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INTRODUCTORY NOTE
TOCHAPTERS VIII. AND IX

Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation "Teutonic" – Their present ethnological area, and leading characteristics – Fondness for the sea displayed by the Teutonic tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in their descendants.

Several of the ideas expressed by the author in the course of the two next following chapters, seemed to the annotator of this volume to call for a few remarks on his part, which could not conveniently be condensed within the limited space of foot-notes. Besides, the text is already sufficiently encumbered with them, and any increase in their length or number could not but be displeasing to the eye, while it would divert attention from the main subject. He has, therefore, taken the liberty – an unwarranted one, perhaps – of introducing his remarks in this form and place.

The leading proposition in this volume is, that the civilization originated and developed by a race, is the clearest index of its character – the mirror in which its principal features are truthfully reflected. In other words, that every race, capable of developing a civilization, will develop one peculiar to itself, and impossible to every other. This the author illustrates by the actual state of our civilization, which he asserts to be originated by the Teutonic race, but modified in proportion to the admixture of that race with a different blood. To clearly comprehend his idea, and to appreciate the value of his arguments, it is, therefore, necessary for the reader to take a rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation Teutonic, and to examine into the present geographical extension of that race. This I shall endeavor to do, not, indeed, by entering into an elaborate ethnological disquisition – a task greatly beyond my powers, and the due performance of which would require a space much larger than the whole of this volume – but by merely grouping together well-known facts, in such a manner as to set the author's idea in a clearer light.

The words Teutonic and Germanic are generally used synonymously, and we shall not depart from this custom. Strict accuracy, however, would probably require that the term Teutonic should be used as the general appellation of all those swarms of northern warriors, who, under various names, harassed and finally subverted the overgrown dominion of ancient Rome, while the term Germanic would apply to a portion of them only. The Northern Barbarians, as the Romans contemptuously styled them, all claimed to belong to the "Thiudu," or the nation par excellence, and from that word the term Teutonic is supposed to be derived. Many of their descendants still retain the name: Teutsch or Deutsch (German). The Romans called them Germanes, from the boastful title of "the warlike," or "the men of war," which the first invading tribes had given themselves. These Germanes of the Romans were again divided into two classes, the Saxon tribes, and the Suevic; terms expressive of their mode of life, the former having fixed habitations and inclosed farms, the latter cultivating the fields by turn, and being prone to change their abodes. The first class comprised many other tribes besides those who figure in history, under the name of Saxons, as the invaders and conquerors of Britain. But as I desire to avoid all not well-authorized distinctions, I shall use the terms Teutonic and Germanic indiscriminately.

The Germans appear to have been at all times an eminently warlike and courageous race. History first speaks of them as warriors alarming, nay, terrifying, the arrogant Romans, and that not in the infancy of Rome's power, when the Samnites and Volscians were formidable antagonists, but in the very fulness of its strength, in the first vigor of youthful manhood, when Italy, Spain, part of Gaul, the northern coasts of Africa, Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor, were subdued to the republican yoke. Then it was that the Cimbri and Teutones invaded and harassed Italy, chilling the mistress of the world with fear.

The Germans next meet us in Cæsar's Commentaries. The principal resistance which the future usurper experienced in subduing Gaul, appears to have been offered, not by the Gallic population, but either by German tribes, settled in that country, or German armies from the right banks of the Rhine, who longed to dispute the tempting prize with the Romans. The great general twice crossed the Rhine, but probably more for the éclat of such an exploit, than with the hope of making permanent conquests. The temporary successes gained by his imperial successors were amply counterbalanced by the massacre of the flower of the Roman armies.

At the end of the first five centuries after Christ, nothing was left of the great Roman empire but ruins. Every country in Northern, Western, and Southern Europe acknowledged German masters. The tribes of the extreme north had entered Russia, and there established a powerful republic; the tribes of the northwest (the Angles and Saxons) had conquered Britain; a confederation of the southern tribes, under the name of Franks, had conquered Gaul; the various Gothic tribes of the east, the Heruli, the Longobardi, Ostrogoths, etc., had subjected Italy to their arms, and disputed its possession among themselves. Other Gothic tribes (the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Vandals) had shared with the Franks the beautiful tracts of Gaul, or had carried their victorious arms to Spain, and the northern coasts of Africa. The three most beautiful and most fertile countries of Europe, to this day, retain the name of their conquerors – England, France, Lombardy.

It is impossible now to determine with accuracy the amount of German blood in the populations of the various states founded by the Teutonic tribes. Yet certain general results are easily arrived at in this interesting investigation.

