History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2)

Succeeds in his attempt, and dies. This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. Magellan reached a group of islands north of the equator – the Ladrones. In a few days more he became aware that his labours had been successful; he met with adventurers from Sumatra. But, though he had thus grandly accomplished his object, it was not given to him to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. At an island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was killed, either, as has been variously related, in a mutiny of his men, or as they declared – in a conflict with the savages, or insidiously by poison. "The general," they said, "was a very brave man, and received his death wound in his front; nor would the savages yield up his body for any ransom." Through treason and revenge it is not unlikely that he fell, for he was a stern man; no one but a very stern man could have accomplished so daring a deed. Hardly was he gone when his crew learned that they were actually in the vicinity of the Moluccas, and that the object of their voyage was accomplished. On the morning of November 8, 1521, having been at sea two years and three months, as the sun was rising they entered Tidore, the chief port of the Spice Islands. The King of Tidore swore upon the Koran alliance to the King of Spain.

Circumnavigation of the earth. I need not allude to the wonderful objects – destined soon to become common to voyagers in the Indian Archipelago – that greeted their eyes: elephants in trappings; vases, and vessels of porcelain; birds of Paradise, "that fly not, but be blown by the wind;" exhaustless stores of the coveted spices, nutmegs, mace, cloves. And now they prepared to bring the news of their success back to Spain. Magellan's lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano, directed his course for the Cape of Good Hope, again encountering the most fearful hardships. Out of his slender crew he lost twenty-one men. He doubled the Cape at last; and on September 7, 1522, in the port of St. Lucar, near Seville, under his orders, the good ship San Vittoria came safely to an anchor. She had accomplished the greatest achievement in the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated the earth.

Elcano, the lieutenant of Magellan. Magellan thus lost his life in his enterprise, and yet he made an enviable exchange. Doubly immortal, and thrice happy! for he impressed his name indelibly on the earth and the sky, on the strait that connects the two great oceans, and on those clouds of starry worlds seen in the southern heavens. He also imposed a designation on the largest portion of the surface of the globe. His lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano, received such honours as kings can give. Of all armorial bearings ever granted for the accomplishment of a great and daring deed, his were the proudest and noblest – the globe of the earth belted with the inscription, "Primus circumdedisti me!"

Results of the circumnavigation. If the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan did not lead to such splendid material results as the discovery of America and the doubling of the Cape, its moral effects were far more important. Columbus had been opposed in obtaining means for his expedition because it was suspected to be of an irreligious nature. Unfortunately, the Church, satisfying instincts impressed upon her as far back as the time of Constantine, had asserted herself to be the final arbitress in all philosophical questions, and especially in this of the figure of the earth had committed herself against its being globular. Infallibility can never correct itself – indeed, it can never be wrong. Rome never retracts anything; and, no matter what the consequences, never recedes. It was thus that a theological dogma – infallibility – came to be mixed up with a geographical problem, and that problem liable at any moment to receive a decisive solution. So long as it rested in a speculative position, or could be hedged round with mystification, the real state of the case might be concealed from all except the more intelligent class of men; but after the circumnavigation had actually been accomplished, and was known to every one, there was, of course, nothing more to be said. It had now become altogether useless to bring forward the authority of Lactantius, of St. Augustine, or of other fathers, that the globular form is impious and heretical. Henceforth the fact was strong enough to overpower all authority, an exercise of which could have no other result than to injure itself. It remained only to permit the dispute to pass into oblivion; but even this could not occur without those who were observant being impressed with the fact that physical science was beginning to display a fearful advantage over Patristicism, and presenting unmistakable tokens that ere long she would destroy her ancient antagonist.

Minor voyages and travels. In the midst of these immortal works it is hardly worth while to speak of minor things. Two centuries had wrought a mighty change in the geographical ideas of Western Europe. The travels of Marco Polo, A.D. 1295, had first given some glimmering of the remote East, the interest in which was doubtless enhanced by the irruption of the Moguls. Sir John Mandeville had spent many years in the interior of Asia before the middle of the next century. Conti had travelled in Persia and India, between 1419 and 1444. Cadamosto, a Venetian, in 1455 had explored the west coast of Africa. Sebastian Cabot had re-discovered Newfoundland, and, persisting in the attempt to find a north-west passage to China, had forced his way into the ice to 67° 30' N. By 1525 the American coast-line had been determined from Terra del Fuego to Labrador. New Guinea and part of Australia, had been discovered. The fleet of Cabral, attempting to double the Cape of Good Hope in 1500, was driven to Brazil. A ship was sent back to Portugal with the news. Hence, had not Columbus sailed when he did, the discovery of America could not have been long postponed. Balboa saw the Great South Sea September 25th, 1513. Wading up to his knees in the water, with his sword in one hand and the Spanish flag in the other, he claimed that vast ocean for Castile. Nothing could now prevent the geography of the earth from being completed.

Participation of other nations in these events. I cannot close these descriptions of maritime adventure without observing that they are given from the European point of view. The Western nations have complacently supposed that whatever was unknown to them was therefore altogether unknown. We have seen that the Arabs were practically and perfectly familiar with the fact that Africa might be circumnavigated; the East Indian geography was thoroughly understood by the Buddhist priesthood, who had, on an extensive scale, carried forward their propagandism for twenty-five hundred years in those regions. But doubtless the most perfect geographical knowledge existed among the Jews, those cosmopolite traders who conducted mercantile transactions from the Azores to the interior of China, from the Baltic to the coast of Mozambique. It was actually through them that the existence of the Cape of Good Hope was first made known in Europe. Five hundred years before Columbus, the Scandinavian adventurers had discovered America, but so low was the state of intelligence in Europe that the very memory of these voyages had been altogether lost. The circumnavigation of the earth is, however, strictly the achievement of the West. I have been led to make the remarks in this paragraph, since they apply again on another occasion – the introduction of what is called the Baconian philosophy, the principles of which were not only understood, but carried into practice in the East eighteen hundred years before Bacon was born.

It is scarcely necessary that I should offer any excuse for devoting a few pages to a digression on the state of affairs in Mexico and Peru. Nothing illustrates more strikingly the doctrine which it is the object of this book to teach.

