CHAPTER III: ORIGINAL EXTERNAL FACTORS.

§ 14. A complete outline of the original external factors implies a knowledge of the past which we have not got, and are not likely to get. Now that geologists and archæologists are uniting to prove that human existence goes back to a time so remote that “pre-historic” scarcely expresses it, we are shown that the effects of external conditions on social evolution cannot be fully traced. Remembering that the 20,000 years, or so, during which man has lived in the Nile-valley, is made to seem a relatively-small period by the evidence that he coexisted with the extinct mammals of the drift—remembering that England had human inhabitants at an epoch which good judges think was glacial—remembering that in America, along with the bones of a Mastodon imbedded in the alluvium of the Bourbense, were found arrow-heads and other traces of the savages who had killed this member of an order no longer represented in that part of the world—remembering that, judging from the evidence as interpreted by Professor Huxley, those vast subsidences which changed a continent into the Eastern Archipelago, took place after the Negro-race was established as a distinct variety of man; we must infer that it is hopeless to trace back the external factors of social phenomena to anything like their first forms.

One important truth only, implied by the evidence thus glanced at, must be noted. Geological changes and meteorological changes, as well as the consequent changes of Floras Edition: current; Page: [17] and Faunas, must have been causing, over all parts of the Earth, perpetual emigrations and immigrations. From each locality made less habitable by increasing inclemency, a wave of diffusion must have spread; into each locality made more favourable to human existence by amelioration of climate, or increase of indigenous food, or both, a wave of concentration must have been set up; and by great geological changes, here sinking areas of land and there raising areas, other redistributions of mankind must have been produced. Accumulating facts show that these enforced ebbings and flowings have, in some localities, and probably in most, taken place time after time. And such waves of emigration and immigration must have been ever bringing the dispersed groups of the race into contact with conditions more or less new.

Carrying with us this conception of the way in which the external factors, original in the widest sense, have co-operated throughout all past time, we must limit our attention to such effects of them as we have now before us.

§ 15. Life in general is possible only between certain limits of temperature; and life of the higher kinds is possible only within a comparatively-narrow range of temperature, maintained artificially if not naturally. Hence social life, pre-supposing as it does not only human life but that life vegetal and animal on which human life depends, is restricted by certain extremes of cold and heat.

Cold, though great, does not rigorously exclude warm-blooded creatures, if the locality supplies adequate means of generating heat. The arctic regions contain various marine and terrestrial mammals, large and small; but the existence of these depends, directly or indirectly, on the existence of the inferior marine creatures, vertebrate and invertebrate, which would cease to live there did not the warm currents from the tropics check the formation of ice. Hence such human life as we find in the far north, dependent as it is Edition: current; Page: [18] mainly on the life of these mammals, is also remotely dependent on the same source of heat. But where, as in such places, the temperature which man’s vital functions require can be maintained with difficulty, social evolution is not possible. There can be neither a sufficient surplus-power in each individual nor a sufficient number of individuals. Not only are the energies of an Esquimaux expended mainly in guarding against loss of heat, but his bodily functions are greatly modified to the same end. Without fuel, and, indeed, unable to burn within his snow-hut anything more than an oil-lamp, lest the walls should melt, he has to keep up that warmth which even his thick fur-dress fails to retain, by devouring vast quantities of blubber and oil; and his digestive system, heavily taxed in providing the wherewith to meet excessive loss by radiation, supplies less material for other vital purposes. This great physiological cost of individual life, indirectly checking the multiplication of individuals, arrests social evolution. A kindred relation of cause and effect is shown us in the Southern hemisphere by the still-more-miserable Fuegians. Living nearly unclothed in a region of storms, which their wretched dwellings of sticks and grass do not exclude, and having little food but fish and mollusks, these beings, described as scarcely human in appearance, have such difficulty in preserving the vital balance in face of the rapid escape of heat, that the surplus for individual development is narrowly restricted, and, consequently, the surplus for producing and rearing new individuals. Hence the numbers remain too small for exhibiting anything beyond incipient social existence.

