There are, indeed, facts which, properly speaking, cannot be styled social—individual facts, seeming to interest the human soul rather than to affect public life: such are religious creeds and philosophical ideas, sciences, letters, and arts. These are matters apparently influencing man, either to perfect or delight him, and having for their object rather his internal amelioration or gratification, than his social condition. Yet it is with reference to civilisation that these very circumstances are frequently, and ought to be, considered. At all periods, in all lands, religion has been glorified as an engine of civilisation; sciences, letters, and arts, all the intellectual and moral pursuits, have claimed a share in this glory; and we give them praise and honour in our opinion when we admit that their claims are just. Thus facts the most important and sublime in themselves, independently of all external result, and simply taken in their relations with the human soul, increase in importance, and rise in sublimity, from their connection with civilisation. So great is the value of this general fact, that it imparts consideration to everything it touches; and not only that, but there are even occasions when the matters of which we speak—religious creeds, philosophical ideas, letters, arts—are especially estimated and judged with reference to their influence upon civilisation; and the extent of this influence becomes, up to a certain point, and during a certain time, the decisive measure of their merit and value.
It is important to inquire, before undertaking its history, and with regard only to itself, in what consists this grave, and extensive, and precious matter, thus seeming to contain, and give expression to, the entire existence of nations. And here I shall avoid falling into pure philosophy; I shall avoid laying down a reasoning principle, and then deducing the nature of civilisation from it as a consequence: there would be many chances of error in such a method. We encounter a fact preliminarily which requires to be verified and described.
During a long period, and in many countries, the word civilisation has been used; ideas more or less clear, more or less expansive, have been attached to it, but it is in general use, and it is understood. It is the general, human, popular meaning of this word that we must study. It almost invariably occurs, that in the usual acceptation of terms most in vogue, there is more truth than in the more rigorous, and apparently more precise, definitions of science. It is good sense which gives their common signification to words, and good sense is the genius of humanity. The popular meaning of a word is constituted by a successive process as facts actually arise; so that when a matter presents itself which seems to be comprised within the meaning of a received term, it is comprehended within it by, as it were, a natural tendency: the signification of the term expands and takes a larger compass; and by degrees the various facts and ideas which, from the very nature of things, men should include under this word, become so included in reality. When the meaning of a word, on the contrary, is determined by science, such determination, being fixed by one or a small number of individuals, is controlled by some particular fact which has struck their minds. Thus scientific definitions are in general much more confined, and from that circumstance alone, much less true at bottom, than popular acceptations. In studying, as a fact, the meaning of the word civilisation, in investigating all the ideas comprised within it, according to the common sense of mankind, we shall make greater progress in gaining a knowledge of the fact itself, than if we endeavoured to form for ourselves a scientific definition, although it might appear at first more clear and precise.
As a commencement to this investigation, I shall attempt to place before you certain hypotheses—I shall describe certain states of society; and then will arise the question, Whether, by general instinct, the condition of a people advancing in civilisation is at once recognised—whether the meaning which mankind attach naturally to the word civilisation is thereby developed?
Let us take a people whose outward existence is agreeable and comfortable, paying few taxes, exposed to no suffering, amongst whom justice is well administered in private affairs; in a word, whose material existence, in its full extent, is well and happily regulated. But at the same time, the intellectual and moral existence of this people is studiously held in a state of numbness and inactivity, I will not say in a state of oppression, because the feeling is unknown to it, but of compression. This order of things is not without example. There has been a great number of small aristocratic republics in which the people have been treated like flocks, well tended, and materially happy, but without moral and intellectual activity. Is this civilisation! Is this a people in the process of self-civilisation?
Let us take another hypothesis. Here is a people whose material existence is less agreeable, less comfortable, yet supportable. But in return, its moral and intellectual wants have not been neglected; a certain extent of pasture has been afforded them; elevated and pure sentiments are cultivated amongst this people; systems of religion and morality have attained a certain degree of development; but great care is taken to strangle the principle of liberty. Here the intellectual and moral wants, as before the physical wants, are satisfied: to each individual is meted out a portion of truth, but he is not permitted to seek it freely of himself alone. The characteristic of the moral life is immobility; it is the state into which the major part of the Asiatic populations has fallen, where theocratic dominations repress elasticity; it is the state of the Hindoos, for example. I ask the same question as before—Is this a people advancing in civilisation?
I change altogether the nature of the hypothesis. Here is a people amongst whom is a great development of certain individual liberties, but where disorder and inequality are excessive; the empire of force and chance: he who is not strong is oppressed, suffers, and perishes. Violence is the characteristic of the social state. Every person knows that Europe has passed through this state. Is it a civilised condition? It may doubtless contain the principles of civilisation, which will be successively developed; but the predominant fact in such a society is most assuredly not that which the common sense of mankind calls civilisation.
I take a fourth and last hypothesis. The liberty of each individual is very great, inequality is rare, or at least temporary. Each does almost what he pleases, and differs little in power with his neighbour; but there are very few general interests, public ideas or sentiments, very little society; in a word, the faculties and career of individuals are deployed, and run in isolation, without mutual action, and without leaving any marks behind: successive generations leave society at the same point at which it has come to them. This is the state of savage tribes: liberty and equality are there, and yet as certainly is not civilisation.