Book: An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition

A >> Adam Ferguson, L.L.D. >> An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition




On these occasions, they are far from allowing it to be supposed that they
wish to decline the conflict. It is held infamous to avoid it, even by a
voluntary death; and the greatest affront which can be offered to a
prisoner, is to refuse him the honours of a man, in the manner of his
execution. "Withhold," says an old man, in the midst of his torture, "the
stabs of your knife; rather let me die by fire, that those dogs, your
allies, from beyond the seas, may learn to suffer like men." [Footnote:
Colden.] With terms of defiance, the victim, in those solemn trials,
commonly excites the animosities of his tormentors, as well as his own; and
whilst we suffer for human nature, under the effect of its errors, we must
admire its force.

The people with whom this practice prevailed, were commonly desirous of
repairing their own losses, by adopting prisoners of war into their
families; and even, in the last moment, the hand which was raised to
torment, frequently gave the sign of adoption, by which the prisoner became
the child or the brother of his enemy, and came to share in all the
privileges of a citizen. In their treatment of those who suffered, they did
not appear to be guided by principles of hatred or revenge; they observed
the point of honour in applying as well as in bearing their torments; and,
by a strange kind of affection and tenderness, were directed to be most
cruel where they intend the highest respect; the coward was put to
immediate death by the hands of women; the valiant was supposed to be
entitled to all the trials of fortitude that men could invent or employ.
"It gave me joy," says an old man to his captive, "that so gallant a youth
was allotted to my share; I proposed to have placed you on the couch of my
nephew, who was slain by your countrymen; to have transferred all my
tenderness to you; and to have solaced my age in your company; but, maimed
and mutilated as you now appear, death is better than life; prepare
yourself therefore to die like a man." [Footnote: Charlevoix.]

It is perhaps with a view to these exhibitions, or rather in admiration of
fortitude, the principle from which they proceed, that the Americans are so
attentive, in their earliest years, to harden their nerves. [Footnote:
_Ib_. This writer says, that he has seen a boy and a girl, having
bound their naked arms together, place a burning coal between them, to try
who could endure it longest.] The children are taught to vie with each
other in bearing the sharpest torments; the youth are admitted into the
class of manhood, after violent proofs of their patience; and leaders are
put to the test by famine, burning, and suffocation. [Footnote: Lafitau.]

It might be apprehended, that among rude nations, where the means of
subsistence are procured with so much difficulty, the mind could never
raise itself above the consideration of this subject; and that man would,
in this condition, give examples of the meanest and most mercenary spirit.
The reverse, however, is true. Directed in this particular by the desires
of nature, men, in their simplest state, attend to the objects of appetite
no further than appetite requires; and their desires of fortune extend no
further than the meal which gratifies their hunger: they apprehend no
superiority of rank in the possession of wealth, such as might inspire any
habitual principle of covetousness, vanity, or ambition: they can apply to
no task that engages no immediate passion, and take pleasure in no
occupation that affords no dangers to be braved, and no honours to be won.

It was not among the ancient Romans alone that commercial arts, or a sordid
mind, were held in contempt. A like spirit prevails in every rude and
independent society. "I am a warrior, and not a merchant," said an American
to the governor of Canada, who proposed to give him goods in exchange for
some prisoners he had taken; "your clothes and utensils do not tempt
me; but my prisoners are now in your power, and you may seize them: if you
do, I must go forth and take more prisoners, or perish in the attempt; and
if that chance should befal me, I shall die like a man; but remember, that
our nation will charge you as the cause of my death." [Footnote:
Charlevoix.] With these apprehensions, they have an elevation, and a
stateliness of carriage, which the pride of nobility, where it is most
revered by polished nations, seldom bestows.

They are attentive to their persons, and employ much time, as well as
endure great pain, in the methods they take to adorn their bodies, to give
the permanent stains with which they are coloured, or preserve the paint,
which they are perpetually repairing, in order to appear with advantage.