Though, in some tropical regions, an opposite extreme of temperature so far impedes the vital actions as to impede social development, yet hindrance from this cause seems exceptional and relatively unimportant. Life in general, and mammalian life along with it, is great in quantity as well as individually high, in localities that are among the Edition: current; Page: [19] hottest. The silence of the forests during the noontide glare in such localities, does, indeed, furnish evidence of enervation; but in cooler parts of the twenty-four hours there is a compensating energy. And if varieties of the human race adapted to these localities, show, in comparison with ourselves, some indolence, this does not seem greater than, or even equal to, the indolence of the primitive man in temperate climates. Contemplated in the mass, facts do not countenance the current idea that great heat hinders progress. All the earliest recorded civilizations belonged to regions which, if not tropical, almost equal the tropics in height of temperature. India and Southern China, as still existing, show us great social evolutions within the tropics. The vast architectural remains of Java and of Cambodia yield proofs of other tropical civilizations in the East; while the extinct societies of Central America, Mexico, and Peru, need but be named to make it manifest that in the New World also, there were in past times great advances in hot regions. It is thus, too, if we compare societies of ruder types that have developed in warm climates, with allied societies belonging to colder climates. Tahiti, the Tonga Islands, and the Sandwich Islands, are within the tropics; and in them, when first discovered, there had been reached stages of evolution which were remarkable considering the absence of metals.

I do not ignore the fact that in recent times societies have evolved most, both in size and complexity, in temperate regions. I simply join with this the fact that the first considerable societies arose, and the primary stages of social development were reached, in hot climates. The truth would seem to be that the earlier phases of progress had to be passed through where the resistances offered by inorganic conditions were least; that when the arts of life had been advanced, it became possible for societies to develop in regions where the resistances were greater; and that further developments in the arts of life, with the further discipline Edition: current; Page: [20] in co-operation accompanying them, enabled subsequent societies to take root and grow in regions which, by climatic and other conditions, offered relatively-great resistances.

We must therefore say that solar radiation, being the source of those forces by which life, vegetal and animal, is carried on; and being, by implication, the source of the forces displayed in human life, and consequently in social life; it results that there can be no considerable social evolution on tracts of the Earth’s surface where solar radiation is very feeble. Though, contrariwise, there is on some tracts a solar radiation in excess of the degree most favourable to vital actions; yet the consequent hindrance to social evolution is relatively small. Further, we conclude that an abundant supply of light and heat is especially requisite during those first stages of progress in which social vitality is small.

§ 16. Passing over such traits of climate as variability and equability, whether diurnal, annual, or irregular, all of which have their effects on human activities, and therefore on social phenomena, I will name one other climatic trait that appears to be an important factor. I refer to the quality of the air in respect of dryness or moisture.

Either extreme brings indirect impediments to civilization, which we may note before observing the direct effects. That great dryness of the air, causing a parched surface and a scanty vegetation, negatives the multiplication needed for advanced social life, is a familar fact. And it is a fact, though not a familiar one, that extreme humidity, especially when joined with great heat, may raise unexpected obstacles to progress; as, for example, in parts of East Africa, where “the springs of powder-flasks exposed to the damp snap like toasted quills; . . . paper, becoming soft and soppy by the loss of glazing, acts as a blotter; . . . metals are ever rusty; . . . and gunpowder, if not kept from the air, refuses to ignite.”

