The Human Race. Figuier Louis
languages, which are spoken by Negroes, as also by many people of the yellow race, are the first degree of perfection in human speech. In these the word is no longer unique; variable terminations attached to each word modify the primitive expression. They contain roots and words whose function it is to modify these roots.
The third and last degree of perfection in human speech is found in inflected languages. Those languages are so called, in which the same word is capable of modification a great number of times, in order to express the different shades of thought, and to translate changes of time, person, or place. Inflected languages are made up of a series of different terms, the number of which is by no means large, but the modification of which, by means of adjuncts, or through the position they occupy, are indeed innumerable. All European languages, and those spoken in Asia by people of the white race, are inflected.
If spoken language is the first element which served to constitute human societies, fixed, that is written language, has been the fundamental cause of their progress. By means of writing, one generation has been enabled to hand down to the other the fruits of their experience and investigation, and thus to lay the foundation of primitive science and history.
The first forms of writing were mere mnemonic signs. Stones cut to a certain fashion, pieces of wood to which a conventional form had been imparted, and such like, were the first signs of written language. One of the most curious forms of mnemonic writing has been met with both in the Old and New Worlds; it consisted in joining little bundles of cord of different colours, in which were tied knots of various kinds. Whoever ties a knot in his handkerchief in order to recall to mind some fact or intention, makes use, without knowing it, of the primitive form of writing.
An advance in writing consisted in representing pictorially objects which it was wished to designate. The wild Indians of North America still make use of these rough representations of objects, as a means of imparting certain information.
This very system is rendered more complete, when the design is supplemented by a conventional idea. If prudence is indicated by a serpent, strength by a lion, and lightness by a bird, we here at once recognize writing properly so called. This last form of writing is known as the symbolical or ideographic.
Symbolical writing existed among the ancients. The hieroglyphics which are engraved upon the monuments of ancient Egypt, and those which have been found upon Mexican remains, belong to symbolical writing.
And yet this is not writing in the true sense of the word, which does not exist until the conventional signs, of which use is made, correspond with the words or signs of the language spoken, and can actually replace the language itself.
By the alphabet, is meant the collection of conventional signs corresponding to the sounds which form words. The alphabet is one of those inventions which have called for the greatest efforts of the human mind, and it is not without good reason that Greek mythology deified Cadmus, the inventor of letters. The same admiration for the inventors of alphabets is, moreover, exhibited among all ancient nations.
It is not only through its immense superiority as regards extent and power, that the intelligence of man is distinguished from that of the brute; there is an attribute of intelligence which is strictly peculiar to our species. This is the faculty of abstraction, which permits of our collecting and placing together the perceptions of the mind, by that means arriving at general results. It is through this power of abstraction, that our intellect has created the wonders which are familiar to all; that the arts and sciences have been brought to light and fostered by society.
In connection with the faculty of abstraction, we must allude to the moral sense, which is a deduction from that same property. The moral sense is a special attribute of human intelligence, and it may be said that through this attribute, man’s intellect is distinguished from that of animals; for this characteristic is most truly peculiar to the mind of man, and is nowhere found among animals.
Among all people, and at all times, the difference between good and evil, truth and falsehood, has been recognized. The abstract idea of moral good and moral evil may certainly differ in different people: one may admire, what the other detests; in one nation, that, may be held in good repute, which, in another, is a criminal offence; yet, after all, the abstract notion of evil and good, does not cease to exist. Observance of the right of property, self-respect, and regard for human life, are to be found among all nationalities. If man, in his savage state, occasionally casts aside these moral notions, it is in consequence of the social condition of the tribe to which he belongs, and must be regarded in connexion with the customs of war and the feeling of revenge. But, in a state of tranquillity and peace, which condition the philosopher and student must presuppose in framing their arguments, the notion of evil and good is always to be found. The forms which the feeling of honour dictates, vary for example in the white man and the savage, but the feeling itself is never eradicated from the heart of any.
The religious feeling, the notion of divinity, is another characteristic which has its origin in the faculty of abstraction. This sentiment is indissolubly allied to human intelligence. Without wishing, with an eminent French anthropologist, M. de Quatrefages, to make of religiosity a fundamental attribute of humanity, and a natural characteristic of our species, we may say that all men are religious, that they acknowledge and adore a Creator, a Supreme God. Whether the statement that certain people, such as the Australians, Bushmen, and Polynesians, are atheists, as we are assured by some travellers, and whether the reproaches bestowed upon them in consequence of this, are well-founded, or whether it is the fact that the travellers who bore this testimony understood but little of the language and signs of these different people, as has been suggested by M. de Quatrefages, are matters of relatively slight importance. The state of brutality of certain tribes, buried in the midst of inaccessible and savage countries, and the intellectual imperfection which follows, concealing from them the notion of God, are nothing when compared with the universality of religious belief which stirs in the hearts of the innumerable populations spread over the face of the earth.
Language and writing gave birth to human associations, and later on, to civilization, by which they were transformed. It is curious to follow out the progressive forms of human association, and point out the stages which civilization has passed through in its forward march.
Primitive societies assumed three successive forms. Men were in the first instance, hunters and fishers, then herdsmen, and lastly husbandmen. We say, populations were first of all hunters and fishers. The human race then inhabiting the earth, was but small in number, and this explains it. A group of men gaining their livelihood simply by hunting and fishing, cannot be composed of a very large number of individuals. A vast extent of territory is required to nourish a population, which finds in game and fish its sole means of subsistence. Moreover, this manner of living is always precarious, for there never is any certainty that food will be found for the morrow. This continual preoccupation in seeking the means of subsistence, brings man nearer to the brute, and hinders him from exercising his intellect upon ennobling and more useful subjects. Hunting is, moreover, the image of warfare, and war may very easily arise between neighbouring populations who get their living in the same manner. If in these eventual collisions, prisoners are taken, they are sacrificed in order that there may be no additional mouths to feed.
So long, therefore, as human societies were composed only of hunters and fishers, they were unable to make any intellectual progress, and their customs, of necessity remained barbarous. The death of prisoners was the order of battle.
Societies of herdsmen succeeded those of hunters and fishers. Man having domesticated first the dog, then the ox, the horse, the sheep or the llama, by that means ensured his livelihood for the morrow, and was enabled to turn his attention to other matters besides the quest of food. We therefore see pastoral societies advancing in the way of progress, by the improvement of their dress, their weapons, and their habitations.
But pastoral communities have also need of large tracts of country, for their herds rapidly exhaust the herbage in one region, and they must therefore seek farther for pastures, in order that they may be sure of their food, when that is confined to flesh and milk. Pastoral populations were therefore