CHAPTER IX.

EFFECTS PRODUCED ON CIVILIZATION BY THE CONQUESTS OF THE BARBARIANS AND OVERTHROW OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

THE histories of Greece and Rome are those of our instructors in the arts and sciences, our guides in literature, and our patterns in intellectual excellence: the history of what are called the Middle Ages is that of our immediate ancestors-it might almost be said, of ourselves. Less entertaining than the records of the classic nations, the latter history is far more instructive; for we are not the children of the Greeks and Romans, we are the children of their conquerors. With those whom we have been accustomed to call the barbarous hordes from the Northern hives, began the languages which we speak, the rights which we recognise, many of the laws which we obey, and many of the prejudices more powerful than law, that exercise the widest sway over human society. But the investigation of this period in the history of mankind is a task of considerable difficulty: at its most important crisis, the Roman system of civilization was in the last stage of decrepitude, and the Teutonic system in the first stage of childhood; the helplessness of old age was placed by the side of the helplessness of infancy, and our inquiries are to be made from the dying bed and the

cradle. Under these circumstances, it can scarcely be expected that within the narrow limits of a chapter it would be possible to trace all the events which moulded the form of society, and influenced its future progress; a few of the most striking particulars, such as most tend to illustrate the immediate subject of these volumes, can alone engage our attention.

Existing monuments prove that we generally form too low an estimate of the social condition of those nations described by the Greeks and Romans as barbarians. There can be little doubt that the Germans, the Gauls, and the Britons, were unpolished, but then they were a long way from being savages.

We have already shewn that the classic writers had, formed no notions of civilization, or even civil polity, save in connexion with a city; even the Roman empire, through a long period of its duration, was little more than a federation of civic municipalities, subjected to the metropolitan supremacy of Rome. The rural population was of no account save when admitted to participate in civic rights; summary proceedings, not less stringent than the laws against fugitive slaves, were sanctioned by edicts of the emperors, to bring back by force the free peasants, who fled from their farms to escape the exactions of tyrannical lords.

We have more than once shewn that exclusiveness is the principle of falsehood in most of the opinions that have predominated over mankind. The limitation of the benefits of civilization to the civic populations was a pernicious falsehood in the ancient systems: the empires of the Babylonians, Saracens, Mongols, and Turks, not less than those of the Romans and Byzan

VOL. II.

K

tines, have shewn us, that there could be flourishing cities like Babylon, Bagdad, and Delhi, in degraded

nations.

Among the Celtic and Teutonic nations, the form of whatever civilization they possessed was rural; this rendered it the more rude, but not the less real. The classical writers have not appreciated this social system, for it was based on a principle with which they were wholly unacquainted,—the sense of individual right,— and they called it barbarous, because it differed essentially from their own; but it is impossible to read the incidental notices of British manners in Cæsar's Commentaries, and the more ample account of the Germans given by Tacitus, without being led to exclaim with Pyrrhus, "these barbarians are far from being barbarous, or at least feeling that they never sunk into the deep degradation of some African and Oceanic tribes. This indeed is what should reasonably have been expected, from the account given in former chapters of the origin of civilization. "Each savage tribe," says Archbishop Whately, "having retained such arts as are most essential to their subsistence in the particular country in which they are placed, there is accordingly, generally speaking, somewhat less of degeneracy in many points in the colder climates; because these will not admit of the same degree of that characteristic of savages, improvidence. Such negligence in providing clothing and habitations, and in laying up stores of provisions, as in warm and fertile countries is not incompatible with subsistence in a very rude state, would, in more inhospitable regions, destroy the whole race in the course of a single winter."*

* Whately's Political Economy, p. 118.

In estimating the influence on modern times of the civilization preserved by the northern tribes, it will be sufficient to examine the Teutonic race alone; for the Celtic and Sclavonic races were conquered by the Romans, and merged in the general system of the empire. With the Teutonic races, the first and moving principle was the personal independence and dignity of man, and consequently they were strict in the maintenance of individual rights. The power of the kings was limited by the mallum, or assembly of the people; but the power of the state, that is, of the king and mallum united, was not absolute over the members: the obnoxious individual, from whom the society withdrew its protection, was allowed to seek admission into some other society; exile, not death, was the severest punishment which it was deemed competent for the supreme power to inflict. The Germans were as tender of the lives of citizens * in peace, as they were unsparing of the lives of their enemies in war.

The Teutonic tribes were honourably distinguished from nearly all the ancient races by their high respect for women, whom they treated as the partners of their life and counsels. Though religious, they were not subservient to their priests, and with them the sacerdotal order never acquired such political influence as the Druids are said to have possessed among the Celtic races. They had some imperfect mode of recording events by rude characters traced on stones or stocks of

*We have no word but "citizen," to express membership of a political community. I have preferred using it here, though the Germans had no cities, to coining such a phrase as "tribe-man," or 66 'horde-man; "‚”—“ clansman” would lead to a total misapprehension

of the argument.

trees; and though they had no sciences, properly so called, they were acquainted with the use of metals, and were particularly skilful in the manufacture of military weapons.

Though individuality is an important and even necessary element of a complete system of civilization, yet it, like every other element, becomes false and pernicious when associated with a principle of exclusiveness. And it may be added, that when thus perverted, when individuality concentrates itself into selfishness, it is far more false, and far more pernicious, than sociality in its worst and most exclusive form.

War has ever been the most demoralizing cause that has operated for the ruin of every system of society. But the spirit of war, acting as a personal instead of a national motive, transforms man into a demon. It would be absurd to deny the enormities of war on an extended scale, the horrors of the battle-field, the desolation of smiling fields and happy homes, the breaking of widows' hearts, the consigning of helpless orphans to vice and destruction, and the extension of the curse to unborn generations, by taxing their industry to pay the price of inflicting misery on their forefathers. Nevertheless, the world regards this wholesale carnage with far less horror than the contests between small bodies, when each individual has his personal feelings staked in the issue. In wars on a grand scale, there is little to interest the soldier individually; he feels for the honour of his country, his army, or his regiment, not for the gratification of his own anger or revenge. even in modern warfare, whenever the individual passions of the soldiers are roused, as for instance, in the