But it is the direct effects of different hygrometric states, which are most noteworthy—the effects on the vital processes, and, therefore, on the individual activities, and, through them, on the social activities. Bodily functions are facilitated by atmospheric conditions which make evaporation from the skin and lungs rapid. That weak persons, whose variations of health furnish good tests, are worse when the air is surcharged with water, and are better when the weather is fine; and that commonly such persons are enervated by residence in moist localities but invigorated by residence in dry ones, are facts generally recognized. And this relation of cause and effect, manifest in individuals, doubtless holds in races. Throughout temperate regions, differences of constitutional activity due to differences of atmospheric humidity, are less traceable than in torrid regions: the reason being that all the inhabitants are subject to a tolerably quick escape of water from their surfaces; since the air, though well charged with water, will take up more when its temperature, previously low, is raised by contact with the body. But it is otherwise in tropical regions where the body and the air bathing it differ much less in temperature; and where, indeed, the air is sometimes higher in temperature than the body. Here the rate of evaporation depends almost wholly on the quantity of surrounding vapour. If the air is hot and moist, the escape of water through the skin and lungs is greatly hindered; while it is greatly facilitated if the air is hot and dry. Hence in the torrid zone, we may expect constitutional differences between the inhabitants of low steaming tracts and the inhabitants of tracts parched with heat. Needful as are cutaneous and pulmonary evaporation for maintaining the movement of fluids through the tissues and thus furthering molecular changes, it is to be inferred that, other things equal, there will be more bodily activity in the people of hot and dry localities than in the people of hot and humid localities.

The evidence justifies this inference. The earliest-recorded civilization grew up in a hot and dry region—Egypt; and in hot and dry regions also arose the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Phœnician civilizations. But the facts when stated in terms of nations are far less striking than when stated in terms of races. On glancing over a general rain-map, there will be seen an almost-continuous area marked “rainless district,” extending across North Africa, Arabia, Persia, and on through Thibet into Mongolia; and from within, or from the borders of, this district, have come all the conquering races of the Old World. We have the Tartar race, which, passing the Southern mountain-boundary of this rainless district, peopled China and the regions between it and India—thrusting the aborigines of these areas into the hilly tracts; and which has sent successive waves of invaders not into these regions only, but into the West. We have the Aryan race, overspreading India and making its way through Europe. We have the Semitic race, becoming dominant in North Africa, and, spurred on by Mahommedan fanaticism, subduing parts of Europe. That is to say, besides the Egyptian race, which became powerful in the hot and dry valley, of the Nile, we have three races widely unlike in type, which, from different parts of the rainless district have spread over regions relatively humid. Original superiority of type was not the common trait of these peoples: the Tartar type is inferior, as was the Egyptian. But the common trait, as proved by subjugation of other peoples, was energy. And when we see that this common trait in kinds of men otherwise unlike, had for its concomitant their long-continued subjection to these special climatic conditions—when we find, further, that from the region characterized by these conditions, the earlier waves of conquering emigrants, losing in moister countries their ancestral energy, were over-run by later waves of the same kind of men, or of other kinds, coming from this region; we get strong reason for inferring a relation Edition: current; Page: [23] between constitutional vigour and the presence of an air which, by its warmth and dryness, facilitates the vital actions. A striking verification is at hand. The rain-map of the New World shows that the largest of the parts distinguished as almost rainless, is that Central-American and Mexican region in which indigenous civilizations developed; and that the only other rainless district is that part of the ancient Peruvian territory, in which the pre-Ynca civilization has left its most conspicuous traces. Inductively, then, the evidence justifies in a remarkable manner the physiological deduction. Nor are there wanting minor verifications. Speaking of the varieties of negroes, Livingstone says—“Heat alone does not produce blackness of skin, but heat with moisture seems to insure the deepest hue”; and Schweinfurth remarks on the relative blackness of the Denka and other tribes living on the alluvial plains, and contrasts them with “the less swarthy and more robust races who inhabit the rocky hills of the interior”: differences with which there go differences of energy. But I note this fact for the purpose of suggesting its probable connexion with the fact that the lighter-skinned races are habitually the dominant races. We see it to have been so in Egypt. It was so with the races spreading south from Central Asia. Traditions imply that it was so in Central America and Peru. Speke says:—“I have always found the lighter-coloured savages more boisterous and warlike than those of a dingier hue.” And if, heat being the same, darkness of skin accompanies humidity of the air, while lightness of skin accompanies dryness of the air, then, in this habitual predominance of the fair varieties of men, we find further evidence that constitutional activity, and in so far social development, is favoured by a climate conducing to rapid evaporation.

