Art. II.? ?THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EPOCHS.* The chart of universal
history displays
events, which have overwhelmed and
a
succession of
prominent
the face of the political, as completely as the great deluge did that of the physical globe. These events form a portion of that development of the expanded intellect scattered over the space of centuries. Each crisis in this mighty scries has been as decisive as it was transient; like the gourd of the prophet, it
arose
in
a
night
and
that afterwards broke
unexpected. The human
everywhere
the
perished on
in
a
changed
night;
and the troubled
the astonished world
entirely
morning new
and
like the individual, is, in its main elements, East, west, north and south, communicate with ancients with the moderns, the young with the old,
species, same.
each other; the
was
Cosmos.
By Humboldt.
209
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EPOCHS.
and, by the help common
quality
by himself,
or
of of
revelation, to-day
our
nature;
nor
with
futurity.
is it until
nations in the mass, that
we
Identity
is the
examine the person recognise the essential we
difference that distinguishes their respective conditions, ages, and epochs. The laws under which Ave dwell, the climate in which we are born, the number of years that natural complexions,
we have lived, or that the earth has existed; our infirmities, habits, and propensities; create such absolute discrepancies of colour, form, features, and expression, that, when brought into juxta-position with each other, Ave can hardly believe
ourselves to be the children of one root and
common
stock of all.
sprung from the same the past Avith an impartial
large family
Look back
on
eye; disperse the halo of classic light that surrounds each object Avith fictitious splendour; and candidly examine the psychology of bygone
a
ages in the field of a microscope illuminated Avith the broad rays of criticism and truth. Stand forth, O ye generations long since extinct, and pass by unveiled before us in your liness of thought and passion !
OAvn
solemn
grandeur
and state-
Fifteen hundred years ago, there existed, or rather subsisted, beloAV the horizon of the barbarous and civilized populations of the earth, a vast body of human beings without a recognised rank or title, vidgus
nomine, grovelling on their knees, and supporting the huge fabric society upon their degraded and crouching shoulders. We shudder at the thought of an abject set of mortals destitute of poetry, law, and right, speechless and passive. They Avere neither human beings nor things ; yet they Avere both a thing and a human being Avith out Avhich the old Avorld could not have held itself together for a single day, or hour,?the necessary, but invisible piArot upon which turned the heartsine of
less
It belonged not to any city or of three thousand years. nor to one province particular, quarter of the globe, more than any to all the rest. It Avas a common domestic commodity in daily use,
paganism in
from east to Avest.
Persepolis, Athens,
and
Heliopolis,
so
different
from each other in every other respect, Avere exactly the same in this, that slavery Avas a piece of state machinery successfully practised by them all. Empires and republics, leagues and institutions, rose up,
flourished for
a
while,
and vanished from the face of the
earth, like
vegetation, Avliile slavery remained the same beneath an every change, indigenous Aveed deeply rooted in every soil. Time, that ameliorates most things else, only helped to lock the fetters still The reigning Avorld more tightly round the wrists of the sulky slave. successive crops of
stalked by and trod upon his neck. The pomp of poAver banished him from the rites of religion and the sacred service of the gods, as sternly The only as it repulsed him from the frowning portals of the great. boon that pride assigned him for his bitter portion, Avas that narroAV NO.
XVIII.
p
210
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EPOCHS.
and
isthmus of
undisputed
death. At this distance of
gloomy episode had
time,
mortality, just lying
between life and
and circumstanced
we
description appears incredible. in some romantic novel of the
It is
day,
as
than
a
now
like
more
cold
a
are, this
pathetic
reality, which its origin and
existence; neither is it easy to account for Gibbon, who is reluctant to admit of any statement adverse to the credit of heathenism, whose honour he undertook to vindicate, blinks the inquiry by ascribing it to the right of battle ; and Montesquieu, who is sometimes superficial, ingeniously imputes it to the tyranny and enervating climate of the East. But neither of these actual
an
continuance.
meets the
in question. For slavery formed as much of confederacies Greece, as it did of the part monotonous despotisms of Asia; it prevailed in the cold regions of the north as much as it abounded in the warmer countries of the south. We may trace it everywhere, among the savage as well as among the more civilized populations;?indeed, it may be affirmed, that, wherever
explanations
point
of the vivacious
a
the foot of
pressed
man
pursued him,
his
to
the
lasting
ground,
thither
vexation and
slavery accompanied
disgrace.
Like
or
Gibbon,
sought for its cause in the result of arms; and the lawyers period derived its name from servus de reserved ex a servatus, prcedd victorum, as the prize of victory. person But this legal definition, although framed within sight of slavery when it was just beginning to be impugned and exploded, does not solve the difficulty. Even granting that it sprung from the right of conquest, it does not clear up the puzzling part of the inquiry, namely, how it could have been tolerated and maintained, without dispute or protest, for so many centuries in succession 1 No philosopher ever rose up to oppose it. Popular opinion was decidedly in its favour. It was based upon the common consent of the world, and insisted upon, not only without inflicting any violence on any preconceived prejudices, but directly in accordance with an acknowledged consecration of the principle of slavery Rousseau and Hobbes have
of the Justinian
It
itself.
was
The slave
venerated
was a
passions, hopes, owing
Gracchi,
there
at once.
