Chapter I · The Dawn of Civilization

Chinese Culture—Had it Independent Origin?—Evolution in Human Affairs—Stratification Theory—The Mystery of Mind—Man’s First Philosophy of Life—Influences exercised by Ancient Civilizations—Culture Mixing—The Idea of Progress—Art in the Pleistocene Age—Introduction of Agriculture—Birth of Osirian Civilization—The “Water of Greenness” as “Water of Life”—How Commerce Began—Introduction of Copper-working—The Oldest Calendar in the World—The “Kings of Mankind”—Ancient Man and Modern Man.

The destinies of a people are shaped by their modes of thought, and their real history is therefore the history of their culture. The Chinese frame of mind has made the Chinese the people they are and China the country it is. Every section of society has been swayed by this far-reaching and enduring influence, the sources of which lie in remote antiquity. It is the force that has even been shaping public opinion and directing political movements. Emperors and leaders of thought have been uplifted by it or cast down by it.

To understand China, it is necessary that we should inquire into its inner history—the history of its culture—so as to get at the Chinese point of view and look at things through Chinese eyes. That inner history is in part a record of its early experiences among the nations of the earth. There was a time when China was “in the making”, when the little leaven that leavened the whole lump began to move, when that culture which spread over a vast area was confined to a small centre and to a comparatively small group of people. Who were this people, where were they situated, what influences were at work to stir them and shape their ambitions, and what secret did they learn which gave them power over the minds and bodies of about a third of the inhabitants of the globe? In short, how and where did Chinese culture originate, and how did it spread and become firmly established? Was it a thing of purely local growth? Did it begin to be quite independently of all other cultures? Does it owe its virility and distinctiveness among the cultures of ancient and modern times to the influence of the locality in which it had “independent origin”? Had it an independent origin?

These queries open up the larger problem as to the origin of civilization in the world. At this point, therefore, we must decide whether or not we are to accept the idea of evolution in human affairs. Can the principles of biological evolution be applied to the problems of ethnology (using the term in its widest sense to include the physical and cultural history of mankind)? Can we accept the theory that in isolated quarters of the globe separated communities were stirred by natural laws to make progress in adapting themselves to their environments, and that, once a beginning was made, separated communities developed on similar lines? Did each ancient civilization have its natural periods of growth and decay? Were separated communities uninfluenced during these periods by human minds and wills? Were their destinies shaped by natural laws, or by the cumulative force of public opinion? Was it a natural law that made men abandon the hunting and adopt the agricultural mode of life? Did certain communities of men, influenced by natural laws in ancient times, begin to shape their religious systems by first worshipping groups of spirits and ultimately, having passed through a sequence of well-defined stages, find themselves elevated by these natural laws to the stage of monotheism? Is it because certain races have, for some mysterious reason, been prompted to pass through these stages more quickly than others, that they are deserving of the term “progressive” while others must be characterized as “backward”?

If these questions are answered in the affirmative, we must assume that we have solved the riddle of Mind. Those who apply the principles of biological evolution to human affairs are in the habit of referring to laws that control the workings of the human mind. But what do we really know about the workings of the human mind? This question has only to be asked so that the hazardous character of the fashion of thinking adopted by extreme exponents of the Evolution School may be emphasized. It cannot but be admitted that we know little or nothing regarding the human mind. What happens when we think? How are memories stored in the brain? How are emotions caused? What is Consciousness? How does the Will operate? Grave psychological problems have to be solved before we can undertake the responsibility of discussing with any degree of confidence the laws that are supposed to govern human thought and action.

The researches into the early history of man, of about a generation ago, were believed by some to “have revealed the essential similarity with which, under many superficial differences, the human mind has elaborated its first crude philosophy of life”. It was found that similar beliefs and practices obtained among widely separated communities, and it was not suspected that the influence exercised by direct and indirect cultural contact between “progressive” and “backward” communities extended to such great distances as has since been found to be the case. Prospecting routes by land and sea were the avenues along which cultural influences “drifted”. Early man was much more enterprising as a trader and explorer than was believed in Tylor’s day. The evidence accumulated of late years tends to show that almost no part of the globe remained immune to the influences exercised by the great ancient civilizations, and that these civilizations were never in a state of “splendid isolation” at any period in their histories. In the light of this knowledge it is becoming more and more clear that Victorian ethnologists were inclined to make too much of resemblances, and failed to take into account the differences that a more intensive study of local cultures have revealed. There were, of course, resemblances, which suggest the influence of cultural contact and the settlement among backward peoples of colonists from progressive communities, but there were also differences of beliefs and customs which were of local origin and can hardly be characterized as “superficial”. One of the results of contact was the process of “culture mixing”. Customs and fashions of thinking were introduced into a country and blended with local customs and local modes of thought. In early China, as will be shown, there was “culture mixing”. The Chinese frame of mind is the result of compromises effected in remote times.