Progress of man in the New World the same as in the Old. The social condition of America at its discovery demonstrates that similar ideas and similar usages make their appearance spontaneously in the progress of civilization of different countries, showing how little they depend on accident, how closely they are connected with the organization, and, therefore, with the necessities of man. From important ideas and great institutions down to the most trifling incidents of domestic life, so striking is the parallel between the American aborigines and Europeans that with difficulty do we divest ourselves of the impression that there must have been some intercommunication. Each was, however, pursuing an isolated and spontaneous progress; and yet how closely does the picture of life in the New World answer to that in the Old. Mexico, its political system. The monarch of Mexico lived in barbaric pomp, wore a golden crown resplendent with gems; was aided in his duties by a privy council; the great lords held their lands of him by the obligation of military service. In him resided the legislative power, yet he was subject to the laws of the realm. The judges held their office independently of him, and were not liable to removal by him. The laws were reduced to writing, which, though only a system of hieroglyphics, served its purpose so well that the Spaniards were obliged to admit its validity in their courts, and to found a professorship for perpetuating a knowledge of it. Marriage was regarded as an important social engagement. Divorces were granted with difficulty. Slavery was recognized in the case of prisoners of war, debtors, and criminals, but no man could be born a slave in Mexico. No distinction of castes was permitted. The government mandates and public intelligence were transmitted by a well-organized postal service of couriers able to make two hundred miles a day. The profession of arms was the recognized avocation of the nobility; the military establishments, whether in active service in the field, or as garrisons in large towns, being supported by taxation on produce or manufactures. The armies were divided into corps of 10,000, and these again into regiments of 400. Standards and banners were used; the troops executed their evolutions to military music, and were provided with hospitals, army surgeons, and a medical staff. In the human hives of Europe, Asia, and America, the bees were marshalled in the same way, and were instinctively building their combs alike.

Its religion, priesthood, and ceremonies. The religious state is a reflexion of that of Europe and Asia. The worship was an imposing ceremonial. The common people had a mythology of many gods, but the higher classes were strictly Unitarian, acknowledging one almighty, invisible Creator. Of the popular deities, the god of war was the chief. He was born of a virgin, and conceived by mysterious conception of a ball of bright-coloured feathers floating on the air. The priests administered a rite of baptism to infants for the purpose of washing away their sins, and taught that there are rewards and punishments in a life to come – a paradise for the good, a hell of darkness for the wicked. The hierarchy descended by due degrees from the chief priests, who were almost equal to the sovereign in authority, down to the humble ecclesiastical servitors. Marriage was permitted to the clergy. They had monastic institutions, the inmates praying thrice a day and once at night. They practised ablutions, vigils, penance by flagellation or pricking with aloe thorns. They compelled the people to auricular confession, required of them penance, gave absolution. Their ecclesiastical system had reached a strength which was never attained in Europe, since absolution by the priest for civil offences was an acquittal in the eye of the law. It was the received doctrine that men do not sin of their own free will, but because they are impelled thereto by planetary influences. With sedulous zeal, the clergy engrossed the duty of public education, thereby keeping society in their grasp. Its literary condition. Their writing was on cotton cloth or skins, or on papyrus made of the aloe. At the conquest immense collections of this kind of literature were in existence, but the first Archbishop of Mexico burnt, as was affirmed, a mountain of such manuscripts in the marketplace, stigmatizing them as magic scrolls. About the same time, and under similar circumstances, Cardinal Ximenes burnt a vast number of Arabic manuscripts in Granada.

Divisions of time: the week, month, year. The condition of astronomy in Mexico is illustrated as it is in Egypt by the calendar. The year was of eighteen months, each month of twenty days, five complementary ones being added to make up the three hundred and sixty-five. The month had four weeks, the week five days; the last day, instead of being for religious purposes, was market day. To provide for the six additional hours of the year, they intercalated twelve and a half days every fifty-two years. At the conquest the Mexican calendar was in a better condition than the Spanish. As in some other countries, the clergy had for ecclesiastical purposes a lunar division of time. The day had sixteen hours, commencing at sunrise. They had sun-dials for determining the hour, and also instruments for the solstices and equinoxes. They had ascertained the globular form of the earth and the obliquity of the ecliptic. The close of the fifty-second year was celebrated with grand religious ceremonials; all the fires were suffered to go out, and new ones kindled by the friction of sticks. Private life, mechanical arts, trade. Their agriculture was superior to that of Europe; there was nothing in the Old World to compare with the menageries and botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapultepec, Istapalapan, and Tezcuco. They practised with no inconsiderable skill the more delicate mechanical arts, such as those of the jeweller and enameller. From the aloe they obtained pins and needles, thread, cord, paper, food, and an intoxicating drink. They made earthenware, knew how to lacquer wood, employed cochineal as a scarlet dye. They were skilful weavers of fine cloth, and excelled in the production of feather-work, their gorgeous humming-birds furnishing material for that purpose. In metallurgy they were behind the Old World, not having the use of iron; but, as the Old World had formerly done, they employed bronze in its stead. They knew how to move immense masses of rock; their great calendar stone, of porphyry, weighed more than fifty tons, and was brought a distance of many miles. Their trade was carried on, not in shops, but by markets or fairs held on the fifth day. They employed a currency of gold dust, pieces of tin, and bags of cacao. Luxury of the higher classes. In their domestic economy, though polygamy was permitted, it was in practice confined to the wealthy. The women did not work abroad, but occupied themselves in spinning, embroidering, feather-work, music. Ablution was resorted to both before and after meals; perfumes were used at the toilet. The Mexicans gave to Europe tobacco, snuff, the turkey, chocolate, cochineal. Like us, they had in their entertainments solid dishes, with suitable condiments, gravies, sauces, and desserts of pastries, confections, fruits, both fresh and preserved. They had chafing-dishes of silver or gold. Like us, they knew the use of intoxicating drinks; like us, they not unfrequently took them to excess; like us, they heightened their festivities with dancing and music. They had theatrical and pantomimic shows. At Tezcuco there was a council of music, which, moreover, exercised a censorship on philosophical works, as those of astronomy and history. In that city North American civilization reached its height. The king's palace was a wonderful work of art. It was said that 200,000 men were employed in its construction. Its harem was adorned with magnificent tapestries of featherwork; in its garden were fountains, cascades, baths, statues, alabasters, cedar groves, forests, and a wilderness of flowers. In conspicuous retirement in one part of the city was a temple, with a dome of polished black marble, studded with stars of gold, in imitation of the sky. It was dedicated to the omnipotent, invisible God. In this no sacrifices were offered, but only sweet-scented flowers and gums. Their monotheism and philosophical sentiments. The prevailing religious feeling is expressed by the sentiments of one of the kings, many of whom had prided themselves in their poetical skill: "Let us," he says, "aspire to that heaven where all is eternal, and where corruption never comes." He taught his children not to confide in idols, but only to conform to the outward worship of them in deference to public opinion.