I do not mean that the energy thus resulting determines, of itself, higher social development: this is neither implied deductively nor shown inductively. But greater energy, Edition: current; Page: [24] making easy the conquest of less active races and the usurpation of their richer and more varied habitats, also makes possible a better utilization of such habitats.

§ 17. On passing from climate to surface, we have to note, first, the effects of its configuration, as favouring or hindering social integration.

That the habits of hunters or nomads may be changed into those required for settled life, the surface occupied must be one within which coercion is easy, and beyond which the difficulties of existence are great. The unconquerableness of mountain tribes, difficult to get at, has been in many times and in many places exemplified. Instance the Illyrians, who remained independent of the adjacent Greeks, gave trouble to the Macedonians, and mostly recovered their independence after the death of Alexander; instance the Montenegrins; instance the Swiss; instance the people of the Caucasus. The inhabitants of desert-tracts, as well as those of mountain-tracts, are difficult to consolidate: facility of escape, joined with ability to live in sterile regions, greatly hinder social subordination. Within our own island, surfaces otherwise widely unlike have similarly hindered political integration, when their physical traits have made it difficult to reach their occupants. The history of Wales shows us how, within that mountainous district itself, subordination to one ruler was hard to establish; and still more how hard it was to bring the whole under the central power: from the Old-English period down to 1400, eight centuries of resistance passed before the subjugation was complete, and a further interval before the final incorporation with England. The Fens, in the earliest times a haunt of marauders and of those who escaped from established power, became, at the time of the Conquest, the last refuge of the still-resisting English; who, for many years, maintained their freedom in this tract, made almost inaccessible by morasses. The prolonged independence of the Edition: current; Page: [25] Highland clans, who were subjugated only after General Wade’s roads put their refuges within reach, yields a later proof. Conversely, social integration is easy within a territory which, while able to support a large population, affords facilities for coercing the units of that population: especially if it is bounded by regions offering little sustenance, or peopled by enemies, or both. Egypt fulfilled these conditions in a high degree. Governmental force was unimpeded by physical obstacles within the occupied area; and escape from it into the adjacent desert involved either starvation or robbery and enslavement by wandering hordes. Then in small areas surrounded by the sea, such as the Sandwich Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, where a barrier to flight is formed by a desert of water instead of a desert of sand, the requirements are equally well fulfilled. Thus we may figuratively say that social integration is a process of welding, which can be effected only when there are both pressure and difficulty in evading that pressure. And here, indeed, we are reminded how, in extreme cases, the nature of the surface permanently determines the type of social life it bears. From the earliest recorded times, arid tracts in the East have been peopled by Semitic tribes having an adapted social type. The description given by Herodotus of the Scythian’s mode of life and social organization, is substantially the same as that given of the Kalmucks by Pallas. Even were regions fitted for nomads to have their inhabitants exterminated, they would be re-peopled by refugees from neighbouring settled societies; who would similarly be compelled to wander, and would similarly acquire fit forms of union. There is, indeed, a modern instance in point: not exactly of a re-genesis of an adapted social type, but of a genesis de novo. Since the colonization of South America, some of the pampas have become the homes of robber-tribes like Bedouins.

Another trait of the inhabited area to be noted as influential, is its degree of heterogeneity. Other things equal, Edition: current; Page: [26] localities that are uniform in structure are unfavourable to social progress. Leaving out for the present its effects on the Flora and Fauna, sameness of surface implies absence of varied inorganic materials, absence of varied experiences, absence of varied habits, and, therefore, puts obstacles to industrial development and the arts of life. Neither Central Asia, nor Central Africa, nor the central region of either American continent, has been the seat of an indigenous civilization of any height. Regions like the Russian steppes, however possible it may be to carry into them civilization elsewhere developed, are regions within which civilization is not likely to be initiated; because the differentiating agencies are insufficient. When quite otherwise caused, uniformity of habitat has still the like effect. As Professor Dana asks respecting a coral-island:—

