their invention had not risen to such a pitch. Noble captives were paraded in chains, but that was done rather to glorify the victor than to punish the victim. The Mongol massacres seem to have been dictated less by positive than negative considerations. Their low estimate of the value of human life lay at the bottom of it all. The slaughter of the population of a great city was no more in their eyes than the destruction of so many vermin. Their towers of human heads were to the primitive barbarians what the trophies of the chace are to sportsmen. Being guided by animal instincts alone, they were unconscious of any wrong. So low is the moral condition of uncultivated races, "the children of nature," that human feelings can only grow in them after ages of gradual education. The social virtues, and even the natural affections, are only developed in their full force by means of artificial or civilised life, just as the perfectability of plants is only attained by the aid which art gives to nature. So, then, the artificial state is in a sense more natural to man than the natural or primitive condition of savages. His moral nature needs culture as much as his intellect does; and artificial life alone can bring out man's natural qualities. The affections of the Huns and Mongols were little more than such as they possessed in common with the lower animals. They loved their children after a fashion, and sometimes they loved a favourite wife. But if we desire to test the quality of the paternal affection of such people, let us look at the half-tamed barbarian Peter the Great, who condemned and executed his own son, after inviting him to surrender under the promise of a full pardon.
The theory has been advanced that the exclusively animal diet of the shepherds rendered them ferocious,[19] and that their familiarity with the blood of their sheep excited their passion for the blood of their fellow-creatures. But neither of these hypotheses is founded on fact. The elaborate cruelties of the vegetarians of China and Japan supply a sufficient answer to the first. The Chinese have racked their ingenuity to multiply tortures, and a fat rice-eater will sip up his tea and fan himself with perfect sang-froid, while he causes the nails of a victim to be pulled out. When their blood is up the Chinese are as savage as the Mongols, and by so much the more cruel as their superior intellects supply to them varieties in the enjoyment of their blood-thirstiness.
To the second observation it may be replied that the professional butchers are not the least humane class of civilised society; their occupation does not impair their human sympathies. A wild beast may be excited by the taste of blood, but it is merely from the instinct that impels him to seek his natural food.