Peru – unknown to Mexico. To the preceding description of the social condition of Mexico I shall add a similar brief account of that of Peru, for the conclusions to be drawn from a comparison of the spontaneous process of civilization in these two countries with the process in Europe is of importance to the attainment of a just idea of the development of mankind. The most competent authorities declare that the Mexicans and Peruvians were ignorant of each other's existence.

Its geographical peculiarities. In one particular especially is the position of Peru interesting. It presents an analogy to Upper Egypt, that cradle of the civilization of the Old World, in this, that its sandy coast is a rainless district. This sandy-coast region is about sixty miles in width, hemmed in on the east by grand mountain ranges, which diminish in size on approaching the Isthmus of Panama; the entire length of the Peruvian empire having been nearly 2,400 miles, it reached from the north of the equator to what is now known as Chili. In breadth it varied at different points. A rainless country like Egypt. The east wind, which has crossed the Atlantic, and is therefore charged with humidity, being forced by the elevation of the South American continent, and especially by the range of the Andes, upward, is compelled to surrender most of its moisture, which finds its way back to the Atlantic in those prodigious rivers that make the country east of the Andes the best watered region of the world; but as soon as that wind has crossed the mountain ridge and descends on the western slope, it becomes a dry and rainless wind, and hence the district intervening to the Pacific has but a few insignificant streams. Its system of agriculture. The sides of this great mountain range might seem altogether unadapted to the pursuit of agriculture, but the state of Peruvian civilization is at once demonstrated when it is said that these mountain slopes had become a garden, immense terraces having been constructed wherever required, and irrigation on a grander scale than that of Egypt carried on by gigantic canals and aqueducts. Advantage was taken of the different mean annual temperatures at different altitudes to pursue the cultivation of various products, for difference in height topographically answers to difference in latitude geographically, and thus, in a narrow space, the Peruvians had every variety of temperature, from that corresponding to the hottest portions of Southern Europe to that of Lapland. In the mountains of Peru, as has been graphically said, man sees "all the stars of the heavens and all the families of plants." On plateaus at a great elevation above the sea there were villages and even cities. Thus the plain upon which Quito stands, under the equator, is nearly ten thousand feet high. So great was their industry that the Peruvians had gardens and orchards above the clouds, and on ranges still higher flocks of lamas, in regions bordering on the limit of perpetual snow.

Its great roads and engineering, Through the entire length of the empire two great military roads were built, one on the plateau, the other on the shore. The former, for nearly two thousand miles, crossed sierras covered with snow, was thrown over ravines, or went through tunnels in the rocks; it scaled the more difficult precipices by means of stairways. Where it was possible, it was carried over the mountain clefts by filling them with masonry, or, where that could not be done, suspension bridges were used, the cables being made of osiers or maguey fibres. Some of these cables are said to have been as thick as a man, and two hundred feet long. Where such bridges could not be thrown across, and a stream flowed in the bottom of the mountain valley, the passage was made by ferry-boats or rafts. As to the road itself, it was about twenty feet in width, faced with flags covered with bitumen, and had mile-stones. Our admiration at this splendid engineering is enhanced when we remember that it was accomplished without iron and gunpowder. The shore road was built on an embankment, with a clay parapet on each side, and shade trees. Where circumstances called for it, piles were used. and expresses by couriers. Every five miles there was a post-house. The public couriers, as in Mexico, could make, if necessary, two hundred miles a day. Of these roads Humboldt says that they were among the most useful and most stupendous executed by the hand of man. The reader need scarcely be told that there were no such triumphs of skill in Spain. From the circumstance that there were no swift animals, as the horse or dromedary, the width of these roads was sufficient, since they were necessarily used for foot passage alone.

Cuzco – the military centre. In Cuzco, the metropolis, was the imperial residence of the Inca and the Temple of the Sun. It contained edifices which excited the amazement of the Spanish adventurers themselves – streets, squares, bridges, fortresses surrounded by turreted walls, subterranean galleries by which the garrison could reach important parts of the town. Indeed, the great roads we have spoken of might be regarded as portions of an immense system of military works spread all over the country, and having their centre at Cuzco.

The Inca – the Lord of the Empire. The imperial dignity was hereditary, descending from father to son. As in Egypt, the monarch not unfrequently had his sisters for wives. His diadem consisted of a scarlet tasseled fringe round his brow, adorned with two feathers. He wore earrings of great weight. His dress of lama-wool was dyed scarlet, inwoven with gold and studded with gems. Whoever approached him bore a light burden on the shoulder as a badge of servitude, and was barefoot. The Inca was not only the representative of the temporal, but also of the spiritual power. He was more than supreme pontiff, for he was a descendant of the Sun, the god of the nation. He made laws, imposed taxes, raised armies, appointed or removed judges at his pleasure. He travelled in a sedan ornamented with gold and emeralds; the roads were swept before him, strewn with flowers, and perfumed. The national palace. His palace at Yucay was described by the Spaniards as a fairy scene. It was filled with works of Indian art; images of animals and plants decorated the niches of its walls; it had an endless labyrinth of gorgeous chambers, and here and there shady crypts for quiet retirement. Its baths were great golden bowls. It was embosomed in artificial forests. The imperial ladies and concubines spent their time in beautifully furnished chambers, or in gardens, with cascades and fountains, grottoes and bowers. It was in what few countries can boast of, a temperate region in the torrid zone.