Thus, we know that Germany, notwithstanding its name, contains by no means a pure Germanic population. The fierce Scythian hordes, whom Attila led on to the work of devastation, after the death of their leader, incorporated themselves with various of the Teutonic tribes. They form one of the ethnical elements of the population of Italy, but especially of the south and southeast of Germany. While, therefore, the population of Northern Germany is comparatively pure Teutonic, that of the southern and eastern portion is a mixture of Teutonic and Sclavonian elements.

The Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, are probably the most Germanic nations of continental Europe.

In Spain, the Visigoths were, in a great measure, absorbed by the native population, consisting of the aboriginal Celtiberians and the numerous Roman colonists. In the tenth century, an amalgamation began with the eastern blood brought by the Arab conquerors.

Italy, already at the time of the downfall of Rome, contained an extremely mixed population, drawn thither by the all-absorbing vortex of the Eternal City. In the north, the Germanic element had time to engraft itself in some measure; but the south, passing into the hands of the Byzantine emperors, received an addition of the already mixed Greek blood of the east.

Gaul, at the time of the Frankish conquest, was an extremely populous country. Beside the aboriginal Gauls, the population consisted of numerous Roman colonists. The Mediterranean coast of Gaul had, from the earliest times, received Phenician, Carthaginian, and Greek settlers, who founded there large and prosperous cities. The original differences in the population of Gaul are to this day perceptible. The Germanic element preponderates in the north, where already, in Cæsar's time, the Germans had succeeded in making permanent settlements, and in the northeast, where the Burgundians had well-nigh extirpated and completely supplanted the Gallic natives.⁸⁸ But everywhere else,⁸⁹ the Germanic element forms but a small portion of the population, and this is well illustrated by the striking resemblance of the character of the modern French to that of the ancient Gauls. But though vastly inferior in numbers, the descendants of the German conquerors, for one thousand years, were the dominant race in France. Until the fifteenth century, all the higher nobility were of Frankish or Burgundian origin. But, after the Celtic and Celto-Roman provinces south of the Loire had rallied around a youthful king, to reconquer their capital and best territories from the English foe, the Frankish blood ruled with less exclusive sway in all the higher offices of the state; and the distinction was almost entirely lost by the accession of the first southern dynasty, that of the Bourbons, towards the end of the sixteenth century. The corresponding variations in the national policy and the exterior manifestations of the national character, Mr. Gobineau has rapidly pointed out elsewhere.⁹⁰

While the population of France presents so great a mixture of various different races, and but a slight infusion of German blood, that of England, on the contrary, is almost purely Teutonic. The original inhabitants of the country were, for the most part, driven into the mountain fastnesses of Wales by the German invaders, where they preserve, to this day, their original language. Every subsequent great addition to the population of England was by the German race. The Danes, and, after them, the Normans, were tribes of the same stock as the Saxons, and all came from very nearly the same portion of Europe. It is obvious, therefore, that England, even after the Norman conquest, when, for a time, the upper and the lower classes spoke different languages, contained a more homogeneous population than France did at the same, or any subsequent epoch. In England, from the Saxon yeoman up to the proudest Norman lord, all belonged to the great German race; in France, only the nobility, while the peasants were Gauls. The wars between the two countries afford a striking proof of the difference of these two races. The battles of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt, which will never be forgotten so long as English poetry can find an echo in an English breast, were won by the English against greatly superior numbers. "Victories, indeed, they were," says Macaulay, "of which a nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the moral superiority of the victors, a superiority which was most striking in the lowest ranks. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the knights of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills." The Celt has probably, at no time, been inferior to the Teuton in valor; in martial enthusiasm, he exceeds him. But, at a time when bodily strength decided the combat, the difference between the sturdy Saxon and the small, slight – though active – Gaul, must have been great.

In this rapid and necessarily imperfect sketch, I have endeavored to show the relative proportion of the Teutonic blood in the population of the various countries of Europe. I have endeavored to direct the reader's attention to the fact, that though it forms an element in the population of all, it exists in perfect purity in but few, and that England presents a happy fusion of some of the most distinguished branches of the German family. If we now glance at the United States, we shall there find – at least in the first years of her national existence – a pendant to what has been asserted of England. The elements of the population of the original thirteen States, were almost exclusively of English, Lowland Scotch, Dutch, and Swedish blood; that is to say, decidedly Germanic. Ireland was as yet slightly represented. France had made but inconsiderable contributions to the population. Since we have assumed a rank among the great powers of the earth, every portion of the inhabited globe has sent us its contingent of blood, yet even now, the great body of the nation belongs to the Teutonic race.