Contrariwise, the influences of geological and geographical heterogeneity in furthering social development, are conspicuous. Though, considered absolutely, the Nile-valley is not physically multiform, yet it is multiform in comparison with surrounding tracts; and it presents that which seems the most constant antecedent to civilization—the juxtaposition of land and water. Though the Babylonians and Assyrians had habitats that were not specially varied, yet they were more varied than the riverless regions lying East and West. The strip of territory in which the Phœnician society arose, had a relatively-extensive coast; many rivers furnishing at their mouths sites for the chief cities; plains and valleys running inland, with hills between them and Edition: current; Page: [27] mountains beyond them. Still more does heterogeneity distinguish the area in which the Greek society evolved: it is varied in its multitudinous and complex distributions of land and sea, in its contour of surface, in its soil. “No part of Europe—perhaps it would not be too much to say no part of the world—presents so great a variety of natural features within the same area as Greece.” The Greeks themselves, indeed, observed the effects of local circumstances in so far as unlikeness between coast and interior goes. As says Mr. Grote:—

Though the differences here described are mainly due to absence and presence of foreign intercourse; yet, since this itself is dependent on the local relations of land and sea, these relations must be recognized as primary causes of the differences. Just observing that in Italy likewise, civilization found a seat of considerable complexity, geological and geographical, we may pass to the New World, where we see the same thing. Central America, which was the source of its indigenous civilizations, is characterized by comparative multiformity. So, too, with Mexico and with Peru. The Mexican tableland, surrounded by mountains, contained many lakes: that of Tezcuco, with its islands and shores, being the seat of Government; and through Peru, varied in surface, the Ynca-power spread from the mountainous islands of the large, irregular, elevated lake, Titicaca.

How soil affects progress remains to be observed. The belief that easy obtainment of food is unfavourable to social evolution, while not without an element of truth, is by no Edition: current; Page: [28] means true as currently accepted. The semi-civilized peoples of the Pacific—the Sandwich Islanders, Tahitians, Tongans, Samoans, Fijians—show us considerable advances made in places where great productiveness renders life unlaborious. In Sumatra, where rice yields 80 to 140 fold, and in Madagascar, where it yields 50 to 100 fold, social development has not been insignificant. Kaffirs, inhabiting a tract having rich and extensive pasturage, contrast favourably, both individually and socially, with neighbouring races occupying regions that are relatively unproductive; and those parts of Central Africa in which the indigenes have made most social progress, as Ashantee and Dahomey, have luxuriant vegetations. Indeed, if we call to mind the Nile-valley, and the exceptionally-fertilizing process it is subject to, we see that the most ancient social development known to us, began in a region which, fulfilling other requirements, was also characterized by great natural productiveness.

And here, with respect to fertility, we may recognize a truth allied to that which we recognized in respect to climate; namely, that the earlier stages of social evolution are possible only where the resistances to be overcome are small. As those arts of life by which loss of heat is prevented, must be considerably advanced before relatively-inclement regions can be well peopled; so, the agricultural arts must be considerably advanced before the less fertile tracts can support populations large enough for civilization. And since arts of every kind develop only as societies progress in size and structure, it follows that there must be societies having habitats where abundant food can be procured by inferior arts, before there can arise the arts required for dealing with less productive habitats. While yet low and feeble, societies can survive only where the circumstances are least trying. The ability to survive where circumstances are more trying can be possessed only by the higher and stronger societies descending from these; and inheriting Edition: current; Page: [29] their acquired organization, appliances, and knowledge.

It should be added that variety of soil is a factor of importance; since this helps to cause that multiplicity of vegetal products which largely aids social progress. In sandy Damara-land, where four kinds of mimosas exclude nearly every other kind of tree or bush, it is clear that, apart from further obstacles to progress, paucity of materials must be a great one. But here we verge upon another order of factors.

§ 18. The character of its Flora affects in a variety of ways the fitness of a habitat for supporting a society. At the chief of these we must glance.