Religion of Peru, its establishments and ceremonial. The Peruvian religion ostensibly consisted of a worship of the Sun, but the higher classes had already become emancipated from such a material association, and recognized the existence of one almighty, invisible God. They expected the resurrection of the body and the continuance of the soul in a future life. It was their belief that in the world to come our occupations will resemble those we have followed here. Like the Egyptians, who had arrived at similar ideas, the Peruvians practised embalming, the mummies of their Incas being placed in the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, the kings on the right, the queens on the left, clad in their robes of state, and with their hands crossed on their bosoms, seated in golden chairs, waiting for the day when the soul will return to reanimate the body. The mummies of distinguished personages were buried in a sitting posture under tumuli of earth. To the Supreme Being but one temple was dedicated. It was in a sacred valley, to which pilgrimages were made. In the Peruvian mythology, heaven was above the sky, hell in the interior of the earth – it was the realm of an evil spirit called Cupay. The general resemblance of these to Egyptian doctrines may forcibly impress upon us that they are ideas with which the human mind necessarily occupies itself in its process of intellectual development. As in all other countries, the educated classes were greatly in advance of the common people, who were only just emerging from fetichism, and engrossed in the follies of idolatry and man-worship. Nevertheless, the government found it expedient to countenance the vulgar delusion; indeed, the political system was actually founded upon it. But the Peruvians were in advance of the Europeans in this respect, that they practised no persecutions upon those who had become mentally emancipated. Besides the sun, the visible god, other celestial bodies were worshipped in a subordinate way. It was supposed that there were spirits in the wind, lightning, thunder; genii in the mountains, rivers, springs, and grottoes. In the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco an image of that deity was placed so as to receive the rays of the luminary at his rising; a like artifice had been practised in the Serapion at Alexandria. There was also a sanctuary dedicated to the Sun in the island of Titicaca, and, it is said, between three and four hundred temples of a subordinate kind in Cuzco. To the great temple were attached not fewer than four thousand priests and fifteen hundred vestal virgins, the latter being intrusted with the care of the sacred fire, and from them the most beautiful were chosen to pass into the Inca's seraglio. The popular faith had a ritual and a splendid ceremonial, the great national festival being at the summer solstice. The rays of the sun were then collected by a concave mirror, and fire rekindled thereby, or by the friction of wood.

Social system – the nobility, the people. As to their social system, polygamy was permitted, but practically it was confined to the higher classes. Social subordination was thoroughly understood. The Inca Tupac Yupanqui says, "Knowledge was never intended for the people, but only for those of generous blood." The nobility were of two orders, the polygamic descendants of the Incas, who were the main support of the state, and the adopted nobles of nations that have been conquered. As to the people, nowhere else in the whole world was such an extraordinary policy of supervision practised. They were divided into groups of ten, fifty, one hundred, five hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, and over the last an Inca noble was placed. Through this system a rigid centralization was insured, the Inca being the pivot upon which all the national affairs turned, it was an absolutism worthy of the admiration of many existing European nations. Organization of Labour. The entire territory was divided into three parts; one belonged to the Sun, one to the Inca, one to the people. As a matter of form, the subdivision was annually made; in practice, however, as perhaps must always be the result of such agrarianism, the allotments were continually renewed. All the land was cultivated by the people, and in the following order: first, that of the Sun, then that of the destitute and infirm, then that of the people, and, lastly, that of the Inca. The Sun and the Inca owned all the sheep, which were sheared and their wool distributed to the people, or cotton furnished in its stead. The Inca's officers saw that it was all woven, and that no one was idle. An annual survey of the country, its farming and mineral products, was made, the inventory being transmitted to the government. A register was kept of births and deaths; periodically a general census was taken. The Inca, at once emperor and pope, was enabled, in that double capacity, to exert a rigorous patriarchal rule over his people, who were treated like mere children – not suffered to be oppressed, but compelled to be occupied; for, with a worldly wisdom which no other nation presents, labour was here acknowledged not only as a means, but also as an end. In Peru a man could not improve his social state; by these refinements of legislation he was brought into an absolutely stationary condition. He could become neither richer nor poorer; but it was the boast of the system that every one lived exempt from social suffering – that all enjoyed competence.

Military system; warlike resources. The army consisted of 200,000 men. Their weapons were bows, lances, slings, battle-axes, swords; their means of defence, shields, bucklers, helmets, and coats of quilted cotton. Each regiment had its own banner, but the imperial standard, the national emblem, was a rainbow, the offspring of the Sun. The swords and many of the domestic implements were of bronze; the arrows were tipped with quartz or bone, or points of gold and silver. A strict discipline was maintained on marching, granaries and depôts being established at suitable distances on the roads. With a policy inflexibly persisted in, the gods of conquered countries were transported to Cuzco, and the vanquished compelled to worship the Sun; their children were obliged to learn the Peruvian language, the government providing them teachers for that purpose. As an incitement, this knowledge was absolutely required as a condition for public office. To amalgamate the conquered districts thoroughly, their inhabitants were taken away by ten thousand, transported to distant parts of the empire, not, as in the Old World, to be worked to death as slaves, but to be made into Peruvians; an equal number of natives were sent in their stead, to whom, as a recompense for their removal, extraordinary privileges were given. It was the immemorial policy of the empire to maintain profound tranquillity in the interior and perpetual war on the frontiers.

The philosophical advancement of the Peruvians was much retarded by their imperfect method of writing – a method greatly inferior to that of Egypt. Peruvian literature – the quipus. A cord of coloured threads, called quipus, was only indifferently suited to the purposes of enumeration, and by no means equal to hieroglyphics as a method of expressing general facts. But it was their only system. Notwithstanding this drawback, they had a literature consisting of poetry, dramatic compositions, and the like. Their scientific attainments were inferior to the Mexican. Their year was divided into months, their months into weeks. They had gnomons to indicate the solstices. One, in the form of an obelisk, in the centre of a circle, on which was marked an east and west line, indicated the equinox. These gnomons were destroyed by the Spaniards in the belief that they were for idolatrous purposes, for on the national festivals it was customary to decorate them with leaves and flowers. As the national religion consisted in the worship of the Sun, it was not without reason that Quito was regarded as a holy place, from its position upon the equator.