How, then, did the idea of progress originate? Is there in the human mind an instinct which stirs mankind to achieve progress? If so, how does it come about that some peoples have failed to move until brought into contact with progressive races? Why did the Melanesians, for instance, remain in the Stone Age until reached by the missionary and the sandal-wood trader? The missionaries and the traders caused them to advance in a brief period from the Stone Age to the Age of Steel and Machinery. Can it be maintained that in ancient days no sudden changes took place? Did the people, for instance, who introduced bronze-working into a country introduce nothing else? Did they leave behind their beliefs, their myths, their customs, and their stories?

The hunting mode of life prevailed also among the proto-Egyptians in the Nile valley, an area which was less capable in remote times of maintaining a large population than were the wide and fertile plains of Europe. Egypt was thinly peopled until the agricultural mode of life was introduced. Someone discovered how to make use of the barley that grew wild in the Nile valley and western Asia. In time the seeds were cultivated, and some little community thus provided itself with an abundant food-supply. Men’s minds were afterwards engaged in solving the problem how to extend the area available for cultivation in the narrow Nile valley. Nature was at hand to make suggestions to them. Each year the River Nile came down in flood and fertilized the parched and sun-burnt wastes. The waters caused the desert to “blossom like the rose”. Intelligent observers perceived that if the process of water-fertilization were maintained, as in the Delta region, they could extend their little farms and form new ones. The art of irrigation was discovered and gradually adopted, with the result that the narrow river valley, which had been thinly peopled during the Hunting Period, became capable of maintaining a large population.

Here we have proof that the agricultural mode of life obtained in the Nile valley over sixty centuries ago, and that the seeds of the cultivated variety of millet, which grows wild in North Africa and southern Asia, were carried to far-distant areas by ancient traders and colonists. These facts have, as will be found, an important bearing on the early history of Chinese civilization.

Our immediate concern, however, is with the history of early civilization. In the Nile valley man made progress when he was able to provide something which he required, by the intelligent utilization of means at his disposal. No natural law prompted him to cultivate corn and irrigate the sun-parched soil. He did not become an agriculturist by instinct. He conducted observations, exercised his reasoning faculty, made experiments, and a great discovery was forthcoming. The man whose memory is enshrined in that of Osiris was one of the great benefactors of the human race. When he solved the problem of how to provide an abundant supply of food, he made it possible for a large population to live in a small area. It is told of Osiris that “he gave them (the Egyptians) a body of laws to regulate their conduct by”. No doubt the early hunters observed laws which regulated conduct in the cave-home as well as on the hunting-field. The fact that a great pictorial art was cultivated by Aurignacian man in western Europe, about 20,000 years ago, indicates that the social organization had been sufficiently well developed to permit of certain individuals of a class—possibly the priestly class—devoting themselves to the study of art, while others attended to the food-supply. Aurignacian art could never have reached the degree of excellence it did had there not been a school of art—apparently religious art—and a system of laws that promoted its welfare.

When the discovery of how to grow corn was passed from people to people and from land to land, not only the seeds and agricultural implements were passed along, but the ceremonies and religious beliefs connected with the agricultural mode of life in the area of origin. The ceremonies were regarded as of as much importance as the implements.

In the process of time the Egyptians found that they were able to produce a larger food-supply than they required for their own needs. They were consequently able to devote their surplus to stimulating trade, so as to obtain from other countries things which were not to be had in Egypt. They were thus brought into touch with other communities, and these communities, such as the wood-cutters of Lebanon, were influenced by Egyptian civilization and stimulated to adopt new modes of life. Their food-supply was assured by the Egyptian demand for timber. They received corn from the Nile valley in payment for their labour. There are references in the Egyptian texts to the exports of wheat to North Syria and Asia Minor.

When the great discovery was made of how to work copper, the early agriculturists achieved rapid progress. Boats were built more easily and in larger numbers, new weapons were produced, and the Upper Egyptians conquered the Lower Egyptians, with the result that Egypt was united under a single king. With this union, which was followed by a period of remarkable activity, begins the history of Ancient Egypt.

When we consider the problem of the origin of progress, let us not forget him and others like him—those early thinkers and discoverers to whom all humanity owe a debt of gratitude. The few invent, the many adopt; the few think and lead, and the many follow.

Progress has its origin in Mind. It has been manifested in the past in those districts in which the mind of man was applied to overcome natural obstacles and to develop natural resources. The histories of the great ancient civilizations do not support the idea of an evolutionary process which had its origin in human instinct. “There has”, Professor G. Elliot Smith writes, “been no general or widespread tendency on the part of human societies to strive after what by Europeans is regarded as intellectual or material progress. Progressive societies are rare because it requires a very complex series of factors to compel men to embark upon the hazardous process of striving after such artificial advancement.”

In the chapters that immediately follow it will be shown that separated communities were brought into close touch by traders. The term “trading”, however, refers, especially in early times, chiefly to prospecting and the exploiting of locally unappreciated forms of wealth. It was not until after civilization had spread far and wide that permanent trade routes were established. Some overland routes became less important when sea routes were ultimately opened.