Now, admitting the very just definition we have quoted above, that civilization is “the progressive improvement of society as a whole, and of each individual member of which it is composed,” it seems to us conclusive that only one perfect form of it could exist on earth, i.e. that which flourished for a short time in the Garden of Eden. Mankind in the state of innocence was ipso facto civilized, and civilized to the highest moral and intellectual degree possible to mere human creatures. Had there been no original sin, and had Adam’s posterity continued in utter sinlessness to inhabit the peaceful and fruitful earth, we should have had that well-ordered state of society in which the only progressive improvement would have been ever-increasing love and knowledge of God.
But this, the only perfect civilization, was lost with all other precious gifts—incorruptibility, innocence, and clear insight into the things of God. The state of grace followed the state of innocence, and man, having fallen from his innate mastership over nature when he fell from his mastership over himself, found that civilization and progressive improvement must henceforward mean nothing to him but the painful effort to regain as much of his former power as God would allow him, in guerdon of his repentance, to regain. All civilization since the Fall, therefore, has been only approximative, and can never be more than this. This explains why the highest civilization has been attained only since Christianity has prevailed, the state of accomplished redemption being the most perfect mankind has yet reached, superseding even the state of expectancy of the Hebrew dispensation. It explains, too, why the Jews were the most civilized of all ancient nations—a point to which we will refer at greater length in another place. From the few details briefly mentioned in Genesis, we infer that the earliest civilization after the Fall was by no means inferior to our own as far as material prosperity was concerned. Besides the obvious callings of husbandman and shepherd, always the first and indeed indispensable foundation of civilized life, we find that during the lifetime of Adam, i.e., the first thousand years after the Creation, cities were built and the arts cultivated. Cain was the first to build and organize a town, and his descendant Jubal is called the father of “them that play on the harps and organ.” Tubal Cain was “a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and iron.” Hunting and the use of weapons were of course familiar to the pioneers of the human race, for tradition tells us that it was while hunting that Lamech slew a man, supposed by some to have been Cain, mistaking him for a wild beast. It was not long before solemn religious ceremonies were instituted, as appears from this passage: “This man (Enos) began to call upon the name of the Lord,” which is thus interpreted: although Adam and Seth had called upon the name of the Lord before the birth of their son and grandson Enos, yet Enos used more solemnity in the worship and invocation of God. The natural bent of fallen man, however, prevailed over the efforts of a few faithful souls, and that material civilization which, could we in imagination reconstruct its gorgeous completeness, would undoubtedly not fall below that of the great empires of Assyria, Egypt, or Persia, led surely though insensibly to moral corruption. The fatal beauty of the women of Cain’s race, “the daughters of men,” their wealth too, doubtless their worldly prosperity and lavish display, tempted the descendants of Seth, “the sons of God,” till, in a few hundred years, “all flesh had corrupted its way,” and “it repented God that he had made man.” This was the first example of the deteriorating effect of mere animal civilization, and, alas! how faithfully has it been copied in all ages since! How persistently and with what unwearying perseverance have its details of profligacy been imitated by the succeeding generations of mankind!
A historical review of each separate attempt at civilization made by the dispersed nations after the building of the Tower of Babel would be a serious task, and its result too long for these pages; but, before we leave this part of our subject to turn to the more abstract question of the essence of civilization, let us stop to remark what a high pitch of human culture had already been attained in times so remote that, save through revelation, no memorial of them remains to us. Wendell Phillips has partially developed this idea in his lecture on the “Lost Arts,” proving that three-fourths of our discoveries are plagiarisms, that our best witticisms are borrowed from the Indian and the Greek, and that our most boasted arts are but gropings in the dark after some vanished ideal of antiquity. And how much more learning than we can conjecture must there not be utterly buried out of sight in the sealed records of antediluvian times! The only likeness which we can safely boast of with those colossal days is the likeness of unbelief and corruption. The “mighty men of old,” of whom the Bible so mysteriously speaks, were doubtless as much above our standard of intellect and even of prosperity as vulgar superstition ranges them above our standard of physical strength and height. A veil of mystery shrouds them and their lives from our utmost research, and we know only one thing for certain; that is, their sin and its awful doom—little more than is told us of the fall of Lucifer and his angels, yet enough to teach us that all civilizations which in their arrogance dare to defy the laws of God must inevitably fall beneath his rod.
And now, what is civilization? What is the “good of society considered as a whole”?
Two things are indispensable to it—the inviolability of the family, and the stability of the laws of property. On these two pillars, humanly speaking, is society built, and whatever is antagonistic to these fundamental principles is necessarily and directly antagonistic to civilization.
Paternal and patriarchal government was the first known because the most natural; and, when the increasing number of families confused the original system and complicated its duties, the ruler chosen to take charge of the whole tribe or nation still looked to no higher title than that of father of his people. The stability of the laws regulating property was in all lands reckoned the gauge of prosperity and the test of national vigor. The desire of personal possession, of undisputed ownership over a tract of land however small, is a natural and legitimate instinct of man; its realization alone can bring with it to each individual that independence, that self-respect, which, in the aggregate, creates the feeling of national honor. Patriotism is not an intangible virtue; it springs from the broader basis of domestic affection; it follows the feeling of responsibility induced by the knowledge of having a personal stake in your country’s advancement. The Romans have left us their motto: Pro aris et focis—“For our altars and our hearths.” If we could no longer qualify these hearths as ours, what a lessened interest they must necessarily have in our eyes! The man who works for himself alone is reckless even if brave, lukewarm even if conscientious. He may do his work, but he does it without enthusiasm. He who works for those near and dear to him, to gain or defend a patrimony for those who in the future will take his place and bear his name, is gentle, considerate, patient, far-seeing, persevering, as well as brave and conscientious. But granted that these social and domestic laws are well-guarded, in what else does civilization consist? There are four things which dispute the title to forming the highest test of a well-ordered state of society: riches, political freedom, education, and religion. Some men would combine these elements in varied quantities to form their ideas of civilization; others would sink every element but one, and try the experiment as long as it could be made to minister to their own private aggrandizement; others, again, look for the visionary supremacy of one element alone, and the subordination to itself of every other, whether baser or nobler. We need not say to which class we hope to belong—the sequel will show.