Agriculture carried to perfection. In their extraordinary provisions for agriculture, the national pursuit, the skill of the Peruvians is well seen. A rapid elevation from the sea-level to the heights of the mountains gave them, in a small compass, every variety of climate, and they availed themselves of it. They terraced the mountain sides, filling the terraces with rich earth. They excavated pits in the sand, surrounded them with adobe walls, and filled them with manured soil. On the low level they cultivated bananas and cassava; on the terraces above, maize and quinoa; still higher, tobacco; and above that the potato. From a comparatively limited surface, they raised great crops by judiciously using manures, employing for that purpose fish, and especially guano. Their example has led to the use of the latter substance for a like purpose in our own times in Europe. The whole civilized world has followed them in the cultivation of the potato. The Peruvian bark is one of the most invaluable remedies. Large tracts of North America would be almost uninhabitable without the use of its active alkaloid quinine, which actually, in no insignificant manner, reduces the percentage mortality throughout the United States.

The great aqueduct of Condesuya. Indispensably necessary to their agricultural system were their great water-works. In Spain there was nothing worthy of being compared with them. The aqueduct of Condesuya was nearly 500 miles long. Its engineers had overcome difficulties in a manner that might well strike modern times with admiration. Its water was distributed as prescribed by law; there were officers to see to its proper use. From these great water-works and from their roads it may be judged that the architectural skill of the Peruvians was far from insignificant. They constructed edifices of porphyry, granite, brick; but their buildings were for the most part low, and suitable to an earthquake country.

The stages of human development always the same. I have dwelt at some length on the domestic history of Mexico and Peru because it is intimately connected with one of the philosophical principles which it is the object of this book to teach, viz., that human progress takes place under an unvarying law, and therefore in a definite way. The trivial incidents mentioned in the preceding paragraphs may perhaps have seemed insignificant or wearisome, but it is their very commonness, their very familiarity, that gives them, when rightly considered, a surprising interest. There is nothing in these minute details but what we find to be perfectly natural from the European point of view. They might be, for that matter, instead of reminiscences of the spontaneous evolution of a people shut out from the rest of the world by impassable oceans, a relation of the progress of some European or Asiatic nation. The man of America advanced in his course of civilization as did the man of the Old World, devising the same institutions, guided by the same intentions, constrained by the same desires. From the great features of his social system down to the little details of his domestic life, there is a sameness with what was done in Asia, Africa, Europe. But similar results imply a similar cause. What, then, is there possessed in common by the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, the European, the American? Surely not climate, nor equal necessities, nor equal opportunity. Simply nothing but this – corporeal organization! As automatons constructed in the same way will do the same things, so, in organic forms, sameness of structure will give rise to identity of function and similarity of acts. The same common sense guides men all over the world. Common sense is a function of common organization. All natural history is full of illustrations. Analogy between societies of men and societies of animals. It may be offensive to our pride, but it is none the less true, that in his social progress, the free-will of which man so boasts himself in his individual capacity disappears as an active influence, and the domination of general and inflexible laws becomes manifest. The free-will of the individual is supplanted by instinct and automatism in the race. To each individual bee the career is open; he may taste of this flower and avoid that; he may be industrious in the garden, or idle away his time in the air; but the history of one hive is the history of another hive; there will be a predestined organization – the queen, the drones, the workers. In the midst of a thousand unforeseen, uncalculated, variable acts, a definite result, with unerring certainty, emerges; the combs are built in a pre-ordained way, and filled with honey at last. From bees, and wasps, and ants, and birds – from all that low animal life on which he looks with such supercilious contempt, man is destined one day to learn what in truth he really is.

The crime of Spain in America. For a second reason, also, I have dwelt on these details. The enormous crime of Spain in destroying this civilization has never yet been appreciated in Europe. After an attentive consideration of the facts of the case, I agree in the conclusion of Carli, that at the time of the conquest the moral man in Peru was superior to the European, and I will add, the intellectual man also. Was there in Spain, or even in all Europe, a political system carried out into the practical details of actual life, and expressed in great public works, as its outward visible and enduring sign, which could at all compare with that of Peru? Its only competitor was the Italian system, but that for long had been actively used to repress the intellectual advancement of man. The Spaniard and the American. In vain the Spaniards excuse their atrocities on the plea that a nation like the Mexican, which permitted cannibalism, should not be regarded as having emerged from the barbarous state, and that one which, like Peru, sacrificed human hecatombs at the funeral solemnities of great men, must have been savage. Let it be remembered that there is no civilized nation whose popular practices do not lag behind its intelligence; let it be remembered that in this respect Spain herself also was guilty. In America, human sacrifice was part of a religious solemnity, unstained by passion. The auto da fé of Europe was a dreadful cruelty; not an offering to heaven, but a gratification of spite, hatred, fear, vengeance – the most malignant passions of earth. European and American human sacrifice. There was no spectacle on the American continent at which a just man might so deeply blush for his race as that presented in Western Europe when the heretic from whom confession had been wrung by torture passed to his stake in a sleeveless garment, with flames of fire and effigies of an abominable import depicted upon it. Let it be remembered that by the Inquisition, from 1481 to 1808, 340,000 persons had been punished, and of these nearly 32,000 burnt. Let what was done in the south of France be remembered. Let it be also remembered that, considering the worthlessness of the body of man, and that, at the best, it is at last food for the worm – considering the infinite value of his immortal soul, for the redemption of which the agony and death of the Son of God were not too great a price to pay – indignities offered to the body are less wicked than indignities offered to the soul. It would be well for him who comes forward as an accuser of Mexico and Peru in their sin to dispose of the fact that at that period the entire authority of Europe was directed to the perversion, and even total repression of thought – to an enslaving of the mind, and making that noblest creation of Heaven a worthless machine. To taste of human flesh is less criminal in the eye of God than to stifle human thought.

