The wild Tuaregs of the Sahara have a system of phonetic writing used by a few of them—the women being the literati of those tribes (the men not knowing how to read or write); but civilization means more than this; it means the use of iron weapons and tools; it means also the adoption of a definite currency which is established on a fixed basis and recognized throughout the community; it means the establishment of commercial lines—a progress distinct above that which is the mere barter of the lower conditions of savagery and barbarism. In all these respects we see that civilization means a type about such as we enjoy at present. It is such as has existed in Europe since the Renaissance; because during the middle ages we could only say that Europe was in a semi-civilized condition. They knew something about writing; but at a time when Dean, the writer of the early history of England, said that throughout the whole of England there were not half a dozen men who could read what he had written, you can see that writing was a very unimportant part of the culture of that nation; so it can only be when writing becomes a common possession of the majority that we can call it an element of civilization.
It is not to be supposed that we ourselves have reached the type of the highest culture. We leave something for our descendants to do. We do not wish to relieve them of the privilege of being better than ourselves; and we shall leave them, probably, plenty of room; because it is supposed that the stage of enlightenment which is the highest stage of culture—which we foresee, but do not see—that that rather applies to the future than to ourselves. That period will come when mankind has freed itself very much more than now from the bonds of nature and the environment of society. It will come when the ideas of our equality are much more perfect than they are now; when that equality extends to the equality of women with men before the law and in all rights; when it comes to the equality of all men of all castes before the law and the equal opportunity of all men to obtain that which is best in the life of all. We are very far from that yet. It will come also when the idea of international legislation is such that it will not be necessary, in order to cure great evils, that we should have recourse to weapons of any material whatsoever; that time is not yet come; and so we have much that is left for our descendants to work out in this direction.
It would, however, appear that all these various criteria which I have named are somewhat unsatisfactory. They do not, it appears to me, quite touch the question at issue. They are in a measure external measures altogether—even that somewhat psychological one which I quoted from the German authorities. Were I to propose a criterion, or a series of criteria, of culture which could be applied to all nations, it would be that which might as well and easily be applied to each individual; and when we come to apply it in that manner it is much more easy to understand its bearing. Herbert Spencer, in defining what he means by culture, says: "It means the knowledge of one thing thoroughly and a knowledge of the groundwork of all other branches of human knowledge." He claimed that we can only understand one thing thoroughly; but that we could and ought to understand the general outline of all other things which are studied by mankind. This is somewhat defective, it appears, because it bases culture entirely from an intellectual point of view; and if man were merely a walking intellectual machine, it would be well enough; but he is not; for the intellectual man is but a small portion of his life. We are engaged, most of our time, in something which is very far from purely intellectual action. We are governed distinctly by our emotions and our feelings—our sentiments; and culture must touch them, or it is vague and empty. Therefore it is that I would say that we should think with Goethe—to whom we must often recur for an insight into the profoundest trends of human nature—must recur to him; and we find that he lays down the principle of culture in the individual to be "A general sympathy with all the highest ideas which have governed and are governing the human mind." He said: "We should keep ourselves first (each man and woman should keep himself and herself) in touch with the highest elements of his and her own nature." He said, "It is not so difficult, if we give but a little time to it—provided we give that time regularly. We must remember," he says, "to cultivate our intellect by some study, every day and our sense of the beautiful by looking at something which is beautiful; and there is much around us which costs us nothing to look at were we to observe it—the cloud, the sunlight, the tree, the flower, a butterfly—anything of that kind studied for a few minutes each day would continue to develop in man's mind the sense of the beautiful. We should also appreciate carefully our actions and govern them and measure them, as to whether they are just to others—a matter which a very few minutes a day will probably enable us to do;" and so also he would go further and seek to find, in the idea of truth itself, as to what we ought and ought not to believe—trying to discover some one test of truth which we can apply.