Much has been said of the effects of ethnical mixture. Many consider it as decidedly beneficial, others as decidedly deleterious. It seems to me susceptible of mathematical demonstration, that when a very inferior race amalgamates with one of higher order, the compound – though superior to the one, must be inferior to the other. In that case, therefore, mixture is injurious. But when various branches of the same race, or nearly cognate races mix, as in the case of the Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Normans, the mixture cannot but be beneficial. For, while none of the higher qualities are lost, the compound presents a felicitous combination of some of the virtues peculiar to each.

If our civilization received its tone and character from the Teutonic race, as Mr. Gobineau asserts, this character must be most strikingly displayed wherever that race forms the preponderating element of the population.

Before investigating this question, we must cast a glance on the manners and modes of thinking that characterized this race in the earliest times. Unfortunately, but few records are left to assist us in forming a judgment. Tacitus's celebrated treatise was, probably, more an imaginary sketch, which he wished to hold up to a people sunk in luxury and vice, as were his countrymen. In our times, the North American Indian has often been held up as a model of uncorrupted simplicity, and many touching romances have been written on the theme, now rather hackneyed and out of fashion. But though the noble Roman may have highly colored the picture, the incorruptible love of truth, which shines so brilliantly in all his works, assures us of the truth of its outlines.

Of one thing we can entertain no doubt, viz: that history nowhere shows us our Germanic forefathers in the same state of barbarism that we find other races – many of the American Indians, the South-Sea Islanders, and others. In the earliest times they practised agriculture, they cultivated rye, barley, oats and wheat. Many of the tribes had regular farms, which were inclosed. They knew how to work iron, an art which even the most civilized of the American Indians had never learned. They had extensive and complicated political relations, often forming themselves in vast confederacies. But, above all, they were an eminently chaste people; they respected woman,⁹¹ and assigned to her her legitimate place in the social circle. Marriage with them was a sacred institution.

The greatest point of superiority of our civilization, over all preceding and contemporaneous ones – a point which Mr. Gobineau has omitted to mention – is the high rank which woman occupies in the modern structure of society. The boasted civilizations of Greece and Rome, if superior in others, are vastly inferior to us in this respect. And this glorious superiority we owe to the pure and chaste manners of our forefathers.

Representative government, trial by jury, and all the discoveries in political science upon which we pride ourselves most, are the necessary development of their simple institutions, to which, indeed, they can be distinctly traced.

I have purposely selected these two characteristics of the German races – respect for woman, and love of liberty, or, what is more, a capacity for establishing and preserving liberal institutions. The question now resolves itself into this: Does woman occupy the highest rank, do liberal institutions best flourish where the Germanic race is most pure? I will not answer the question, but beg the reader to compare the more Germanic countries with those that are less so – England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Northern Germany, with France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Russia; the United States and Canada, with Mexico and the South American republics.

Mr. Gobineau speaks of the utilitarian character of the Germanic races, but furnishes no proofs of his assertion. I shall therefore endeavor to supply the deficiency.

Those countries which ethnology tells us contain the most Germanic populations, viz: England, the northern States of Europe, including Holland, and the United States, have the entire commerce, and nearly all the manufacture of the whole world in their hands. They have given to mankind all the great inventions which shed an everlasting lustre over our era. They, together, possess nine-tenths of all the railroads built in the world, and the greater part of the remaining tenth was built by their enterprise and capital. Whatever perfection in the useful arts one of these countries attains, is readily adopted by all; slowly only, and sometimes never by any of the others.

On the other hand, we find that the polite arts do not meet, in these countries, with a very congenial soil. Artists may flock thither, and, perhaps, reap a harvest of gold; but they seldom stay. The admiration which they receive is oftenest the mere dictate of fashion. It is true that England, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, and the United States, have produced some eminent artists, but the mass of the population do not exhibit that innate taste, that passionate fondness for the arts, which we find among all classes in Italy, Spain, and to some extent in France and Southern Germany.

Before I conclude this hasty sketch, for which I crave the reader's indulgence, I wish to draw attention to a striking instance of the permanency of ethnical characteristics. The nations that most fondly and most successfully plough the briny main, are the English, the Americans, the Swedes, Danes, Dutch. Notwithstanding the littleness of these latter, they have successfully competed in maritime discovery with larger nations; and even now, own considerable and far distant colonial possessions. The Dutch, for a time, were the greatest maritime power in the world, and to this day carry on an extensive and profitable commerce. History tells us that the forefathers of these nations were distinguished by the same nautical genius.

