"Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. . . . And it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him."

"The first step in civilization was achieved by conflict, and every succeeding step of deep and lasting import has been achieved in the same way. It is the method of history."F. H. HEDGE.

"Effort is the condition of achievement and conflict the price of victory."

VIII.

PROBLEM OF CIVILIZATION.

SOCIETY has its beginnings in a state of barbarism, and, if we may trust history, tends from time to time to relapse into its primitive condition. By barbarism we do not mean savage life, but a condition intermediate between the savage and the civilized state-a condition in which men have all the instinct, intelligence, and propensities of men without education or systematic training in any of them.

Three

grades of society.

Place a child, if it were possible, away from all associates, give him shelter, food, and drink, without care or effort on his own part, and never excite the evil propensities that slumber in him, and he will grow up a respectable barbarian, having little disposition for either good or evil. Take another and surround him from the first, with circumstances that tend constantly to rouse the passions and baser propensities, and he will grow up a savage, like our Indian. Then take a third and surround him with

the appliances of cultured life; give him books and schools and intelligent companionship, and he will become civilized. These represent three distinct conditions of human life, and we readily see out of what surroundings and under what influences they severally grow.

Primitive barbarism.

In saying that society begins in a state of barbarism, we mean simply that humanity comes upon the stage of life in a state of nature, without training or instruction, and that it may so continue, with little knowledge beyond that necessary for supplying the most imperative wants. But the very simplest life finds means of drill and tuition in its course; means that cannot escape it, and that it cannot fail in some degree to heed.

Learning

by

Man, set down in the world without any knowledge of his surroundings, and without the assistance of a teacher, would soon beexperience. come conscious of hunger and find means to satisfy the desire; and if the climate were severe, would not be long in providing some protection against the inclemencies of the weather. Then, as appetite would keep him on the alert, he would begin to exercise his ingenuity; would decoy animals and trap them, and anon would fashion weapons for slaying them. All these come in the course of nature, and require no other motives

than those which nature herself supplies. Then, following on in the same direction, by an easy and natural process, without developing much of either good or evil quality, he might come at length to keep flocks and herds that he would drive from place to place, as pastures failed, and still be nothing but a barbarian; having developed neither the vicious qualities that make the savage, nor the higher traits that lead to the civilized condition.

While, therefore, we do grave injustice to hu manity to suppose it came up primarily from a savage state, we do but follow out the plain suggestions of nature and reason alike, when we assume that the early condition of human society was that of barbarism.

Barbarism of

primeval times.

This was clearly the condition of the tribes and men of which we read in the remotest histories, or in the history of the earliest times. Their chief dependence was on their flocks, and they pitched their tents from time. to time where the pastures were the best. So long as men confine themselves closely to this kind of life, moving quietly and subsisting on the spontaneous productions of the earth, together with what their flocks may yield, they will not develop rapidly either the baser or the better qualities; their growth or change will not be marked either way. But if they come to subsist by plunder,

added to the chase, they rapidly degenerate in a moral sense, and are so much farther removed from civilization.

The Indian question.

And right here, we incline to believe, is one secret of our il success in civilizing the Indian. We forget the step that lies between the state in which we find him and that to which we would introduce him. The Indian is a savage and not a mere barbarian. If you would civilize the Indian and not exterminate him, do not think to call him from the wigwam and the chase to the sickle and the plough. The transition is too abrupt, and the change too absolute. But assign him a tract of country sufficient for flocks to roam over and gather their living from the native products of the soil, and the change from his former state will not be so great but that he will inure to it, and then it will be practicable to take the other step.

But to resume our subject of discourse. If we had no written testimony on the subject we should reasonably conclude, from what we know of human nature, that the early condition of society was that which we have defined as barbarous; about equally removed from civilization on the one hand and from savage life upon the other. And now, in pursuing this subject, we encounter what seems a paradox or contradiction.