Their aversion to every sort of employment which they hold to be mean,
makes them pass great part of their time in idleness or sleep; and a man
who, in pursuit of a wild beast, or to surprise his enemy, will traverse a
hundred leagues on snow, will not, to procure his food, submit to any
species of ordinary labour. "Strange," says Tacitus, "that the same person
should be so much averse to repose, and so much addicted to sloth."
[Footnote: Mira diversitas naturae, ut idem homines sic ament intertiam et
oderint quietem.] Games of hazard are not the invention of polished ages;
men of curiosity have looked for their origin in vain, among the monuments
of an obscure antiquity; and it is probable that they belonged to times too
remote and too rude even for the conjectures of antiquarians to reach. The
very savage brings his furs, his utensils, and his beads, to the hazard
table: he finds here the passions and agitations which the applications of
a tedious industry could not excite; and while the throw is depending, he
tears his hair, and beats his breast, with a rage which the more
accomplished gamester has sometimes learned to repress: he often quits the
party naked and stripped of all his possessions; or where slavery is in
use, stakes his freedom to have one chance more to recover his former loss.
[Footnote: Tacitus, Lafitau, Charlevoix.]

With all these infirmities, vices, or respectable qualities, belonging to
the human species in its rudest state; the love of society, friendship, and
public affection, penetration, eloquence, and courage, appear to have been
its original properties, not the subsequent effects of device or invention.
If mankind are qualified to improve their manners, the materials to be
improved were furnished by nature; and the effect of this improvement is
not to inspire the sentiments of tenderness and generosity, nor to bestow
the principal constituents of a respectable character, but to obviate the
casual abuses of passion; and to prevent a mind, which feels the best
dispositions in their greatest force, from being at times likewise the
sport of brutal appetite, and of ungovernable violence.

Were Lycurgus employed anew to find a plan of government for the people we
have described, he would find them, in many important particulars, prepared
by nature herself to receive his institutions. His equality in matters of
property being already established, he would have no faction to apprehend
from the opposite interests of the poor and the rich; his senate, his
assembly of the people, is constituted; his discipline is in some measure
adopted, and the place of his helots is supplied by the task allotted to
one of the sexes. With all these advantages, he would still have had a very
important lesson for civil society to teach, that by which a few learn to
command, and the many are taught to obey: he would have all his precautions
to take against the future intrusion of mercenary arts, the admiration of
luxury, and the passion for interest: he would still perhaps have a more
difficult task than any of the former, in teaching his citizens the command
of appetite, and an indifference to pleasure, as well as a contempt of
pain; in teaching them to maintain in the field the formality of uniform
precautions, and as much to avoid being themselves surprised, as they
endeavour to surprise their enemy.

For want of these advantages, rude nations in general, though they are
patient of hardship and fatigue, though they are addicted to war, and are
qualified by their stratagem and valour to throw terror into the armies of
a more regular enemy; yet, in the course of a continual struggle, always
yield to the superior arts, and the discipline of more civilized nations.
Hence the Romans were able to overrun the provinces of Gaul, Germany, and
Britain; and hence the Europeans have a growing ascendancy over the nations
of Africa and America.

On the credit of a superiority which certain nations possess, they think
that they have a claim to dominion; and even Caesar appears to have
forgotten what were the passions, as well as the rights of mankind, when he
complained, that the Britons, after having sent him a submissive message to
Gaul, perhaps to prevent his invasion, still pretended to fight for their
liberties, and to oppose his descent on their island. [Footnote: Caesar
questus, quod quum ultro in continentem legatis missis pacem a se
petissent, bellum sine causa intulissent. _Lib_. 4.]

There is not, perhaps, in the whole description of mankind, a circumstance
more remarkable than that mutual contempt and aversion which nations, under
a different state of commercial arts, bestow on each other. Addicted to
their own pursuits, and considering their own condition as the standard of
human felicity, all nations pretend to the preference, and in their
practice give sufficient proof of sincerity. Even the savage, still less
than the citizen, can be made to quit that manner of life in which he is
trained: he loves that freedom of mind which will not be bound to any task,
and which owns no superior: however tempted to mix with polished nations,
and to better his fortune, the first moment of liberty brings him back to
the woods again; he droops and he pines in the streets of the populous
city; he wanders dissatisfied over the open and the cultivated field; he
seeks the frontier and the forest, where, with a constitution prepared to
undergo the hardships and the difficulties of the situation, he enjoys a
delicious freedom from care, and a seducing society, where no rules of
behaviour are prescribed, but the simple dictates of the heart.




