The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
Read free book Β«The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) πΒ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Winwood Reade
- Performer: -
Read book online Β«The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) πΒ». Author - Winwood Reade
would be exhausted, and starvation suggested the idea of sowing
and transplanting. Agriculture was probably a female invention;
it was certainly at first a female occupation. The bush was
burnt down to clear a place for the crop, and the women, being
too idle to remove the ashes from the soil, cast the seed upon
them. The ashes acting as manure, garden varieties of the
eating plants appeared. Among the pastoral people, the seed-bearing grasses were also cultivated into large-grained corn.
But as long as the tribes could migrate from one region to
another, agriculture was merely a secondary occupation, and was
left, for the most part, in female hands. It was when a tribe
was imprisoned in a valley with mountains or deserts all around
that agriculture be came their main pursuit, as breeding was
that of the shepherd wanderers, and fishing that of the people
on the shore.
The pastoral tribes had a surplus supply of meat, milk, wool,
and the rude products of the ancient loom. The marine tribes
had salt and smoked fish. The agricultural tribes had garden-roots and grain. Here, then, a division of labour had arisen
among the tribes; and if only they could be blended together, a
complete nation would be formed. But the butcher tribes, the
fishmonger tribes, and the baker tribes lived apart from one
another; they were timid, ferocious, and distrustful; their
languages were entirely distinct. They did not dare to
communicate with one another, except to carry on dumb barter,
as it is called. A certain tribe, for example, who desired salt
approached the frontier of the seacoast people, lighted a fire
as a signal, and laid down some meat or flour. They then
retired; the coast tribe came up, laid down salt, and also
retired. The meat or flour tribe again went to the spot; and if
the salt was sufficient, they took it away; if not, they left
it untouched, to indicate that they required more; and so they
chaffered a considerable time, each bid consisting of a
promenade.
It is evident that such a system of trade might go on for ages
without the respective tribes becoming better acquainted with
each other. It is only by means of war and of religion that the
tribes can be compressed into the nation. The shepherd tribes
had a natural aptitude for war. They lived almost entirely on
horseback; they attacked wild beasts in hand-to-hand conflict
on the open plain, and they often fought with one another for a
pasture or a well. They were attracted by the crops of the
agricultural people, whom they conquered with facility. Usually
they preferred their roaming life, and merely exacted a tribute
of corn. But sometimes a people worsted in war, exiled from
their pastures, wandering homeless through the sandy deserts,
discovered a fruitful river plain, in which they settled down,
giving up their nomad habits, but keeping their flocks and
herds. They reduced the aborigines to slavery; made some of
them labourers in the fields; others were appointed to tend the
flocks; others were sent to the river or the coast to fish;
others were taught the arts of the distaff and the loom; others
were made to work as carpenters and smiths. The wives of the
shepherd conquerors were no longer obliged to milk the cows and
camels, and to weave clothes and tents; they became ladies, and
were attended by domestic slaves. Their husbands became either
military nobles or learned priests; the commander-in-chief or
patriarch became the king. Foreign wars led to foreign
commerce, and the priest developed the resources of the
country. The simple fabrics of the old tent life were refined
in texture and beautified with dyes; the potterβs clay was
converted into fine porcelain and glass, the blacksmithβs shop
became a manufactory of ornamented arms; ingenious machines
were devised for the irrigation of the soil the arts and
sciences were adopted by the government, and employed in the
service of the state.
Here then we have a nation manufactured by means of war.
Religion is afterwards useful as a means of keeping the
conquered people in subjection; but in this case it plays only
a secondary part. In another class of nationalities, however,
religion operates as the prime agent.
When the human herd first wandered through the gloomy and
gigantic forest, sleeping on reed platforms in the trees, or
burrowing in holes, there was no government but that of force.
The strongest man was the leader, and ceased to be the leader
when he ceased to he the strongest. But as the minds of men
became developed, the ruler was elected by the members of the
clan, who combined to depose him if he exceeded his rightful
powers; and chiefs were chosen not only for their strength, but
also sometimes for their beauty, and sometimes on account of
their intelligence. These chiefs possessed but little power;
they merely expressed and executed the voice of the majority.
But when it was believed that the soul was immortal, or, in
other words, that there were ghosts; when it was believed that
the bodies of men were merely garments, and that the true
inmates were spirits, whom death stripped bare of flesh and
blood, but whom death was powerless to kill; when it was
believed that these souls or ghosts dwelt among the graves,
haunted their old homes, hovered round the scenes in which they
had passed their lives, and even took a part in human affairs,
a theory arose that the ghost of the departed chief was still
the ruler of the clan, and that in his spiritual state he could
inflict terrible punishments on those by whom he was offended,
and could also bestow upon them good fortune in hunting, in
harvests, and in war. So then homage and gifts were rendered to
him at his grave. A child of his house became the master of the
clan, and professed to receive the commands of the deceased.