Antiquity of American civilization. Lastly, there is another point to which I will with brevity allude. It has been widely asserted that Mexican and Peruvian civilization was altogether a recent affair, dating at most only two or three centuries before the conquest. It would be just as well to say that there was no civilization in India before the time of the Macedonian invasion because there exist no historic documents in that country anterior to that event. The Mexicans and Peruvians were not heroes of a romance to whom wonderful events were of common occurrence, whose lives were regulated by laws not applying to the rest of the human race, who could produce results in a day for which elsewhere a thousand years are required. They were men and women like ourselves, slowly and painfully, and with many failures, working out their civilization. The summary manner in which they have been disposed of reminds us of the amusing way in which the popular chronology deals with the hoary annals of Egypt and China. Putting aside the imperfect methods of recording events practised by the autochthons of the Western world, he who estimates rightly the slowness with which man passes forward in his process of civilization, and collates therewith the prodigious works of art left by those two nations – an enduring evidence of the point to which they had attained – will find himself constrained to cast aside such idle assertions as altogether unworthy of confutation, or even of attention.

CHAPTER VI

APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE

IT IS PRECEDED BY THE RISE OF CRITICISM

Restoration of Greek Literature and Philosophy in Italy. – Development of Modern Languages and Rise of Criticism. – Imminent Danger to Latin Ideas.

Invention of Printing. – It revolutionizes the Communication of Knowledge, especially acts on Public Worship, and renders the Pulpit of secondary importance.

The Reformation. —Theory of Supererogation and Use of Indulgences. – The Right of Individual Judgment asserted. – Political History of the Origin, Culmination, and Check of the Reformation. – Its Effects in Italy.

Causes of the Arrest of the Reformation. – Internal Causes in Protestantism. – External in the Policy of Rome. – The Counter-Reformation. – Inquisition. – Jesuits. – Secession of the great Critics. – Culmination of the Reformation in America. – Emergence of Individual Liberty of Thought.

The rise of criticism. In estimating the influences of literature on the approach of the Age of Reason in Europe, the chief incidents to be considered are the disuse of Latin as a learned language, the formation of modern tongues from the vulgar dialects, the invention of printing, the decline of the power of the pulpit, and its displacement by that of the press. These, joined to the moral and intellectual influences at that time predominating, led to the great movement known as the Reformation.

Epoch of the intellectual movement. As if to mark out to the world the real cause of its intellectual degradation, the regeneration of Italy commenced with the exile of the popes to Avignon. During their absence, so rapid was the progress that it had become altogether impossible to make any successful resistance, or to restore the old condition of things on their return to Rome. The moment that the leaden cloud which they had kept suspended over the country was withdrawn, the light from heaven shot in, and the ready peninsula became instinct with life.

Use of Latin as a sacred language. The unity of the Church, and, therefore, its power, required the use of Latin as a sacred language. Through this Rome had stood in an attitude strictly European, and was enabled to maintain a general international relation. It gave her far more power than her asserted celestial authority, and, much as she claims to have done, she is open to condemnation that, with such a signal advantage in her hands, never again to be enjoyed by any successor, she did not accomplish much more. Had not the sovereign pontiffs been so completely occupied with maintaining their emoluments and temporalities in Italy, they might have made the whole Continent advance like one man. Their officials could pass without difficulty into every nation, and communicate without embarrassment with each other, from Ireland to Bohemia, from Italy to Scotland. The possession of a common tongue gave them the administration of international affairs with intelligent allies everywhere speaking the same language.

Causes of the dislike of Rome to the Greek, Not, therefore, without cause was the hatred manifested by Rome to the restoration of Greek and introduction of Hebrew, and the alarm with which she perceived the modern languages forming out of the vulgar dialects. The prevalence of Latin was the condition of her power, its deterioration the measure of her decay, its disuse the signal of her limitation to a little principality in Italy. In fact, the development of European languages was the instrument of her overthrow. They formed an effectual communication between the mendicant friars and the illiterate populace, and there was not one of them that did not display in its earliest productions a sovereign contempt for her. We have seen how it was with the poetry of Languedoc.

and danger from modern languages. The rise of the many-tongued European literature was therefore co-incident with the decline of papal Christianity. European literature was impossible under the Catholic rule. A grand, and solemn, and imposing religious unity enforced the literary unity which is implied in the use of a single language. No more can a living thought be embodied in a dead language than activity be imparted to a corpse. Public disadvantages of a sacred tongue. That principle of stability which Italy hoped to give to Europe essentially rested on the compulsory use of a dead tongue. The first token of intellectual emancipation was the movement of the great Italian poets, led by Dante, who often, not without irreverence, broke the spell. Unity in religion implies unity through a sacred language, and hence the non-existence of particular national literatures.

Effect of modern languages. Even after Rome had suffered her great discomfiture on the scientific question respecting the motion of the earth, the conquering party was not unwilling to veil its thoughts in the Latin tongue, partly because it thereby insured a more numerous class of intelligent readers, and partly because ecclesiastical authority was now disposed to overlook what must otherwise be treated as offensive, since to write in Latin was obviously a pledge of abstaining from an appeal to the vulgar. The effect of the introduction of modern languages was to diminish intercommunication among the learned.

Approach of a crisis in Europe. The movement of human affairs, for so many years silent and imperceptible, was at length coming to a crisis. An appeal to the emotions and moral sentiments at the basis of the system, the history of which has occupied us so long, had been fully made, and found ineffectual. It was now the time for a like appeal to the understanding. Each age of life has its own logic. The logic of the senses is in due season succeeded by that of the intellect. Of faith there are two kinds, one of acquiescence, one of conviction; and a time inevitably arrives when emotional faith is supplanted by intellectual.

