March 9, 1871} 
NATURE 
363 

no necessary connection between a state of mere child- 
hood in respect to knowledge and a state of utter bar- 
barism,” and that man “even in his most civilised con- 
dition, is capable of degradation; that his knowledge 
may decay, and that his religion may be lost.” 
That the general propositions Jaid down by Archbishop 
Whately and the Duke of Argyll contain a certain 
limited amount of substantial truth, will probably be ad- 
mitted by the staunchest adherents of the opposite theory. 
That “ external helps” of some kind or other have played 
a most important part in the case of all civilisations the 
history of which is accessible, is as little open to question 
as the fact that under certain conditions civilisation among 
certain races may be arrested or may even retrograde. At 
the very threshold, however, of any discussion in terms less 
general, we are met by the question “ What is civilisation?” 
The baffling complexity, indeed, of the idea conveyed in 
the word “civilisation” is the fountain-head of most of 
the confusion which exists among writers on the subject. 
That development is the vital principle, so to speak, of 
civilisation is universally admitted, but there would pro- 
bably be a very general disagreement of opinion as to the 
particular kinds and directions of development which 
constitute the essential elements of civilisation. As gene- 
rally understood, civilisation appears to involve a develop- 
ment more or less advanced of commerce and the means 
of communication, of natural advantages, products, and 
wealth, of navigation and warfare, of the arts, mechanical 
and ornamental ; of science, theoretical and practical ; of le- 
gislation and the administration of the law; of customs and 
language; of morals and religion ; of all the faculties of the 
individual and the race. It includes also a consideration 
of the diffusion of personal liberty, and of the proportion 
of those who participate in the general welfare and 
possess the necessary appliances both for physical com- 
fort and intellectual culture. 
This, of course, is an inadequate definition of civilisa- 
tion ; and it is further manifest not only that development 
in many of the directions indicated is not absolutely 
necessary to civilisation, but that no civilisation on record 
has been equally developed in every direction. What is 
still wanting is some standard by which to measure civili- 
sation in any particular case. Mr. Wallace, following 
Montaigne, appears to consider civilisation compatible 
with a very low development in nearly every direction, 
Archbishop Whately would consider as civilised the 
Germans described by Tacitus. The Duke of Argyll goes 
further still, for he seems to consider that Adam and Eve 
when expelled from Paradise were, nevertheless, distinctly 
civilised beings. The diversity of opinion is, indeed, 
owing to the absence of a recognised standard, almost 
universal. Civilisation is nearly always measured by the 
recorded achievements of men of genius. Yet, if this were 
the true test, no nation of modern Europe is so highly 
civilised as was Greece in the age of Pericles, and English 
civilisation has been retrograding from the days of Eliza- 
beth, nay, from those which gave us the Canterbury Tales 
and Lincoln Minster, if not from those of Anselm and the 
Norman Bastard. Another fruitful cause of error is the 
natural but illogical assumption of the superiority of our 
modern Western European civilisation over all other civili- 
sation. That in certain respects, principally material, it is 
actually superior, we do not of course deny, but when we 

contemplate the condition of our criminal, our pauper, our 
agricultural population, the troglodytes of the city, and 
the nomads of the country, it is difficult to avoid the 
conclusion that other civilisations, less advanced in certain 
respects, were more advanced in others, perhaps in some 
cases toan extent which turns the balance in their favour. 
On the whole, therefore, we apprehend that the relative 
civilisation of any country must be estimated rather by 
the sum of its general development than by its develop- 
ment, however advanced, in any particular direction. 
And this leads us naturally to astandard which, wherever 
it can be applied, is an infallible indication of the general 
civilisation of any race. General civilisation involves 
the multiplication of ideas,and the multiplication of ideas 
involves the multiplication of the symbols which express 
them. The language, therefore, or more strictly speaking, 
the vocabulary of any race, becomes a crucial test of its 
development. The total disappearance of numberless 
languages and our necessarily limited acquaintance with 
those which survive, obviously diminish, not only the 
number of cases in which this test can be applied, but the 
certainty of its application in particular instances. In 
spite of these drawbacks, however, language still supplies 
material to the student of comparative civilisation, not 
less invaluable than the material supplied by geology to 
the student of comparative anatomy. The imperfection 
of the record in both cases is extreme, but in both cases, 
so far as it extends, it is authentic and decisive. 
We now return to the controversy between Sir J. Lub- 
bock and his opponents. Independent of the cogent argu- 
ments adduced by Sir J. Lubbock against the conclusions 
arrived at by Archbishop Whately, there is one which 
seems to have been altogether overlooked. The Arch- 
bishop’s theory traces the history of mankind up to a 
single primeval pair, and assumes the impossibility of 
their survival after their expulsion from the Garden of 
Eden unassisted by some supernatural revelation. Some 
supernatural revelation of the same kind he also holds 
necessary in order to raise any race to that stage of cul- 
ture at which it is enabled to make progress of itself. 
The perfectly gratuitous character of this hypothesis seems 
to us its sufficient refutation. Surely it is sufficient to 
believe that causes analogous to those which, in later 
ages, gave to the world the exceptional intellects of an 
Aristotle or a Newton, possessed potency enough at an 
earlier epoch to account for the appearance of men en- 
dowed with genius to make the successive inventions 
recorded, without resorting to a superfluous hypothesis of 
supernatural intervention. 
Even the Duke of Argyll virtually abandons Whately’s 
position, although, perhaps, his own is even less logically 
tenable. When he tells us that there is no necessary con- 
nection between a state of mere childhood in respect to 
knowledge and a state of utter barbarism, we are forcibly 
reminded of Mr, Phcebus’s eulogy on the aristocracy of 
this country, whose strongest points he declares to be that 
they live in the open air and speak only one language. 
It is manifest that the Duke of Argyll when he penned 
this passage had in his mind’s eye the ideal “noble 
savage,” who has figured so picturesquely in works of 
historic fiction from the days of Anacharsis downwards— 
a being who, although represented as in “a state of mere 
childhood in respect to knowledge,” meets the greatest of 