For the first time the chiefs were able to exercise power
without employing force; but this power had also its limits.
In the first place the chief feared he would be punished by the
ghost if he injured the people over whom he ruled, and there
were always prophets or seers who could see visions and dream
dreams when the mind of the people was excited against the
chief. By means therefore of religion, which at first consisted
only in the fear of ghosts, the government of the clan was
improved; savage liberty or licence was restrained; the young
trembled before the old, whom previously they had eaten as soon
as they were useless. Religion was also of service in uniting
separated clans. In the forest, food was scanty; as soon as a
clan expanded it was forced to divide, and the separated part
pursued an orbit of its own. Savage dialects change almost day
by day; the old people can always speak a language which their
grandchildren do not understand, and so, in the course of a
single generation, the two clans become foreigners and foes to
one another. But when ghost-worship had been established, the
members of the divided clans resorted to the holy graves at
certain seasons of the year to unite with the members of the
parent clan in sacrificing to the ancestral shades; the season
of the pilgrimage was made a Truce of God; a fair was held, at
which trade and competitive amusements were carried on. Yet
still the clans or tribes had little connection with one
another, excepting at that single period of the year. It was
for war to continue the work which religion had begun. Some
times the tribes uniting invaded a foreign country, and founded
an empire of the kind which has already been described; then
the army became a nation, and the camp a town. In other cases
the tribes, being weaker than their neighbours, were compelled
for their mutual protection to draw together into towns, and to
fortify themselves with walls.
In its original condition the town was a federation. Each
family was a little kingdom in itself, inhabiting a fortified
cluster of dwellings, having its own domestic religion,
governed by its own laws. The paterfamilias was king and
priest; he could put to death any member of his family. There
was little distinction between the wives, the sons, and the
daughters, on the one hand, and the slaves, the oxen, and the
sheep on the other. These family fathers assembled in council,
and passed laws for their mutual convenience and protection.
Yet these laws were not national; they resembled treaties
between foreign states; and two houses would frequently go to
war and fight pitched battles in the streets without any
interference from the commonwealth at large. If the town
progressed in power and intelligence, the advantages of
centralisation were perceived by all; the fathers were induced
to emancipate their children, and to delegate their royal power
to a senate or a king; each man was responsible for his own
actions, and for them alone; individualism was established.
This important revolution, which, as we have elsewhere shown,
tends to produce the religious theory of rewards and
punishments in a future state, was itself in part produced by
the influence and teaching of the priests.
Besides the worship of the ancestral shades the ancient people
adored the great deities of nature who governed the woods and
the waters, the earth and the sky. When men died, it was
supposed that they had been killed by the gods; it was
therefore believed that those who lived to a good old age were
special favourites of the divine beings. Many people asked them
by what means they had obtained the good graces of the gods.
With savages nothing is done gratis; the old men were paid for
their advice; and in course of time the oracle system was
established. The old men consulted the gods they at first
advised, they next commanded what gifts should be offered on
the altar. They collected taxes, they issued orders on the
divine behalf. In the city of federated families the priests
formed a section entirely apart; they belonged not to this house,
or to that house, but to all; it was to their interest that the
families should be at peace; that a national religion should be
established; that the household gods or ancestral ghosts should
be degraded, that the despotism of the hearth should be
destroyed. They acted as peacemakers and arbitrators of
disputes. They united the tribes in the national sacrifice and
the solemn dance. They preached the power and grandeur of the
gods. They became the tutors of the people; they rendered
splendid service to mankind. We are accustomed to look only at
the dark side of those ancient faiths; their frivolous and
sanguinary laws, their abominable offerings, their grotesque
rites. Yet even the pure and lofty religions of Confucius and
Zoroaster; of Moses, and Jesus, and Mohammed; of the Brahmins
and the Buddhists, have not done so much for man as those
barbarous religions of the early days. They established a
tyranny, and tyranny was useful in the childhood of mankind.
The chiefs could only enact those laws which were indispensable
for the life of the community. But the priests were supposed to
utter the commands of invisible beings whose strange tempers
could clearly be read in the violent outbreaks and changing
aspects of the sky. The more irrational the laws of the priests
appeared, the more evident it was that they were not of man.
Terror generated piety; wild savages were tamed into obedience;
they became the slaves of the unseen; they humbled themselves
before the priests, and implicitly followed their commands that
they might escape sickness, calamity, and sudden death; their
minds were subjected to a useful discipline; they acquired the
habit of
Comments (0)