At
at
and
to the same
Their number
was
the
city,
being
the
fears, elicited,
servile
Athens,
the
right divine.
same as his owner, with the same of course, in a different manner, circumstances operating differently on them both. immense. During the civil commotions of the
was a
400,000, which
as a
human
was
foreign
war
in
Sicily,
and
70,000
in the time of Demosthenes, three times
of them revolted
they
were
calculated
many as the free inhabitants of settlers included. In the Peloponnesian war, as
over to the enemy, as Thucydides tells us. The same author says, that at Chios their number was very considerable, and that
20,000 passed
tlieir
defection,
when
were
afraid of
giving
Athenians, reduced their Home, their multitude was such that a distinctive dress, or uniform, lest it
deserted to the
they
masters to great extremities.
they
211
PSYCHOLOGY OF EPOCHS.
THE
At
them
should make them acquainted with their own overwhelming force. Catiline might have succeeded in his conspiracy, had he but armed the
slaves; only he might very reasonably managing the victory so as to suit their
have
been
of their instead of his. purposes Alaric was determined in his resolution of sacking Rome by a re-inforcement of 40,000 slaves, who ran away from the city, and joined the ranks of the At
barbarians,
the slaves
Tyre,
afraid
own
for the sake of sharing in the expected plunder. up in a body against their masters, and
once rose
massacred them all. The Scythians, on their return from the Median war, found their slaves in rebellion, as Herodotus tells us, in Melpomene, and were obliged to abandon their country to them, or recovered it only after a very severe conflict. Csesar, in his Commentaries, bears witness to their numbers in
great contempt,
Slavery
Gaul;
continued in
version of the Saxons.
the community. them. The
England They
The words
degradation
in this
and Tacitus says the Germans held them in
and counted their lives
nothing.
a
were
villagers, villici, villani,
are
derived from
were held is incomprehensible to us Herodotus says the Scythians deprived account of some disgusting office they had to
in which
period
of the world.
their slaves of
sight on household;
in their
as
considerable time after the conby far the most numerous class of
for
they
and Plutarch
in his
"
Life of that this famous man used to sell his old slaves at any price, to rid himself of the expensive burden of supporting them to the end It was customary to expose slaves who were sick and of their days.
perform
mentions,
Cato,"
perish miserably on an island of the Tiber. They were frequently employed in chains at the most laborious drudgery; and for
useless to trivial
offences,
and
even
on
mere
suspicion,
were
sometimes put to
death under the most horrid tortures. This terrific picture, which has no be
enlarged
without
complaint so justly urged at freedom compared with that of a
counterpart in modern society, might The slavery of our factory system, the present moment, is almost perfect
exaggeration.
the slave in pagan times. They were commodities for traffic and barter in the market-place, where they were exhibited for sale, and trotted out in the same manner as a jockey shows
off the paces of his horse to the best advantage. They varied in price from ten to twenty pounds sterling and upwards. Plato, who was captured by pirates, was ransomed for about
history displays
events, which have overwhelmed and
a
succession of
prominent
the face of the political, as completely as the great deluge did that of the physical globe. These events form a portion of that development of the expanded intellect scattered over the space of centuries. Each crisis in this mighty scries has been as decisive as it was transient; like the gourd of the prophet, it
arose
in
a
night
and
that afterwards broke
unexpected. The human
everywhere
the
perished on
in
a
changed
night;
and the troubled
the astonished world
entirely
morning new
and
like the individual, is, in its main elements, East, west, north and south, communicate with ancients with the moderns, the young with the old,
species, same.
each other; the
was
Cosmos.
By Humboldt.
209
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EPOCHS.
and, by the help common
quality
by himself,
or
of of
revelation, to-day
our
nature;
nor
with
futurity.
is it until
nations in the mass, that
we
Identity
is the
examine the person recognise the essential we
difference that distinguishes their respective conditions, ages, and epochs. The laws under which Ave dwell, the climate in which we are born, the number of years that natural complexions,
we have lived, or that the earth has existed; our infirmities, habits, and propensities; create such absolute discrepancies of colour, form, features, and expression, that, when brought into juxta-position with each other, Ave can hardly believe
ourselves to be the children of one root and
common
stock of all.
sprung from the same the past Avith an impartial
large family
Look back
on
eye; disperse the halo of classic light that surrounds each object Avith fictitious splendour; and candidly examine the psychology of bygone
a
ages in the field of a microscope illuminated Avith the broad rays of criticism and truth. Stand forth, O ye generations long since extinct, and pass by unveiled before us in your liness of thought and passion !
