Notice, also, the high condition of civilization possessed by the Chinese four thousand years ago, their enlightened and humane polity, their engineering works,[86] their provision for the proper administration of different departments of the State, and their clear and intelligent documents.[87]
Fig. 23.—Vase. Han Dynasty,
B.C. 206 to A.D. 23.
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)
Fig. 24.—Cyathus or Cup for Libations.
Shang Dynasty, B.C. 1766 to B.C. 1122.
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)
In looking back upon these, I think we can hardly distinguish any such deficiency of intellect, in comparison with ours, on the part of these our historical predecessors as to indicate so rapid a change of intelligence as would, if we were able to carry our comparison back for another similar period, inevitably land us among a lot of savages similar to those who fringe the civilization of the present period. Intellectually measured, the civilized men of eight or ten thousand years ago must, I think, have been but little inferior to ourselves, and we should have to peer very far back indeed before we reached a status or condition in which the highest type of humanity was the congener of the cave lion, disputing with him a miserable existence, shielded only from the elements by an overhanging rock, or the fortuitous discovery of some convenient cavern.
If this be so, we are forced back again to the consideration of the questions with which this section opened; where are the evidences of man’s early intellectual superiority? are they limited to those deduced from the discovery of certain stone implements of the early rude, and later polished ages? and, if so, can we offer any feasible explanation either of their non-existence or disappearance?
In the first place, it may be considered as admitted by archæologists that no exact line can be drawn between the later of the two stone-weapon epochs, the polished Neolithic stone epoch, and the succeeding age of bronze. They are agreed that these overlap each other, and that the rude hunters, who contented themselves with stone implements of war and the chase, were coeval with people existing in other places, acquainted with the metallurgical art, and therefore of a high order of intelligence. The former are, in fact, brought within the limit of historic times.