Does civilization consist in riches, whether national or individual? True, the command of wealth inspires respect in neighboring peoples; for national wealth means large resources, speedy armaments, flourishing colonies, and means of thwarting the commerce of lesser nations. But national wealth is seldom attained unless from the basis of individual wealth. It is impossible for the state to absorb and administer such resources as these, and yet to compel private citizens to lead lives of Spartan frugality. The individual cannot be made to acknowledge any right on the part of the state which will interfere with his own right of accumulating capital, provided he makes over to the government a fair share of his profits in the shape of legitimate tribute. Private wealth then becomes the source of private luxury and extravagance, and behind extravagance lurks moral decay. Factitious wants are created, an abnormal state of society is brought about, unmanning the body and weakening the mind. To many men, riches simply suggest new means of indulging in vice; and to all men, vice, in the long run, means disease. Material prosperity has thus reached its apogee, has overshot its mark, and has found a fitting punishment in physical deterioration. There is yet another side to the question. Inordinate riches in the hands of a few, especially if unsupported by territorial prestige, by hereditary honors and the semi-feudal spirit which in Europe still links the agricultural and landed interests in personal association, are apt to breed class jealousies, and to estrange labor from capital. A civil war far more terrible than an armed insurrection is set on foot and slowly undermines the political structure. It is true that the most fatal example of this kind was the upheaval of the French Revolution of ‘93, and that it took place under a monarchical government; but, though monarchical, it was not a feudal government, and the men whose birth, wealth, and station marked them out as the victims of the people’s rage were essentially men whose associations had long been dissevered from the land. Their estates had been abandoned to unscrupulous agents or sold to ambitious roturiers; and for what reason? That its price might cover their needless display at an unstable court! At the present day, where is socialistic agitation most rife in Europe? In the manufacturing towns: not in the agricultural districts. Almost to a man, every factory-gang is ready to turn against its employer; while, in the country, laborers will even die in the defence of their landlords. In the former case, the master is always a “self-made” man, a man of the people, or at least one whose associations are obscure; in the latter, the master is the hereditary representative of gentle blood and gentle nurture, the personal friend of each man on his estate, identified with the neighborhood, and attached to the soil.
The verdict of history has certainly gone against the theory that times of material luxury, pushed to its furthest extent, are therefore times of great national prosperity. Athens was at the height of her ultra-refined civilization when the rude and martial Roman conquered her autonomy; Rome herself, made effeminate by the conquering vices of her conquered foe, was at the giddiest pinnacle of merely physical prosperity when the resistless tide of the barbarians poured over her frontiers; Spain had just grasped the New World with its teeming riches when she fell from her political supremacy in the Old; France was revelling in her Augustan Age when the tocsin of the Revolution woke her from her dalliance. Great wealth has everywhere been the herald of national misfortune; and, as if to set off this truth yet more palpably, we have the republics of Sparta and of Switzerland to show us that, both in classic and in modern times, frugality is the best preservative of freedom.
But the existence of abnormal wealth as a criterion of civilization has yet another phase. If it is possible under a republican form of government and under a constitutional régime, it is still more likely to reach gigantic proportions under a despotic system. Thus the East produces more princely fortunes than even the “enlightened” West, because, wealth being restricted to fewer individuals, it follows that these few fortunes must be colossal. Unlimited pomp, dazzling trains of slaves and camels, a fabulous blaze of gems, a limitless harem, seem to be matters of course for the favored few whose almost omnipotence has become proverbial among men as typical of the East. Therefore, if wealth be a gauge of civilization, we must conclude that despotism is the most civilized of states, since it is certainly the most favorable to the accumulation of riches. If so (and, for the sake of argument, let us grant it), how shall we reconcile this conclusion with the claims of the second and, according to some, infallible test of civilization—political freedom?
We understand by this the extreme of so-called self-government, the government by ballot and universal suffrage. We have had but very lately many signs of its woful fallibility; we have seen how cleverly it can throw the cloak of legality over the most unblushing frauds; we have seen hired violence control the very medium of government itself. Men who respected themselves would as soon touch pitch as defile their hands with voting tickets, or stand up by the side of illegally naturalized citizens, pressed into momentary service by the unscrupulous manipulators of the ballot-box. A form of government which in theory is more perfect than any other, and more in accordance with ideal human dignity, but which in sober practice has sometimes been found an inadequate safeguard against corrupting influences, is not apt to strike any one who has been familiar with the results of the last few years’ political wire-pulling as the most exalted criterion of civilization. The cant phrase of political freedom has unhappily come to mean political corruption, which hardly entitles this second candidate for the exclusive patent of civilization to a lengthened discussion in these pages. The third is education.