Part 13

According to the description of Cæsar[30] and Tacitus[31] the German tribes differed essentially from the Gauls or Kelts in the following particulars. The Germans loved freedom, and were all free. The Kelts did not care for freedom. The meanest German was free. But all the inferior people among the Kelts were virtually slaves. The Germans had no priests, and did not care for sacrifices. The Kelts had a powerful priesthood and imposing religious rites. The Germans were remarkable for their blue eyes, light hair, and large limbs. The Kelts were dark-complexioned. The Gauls were more quick, but less persevering, than the Germans. Ready to attack, they were soon discouraged. Tacitus, describing the Germans, says: "They are a pure, unmixed, and independent race; there is a family likeness through the nation, the same form and features, stern blue eyes, ruddy hair; a strong sense of honor; reverence for women; religious, but without a ritual; superstitiously believing in supernatural signs and portents, but not in a priesthood; not living in cities, but in scattered homes; respecting marriage; the children brought up in the dirt, among the cattle; hospitable, frank, and generous; fond of drinking beer, and eating preparations of milk."

The German and Keltic races, thus distinguished in the days of Cæsar, are equally distinct to-day. Catholicism, the religion of a priesthood, a ritual, and authority, prevails among the Kelts; Protestantism among the Germans. Ireland, being mainly Keltic, is Catholic, though a part of a Protestant nation. France, being mainly Keltic, is also Catholic, in spite of all its illumination, its science, and its knowledge of "intellectual laws." But as France contains a large infusion of German (Frankish) blood, it is the most Protestant of Catholic nations; while Scotland, containing the largest infusion of Keltic blood, is the most priest-ridden of Protestant nations. This last fact, which Mr. Buckle asserts, and spends half a volume in trying to account for, is explained at once by ethnology. Wherever the Germans go to-day, they remain the same people they were in the days of Tacitus; they carry the same blue eyes and light hair, the same love of freedom and hatred of slavery, the same tendencies to individualism in thought and life, the same tendency to superstitious belief in supernatural events, even when without belief in any religion or church; and even the same love for beer, and "lac concretum," now called "schmeercase" in our Western settlements. The Kelt, also, everywhere continues the same. He loves equality more than freedom. He is a democrat, but not an abolitionist. Very social, clannish, with more wit than logic, very sensitive to praise, brave, but not determined, needing a leader, he carries the spirit of the Catholic Church into Protestantism, and the spirit of despotism into free institutions. And that physical, no less than mental qualities, continue under all climates and institutions is illustrated by the blue eyes and light hair which the traveller meets among the Genoese and Florentines, reminding him of their Lombard ancestors; while their superior tendencies to freedom in church and state suggest the same origin.

Nineteen hundred years have passed since Julius Cæsar pointed out these diversities of character then existing between the Germans and Kelts. Since then they have passed from barbarism to civilization. Instead of living in forests, as hunters and herdsmen, they have built cities, engaged in commerce, manufactures, and agriculture. They have been converted to Christianity, have conquered the Roman empire, engaged in crusades, fought in a hundred different wars, developed literatures, arts, and sciences, changed and changed again their forms of government, have been organized by Feudalism, by Despotism, by Democracy, have gone through the Protestant reformation, have emigrated to all countries and climates; and yet, at the end of this long period, the German everywhere remains a German, and the Kelt a Kelt. The descriptions of Tacitus and Cæsar still describe them accurately. And yet Mr. Buckle undertakes to write a history of civilization without taking the element of race into account.

Perhaps, however, the power of this element of race is illustrated still more strikingly in the case of the wandering and dispersed families, who, having ceased to be a nation, continue in their dispersions to manifest the permanent type of their original and ineffaceable organization. Wherever the Jew goes, he remains a Jew. In all climates, under all governments, speaking all languages, his physical and mental features continue the same. This amazing fact has been held by many theologians to be a standing miracle of Divine Providence. But Providence works by law, and through second causes, and uses in this instance the laws of a specially stubborn organization and the force of a tenacious and persistent blood to accomplish its ends. The same kind of blood in the kindred Semitic family of Arabs produces a like result, though to a less striking degree. The Bedouins wander for thousands of miles away from their peninsula, but always continue Arabs in appearance and character. The light, sinewy body and brilliant dark eye, the abstemious habit and roaming tendency, mark the Arab in Hindostan or Barbary. It is a thousand years since these nomad tribes left their native home, but they continue the same people on the Persian Gulf or amid the deserts of Sahara.

The case of the Gypsies, however, may be still more striking, because these seem, in their wanderings over the earth, to have gradually divested themselves of every other common attribute except that of race. Unlike the Jews and Arabs, they not only adopt the language, but also the religion, of the country where they happen to be. Yet they always remain unfused and unassimilated.

