History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3. Henry Buckley
time, there was some approach to equality, some tendency to correct that enormous disproportion of wealth and power, which formed the essential weakness of the greatest of the more ancient countries. As a natural consequence, it is in Europe that everything worthy of the name of civilization has originated; because there alone have attempts been made to preserve the balance of its relative parts. There alone has society been organized according to a scheme, not indeed sufficiently large, but still wide enough to include all the different classes of which it is composed, and thus, by leaving room for the progress of each, to secure the permanence and advancement of the whole.
The way in which certain other physical peculiarities confined to Europe, have also accelerated the progress of Man by diminishing his superstition, will be indicated towards the end of this chapter; but as that will involve an examination of some laws which I have not yet noticed, it seems advisable, in the first place, to complete the inquiry now before us; and I therefore purpose proving that the line of argument which has been just applied to India, is likewise applicable to Egypt, to Mexico, and to Peru. For by thus including in a single survey, the most conspicuous civilizations of Asia, Africa, and America, we shall be able to see how the preceding principles hold good of different and distant countries; and we shall be possessed of evidence sufficiently comprehensive to test the accuracy of those great laws which, without such precaution, I might be supposed to have generalized from scanty and imperfect materials.
The reasons why, of all the African nations, the Egyptians alone were civilized, have been already stated, and have been shown to depend on those physical peculiarities which distinguish them from the surrounding countries, and which, by facilitating the acquisition of wealth, not only supplied them with material resources that otherwise they could never have obtained, but also secured to their intellectual classes the leisure and the opportunity of extending the boundaries of knowledge. It is, indeed, true that, notwithstanding these advantages, they effected nothing of much moment; but this was owing to circumstances which will be hereafter explained; and it must, at all events, be admitted that they raised themselves far above every other people by whom Africa was inhabited.
The civilization of Egypt being, like that of India, caused by the fertility of the soil, and the climate being also very hot,130 there were in both countries brought into play the same laws; and there naturally followed the same results. In both countries we find the national food cheap and abundant: hence the labour-market over-supplied; hence a very unequal division of wealth and power; and hence all the consequences which such inequality will inevitably produce. How this system worked in India, I have just attempted to examine; and although the materials for studying the former condition of Egypt are much less ample, they are still sufficiently numerous to prove the striking analogy between the two civilizations, and the identity of those great principles which regulated the order of their social and political development.
If we inquire into the most important circumstances which concerned the people of ancient Egypt, we shall see that they are exactly the counterpart of those that have been noticed in India. For, in the first place, as regards their ordinary food, what rice is to the most fertile parts of Asia, that are dates to Africa. The palm-tree is found in every country from the Tigris to the Atlantic;131 and it supplies millions of human beings with their daily food in Arabia,132 and in nearly the whole of Africa north of the equator.133 In many parts of the great African desert it is indeed unable to bear fruit; but naturally it is a very hardy plant, and produces dates in such profusion, that towards the north of the Sahara they are eaten not only by man, but also by domestic animals.134 And in Egypt, where the palm is said to be of spontaneous growth,135 dates, besides being the chief sustenance of the people, are so plentiful, that from a very early period they have been given commonly to camels, the only beasts of burden generally used in that country.136
From these facts, it is evident that, taking Egypt as the highest type of African civilization, and India as the highest type of Asiatic civilization, it may be said that dates are to the first civilization what rice is to the second. Now it is observable, that all the most important physical peculiarities found in rice are also found in dates. In regard to their chemistry, it is well known that the chief principle of the nutriment they contain is the same in both; the starch of the Indian vegetable being merely turned into the sugar of the Egyptian. In regard to the laws of climate, their affinity is equally obvious; since dates, like rice, belong to hot countries, and flourish most in or near the tropics.137 In regard to their increase, and the laws of their connexion with the soil, the analogy is also exact; for dates, just the same as rice, require little labour, and yield abundant returns, while they occupy so small a space of land in comparison with the nutriment they afford, that upwards of two hundred palm-trees are sometimes planted on a single acre.138