Indeed, we may therefore formulate and apply to nations at large what Goethe has there suggested; and we shall find it can be arranged in what I may call a pentatonic scale of culture. You may be aware that all musical scales of all savage and barbarous and primitive tribes are not in the octave, as ours, but in five notes only; they all have one musical scale only, and that is a pentatonic scale; and it is perhaps because they feel that their own minds are based upon some such arrangement as that (although that is an idea which I do not subscribe to, but only suggest); but when we come to look over the whole cycle of culture, as we find it described in the histories of culture—in the histories of civilization—we find that they are all efforts to develop one or the other, or several, of five primary ideas which are in the mind of every human being; and when they are developed, then culture is perfect, either in the individual or in the nation or the race. These five primitive ideas, innate in every human soul, are the ideas of the useful, of the beautiful, of the just, of the good and of the true, and you will not find any savage (provided he is not deficient in the ordinary mental ability of his tribe) who does not indicate an appreciation of every one of these in his own way. It is the idea of the useful which teaches him his utilitarian arts; which teaches him to build his house; to chip the flint for his weapon; to sharpen the stick to dig the place to drop the seed; and all those we call the arts of utility, the useful arts; and yet you will not find a savage tribe to-day but what goes somewhat above this; because among them all they make also an effort that these tools and weapons of theirs shall have some sign about them of the beautiful; and you will find decoration—indeed, "the painted savage" is a name we give to the lowest order of humanity; yet this same paint is to make himself beautiful; and so it is throughout all his games and amusements in life—you will find he is constantly striving at the idea of decoration—at the idea of beauty; little by little he develops this, until it becomes, in some nations, the joy of their existence and the lesson of the race, as in the ancient Greeks; as in the Italians of the time of the Renaissance. These are what we call the æsthetic emotions, based upon an innate sense and love of the beautiful: and we may also turn to the lowest savage—we shall not find him deficient in justice; on the contrary, among the rudest Australians, without shelter or clothing, you will find that the law of the tribe is well defined and also implacable; and a man who has sinned knows that he must meet it or flee; he knows that there is no avail or recourse beyond the tribal council, and he knows what they will decide in his particular case, because he knows the law and the penalty of its infringement. And this rude notion of justice develops, little by little, into the great edifice of jurisprudence, the law of nation and the law of nations. Thus we find that the idea of the just, and of what is right from man to man, is something which is found everywhere; and as that develops culture develops; but the mere just alone does not satisfy the human heart; the man who merely metes out to his fellow that which the tribal law, or the law of the land, requires of him, certainly is not up to the ideal of any man or woman in this assembly or in this city.
There is something beyond that, and what is that? We find that it rests in the idea of the good—that which is often brought forward in the beautiful forms of religion, which tells man that above justice there is something greater and nobler than mere ethics or morality—the mere right and wrong—the mere giving what is due. It is not enough to do that; there must be a giving of more than is due; because the idea of the good transcends the present life—it passes into the future life of the species; and it is only through going above what is needed to-day that we may endow our posterity with something greater than we ourselves possess. It is the idea of the good, therefore, which lifts that which is merely just into a higher—into, I might say, an immortal sphere of activity. It has always had an intense attraction for noble souls, which history shows us; and it is not to be supposed that that attraction will ever diminish; it will ever increase, although its forms may change; and finally, along with this betterment of the emotions, and of the sense of justice—of right and of ethics and of æsthetics—we find the constant effort and desire of all mankind, in all stages of culture, to find out what is true, as distinct from that which is not true. You will not be mistaken if you seek for this in the soul of the rudest savage; he, too, likes to know the truth. The methods by which he arrives at it, or seeks to arrive at it, are widely different from those which you have been taught. Nevertheless, the logical force of his mind; the methods of thought that he has; the laws that govern his intelligence, are exactly the same as yours: and it is only with your enlightenment you have gained more and more acquaintance with the methods. You know something about the great discovery which has advanced all modern science from its mediæval condition to that of the present—of the application of the inductive system of science and thought; and you know that it is by constant and close mathematical study of analogy—of probability—that we exclude error little by little from our observations—we improve more and more our instruments of precision—we count out the errors of our observation; and we are constantly seeking those laws which are not transient and ephemeral only, but which are eternal and immortal. Upon those laws, finally, must rest all our real, certain knowledge; and it is the endeavor of the anthropologist to apply those laws to man and his development; and such, indeed, is the recognized and highest mission of that science. We thus find that the idea of truth is at the summit of this scale which I have placed before you—not separated from it. It interprets every one of the ideas and justifies them and qualifies them and lifts them up into their highest usefulness. Chevalier Bunsen, in describing what he thought would be the highest condition of human enlightenment, said, "It will be when the good will be the true and the true will be the good;" and he might have extended that further and said, when both those ideas were the inspiring motives of all these five great ideas which I have stated are at the basis of the culture of every individual and are also at the basis of the culture of the race and of the nation.
This, therefore, will serve as a sketch of the milestones of human progress. The way has been long and painful; the results have been far from satisfactory; and yet they have been enormous and wonderful, when we compare them now with what our ancestors were when history began. We can conclude, however, from looking back on this thorny and upward path, that it is still going to ascend; we do not know it for certain; progress may cease, through some unknown law, now and here; but if there is anything that we can derive from the lesson of the past—if we can project into the future any of the facts which history shows us are our own now—it guides us forward to a firm belief that the hereafter will have in its breast greater treasures for humanity, greater glories for posterity, than any that we know or can understand.
A lecture delivered by Prof. Daniel G. Brinton at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.