Some of the Esquimaux have no wood at all; while others have only that which comes to them as ocean-drift. By using snow or ice to build their houses, and by the shifts they are put to in making cups of seal-skin, fishing-lines and nets of whalebone, and even bows of bone or horn, these people show us how greatly advance in the arts of life is hindered by lack of fit vegetal products. With this Arctic race, too, as also with the nearly Antarctic Fuegians, we see that the absence or extreme scarcity of useful plants is an insurmountable impediment to social progress. Evidence better than that furnished by these regions (where extreme cold is a coexisting hindrance) comes from Australia; where, in a climate that is on the whole favourable, the paucity of plants available for the purposes of life has been a part-cause of continued arrest at the lowest stage of barbarism. Large tracts of it, supporting but one inhabitant to sixty square miles, admit of no approach to that populousness which is a needful antecedent to civilization.

Conversely, after observing how growth of population, making social advance possible, is furthered by abundance of vegetal products, we may observe how variety of vegetal products conduces to the same effect. Not only in the cases Edition: current; Page: [30] of the slightly-developed societies occupying regions covered by a heterogeneous Flora, do we see that dependence on many kinds of roots, fruits, cereals, etc., is a safeguard against the famines caused by failure of any single crop; but we see that the materials furnished by a heterogeneous Flora, make possible a multiplication of appliances, a consequent advance of the arts, and an accompanying development of skill and intelligence. The Tahitians have on their islands, fit woods for the frameworks and roofs of houses, with palm-leaves for thatch; there are plants yielding fibres out of which to twist cords, fishing-lines, matting, etc.; the tapa-bark, duly prepared, furnishes a cloth for their various articles of dress; they have cocoa-nuts for cups, etc., materials for baskets, sieves, and various domestic implements; they have plants giving them scents for their unguents, flowers for their wreaths and necklaces; they have dyes for stamping patterns on their dresses—all besides the various foods, bread-fruit, taro, yams, sweet-potatoes, arrow-root, fern-root, cocoa-nuts, plantains, bananas, jambo, ti-root, sugar-cane, etc: enabling them to produce numerous made dishes. And the utilization of all these materials implies a culture which in various ways furthers social advance. Kindred results from like causes have arisen among an adjacent people, widely unlike in character and political organization. In a habitat characterized by a like variety of vegetal products, those ferocious cannibals the Fijians, have developed their arts to a degree comparable with that of the Tahitians, and have a division of labour and a commercial organization that are even superior. Among the thousand species of indigenous plants in the Fiji Islands, there are such as furnish materials for all purposes, from the building of war-canoes carrying 300 men down to the making of dyes and perfumes. It may, indeed, be urged that the New Zealanders, exhibiting a social development akin to that reached in Tahiti and Fiji, had a habitat of which the indigenous Flora was not varied. But the reply is that Edition: current; Page: [31] both by their language and their mythology, the New Zealanders are shown to have separated from other Malayo-Polynesians after the arts of life had been considerably advanced; and that they brought these arts (as well as some cultivated plants) to a region which, though poor in edible plants, supplied in abundance plants otherwise useful.

As above hinted, mere luxuriance of vegetation is in some cases a hindrance to progress. Even that inclement region inhabited by the Fuegians, is, strange to say, made worse by the dense growth of useless underwood which clothes the rocky hills. Living though they do under conditions otherwise so different, the Andamanese, too, are restricted to the borders of the sea, by the impenetrable thickets which cover the land. Indeed various equatorial regions, made almost useless even to the semi-civilized by jungle and tangled forest, were utterly useless to the aborigines, who had no tools for clearing the ground. The primitive man, possessing rude stone implements only, found but few parts of the Earth’s surface which, neither too barren nor bearing too luxuriant a vegetation, were available: so again reminding us that rudimentary societies are at the mercy of environing conditions.

§ 19. There remains to be treated the Fauna of the region inhabited. Evidently this affects greatly both the degree of social growth and the type of that growth.