The real Saxons – the invaders of England – are mentioned already in the middle of the second century, by Ptolemy, as skilful sailors. In the fourth and fifth century, they became dreaded from their piracies. They and their confederates, the Angles, originally inhabited the present Holstein, and the islands in the vicinity of the Baltic coast. Their neighbors, the Danes, were equally famous for maritime exploits. Their celebrated vykings still live in song and tale. Their piratical incursions and settlements in England, are known to every schoolboy. How familiar the Normans were with the watery element, is abundantly proved by history. They ascended the Rhine, and other rivers, for hundreds of miles, marking their landing-place by devastation.

Of the Angle, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman, the present Englishman and his adventurous brother of Massachusetts, are lineal descendants. The best sailors in our commercial navy, next to the native sailors, are the Danes and the Swedes. Normandy, to this day, furnishes the best for the French service. – H.

CHAPTER VIII.
CIVILIZATION

Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its elements.

The reader will here pardon me an indispensable digression. I make use at almost every moment of a term comprising in its extensive signification a collection of ideas which it is important to define accurately: civilization. The greater or less degree in which this term is applicable to the social condition of various nations, is my only standard for the comparative merit of races. I also speak of a European civilization, in contradistinction to others of a different character. It is the more necessary to avoid the least vagueness, as I am under the disagreeable necessity of differing from a celebrated writer, who has assumed the special task of determining the meaning and comprehensiveness of this expression.

Mr. Guizot, in his History of Civilization in Modern Europe, makes use of a term which seems to me to give rise to a serious confusion of ideas, and lead to positive errors. He says that civilization is a fact.

Now, either the word fact must here be understood in a sense much less strict and precise than common usage requires, a sense so indistinct – I might almost say elastic – as has never pertained to it, or what we comprehend under the term civilization cannot be expressed by the word fact. Civilization is not a fact; it is a series, a concatenation of facts, more or less logically united, and resulting from ideas often sufficiently diverse: ideas and facts continually reproduce each other. Civilization is a term applied to a certain state or condition in which a society exists – a condition which is of its own creation, bears its character, and, in turn, reacts upon it. This condition is of so variable a nature, that it cannot be called a fact; for a fact cannot be variable without ceasing to be a fact. In other words, there is more than one civilization: there are various kinds. Thus, a civilization may flourish under every form of government, and it does not cease to exist when civil commotions destroy or alter that form.

Let it not be understood that I esteem governmental forms of little importance. Their choice is intimately connected with the prosperity of the society: if judicious, promoting and developing it; if unpractical, endangering its destruction. But I speak not here of the temporary prosperity or misery of a society. I speak of its civilization; and this is a phenomenon whose causes must be sought elsewhere, and deeper than in transient political forms. Its character, its growth, fecundity, or barrenness, depends upon elementary principles of far greater importance.

But, in Mr. Guizot's opinion, civilization is a fact, a unity; and it is of an essentially political character. Let us see how he defines it. He has chosen a series of hypotheses, describing society in various conditions, and then asks if the state so described is, in the general opinion of mankind, the state of a people advancing in civilization – if it answers to the signification which mankind generally attaches to this word.⁹²

"First imagine a people whose outward circumstances are easy and agreeable; few taxes; few hardships; justice is fairly administered; in a word, physical existence, taken altogether, is satisfactorily and happily regulated. But, with all this, the moral and intellectual energies of this people are studiously kept in a state of torpor and inertness. It can hardly be called oppression; its tendency is not of that character – it is rather compression. We are not without examples of this state of society. There have been a great number of little aristocratic republics, in which the people have been thus treated like a flock of sheep, carefully tended, physically happy, but without the least intellectual and moral activity. Is this civilization? Do we recognize here a people in a state of moral and social advancement?"

I know not whether such a people is in a state of advancement, but it certainly may be in a very advanced state of civilization, else we should find ourselves compelled to class among the savages or barbarians all those aristocratic republics of ancient and modern times, which answer Mr. Guizot's description. But the common sense of mankind would never ratify a method which ejected from within the pale of civilization not only the Phenicians, Carthaginians, and Lacedæmonians, but even Venice, Genoa, Pisa, the free cities of Germany – in fact, all the powerful municipalities of the last centuries. But, besides this mode of proceeding being too paradoxical and restrictive, it seems to me to encounter another difficulty. Those little aristocratic states, to whom, on account of their form of government, Mr. Guizot denies the aptitude for civilization, have, for the most part, never been in possession of a special culture peculiar to themselves. Powerful as many of them have been, they assimilated, in this respect, with nations differently governed, but of consanguineous affinity; they formed a fragment only of a greater and more general civilization. Thus, the Carthaginians and Phenicians, though at a great distance from one another, had a similar mode of culture, the type of which must be sought in Assyria. The Italian republics participated in the same ideas and opinions which developed themselves in the bosom of neighboring monarchies. The imperial cities of Thuringia and Suabia, although perfectly independent in a political point of view, were nevertheless intimately united with the general progressive or retrogressive movement of the whole German race. Mr. Guizot, therefore, by assigning to the people of different countries degrees of merit proportionate to the degree and form of their liberty, creates unjustifiable subdivisions in the same race, and makes distinctions without a difference. A lengthy discussion is not in its place here, and I shall therefore proceed rapidly. If, however, it were necessary to enter into a controversy, might we not justly protest against recognizing any inferiority in the case of Genoa, Pisa, Venice, and others, when compared with countries like Milan, Naples, or Rome?