SECTION III.

OF RUDE NATIONS UNDER THE IMPRESSIONS OF PROPERTY AND INTEREST.


It was a proverbial imprecation in use among the hunting nations on the
confines of Siberia, that their enemy might be obliged to live like a
Tartar, and have the folly of troubling himself with the charge of cattle.
[Footnote: Abulgaze's Genealogical History of the Tartars] Nature, it
seems, in their apprehension, by storing the woods and desert with game,
rendered the task of the herdsman unnecessary, and left to man only the
trouble of selecting and of seizing his prey.

The indolence of mankind, or rather their aversion to any application in
which they are not engaged by immediate instinct and passion, retards the
progress of industry and of impropriation. It has been found, however, even
while the means of subsistence are left in common, and the stock of the
public is yet undivided, that property is apprehended in different
subjects; that the fur and the bow belong to the individual; that the
cottage, with its furniture, are appropriated to the family.

When the parent begins to desire a better provision for his children than
is found under the promiscuous management of many co-partners, when he has
applied his labour and his skill apart, he aims at an exclusive possession,
and seeks the property of the soil, as well as the use of its fruits.

When the individual no longer finds among his associates the same
inclination to commit every subject to public use, he is seized with
concern for his personal fortune; and is alarmed by the cares which every
person entertains for himself. He is urged as much by emulation and
jealousy, as by the sense of necessity. He suffers considerations of
interest to rest on his mind, and when every present appetite is
sufficiently gratified, he can act with a view to futurity, or, rather
finds an object of vanity in having amassed what is become a subject of
competition, and a matter of universal esteem. Upon this motive, where
violence is restrained, he can apply his hand to lucrative arts, confine
himself to a tedious task, and wait with patience for the distant returns
of his labour.

Thus mankind acquire industry by many and by slow degrees. They are taught
to regard their interest; they are restrained from rapine; and they are
secured in the possession of what they fairly obtain; by these methods the
habits of the labourer, the mechanic, and the trader, are gradually formed.
A hoard, collected from the simple productions of nature, or a herd of
cattle, are, in every rude nation, the first species of wealth. The
circumstances of the soil, and the climate, determine whether the
inhabitant shall apply himself chiefly to agriculture or pasture; whether
he shall fix his residence, or be moving continually about with all his
possessions.

In the west of Europe; in America, from south to north, with a few
exceptions; in the torrid zone, and every where within the warmer climates;
mankind have generally applied themselves to some species of agriculture,
and have been disposed to settlement. In the north and middle region of
Asia, they depended entirely on their herds, and were perpetually shifting
their ground in search of new pasture. The arts which pertain to settlement
have been practised, and variously cultivated, by the inhabitants of
Europe. Those which are consistent with perpetual migration, have, from the
earliest accounts of history, remained nearly the same, with the Scythian
or Tartar. The tent pitched on a moveable carriage, the horse applied to
every purpose of labour, and of war, of the dairy, and of the butcher's
stall, from the earliest to the latest accounts, have made up the riches
and equipage of this wandering people.

But in whatever way rude nations subsist, there are certain points in
which, under the first impressions of property, they nearly agree. Homer
either lived with a people in this stage of their progress, or found
himself engaged to exhibit their character. Tacitus had made them the
subject of a particular treatise; and if this be an aspect under which
mankind deserve to be viewed, it must be confessed, that we have singular
advantages in collecting their features. The portrait has already been
drawn by the ablest hands, and gives, at one view, in the writings of these
celebrated authors, whatever has been scattered in the relations of
historians, or whatever we have opportunities to observe in the actual
manners of men, who still remain in a similar state.

In passing from the condition we have described, to this we have at present
in view, mankind still retain many marks of their earliest character. They
are still averse to labour, addicted to war, admirers of fortitude, and in
the language of Tacitus, more lavish of their blood than of their sweat.
[Footnote: Pigrum quin immo et iners videtur, sudore acquirere quod possis
sanguine parare.] They are fond of fantastic ornaments in their dress, and
endeavour to fill up the listless intervals of a life addicted to violence,
with hazardous sports, and with games of chance. Every servile occupation
they commit to women or slaves. But we may apprehend, that the individual
having now found a separate interest, the bands of society must become less
firm, and domestic disorders more frequent. The members of every community,
being distinguished among themselves by unequal possessions, the ground of
a permanent and palpable subordination is laid.