The presence or absence of wild animals fit for food, influential as it is in determining the kind of individual life, is therefore influential in determining the kind of social organization. Where, as in North America, there existed game enough to support the aboriginal races, hunting continued the dominant activity; and a partially-nomadic habit being entailed by migrations after game, there was a persistent impediment to agriculture, to increase of population, and to industrial development. We have but to consider the antithetical case of the various Polynesian races, and to Edition: current; Page: [32] observe how, in the absence of a considerable land-Fauna, they have been forced into agriculture with its concomitant settled life, larger population, and advanced arts, to see how great an effect the kind and amount of utilizable animal-life has on civilization. When we glance at that pastoral type of society which, still existing, has played in past times an important part in human progress, we again see that over wide regions the indigenous Fauna has been chiefly influential in fixing the form of social union. On the one hand, in the absence of herbivores admitting of domestication—horses, camels, oxen, sheep, goats—the pastoral life followed by the three great conquering races in their original habitats, would have been impossible; and, on the other hand, this kind of life was inconsistent with that formation of larger settled unions which is needed for the higher social relations. On recalling the cases of the Laplanders with their reindeer and dogs, the Tartars with their horses and cattle, and the South Americans with their llamas and guinea-pigs, it becomes obvious, too, that in various cases this nature of the Fauna, joined with that of the surface, still continues to be a cause of arrest at a certain stage of evolution.

While the Fauna as containing an abundance or scarcity of creatures useful to man is an important factor, it is also an important factor as containing an abundance or scarcity of injurious creatures. The presence of the larger carnivores is, in some places, a serious impediment to social life; as in Sumatra, where villages are not uncommonly depopulated by tigers; as in India, where “a single tigress caused the destruction of 13 villages, and 250 square miles of country were thrown out of cultivation,” and where “in 1869 one tigress killed 127 people, and stopped a public road for many weeks.” Indeed we need but recall the evils once suffered in England from wolves, and those still suffered in some parts of Europe, to see that freedom to carry on out-door occupations and intercourse, which is among the conditions Edition: current; Page: [33] to social advance, may be hindered by predatory animals. Nor must we forget how greatly agriculture is occasionally interfered with by reptiles; as, again, in India, where over 25,000 persons die of snake-bite annually. To which evils directly inflicted by the higher animals, must be added the indirect evils which they join insects in inflicting, by destroying crops. Sometimes injuries of this last kind considerably affect the mode of individual life and consequently of social life; as in Kaffirland, where crops are subject to great depredations from mammals, birds, and insects, and where the transformation of the pastoral state into a higher state is thus discouraged; or as in the Bechuana-country, which, while “peopled with countless herds of game, is sometimes devastated by swarms of locusts.” Clearly, where the industrial tendencies are feeble, uncertainty in getting a return for labour must hinder the development of them, and cause reversion to older modes of life, if these can still be pursued.

Many other mischiefs, caused especially by insects, seriously interfere with social progress. Even familiar experiences in Scotland, where the midges sometimes drive one indoors, show how greatly “the plague of flies” must, in tropical regions, impede outdoor labour. Where, as on the Orinoco, the morning salutation is—“How are we to-day for the mosquitos?” and where the torment is such that a priest could not believe Humboldt voluntarily submitted to it merely that he might see the country, the desire for relief must often out-balance the already-feeble motive to work. Even the effects of flies on cattle indirectly modify social life; as among the Kirghiz, who, in May, when the steppes are covered with rich pasture, are obliged by the swarms of flies to take their herds to the mountains; or as in Africa, where the tsetse negatives the pastoral occupation in some localities. And then, in other cases, great discouragement results from the termites, which, in parts of East Africa, consume dress, furniture, beds, etc. “A man may be rich to-day Edition: current; Page: [34] and poor to-morrow, from the ravages of the white ants,” said a Portuguese merchant to Livingstone. Nor is this all. Humboldt remarks that where the termites destroy all documents, there can be no advanced civilization.

Thus there is a close relation between the type of social life indigenous in a locality, and the character of the indigenous Fauna. The presence or absence of useful species, and the presence or absence of injurious species, have their favouring and hindering effects. And there is not only so produced a furtherance or retardation of social progress, generally considered, but there is produced more or less speciality in the structures and activities of the community.

§ 20. To describe fully these original external factors is out of the question. An approximately-complete account of the classes characterized above, would be a work of years; and there would have to be added many environing conditions not yet indicated.