The Gypsies first appeared in Europe in 1417, in Moldavia, and thence spread into Transylvania and Hungary.[32] They afterward passed into all the countries of Europe, where their number, at the present time, is supposed to reach 700,000 or 800,000. Everywhere they adopt the common form of worship, but are without any real faith. Partially civilized in some countries, they always retain their own language beside that of the people among whom they live. This language, being evidently derived from the Sanskrit, settles the question of their origin. It is common to all their branches through the world; as are also the sweet voice of their maidens, and their habits of horse-dealing, fortune-telling, and petty larceny. Without the bond of religion, history, government, literature, or mutual knowledge and intercourse, they still remain one and the same people in all their dispersions. What gives this unity and permanence, if not race? Yet race, to Mr. Buckle, means nothing.

III. _Mr. Buckle's Theory concerning Skepticism._--One of the laws of history which Mr. Buckle considers himself to have established, if not discovered, is that a spirit of skepticism precedes necessarily the progress of knowledge, and therefore of civilization. By skepticism he means a doubt of the truth of received opinions. He asserts that "a spirit of doubt" is the necessary antecedent to "the love of inquiry." (Vol. I. p. 242, Am. ed.) "Doubt must intervene before investigation can begin. Here, then, we have the act of doubting as the originator, or at all events the necessary antecedent, of all progress."

If this were so, progress would be impossible. For the great groundwork of knowledge for each generation must be laid in the minds of children; and children learn, not by doubting, but by believing. Children are actuated at the same time by an insatiable curiosity and an unquestioning faith. They ask the reason of everything, and they accept every reason which is given them. If they stopped to question and to doubt, they would learn very little. But by not doubting at all, while they are made to believe some errors, they acquire an immense amount of information. Kind Mother Nature understands the process of learning and the principle of progress much better than Mr. Buckle, and fortunately supplies every new generation of children with an ardent desire for knowledge, and a disposition to believe everything they hear.

Perhaps, however, Mr. Buckle refers to men rather than children. He may not insist on children's stopping to question everything they hear before they believe. But in men perhaps this spirit is essential to progress. What great skeptics, then, have been also great discoverers? Which was the greatest discoverer, Leibnitz or Bayle, Sir Isaac Newton or Voltaire? A faith amounting nearly to credulity is almost essential to discovery,--a faith which foresees what it cannot prove, which follows suggestions and hints, and so traces the faintest impressions left by the flying footsteps of truth. The attitude of the intellect in all discovery is not that of doubt, but of faith. The discoverer always appears to critical and skeptical men as a visionary.

"To skepticism," says Mr. Buckle, "we owe the spirit of inquiry, which, during the last two centuries, has gradually encroached on every possible subject, and reformed every department of practical and speculative knowledge." But this is plainly what logicians call a ὕστερον πρότερον {hysteron proteron}, or what common people call "putting the cart before the horse." It is not skepticism which produces the spirit of inquiry, but the spirit of inquiry which produces skepticism. It was not a doubt concerning the Mosaic cosmogony which led to the study of geology; the study of geology led to the doubt of the cosmogony. Skepticism concerning the authority of the Church did not lead to the discovery of the Copernican system; the discovery of the Copernican system led to doubts concerning the authority of the Church which denied it. People do not begin by doubting, but by seeking. The love of knowledge leads them to inquire, and inquiry shows to them new truths. The new truths, being found to be opposed to received opinions, cause a doubt concerning those opinions to arise in the mind. Skepticism, therefore, may easily follow, but does not precede inquiry.

Skepticism, being a negative principle, is necessarily unproductive and barren. To have no strong belief, no fixed opinion, no vital conviction for or against anything,--this is surely not a state of intellect favorable to any great creation or discovery. Goethe, who was certainly no bigot, says, in a volume of his posthumous works, that skepticism is only an inverted superstition, and that this skepticism is one of the chief evils of the present age. "It is worse," he adds, "than superstition, for superstition is the inheritance of energetic, heroic, progressive natures; skepticism belongs to weak, contracted, shrinking men, who venture not out of themselves." Lord Bacon says ("Advancement of Learning," Book II.) that doubts have their advantages in learning, of which he mentions two, but says that "both these commodities do scarcely countervail an inconvenience which will intrude itself, if it be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labor rather how to keep it a doubt than how to solve it." It will be seen, therefore, that Lord Bacon gives to skepticism scarcely more encouragement than is given it by Goethe.