These particulars accordingly take place among mankind, in passing from the
savage to what may be called the barbarous state. Members of the same
community enter into quarrels of competition or revenge. They unite in
following leaders, who are distinguished by their fortunes, and by the
lustre of their birth. They join the desire of spoil with the love of
glory; and from an opinion, that what is acquired by force justly pertains
to the victor, they become hunters of men, and bring every contest to the
decision of the sword.

Every nation is a band of robbers, who prey without restraint, or remorse,
on their neighbours. Cattle, says Achilles, may be seized in every field;
and the coasts of the Aegean were accordingly pillaged by the heroes of
Homer, for no other reason than because those heroes chose to possess
themselves of the brass and iron, the cattle, the slaves, and the women,
which were found among the nations around them.

A Tartar mounted on his horse, is an animal of prey, who only enquires
where cattle are to be found, and how far he must go to possess them. The
monk, who had fallen under the displeasure of Mangu Chan, made his peace,
by promising, that the pope, and the Christian princes, should make a
surrender of all their herds. [Footnote: Rubruquis.]

A similar spirit reigned, without exception, in all the barbarous nations
of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The antiquities of Greece and Italy, and the
fables of every ancient poet, contain examples of its force. It was this
spirit that brought our ancestors first into the provinces of the Roman
empire; and that afterward, more perhaps than their reverence for the
cross, led them to the east, to share with the Tartars in the spoils of the
Saracen empire.


From the descriptions contained in the last section, we may incline to
believe, that mankind, in their simplest state; are on the eve of erecting
republics. Their love of equality, their habit of assembling in public
councils, and their zeal for the tribe to which they belong, are
qualifications that fit them to act under that species of government; and
they seem to have but a few steps to make in order to reach its
establishment. They have only to define the numbers of which their councils
shall consist, and to settle the forms of their meeting: they have only to
bestow a permanent authority for repressing disorders, and to enact a few
rules in favour of that justice they have already acknowledged, and from
inclination so strictly observe.

But these steps are far from being so easily made, as they appear on a
slight or a transient view. The resolution of choosing, from among their
equals, the magistrate to whom they give from thenceforward a right to
control their own actions, is far from the thoughts of simple men; and no
persuasion, perhaps, could make them adopt this measure, or give them any
sense of its use.

Even after nations have chosen a military leader, they do not entrust him
with any species of civil authority. The captain among the, Caribbees did
not pretend to decide in domestic disputes; the terms _jurisdiction_
and _government_ were unknown in their tongue. [Footnote: History of
the Caribbees.]

Before this important change was admitted, men must be accustomed to the
distinction of ranks; and before they are sensible that subordination is
requisite, they must have arrived at unequal conditions by chance. In
desiring property, they only mean to secure their subsistence; but the
brave who lead in war, have likewise the largest share in its spoils. The
eminent are fond of devising hereditary honours; and the multitude, who
admire the parent, are ready to extend their esteem to his offspring.

Possessions descend, and the lustre of family grows brighter with age.
Hercules, who perhaps was an eminent warrior, became a god with posterity,
and his race was set apart for royalty and sovereign power. When the
distinctions of fortune and those of birth are conjoined, the chieftain
enjoys a pre-eminence, as well at the feast as in the field. His followers
take their place in subordinate stations; and instead of considering
themselves as parts of a community, they rank as the followers of a chief,
and take their designation from the name of their leader. They find a new
object of public affection in defending his person, and in supporting his
station; they lend of their substance to form his estate; they are guided
by his smiles and his frowns; and court as the highest distinction, a share
in the feast which their own contributions have furnished.

As the former state of mankind seemed to point at democracy, this seems to
exhibit the rudiments of monarchical government. But it is yet far short of
that establishment which is known in after ages by the name of
_monarchy_. The distinction between the leader and the follower, the
prince and the subject, is still but imperfectly marked: their pursuits and
occupations are not different; their minds are not unequally cultivated;
they feed from the same dish; they sleep together on the ground; the
children of the king, as well as those of the subject, are employed in
tending the flock; and the keeper of the swine was a prime counsellor at
the court of Ulysses.