Cosmo de' Medici. Florence. As if to prove that the impending crisis was not the offspring of human intentions, and not occasioned by any one man, though that man might be the sovereign pontiff, Nicolas V. found in his patronage of letters and art a rival and friend in Cosmo de' Medici. An instructive incident shows how great a change had taken place in the sentiments of the higher classes: Cosmo, the richest of Italians, who had lavished his wealth on palaces, churches, hospitals, libraries, was comforted on his death-bed, not, as in former days would have been the case, by ministers of religion, but by Marsilius Ficinus, the Platonist, who set before him the arguments for a future life, and consoled his passing spirit with the examples and precepts of Greek philosophy, teaching him thereby to exchange faith for hope, forgetting that too often hopes are only the day-dreams of men, not less unsubstantial and vain than their kindred of the night. Ficinus had perhaps come to the conviction that philosophy is only a higher stage of theology, the philosopher a very enlightened theologian. Reappearance of Platonism in Italy. He was the representative of Platonism, which for so many centuries had been hidden from the sight of men in Eastern monasteries since its overthrow in Alexandria, and which was now emerging into existence in the favouring atmosphere of Italy. His school looked back with delight, and even with devotion, to the illustrious pagan times, commemorating by a symposium on November 13th the birthday of Plato. The Academy of Athens was revived in the Medicean gardens of Florence. Not that Ficinus is to be regarded as a servile follower of the great philosopher. Doctrines of Marsilius Ficinus. He alloyed the doctrines of Plato with others derived from a more sinister source – the theory of the Mohammedan Averroes, of which it was an essential condition that there is a soul of humanity, through their relations with which individual souls are capable of forming universal ideas, for such, Averroes asserted, is the necessary consequence of the emanation theory.

Revival of Greek learning in Italy. Under such auspices, and at this critical moment, occurred the revival of Greek literature in Italy. It had been neglected for more than seven hundred years. In the solitary instances of individuals to whom here and there a knowledge of that language was imputed, there seem satisfactory reasons for supposing that their requirements amounted to little more than the ability of translating some "petty patristic treatise." The first glimmerings of this revival appear in the thirteenth century; they are somewhat more distinct in the fourteenth. The capture of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders had done little more than diffuse a few manuscripts and works of art along with the more highly prized monkish relics in the West. It was the Turkish pressure, which all reflecting Greeks foresaw could have no other result than the fall of the Byzantine power, that induced some persons of literary tastes to seek a livelihood and safety in Italy.

Gradual progress of the Restoration. In the time of Petrarch, 1304-1374, the improvement did not amount to much. That illustrious poet says that there were not more than ten persons in Italy who could appreciate Homer. Both Petrarch and Boccacio spared no pains to acquaint themselves with the lost tongue. The latter had succeeded in obtaining for Leontius Pilatus, the Calabrian, a Greek professorship at Florence. He describes this Greek teacher as clad in the mantle of a philosopher, his countenance hideous, his face overshadowed with black hair, his beard long and uncombed, his deportment rustic, his temper gloomy and inconstant, but his mind was stored with the treasures of learning. Leontius left Italy in disgust, but, returning again, was struck dead by lightning in a storm while tied to the mast of the ship. The author from whom I am quoting significantly adds that Petrarch laments his fate, but nervously asks whether "some copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be recovered from the mariners."

The restoration of Greek to Italy may be dated A.D. 1395, at which time Chrysoloras commenced teaching it. A few years after Aurispa brought into Italy two hundred and thirty-eight Greek manuscripts; among them were Plato and Pindar. The first endeavour was to translate such manuscripts into Latin. To a considerable extent, the religious scruples against Greek literature were giving way; the study found a patron in the pope himself, Eugenius IV. As the intention of the Turks to seize Constantinople became more obvious, the emigration of learned Greeks into Italy became more frequent. And yet, with the exception of Petrarch, and he was scarcely an exception, not one of the Italian scholars was an ecclesiastic.

Lorenzo de' Medici, his villas, gardens, and philosophy. Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Cosmo, used every exertion to increase the rising taste, generously permitting his manuscripts to be copied. Nor was it alone to literature that he extended his patronage. In his beautiful villa at Fiesole the philosophy of the old times was revived; his botanic garden at Careggi was filled with Oriental exotics. From 1470 to 1492, the year of his death, his happy influence continued. He lived to witness the ancient Platonism overcoming the Platonism of Alexandria, and the pure doctrine of Aristotle expelling the base Aristotelian doctrine of the schools.

Effects instantly produced by the Greek language. The last half of the fifteenth century revealed to Western Europe two worlds, a new one and an old; the former by the voyage of Columbus, the latter by the capture of Constantinople; one destined to revolutionize the industrial, the other the religious condition. Greek literature, forced into Italy by the Turkish arms, worked wonders; for Latin Europe found with amazement that the ancient half of Christendom knew nothing whatever of the doctrine or of the saints of the West. Now was divulged the secret reason of that bitter hatred displayed by the Catholic clergy to Grecian learning. Causes of the prevailing dislike of Greek. It had sometimes been supposed that the ill-concealed dislike they had so often shown to the writings of Aristotle was because of the Arab dress in which his Saracen commentators had presented him; now it appeared that there was something more important, more profound. It was a terror of the Greek itself. Very soon the direction toward which things must inevitably tend became manifest; the modern languages, fast developing, were making Latin an obsolete tongue, and political events were giving it a rival – Greek – capable of asserting over it a supremacy; and not a solitary rival, for to Greek it was clear that Hebrew would soon be added, bringing with it the charms of a hoary antiquity and the sinister learning of the Jew. With a quick, a jealous suspicion, the ecclesiastic soon learned to detect a heretic from his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, just as is done in our day from a knowledge of physical science. The authority of the Vulgate, that corner-stone of the Italian system, was, in the expectation of Rome, inevitably certain to be depreciated; and, in truth, judging from the honours of which that great translation was soon despoiled by the incoming of Greek and Hebrew, it was declared, not with more emphasis than truth, yet not, perhaps, without irreverence, that there was a second crucifixion between two thieves. Long after the times of which we are speaking, the University of Paris resisted the introduction of Greek into its course of studies, not because of any dislike to letters, but because of its anticipated obnoxious bearing on Latin theology.

