ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS. CHAPTER I. PREPARATORY REMARKS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS.1 Importance of method in the study of history. Which is the oldest civilization? The Chinese. The Cushites. The Aryans. The emigrations of the last two families traced by means of a chart. TRUE to the principle laid down at the commencement of the last chapter, I begin the search after the first development of the monastic spirit by a few inquiries into the origin of the human race. For society was no sooner formed than men began to withdraw themselves from it: they sought John 1 Max Müller, Essays on the Science of Religion. D. Baldwin, A.M., Pre-Historic Nations. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1869. P. F. Stuhr. Allgemeine Geschichte der Religionsformen der heidnischen Völker. (das Urvolk.) the solitude, the wilderness, the desert. In exploring this field it is of the utmost importance that we proceed methodically. Unless we adopt some general plan in the study of history, we labor almost in vain. That which is read to-day, for want of arrangement or association, is forgotten to-morrow. Goethe says, "Contents without method leads to straggling thought; method without contents to empty theorizing; matter without form to a burdensome knowledge; form without matter to a vain delusion."1 Early in life one is possessed by the desire to trace nationalities back to some common origin, — to arrange, to classify, and to compare all the peoples of which we have any account. We seek to derive one from the other, to construct a chronological tree or river; and, in the attempt to realize our idea, we cover sheets of paper with all sorts of historical plans. In a short 1 Gehalt ohne Methode führt zur Schwärmerei, Methode ohne Gehalt zum leeren Klügeln, Stoff ohne Form zum beschwerlichen Wissen, Form ohne Stoff zu einem hohlen Wähnen. time we become involved in the most inextricable confusion; and our last diagram reminds one of an Egyptian or Cretan labyrinth. At this stage in our studies we take up, perhaps, some work like "Nott and Glidden on the Types of Mankind," and here we learn, alas, for our plan!-that "the human race was scattered broadcast over the face of the earth like vegetables and animals." This puts an end, for the time being, to all of our chronological aspirations. A more judicious selection of authors, however, soon resuscitates the old opinion and along with it our former purpose. By the aid of comparative philology, we are soon able to trace all existing races back to three or four original sources; while the same great elements of human nature which characterize them all, encourage us to believe that somewhere in the hoary past the ancestors of the billion souls which now inhabit the earth have slept together in one common cradle, and spoken the same tongue. |