1. Asia, as we have seen, was the cradle of the race. Here, in the infancy of humanity, Oriental Civilization dawns. Amid the extended plains and lofty mountains of Asia, those stupendous and massive forms of Oriental nature, man felt himself absolutely dependent. To the river he looked as the fertilizer of the soil; to the animal which roamed in the desert, and the almost spontaneous vegetation of the earth, for his food; to the sun, as the fountain of light and heat, the giver of life and death.[393] He was environed and overpowered by nature. Almost unconscious of his own freedom, he lay in her bosom, as the child reposes in the arms of its mother. Underlying all the massive forms of Oriental nature he recognized an invisible Power and Presence, and he worshiped nature as an impersonation of God. Every thing inspired him with the sense of the Infinite, the consciousness of dependence on an absolute Will. The patriarchal government, imposed by nature, restrained his personal liberty. His property and life were at the disposal of his chief—an absolute autocrat, who exercised over him an unlimited power. Oriental civilization unquestionably represents the infancy of man.
2. In Hebrew civilization we have, as an especial feature, the discipline of the conscience. The child-man comes more directly under the power of moral culture. The government and discipline to which he is now subjected aim to develop in his mind the idea of the just, the right, the pure. He is receiving instruction in what he ought and ought not to do. His conceptions of the moral character of God are to be enlarged, the idea especially of the holiness of God is to be developed in his mind through the medium of material symbols and religious rites. The call of Abraham sets forth at once the central lesson of faith in an unseen personal God. The history of the patriarchs brings into clearer light the sovereignty of God as opposed to the mere dominion of nature and fate. A nation grows up in presence of Egyptian culture, and after the purpose of God in the discipline of Egypt is accomplished, they are led into the wilderness, and God now reveals Himself as a Lawgiver and Judge, and a ritual is given which teaches at once the holiness of God and the exceeding sinfulness of sin.[394]
For the achievement of this object a new sphere is demanded—the seclusion and isolation of family life. Accordingly Abraham was called to leave Chaldæa, the scene of Oriental civilization, and led into Canaan, that he might become the father of a great nation, and the source of a new and better civilization. The mountainous region of Palestine was admirably fitted to be the theatre of this new civilization. No other land on the globe was so peculiarly fitted to fulfill this office. The northern half of Syria was not so favorable a locality; for traversed as it was by the great highway from Asia Minor to Assyria, it was subject to the influence of foreign travel from the earliest times. But Palestine lay surrounded by populous countries, and yet isolated from them. In the midst of the six great nations of antiquity—the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Medes, Persians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians—it was separated from them all.[395] Thus secluded and isolated from the rest of mankind, the Hebrews dwelt alone as one great family. The first form of government was a patriarchy—the father of the family and of the tribe being the ruler. The second was a theocracy, in which God, the Father of the families of all the earth, becomes the immediate ruler. The third was a monarchy—the government of a man appointed and sustained in his authority by God. And the history of this nation is little else than one of instruction, discipline, and chastisement—a tutelage in which the people were under law and not under grace. The Hebrew civilization represents the childhood of humanity.
And the lessons here taught were not lost to the race. They were carried to Assyria and Babylonia during the period of the two captivities; and in the colonies which were founded in Asia Minor, Rome, and Alexandria the influence exerted by Judaism was considerably greater than that which was exerted upon it. The union of Judaism and Platonism is fully represented in Philo the Alexandrian Jew.
3. In Grecian civilization we have the development of personal freedom of thought and action. The Divine discipline of the Jews, as we have seen, was essentially a moral discipline—a discipline of the conscience. This, however, was not a complete discipline of our whole nature. The reason demands culture as well as the conscience. The process and the issue in the two cases were widely different, but they were in some sense complementary; and the one succeeds the other in the order of time. The Divine kingdom of the Jews was just overthrown when free speculation arose in the Ionian colonies of Asia; and the teaching of the last prophet nearly synchronizes with the death of Socrates.[396]
This new civilization could not be achieved on the continent of Asia, and therefore a new theatre is prepared. "Europe may be called a continuation of Central Asia. It surpasses its Oriental neighbor in the advantage of having no internal mountain barrier to divide its north and south. Thus Europe has been able to develop itself more independently and freely in consequence of the number of its peninsular forms.... The three characteristic features in the formation of Europe that are the physical grounds of the development of its nations are its large extent of seaboard, its peninsular forms, and the number of its islands."[397] On the peninsula of Greece, on the shores of the Ægean and Ionian seas, there was freedom of movement, facility of intercourse with the surrounding nations, and inducements to maritime enterprise. These conditions were undoubtedly favorable to a higher development. "The inland sea, the magnificent river," says Cousin, "is the natural symbol of movement." These represent the activity of nature, and they become natural centres of progress. The sea is the highway of commerce, and commerce is the grand channel of ideas, the medium through which the knowledge acquired by one people can flow readily into other lands. Amid such conditions the mind awakes to activity, and the period of youth commences. Awakening thought is first directed to the outer world, and attempts an explanation of its phenomena. Greek philosophy thus becomes, at its first appearance, a philosophy of nature, and the Ionian school was a school of physicists. Here the great names which appear at the dawn of mental activity are Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclites, and Diogenes. From the study of nature the human race advances to the study of man. The new school is a school of moral and mental philosophy, or, more correctly, of psychology and ethics, adorned by such immortal names as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In Greece, philosophy, poetry, eloquence, the fine arts, were extensively cultivated. As this was an age of great activity of thought, so it was also an age of great political freedom. The government was in many respects a government of the people, a democracy. "Every thing, in fact, in Greece bears evidence of the preponderance of human personality, and the energy of individual character."[398] Grecian civilization represents the youth of humanity.
The results of this culture were carried to other lands by the conquests of Alexander, and subsequently by the conquering Romans. The poets, the architects, the sculptors, the historians, the philosophers of Greece, are still the guides and models of the men of thought and taste in all cultivated nations. The Greek is still, in a peculiar sense, the teacher of the world.
4. In Roman civilization we have the discipline of the will under social and civil law, the more perfect organization of society and of government, the development of the science of jurisprudence.
This social and political organization was a new work, a higher civilization, and it demanded a new and, in fact, a larger sphere. The centre of the civilized world now changes place, and, moving westward, establishes itself in the peninsula of Italy. By successive conquests its circumference enlarges, and finally it embraces at once the South and the East and the West. The place which Rome occupied, in the very middle of the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, seemed to foreshadow that she was destined to become the metropolis of all the civilized nations who dwelt upon its shores. Rome extended its conquests to Spain, Gaul, Britain, Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Africa, and the islands of the Mediterranean—over, in fact, six hundred thousand square leagues of the most fertile country; and all but realized the dream of the world's great conquerors—a universal empire. It was defended by a regular army of five hundred thousand men, ranged in the order of the famous legions, which constituted the most effective military organization known. The government of an empire of such vast proportions and diversity of populations demanded the greatest political skill. To establish durable ties between these diverse peoples, and to combine in the same social network all the civilized nations of the world, demanded the highest legislative talent, and gave birth to the science of jurisprudence, which, next to that of theology, is the most important and useful to man. The inability of the Greek to achieve this great work is clearly evinced by the terrible Peloponnesian War and the lamentable history of the empire of Alexander and his successors. Greece represents individuality; Rome, association, unity, and, in some degree, the equality of all races of men.