Effects of differences in degree and distribution of light, as illustrated by the domesticity and culture which the Arctic night causes among the Icelanders, would have to be treated; as also the minor effects due to greater or less brilliancy of ordinary daylight in sunny and cloudy climates on the mental states, and therefore on the actions, of the inhabitants. The familiar fact that habitual fineness of weather and habitual inclemency, lead respectively to outdoor social intercourse and in-door family-life, and so influence the characters of citizens, would have to be taken into account. So, too, would the modifications of ideas and feelings wrought by imposing meteorologic and geologic phenomena. And beyond the effects, made much of by Mr. Buckle, which these produce on men’s imaginations, and consequently on their behaviour, there would have to be noted their effects of other orders: as, for instance, those which frequent earthquakes have on the type of architecture—causing a preference for houses that are low and Edition: current; Page: [35] slight; and so modifying both the domestic arrangements and the æsthetic culture. Again, the character of the fuel which a locality yields has consequences that ramify in various directions; as we see in the contrast between our own coal-burning London, with its blackened gloomy streets, and the wood-burning cities of the continent, where general lightness and bright colours induce a different state of feeling having different results. How the mineralogy of a region acts, scarcely needs pointing out. Entire absence of metals may cause local persistence of the stone-age; presence of copper may initiate advance; presence or proximity of tin, rendering bronze possible, may cause a further step; and if there are iron-ores, a still further step may presently be taken. So, too, the supply or lack of lime for mortar, affects the sizes and types of buildings, private and public; and thus influences domestic and social habits, as well as art-progress. Even down to such a minor peculiarity as the presence of hot springs, which in ancient Central America initiated a local manufacture of pottery, there would have to be traced the influence of each physical condition in determining the prevailing industry, and therefore, in part, the social organization.

But a detailed account of the original external factors, whether of the more important kinds outlined in the preceding pages or of the less important kinds just exemplified, pertains to Special Sociology. Any one who, carrying with him the general principles of the science, undertook to interpret the evolution of each society, would have to describe completely these many local causes in their various kinds and degrees. Such an undertaking must be left for the sociologists of the future.

§ 21. Here my purpose has been to give general ideas of the original external factors, in their different classes and orders; so as to impress on the reader the truth, barely enunciated in the preceding chapter, that the characters of Edition: current; Page: [36] the environment co-operate with the characters of human beings in determining social phenomena.

One result of enumerating these original external factors and observing the parts they play, has been that of bringing into view the fact, that the earlier stages of social evolution are far more dependent on local conditions than the later stages. Though societies such as we are now most familiar with, highly organized, rich in appliances, advanced in knowledge, can, by the help of various artifices, thrive in unfavorable habitats; yet feeble, unorganized societies cannot do so. They are at the mercy of their surroundings.

Moreover we thus find answers to the questions sometimes raised in opposition to the doctrine of social evolution—How does it happen that so many tribes of savages have made no manifest progress during the long period over which human records extend? And if it is true that the human race existed during the later geologic periods, why, for 100,000 years or more, did no traceable civilization result? To these questions, I say, adequate replies are furnished. When, glancing over the classes and orders of original external factors above set down, we observe how rare is that combination of favourable ones joined with absence of unfavourable ones, by which alone the germs of societies can be fostered—when we remember that in proportion as the appliances are few and rude, the knowledge small, and the co-operation feeble, the establishment of any improvement in face of surrounding difficulties must take a long time—when we remember that this helplessness of primitive social groups left them exposed to each adverse change, and so caused repeated losses of such advances as were made; it becomes easy to understand why, for an enormous period, no considerable societies were evolved.

But now having made this general survey of the original external factors, and drawn these general inferences, we may leave all detailed consideration of them as not further concerning us. For in dealing with the Principles of Sociology, Edition: current; Page: [37] we have to deal with facts of structure and function displayed by societies in general, dissociated, so far as may be, from special facts due to special circumstances. Henceforth we shall occupy ourselves with those characters of societies which depend mainly on the intrinsic natures of their units, rather than with the characters determined by particular extrinsic influences.