In politics, we see it in bondage to the continual change brought about by the different requirements of the races which it includes. In England, Holland, Naples, and Russia, its principles are still fairly stable, because the populations are more homogeneous, or at any rate form groups of the same kind, with similar instincts. But everywhere else, especially in France, Central Italy, and Germany—where variations of race are infinite—theories of government can never rise to the rank of accepted truths, and political science is a matter of continual experiment. As our civilization is unable to have any sure confidence in itself, it is without the stability that is one of the most important qualities mentioned in my definition. This weakness is to be found neither in the Buddhist and Brahman societies, nor in the Celestial Empire; and these civilizations have in this respect an advantage over ours. The whole people is at one in its political beliefs. When there is a wise government, and the ancient institutions are bearing good fruit, every one is glad. When they are in clumsy hands, and injure the commonwealth, they are pitied by the citizens as a man pities himself; but they never cease to be respected. There is sometimes a desire to purify them, but never to sweep them away or replace them by others. It does not need very keen eyes to see here a guarantee of long life which our civilization is very far from possessing.
In art, our inferiority to India, as well as to Egypt, Greece, and America, is very marked. Neither in sublimity nor beauty have we anything to compare with the masterpieces of antiquity. When our day has drawn to its close, and the ruins of our towns and monuments cover the face of the land, the traveller will discover nothing, in the forests and marshes that will skirt the Thames, the Seine, and the Rhine, to rival the gorgeous ruins of Philæ, Nineveh, Athens, Salsette, and the valley of Tenochtitlan. If future ages have something to learn from us in the way of positive science, this is not the case with poetry, as is clearly proved by the despairing admiration that we so justly feel for the intellectual wonders of foreign civilizations.
So far as the refinement of manners is concerned, we have obviously changed for the worse. This is shown by our own past history; there were periods when luxury, elegance, and sumptuousness were understood far better and practised on a far more lavish scale than to-day. Pleasure was certainly confined to a smaller number. Comparatively few were in what we should call a state of well-being. On the other hand, if we admit (as we must) that refinement of manners elevates the minds of the multitudes who look on, as well as ennobling the life of a few favoured individuals, that it spreads a varnish of beauty and grandeur over the whole country, and that these become the common inheritance of all—then our civilization, which is essentially petty on its external side, cannot be compared to its rivals.
I may add, finally, that the active element distinguishing any civilization is identical with the most striking quality, whatever it may be, of the dominant race. The civilization is modified and transformed according to the changes undergone by this race, and when the race itself has disappeared, carries on for some time the impulse originally received from it. Thus the kind of order kept in any society is the best index to the special capacities of the people and to the stage of progress to which they have attained: it is the clearest mirror in which their individuality can be reflected.
I see that the long digression, into which I have strayed, has carried me further than I expected. I do not regret it, for it has enabled me to vent certain ideas that the reader might well keep in mind. But it is now time to return to the main course of my argument, the chain of which is still far from being complete.
I established first that the life or death of societies was the result of internal causes. I have said what these causes are, and described their essential nature, in order that they may be more easily recognized. I have shown that they are generally referred to a wrong source; and in looking for some sign that could always distinguish them, and indicate their presence, I found it in the capacity to create a civilization. As it seemed impossible to discover a clear conception of this term, it was necessary to define it, as I have done. My next step must be to study the natural and unvarying phenomenon which I have identified as the latent cause of the life and death of societies. This, as I have said, consists in the relative worth of the different races. Logic requires me to make clear at once what I understand by the word race. This will be the subject of the following chapter.
CHAPTER X
SOME ANTHROPOLOGISTS REGARD MAN AS HAVING A MULTIPLE ORIGIN[[47]]
We must first discuss the word race in its physiological sense.
A good many observers, who judge by first impressions and so take extreme views, assert that there are such radical and essential differences between human families that one must refuse them any identity of origin.[[48]] The writers who adhere to such a notion assume many other genealogies by the side of that from Adam. To them there is no original unity in the species, or rather there is no single species; there are three or four, or even more, which produce perfectly distinct types, and these again have united to form hybrids.
The supporters of this theory easily win belief by citing the clear and striking differences between certain human groups. When we see before us a man with a yellowish skin, scanty hair and beard, a large face, a pyramidal skull, small stature, thick-set limbs, and slanting eyes with the skin of the eyelids turned so much outwards that the eye will hardly open[[49]]—we recognize a very well-marked type, the main features of which it is easy to bear in mind.