Mr. Buckle says (Vol. I. p. 250) that "Skepticism, which in physics must always be the beginning of science, in religion must always be the beginning of toleration." We have seen that in physics skepticism is rather the end of science than its beginning, and the same is true of toleration. Skepticism does not necessarily produce toleration. The Roman augurs, who laughed in each other's faces, were quite ready to assist at the spectacle of Christians thrown to the lions. Skeptics, not having any inward conviction as a support, rest on established opinions, and are angry at seeing them disturbed. A strong belief is sufficient for itself, but a half-belief wishes to put down all doubts by force. This is well expressed by Thomas Burnet (Epistola 2, De Arch. Phil.): "Non potui non in illam semper propendere opinionem, Neminem irasci in veritate defendenda, qui eandem plene possidet, viditque in claro lumine. Evidens enim, et indubitata ratio, sibi sufficit et acquiescit: aliisque a scopo oberrantibus, non tam succenset, quam miseretur. Sed cum argumentorum adversantium aculeos sentimus, et quodammodo periclitari causam nostram, tum demum æstuamus, et effervescimus."

The least firm believers have often been the most violent persecutors. Nero persecuted the Christians; Marcus Antoninus persecuted them; but neither Nero nor Antoninus had any religious reason for this persecution. Antoninus, the best head of his time, was a sufficient skeptic to suit Mr. Buckle, as regards all points of the established religion, but his skepticism did not prevent him from being a persecutor. Unbelieving Popes, like Alexander VI. and Leo X., have persecuted. True toleration is not born of unbelief, as Mr. Buckle supposes, but of a deeper faith. Religious liberty has not been given to the world by skeptics, but by such men as Milton, Baxter, Jeremy Taylor, and Roger Williams.

So far from general skepticism being the antecedent condition of intellectual progress and discovery, it is a sign of approaching intellectual stagnation and decay. A great religious movement usually precedes and prepares the way for a great mental development. Thus the religious activity born of Protestantism showed its results in England in the age of Elizabeth, and in a general outbreak of intellectual activity over all Europe. On the other hand, the skepticism of the eighteenth century was accompanied by comparative stagnation of thought throughout Christendom.

IV. _Mr. Buckle's View of the small Influence of Religion on Civilization._--Mr. Buckle thinks it is erroneous to suppose that religion is one of the prime movers of human affairs. (Vol. I. p. 183.) Religion, according to him, has little to do with human progress. In this opinion, he differs from nearly all other great historians and philosophical thinkers. In modern times, Hegel, Niebuhr, Guizot, Arnold, and Macaulay, among others, have discussed the part taken by religious ideas in the development of man, laying the greatest stress on this element. But Mr. Buckle denies that religion is one of the prime movers in human affairs. The Crusades have been thought to have exercised some influence on European civilization. But religion was certainly the prime mover of the Crusades. Mohammedanism exercised some influence on the development of European life. But Mohammedanism was an embodiment of religious ideas. The Protestant Reformation shook every institution, every nation, every part of social life, in Christendom, and Europe rocked to its foundations under the influence of this great movement. But religion was the prime mover of it all. The English Revolution turned on religious ideas. The rise of the Dutch Republic was determined by them. In one form they colonized South America and Mexico; in another form, they planted New England. Such great constructive minds as those of Alfred and Charlemagne have been benevolently inspired by rational religion; such dark, destructive natures as those of Philip II. of Spain, Catharine de Medicis of France, and Mary Tudor of England have been malevolently inspired by fanatical religion.

On what grounds, then, does Mr. Buckle dispute the influence of religion? On two grounds mainly. First, he tells us that moral ideas are not susceptible of progress, and therefore cannot have exercised any perceptible influence on the progress of civilization. For that which does not change, he argues, cannot influence that which changes. That which has been known for thousands of years cannot be the cause of an event which took place for the first time only yesterday. "Since civilization is the product of moral and intellectual agencies," says Mr. Buckle, "and since that product is constantly changing, it cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because when surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can produce only a stationary effect." On this principle, gravitation could not be the cause of the appearance of Donati's comet in the neighborhood of the sun. For gravitation is a stationary and uniform agent; it cannot therefore produce an accelerated motion. Mr. Buckle will answer, that though the law of gravitation is one and the same in all ages, and uniform in its action, the result of its action may be different at different times, according to the position in the universe of the object acted upon. True; and in like manner we may say, that, though religious ideas are immutable, the result of their action on the human mind may be different, according to the position of that mind in relation to them. The doctrine of one God, the Maker and Lord of all things, was not a new one, or one newly discovered in the seventh century. Yet when applied by Mohammed to the Arabian mind, it was like a spark coming in contact with gunpowder. Those wandering sons of the desert, unknown before in the affairs of the world, and a negative quantity in human history, sprang up a terrible power, capable of overrunning and conquering half the earth. Religion awakened them; religion organized them; religion directed them. The fact that an idea is an old one is no proof, therefore, that it may not suddenly begin to act with awful efficiency on civilization and the destiny of man.