Tendency of "The Imitation of Christ." We can scarcely look in any direction without observing instances of the wonderful change taking place in the opinions of men. To that disposition to lean on a privileged mediating order, once the striking characteristic of all classes of the laity in Europe, there had succeeded a sentiment of self-reliance. Of this perhaps mo better proof can be furnished than the popularity of the work reputed to have been written by Thomas à Kempis, and entitled "The Imitation of Christ." It is said to have had probably more readers than any other book except the Bible. Its great celebrity is a proof how profoundly ecclesiastical influence had been affected, for its essential intention was to enable the pious to cultivate their devotional feeling without the intervention of the clergy. Such a work, if written in the present day, would have found an apt and popular title in "Every Man his own Priest." There is no reason for supposing that the condition to which man had at that time been brought, as the general result of Italian Christianity, was one of intense selfishness, as has been asserted; the celebrity of this book was rather dependent on a profound distrust everywhere felt in the clergy, both as regards morals and intellect. And why should we be surprised that such should be the case with the laity, when in all directions the clergy themselves were giving proof that they could not trust their own strength? They could not conceal their dread at the incoming of Greek; they could not speak without horror of the influence of Hebrew; they were loud in their protestations against the study of pagan philosophy, and held up to the derision and condemnation of the world science denounced by them as profane. Danger to the unity of the Church. They foresaw that that fictitious unity of which they had boasted was drawing to an end; that men would become acquainted with the existence and history of churches more ancient, and, therefore, more venerable than the Roman, and, like it, asserting an authenticity upon unimpeachable proofs. But once let sects with such an impressive prestige be introduced to the knowledge of the West, once let the appearance of inviolate unity be taken from the Latin Church, and nothing could prevent a spontaneous decomposition forthwith occurring in it. It must break up into sects, which, in their turn, must break up, in process of time, into smaller and smaller divisions, and, through this means, the European must emerge at last into individual liberty of thought. The compelling hand of ecclesiastical tyranny must be removed, and universal toleration ensue. Nor were such anticipations mere idle suspicions, for such was the course that events actually took. Scarcely had the Reformation occurred when sectarian subdivisions made their appearance, and in modern times we see that an anarchy of sects is the inevitable harbinger of individual liberty of thought.

Higher requirements in evidence. As we have just said, it was impossible to look in any direction on the latter half of the fifteenth century without recognizing the wonderful change. It had become obviously useless any longer to assert an immobility of humanity when men were standing face to face with the new forms into which it had been transposed. New ideas had driven out old ones. Natural phenomena could not again be likened to human acts, nor the necessities of man regarded as determining the movements of the universe. A better appreciation of the nature of evidence was arising, perhaps in part through the influence of the lawyers, but in part through a commencing taste for criticism. We see it in such facts as the denial that a miracle can be taken as the proof of anything else than the special circumstances with which it is connected; we see it in the assertion that the martyrdom of men in support of a dogma, so far from proving its truth, proves rather its doubtfulness, no geometer having ever thought it worth his while to die in order to establish any mathematical proposition, truth needing no such sacrifices, which are actually unserviceable and useless to it, since it is able spontaneously to force its own way. Disbelief setting in in Italy. In Italy, where the popular pecuniary interests were obviously identical with those of the Church, a dismal disbelief was silently engendering.

And now occurred an event the results of which it is impossible to exaggerate.

Invention of printing: its early history. About A.D. 1440 the art of printing seems to have been invented in Europe. It is not material to our purpose to inquire into the particulars of its history, whether we should attribute it to Coster of Haarlaem or Gutenberg of Mentz, or whether, in reality, it was introduced by the Venetians from China, where it had been practised for nearly two thousand years. In Venice a decree was issued in 1441 in relation to printing, which would seem to imply that it had been known there for some years. Coster is supposed to have printed the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis" about 1440, and Gutenberg and Faust the Mentz Bible without date, 1455. The art reached perfection at once; their Bible is still admired for its beautiful typography. Among the earliest specimens of printing extant is an exhortation to take up arms against the Turks, 1454; there are also two letters of indulgence of Nicolas V. of the same date. In the beginning each page was engraved on a block of wood, but soon movable types were introduced. Impressions of the former kind pass under the name of block books; at first they were sold as manuscripts. Two of Faust's workmen commenced printing in Italy, but not until 1465; they there published an edition of "Lactantius," one of "Cicero de Officiis," and one of "Augustine de Civitate Dei." The art was carried to France 1469, and in a few years was generally practised in all the large European towns. Early books and booksellers. The printers were their own booksellers; the number of copies in each edition usually about three hundred. Folios were succeeded by quartos, and in 1501 duodecimos were introduced. Very soon the price of books was reduced by four fifths, and existing interests required regulations not only respecting the cost, but also respecting the contents. Thus the University of Paris established a tariff for their sale, and also exercised a supervision in behalf of the Church, and the State. From the outset it was clear that printing would inevitably influence the intellectual movement synchronously occurring.

Measure of the contemporaneous mental state of nations. Some authors have endeavoured to estimate the intellectual condition of different countries in Europe at the close of the fifteenth century by the literary activity they displayed in the preparation and printing of editions of books. Though it is plain that such estimates can hardly be rigorously correct, since to print a book not only implies literary capacity, but also the connexions of business and trade, and hence works are more likely to be issued in places where there is a mercantile activity, yet such estimates are perhaps the most exact that we can now obtain; they also lead us to some very interesting and unexpected results of singular value in their connexion with that important epoch. Thus it appears that in all Europe, between 1470 and 1500, more than ten thousand editions of books and pamphlets were printed, and of them a majority in Italy, demonstrating that Italy was in the van of the intellectual movement. Out of this large number, in Venice there had been printed 2,835; Milan, 625; Bologna, 298; Rome, 925; Paris, 751; Cologne, 530; Nuremberg, 382; Leipsic, 851; Bâle, 320; Strasburg, 526; Augsburg, 256; Louvain, 116; Mentz, 134; Deventer, 169; London, 130; Oxford, 7; St. Alban's, 4.

Italy compared with the rest of Europe. Venice, therefore, took the lead. England was in a very backward state. This conclusion is confirmed by many other circumstances, which justify the statement that Italy was as far advanced intellectually in 1400 as England in 1500. Paris exhibits a superiority sixfold over London, and in the next ten years the disproportion becomes even more remarkable, for in Paris four hundred and thirty editions were printed, in London only twenty-six. The light of learning became enfeebled by distance from its Italian focus. As late as 1550, a complete century after the establishment of the art, but seven works had been printed in Scotland, and among them not a single classic. It is an amusing proof how local tastes were consulted in the character of the books thus put forth, that the first work issued in Spain, 1474, was on the "Conception of the Virgin."