The New Stone Age in Northern Europe

by John M. Tyler

The Celt was, if anything, a better “mixer” and more adaptable than even the Achæan. His prejudices and zeal in regard to morals and religion seem not to have been deep or strong. The Celts were finally absorbed, affecting the temper of the people far more than their daily life.

Through all these revolutions, as well as those which were to follow, family and neighborhood retained their compact unity, perhaps with all its mutual attractions strengthened by the pressure of the conquerors. They were still the controlling influence in the life and education of the individual, as they probably remain to this day. The power of these smaller communities may have waxed, as tribal control waned. What they had lost in the mutual support within the tribe they made good by leaning more closely on their neighbors.

This solidarity makes the common people very stiff-necked, in an excellent sense of the word. Like the Neolithic folk of Scandinavia, they select and accept from their more cultured neighbors only that which they can assimilate to the stores of experience and instincts which they already possess. The fickleness, of which they are often accused, is characteristic of a very different class or stratum of the population, and of far later origin and development. Their own development is naturally slow, gradual, and continuous.

We have ventured the opinion that the essentials of Neolithic culture survived the conquests of the Indo-Europeans in a but slightly modified form. If this is granted, we have every reason to think that the effects of all succeeding invasions and conquests, changes of dynasties and governments, international or national policies, internal legislation and reforms, have been even more temporary, slight, and superficial. Modern revolutions have been more and more uprisings of the people asserting the inalienable rights and privileges of their dignity as men. The trend of popular life and feeling has resembled the flow of a river or the incoming of the tide. It turns or winds as it meets obstacles in its path, but keeps in the main to a fairly clear course and direction. The people may not be against the government, they merely go their way regardless of it. But we must not trespass on the field of the historian.

During the Neolithic period everybody, except perhaps certain priests and elders, belonged to the common people. But accumulation of wealth, the rise of leaders, the conquest of new lands developed a distinct aristocracy of birth, wealth, prowess, leadership, and genius. The common people of to-day, whom, as Mr. Lincoln said, “God must have loved or he never would have made so many of them,” seem to be the whole population minus the uncommon aristocracy. It is not easy to see just where we ought to draw the line between mass and class.

All the virtues, brains, and possibilities of progress can hardly be confined to this upper stratum. Can we define or describe our common people? They are a very mixed multitude. There is probably more individual variety than among the conventional refined and cultured, and this makes them more original and interesting. Hence any composite picture is usually a blur; a definite picture of any group or part would be partial and one-sided, very possibly a caricature of the whole. We dare not try to offer one.

Men and women like Mr. Robert Woods, of Boston, and Miss Jane Addams, of Chicago, have set themselves patiently, persistently, sympathetically, respectfully, and wisely to study and help these people. They can and will describe them, if we will listen. Their faith in the people seems to be deep and strong.

We all recognize that in times of trial and emergency, when great testing moral issues are at stake, the people are practically unanimous in recognizing and supporting the cause of justice and right, unless befogged, divided, or misled by statesmen. Their taste for right ends is keen and reliable. Their feelings ring true, and they act accordingly, whatever the cost.

They are not inarticulate, though their speech is often interjectory. They are only beginning to produce a large number of spokesmen. Now and then their demands are voiced by a prophet, asserting that what Jehovah demands is “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God”; or the prophecy is sung by a poet, like Burns. They may sometimes or often be misled; but if their heart and feeling is not healthy we may well despair of the republic.

But the true prophet is very rarely a statesman. His feeling and taste for ends is marvellously good. Here his word, like the feeling of the people from whom he sprang, is almost infallible. But the choice of means and policy, the selection of the next step toward the attainment of the end, is the real business of the statesman.