Mr. Guizot has himself foreseen this difficulty, and removed the objection. If he does not recognize a state of civilization among a people "mildly governed, but in a state of compression," neither does he accord this prerogative to another, "whose outward circumstances are less favorable and agreeable, although supportable, but whose intellectual and moral cravings have not been entirely neglected; among whom pure and elevated sentiments have been cultivated, and religious and moral notions reached a certain degree of improvement, but among whom the desire of liberty has been stifled; where a certain portion of truth is doled out to each, but no one permitted to seek for it himself. This is the condition to which most of the populations of Asia are sunk, because theocratical governments there restrain the progress of mankind; such, for instance, is the state of the Hindoos."

Thus, besides the aristocratic nations of the earth, we must moreover exclude from the pale of civilization the Hindoos, Egyptians, Etruscans, Peruvians, Thibetans, Japanese – nay, even modern Rome and her territories.

I omit the last two hypotheses, because, thanks to the first two, the state of civilization is already restricted within boundaries so contracted that scarce any people on the globe is justified in pretending to it. A nation, then, can be called civilized only when it enjoys institutions happily blending popular liberty and the requisite strength of authority for maintaining order; when its progress in material well-being and its moral development are co-ordinate in a certain manner, and no other; where religion, as well as government, is confined within limits accurately defined, which neither ever transgresses; where each individual possesses clearly determinate and inalienable rights. According to this formula, no nation can be civilized unless its political institutions are of the constitutional and representative form, and consequently it is impossible to save many European nations from the reproach of barbarism. Then, measuring the degree of civilization by the perfection of this same and only political form, we are compelled to place in a second rank all those constitutional states which have ill employed the engine of parliament, to reserve the crown exclusively for those who know how to make good use of it. By this reasoning, I am forced to consider as truly civilized, in the past as well as the present, none but the single English nation.⁹³

I sincerely respect and admire that great people, whose victories, industry, and universal commerce have left no portion of our globe ignorant of its puissance and the prodigies it has performed. But still, I do not feel disposed to respect and admire in the world no other: it would seem to me too humiliating and cruel to humanity to confess that, since the beginning of time, it has never succeeded in producing a civilization anywhere but upon a small island of the Western Ocean, has never discovered the laws and forms which produce this state until the reign of William and Mary. Such a conception of civilization might seem to many rather a little too narrow and restrictive. But there is another objection. If we attach the idea of civilization to a political form, reason, observation, and science will soon lose their vote in the decision of the question, which must thenceforth be left to the passions and prejudices of parties. There will be some whose preferences will lead them stoutly to deny that the institutions of the British Isles are the "perfection of human reason: " their enthusiasm, perchance, will be expended in praising the order established in St. Petersburg or in Vienna. Many, again, and perhaps the greater number of all living between the Rhine and the Pyrenees, will sustain to the last that, notwithstanding a few blemishes, the most polished, the most civilized country of the world is la belle France. The moment that the decision of the degree of intellectual culture becomes a matter of preference, a question of sentiment, to come to an understanding is impossible. Each one will think him the man most advanced in civilization who shall coincide with his views about the respective duties of the governing and the governed; while those who are unfortunate enough to differ, will be set down as men behind the age, little better than barbarians, mere "old fogies," whose visual organs are too weak for the dazzling lights of the epoch; or else as daring, incendiary innovators, who wish to destroy all established order, and sap the very foundation of civilization. I think few will differ from me in considering Mr. Guizot's definition as defective, and the source from which he derives civilization as not the real one.

Let us now examine Baron W. Von Humboldt's definition. "Civilization," says that celebrated statesman, "is the humanization of nations in their outward institutions, in their manners, and in the inward feelings upon which these depend."⁹⁴