The chieftain, sufficiently distinguished from his tribe, to excite their
admiration, and to flatter their vanity by a supposed affinity to his noble
descent, is the object of their veneration, not of their envy: he is
considered as the common bond of connection, not as their common master; is
foremost in danger, and has a principal share in their troubles: his glory
is placed in the number of his attendants, in his superior magnanimity and
valour; that of his followers, in being ready to shed their blood in his
service. [Footnote: Tacitus de moribus Germanorum.]

The frequent practice of war tends to strengthen the bands of society, and
the practice of depredation itself engages men in trials of mutual
attachment and courage. What threatened to ruin and overset every good
disposition in the human breast, what seemed to banish justice from the
societies of men, tends to unite the species in clans and fraternities;
formidable indeed, and hostile to one another, but, in the domestic society
of each, faithful, disinterested, and generous. Frequent dangers, and the
experience of fidelity and valour, awaken the love of those virtues, render
them a subject of admiration, and endear their possessors.

Actuated by great passions, the love of glory, and the desire of victory;
roused by the menaces of an enemy, or stung with revenge; in suspense
between the prospects of ruin or conquest, the barbarian spends every
moment of relaxation in sloth. He cannot descend to the pursuits of
industry or mechanical labour: the beast of prey is a sluggard; the hunter
and the warrior sleeps, while women or slaves are made to toil for his
bread. But shew him a quarry at a distance, he is bold, impetuous, artful,
and rapacious; no bar can withstand his violence, and no fatigue can allay
his activity.

Even under this description, mankind are generous and hospitable to
strangers, as well as kind, affectionate, and gentle, in their domestic
society. [Footnote: Jean du Plan Carpen. Rubruquis, Caesar, Tacit.]
Friendship and enmity are to them terms of the greatest importance: they
mingle not their functions together; they have singled out their enemy, and
they have chosen their friend. Even in depredation, the principal object is
glory; and spoil is considered as the badge of victory. Nations and tribes
are their prey: the solitary traveller, by whom they can acquire only the
reputation of generosity, is suffered to pass unhurt, or is treated with
splendid munificence.

Though distinguished into small cantons under their several chieftains, and
for the most part separated by jealousy and animosity; yet when pressed by
wars and formidable enemies, they sometimes unite in greater bodies. Like
the Greeks in their expedition to Troy, they follow some remarkable leader,
and compose a kingdom of many separate tribes. But such coalitions are
merely occasional; and even during their continuance, more resemble a
republic than monarchy. The inferior chieftains reserve their importance,
and intrude, with an air of equality, into the councils of their leader, as
the people of their several clans commonly intrude upon them. [Footnote:
Kolbe: Description of the Cape of Good Hope.] Upon what motive indeed could
we suppose, that men who live together in the greatest familiarity, and
amongst whom the distinctions of rank are so obscurely marked, would resign
their personal sentiments and inclinations, or pay an implicit submission
to a leader who can neither overawe nor corrupt?

Military force must be employed to extort, or the hire of the venal to buy,
that engagement which the Tartar comes under to his prince, when he
promises, "That he will go where he shall be commanded; that he will come
when he shall be called; that he will kill whoever is pointed out to him;
and, for the future, that he will consider the voice of the King as a
sword." [Footnote: Simon de St. Quintin.]

These are the terms to which even the stubborn heart of the barbarian has
been reduced, in consequence of a despotism he himself had established; and
men have in that low state of the commercial arts, in Europe, as well as in
Asia, tasted of political slavery. When interest prevails in every breast,
the sovereign and his party cannot escape the infection: he employs the
force with which he is intrusted to turn his people into a property, and to
command their possessions for his profit or his pleasure. If riches are by
any people made the standard of good or of evil, let them beware of the
powers they intrust to their prince. "With the Suiones," says Tacitus,
"riches are in high esteem; and this people are accordingly disarmed, and
reduced to slavery." [Footnote: De moribus Germanorum.]

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