Thus striking are the similarities to which, in different countries, the same physical conditions naturally give rise. At the same time, in Egypt, as in India, the attainment of civilization was preceded by the possession of a highly fertile soil; so that, while the exuberance of the land regulated the speed with which wealth was created, the abundance of the food regulated the proportions into which the wealth was divided. The most fertile part of Egypt is the Said;139 and it is precisely there that we find the greatest display of skill and knowledge, the splendid remains of Thebes, Carnac, Luxor, Dendera, and Edfou.140 It is also in the Said, or as it is often called the Thebaid, that a food is used which multiplies itself even more rapidly than either dates or rice. This is the dhourra, which until recently was confined to Upper Egypt,141 and of which the reproductive power is so remarkable, that it yields to the labourer a return of two hundred and forty for one.142 In Lower Egypt the dhourra was formerly unknown; but, in addition to dates, the people made a sort of bread from the lotos, which sprang spontaneously out of the rich soil of the Nile.143 This must have been a very cheap and accessible food; while to it there was joined a profusion of other plants and herbs, on which the Egyptians chiefly lived.144 Indeed so inexhaustible was the supply, that at the time of the Mohammedan invasion there were, in the single city of Alexandria, no less than four thousand persons occupied in selling vegetables to the people.145
From this abundance of the national food, there resulted a train of events strictly analogous to those which took place in India. In Africa generally, the growth of population, though on the one hand stimulated by the heat of the climate, was on the other hand checked by the poverty of the soil. But on the banks of the Nile this restraint no longer existed,146 and therefore the laws already noticed came into uncontrolled operation. By virtue of those laws, the Egyptians were not only satisfied with a cheap food, but they required that food in comparatively small quantities; thus by a double process, increasing the limit to which their numbers could extend. At the same time the lower orders were able to rear their offspring with the greater ease, because, owing to the high rate of temperature, another considerable source of expense was avoided; the heat being such that, even for adults, the necessary clothes were few and slight, while the children of the working classes were entirely naked; affording a striking contrast to those colder countries where, to preserve ordinary health, a supply of warmer and more costly covering is essential. Diodorus Siculus, who travelled in Egypt nineteen centuries ago, says, that to bring up a child to manhood did not cost more than twenty drachmas, scarcely thirteen shillings English money; a circumstance which he justly notices as a cause of the populousness of the country.147
To compress into a single sentence the preceding remarks, it may be said that in Egypt the people multiplied rapidly, because while the soil increased
Volney (
It is, however, unknown in South Africa. See the account of the Palmaceæ in
‘Of all eatables used by the Arabs, dates are the most favourite.’
Heeren (
‘Dates are not only the principal growth of the Fezzan oases, but the main subsistence of their inhabitants. All live on dates; men, women, and children, horses, asses, and camels, and sheep, fowls, and dogs.’
‘It flourished spontaneously in the valley of the Nile.’
On their relation to the laws of climate, see the remarks respecting the geographical limits of their power of ripening, in
‘In the valley of the Nile, a feddan (1¾ acre) is sometimes planted with 400 trees.’
On the remarkable fertility of the Said, see
The superiority of the ruins in Southern Egypt over those in the northern part is noticed by Heeren (
Abd-Allatif (
‘The return is in general not less than 240 for one; and the average price is about 3
Ἐπεὰν πλήρης γένηται ὁ ποταμὸς, καὶ τὰ πεδία πελαγίσῃ, φύεται ἐν τῷ ὅδατι κρίνεα πολλὰ, τὰ Αἰγύπτιοι καλέουσι λωτόν⋅ ταῦτα ἐπεὰν δρέψωσι, αὐαίνουσι πρὸς ἥλιον⋅ καὶ ἔπειτα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ μέσου τοῦ λωτοῦ τῇ μήκωνι ἐὸν ἐμφερὲς, πτίσαντες ποιεῦνται ἐξ αὐτοῦ ᾰρτους ὀπτοὺς πυρίπυρί.
‘When Alexandria was taken by Amer, the lieutenant of the Caliph Omer, no less than 4,000 persons were engaged in selling vegetables in that city.’
The encouragement given to the increase of population by the fertility arising from the inundation of the Nile, is observed by many writers, but by none so judiciously as Malthus;
Τρέφουσι δὲ τὰ παιδία μετά τινος εὐχερείας ἀαπάνου, καὶ παντελῶς ἀπίστον … ἀνυποδέτων δὲ τῶν πλείστων καὶ γυμνῶν τρεφομένων διὰ τὴν εὐκρασιαν τῶν τόπων, τὴν πᾶσαν δαπάνην οἱ γονεῒς, ᾰχρις ἂν εἰς ἡλικίαν ἒλθῃ τὸ τέκνον, οὐ πλείω ποιοῦσι δραχμῶν εῐκοσι, δἰ ἂς αἰτς μάλιστα τὴν Αἴγυπτον συμβαίνει πολυανθρωπίᾳ διαθέρειν, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πλείστας ἔχειν μεγάλων ἔργωνκατασκευάς.