The other reason given by Mr. Buckle why religious ideas have little influence in history is, that the religion of a nation is symptomatic of its mental and moral state. Men take the religious ideas which suit them. A religion not suited to a people cannot be accepted by it; or, if accepted, has no influence on it. This thought, argued at considerable length by Mr. Buckle, is so perfectly true as to be a truism. The religion of a people is no doubt an effect. But may it not also be a cause? It, no doubt, cannot be received by a people not prepared for it. But does it therefore exercise no influence on a people which it finds prepared? Fire cannot explode an unexplosive material, nor inflame one not inflammable. But does it follow that it effects nothing when brought into contact with one which is inflammable or explosive? A burning coal laid on a rock or put into the water produces no effect. But does this prove that the explosion of gunpowder is in no manner due to the contact of fire?

"The religion of mankind," says Mr. Buckle, "is the effect of their improvement, and not the cause of it." His proof is that missions and missionaries among the heathen produce only a superficial change among barbarous and unenlightened tribes. Knowledge, he says, must prepare the way for it. There must, no doubt, be some kind of preparation for Christianity. But does it follow that Christianity, when its way is prepared, is _only_ an effect? Why may it not be also a cause? Judaism prepared the way for Christianity. But did not Christianity produce some effect on Judaism? The Arab mind was prepared for Mohammedanism. But did not Mohammedanism produce some effect on the Arab mind? Europe was prepared by various influences for Protestantism. But did not Protestantism produce some effects on Europe?

It might, with equal truth, and perhaps with greater truth, be asserted that intellectual ideas are the result of previous training, and that they are therefore an effect, and by no means a cause. The intellectual truths accepted by any period depend certainly on the advanced condition of human culture. You cannot teach logarithms to Hottentots, trigonometry to Digger Indians, or the differential calculus to the Feejee Islanders. Hence, according to our author's logic, those very intellectual ideas which he thinks the only great movers in human affairs are really no movers at all, but only symptoms of the actual intellectual condition of a nation.

But it is a curious fact, that, while Mr. Buckle considers religious ideas of so little importance in the history of civilization, he nevertheless devotes a large part of both his volumes to proving the great evil done to civilization by erroneous forms of religious opinion. Nearly the whole of his second volume is in fact given to showing the harm done in Spain and Scotland by false systems of religious thought. Why spend page after page in showing the evil influence of false religion on society, if religion, whether true or false, has scarcely any influence at all? Why search through all the records of religious fanaticism and superstition, to bring up to the day the ghosts of dead beliefs, if these beliefs are, after all, powerless either for good or evil?

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The second volume, the recent publication of which has suggested this second review of Mr. Buckle's work, contains much of interest and value, but suffers from the imperfect method of which we complained at the beginning of this article. It is chiefly devoted to a description of the evils resulting from priestcraft in the two countries of Spain and Scotland. It contains six chapters. The first is on the History of the Spanish Intellect from the fifth to the middle of the nineteenth century. The other five chapters relate to Scotland.

In the chapter on Spain Buckle attempts to show how loyalty and superstition began in this nation, and what has been the result. Of course, according to his theory, he is obliged to trace their origin to external circumstances, and he finds the cause of the superstition in the climate, which produced drought and famine, and in the earthquakes which alarmed the people. And here Mr. Buckle, following the philosophy of Lucretius, confounds religion and fear, and puts the occasion for the cause. But, beside earthquakes, the Arian heresy helped to create this superstition, by identifying the wars for national independence with those for religion, and so giving a great ascendency to the priests. Hence the Church in Spain early acquired great power, and, naturally allying itself with the government, gave rise to the sentiment of loyalty, which was increased by the Moorish invasion and the long wars which followed. Loyalty and superstition thus became so deeply rooted in the Spanish mind, that they could not be eradicated by the efforts of the government. Nothing but knowledge can cure this blind and servile loyalty and this abject superstition, and while Spain continues sunk in ignorance it must always remain superstitious and submissive.

Some difficulties, however, suggest themselves in the way of this very simple explanation. If superstitious loyalty to Church and king comes from earthquakes, why are not the earthquake regions of the West Indies and of South America more loyal, instead of being in a state of chronic revolution? And how came Scotland to be so diseased with loyalty and superstition, when she is so free from earthquakes? And if knowledge is such a certain cure for superstition, why was not Spain cured by the flood of light which she, alone of all European countries, enjoyed in the Middle Ages? Spain was for a long time the source of science and art to all Europe, whose Christian sons resorted to her universities and libraries for instruction. There was taught to English, French, and German students the philosophy of Aristotle, the Græco-Arabic literature, mathematics, and natural history. The numerals, gunpowder, paper, and other inventions of the Arabs, passed into Europe from Spain. She possessed, therefore, that knowledge of physical laws which Mr. Buckle declares to be the only cure for superstition. Yet she was not cured. The nation which, according to his theory, ought to have been soonest delivered from superstition, according to his statements has retained its yoke longer than any other.