OAvn
solemn
grandeur
and state-
Fifteen hundred years ago, there existed, or rather subsisted, beloAV the horizon of the barbarous and civilized populations of the earth, a vast body of human beings without a recognised rank or title, vidgus
nomine, grovelling on their knees, and supporting the huge fabric society upon their degraded and crouching shoulders. We shudder at the thought of an abject set of mortals destitute of poetry, law, and right, speechless and passive. They Avere neither human beings nor things ; yet they Avere both a thing and a human being Avith out Avhich the old Avorld could not have held itself together for a single day, or hour,?the necessary, but invisible piArot upon which turned the heartsine of
less
It belonged not to any city or of three thousand years. nor to one province particular, quarter of the globe, more than any to all the rest. It Avas a common domestic commodity in daily use,
paganism in
from east to Avest.
Persepolis, Athens,
and
Heliopolis,
so
different
from each other in every other respect, Avere exactly the same in this, that slavery Avas a piece of state machinery successfully practised by them all. Empires and republics, leagues and institutions, rose up,
flourished for
a
while,
and vanished from the face of the
earth, like
vegetation, Avliile slavery remained the same beneath an every change, indigenous Aveed deeply rooted in every soil. Time, that ameliorates most things else, only helped to lock the fetters still The reigning Avorld more tightly round the wrists of the sulky slave. successive crops of
stalked by and trod upon his neck. The pomp of poAver banished him from the rites of religion and the sacred service of the gods, as sternly The only as it repulsed him from the frowning portals of the great. boon that pride assigned him for his bitter portion, Avas that narroAV NO.
XVIII.
p
210
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EPOCHS.
and
isthmus of
undisputed
death. At this distance of
gloomy episode had
time,
mortality, just lying
between life and
and circumstanced
we
description appears incredible. in some romantic novel of the
It is
day,
as
than
a
now
like
more
cold
a
are, this
pathetic
reality, which its origin and
existence; neither is it easy to account for Gibbon, who is reluctant to admit of any statement adverse to the credit of heathenism, whose honour he undertook to vindicate, blinks the inquiry by ascribing it to the right of battle ; and Montesquieu, who is sometimes superficial, ingeniously imputes it to the tyranny and enervating climate of the East. But neither of these actual
an
continuance.
meets the
in question. For slavery formed as much of confederacies Greece, as it did of the part monotonous despotisms of Asia; it prevailed in the cold regions of the north as much as it abounded in the warmer countries of the south. We may trace it everywhere, among the savage as well as among the more civilized populations;?indeed, it may be affirmed, that, wherever
explanations
point
of the vivacious
a
the foot of
pressed
man
pursued him,
his
to
the
lasting
ground,
thither
vexation and
slavery accompanied
disgrace.
Like
or
Gibbon,
sought for its cause in the result of arms; and the lawyers period derived its name from servus de reserved ex a servatus, prcedd victorum, as the prize of victory. person But this legal definition, although framed within sight of slavery when it was just beginning to be impugned and exploded, does not solve the difficulty. Even granting that it sprung from the right of conquest, it does not clear up the puzzling part of the inquiry, namely, how it could have been tolerated and maintained, without dispute or protest, for so many centuries in succession 1 No philosopher ever rose up to oppose it. Popular opinion was decidedly in its favour. It was based upon the common consent of the world, and insisted upon, not only without inflicting any violence on any preconceived prejudices, but directly in accordance with an acknowledged consecration of the principle of slavery Rousseau and Hobbes have
of the Justinian
It
itself.
was
The slave
venerated
was a
passions, hopes, owing
Gracchi,
there
at once.
At
at
and
to the same
Their number
was
the
city,
being
the
fears, elicited,
servile
Athens,
the
right divine.
same as his owner, with the same of course, in a different manner, circumstances operating differently on them both. immense. During the civil commotions of the
was a
400,000, which
as a
human
was
foreign
war
in
Sicily,
and
70,000
in the time of Demosthenes, three times
of them revolted
they
were
calculated
many as the free inhabitants of settlers included. In the Peloponnesian war, as
over to the enemy, as Thucydides tells us. The same author says, that at Chios their number was very considerable, and that
20,000 passed
tlieir
defection,
when
were
afraid of
giving
Athenians, reduced their Home, their multitude was such that a distinctive dress, or uniform, lest it
deserted to the
they
masters to great extremities.
they
211
PSYCHOLOGY OF EPOCHS.
THE
At
them
should make them acquainted with their own overwhelming force. Catiline might have succeeded in his conspiracy, had he but armed the
slaves; only he might very reasonably managing the victory so as to suit their
have
been
of their instead of his. purposes Alaric was determined in his resolution of sacking Rome by a re-inforcement of 40,000 slaves, who ran away from the city, and joined the ranks of the At
barbarians,
the slaves
Tyre,
afraid
own
for the sake of sharing in the expected plunder. up in a body against their masters, and
once rose
massacred them all. The Scythians, on their return from the Median war, found their slaves in rebellion, as Herodotus tells us, in Melpomene, and were obliged to abandon their country to them, or recovered it only after a very severe conflict. Csesar, in his Commentaries, bears witness to their numbers in
great contempt,
Slavery
Gaul;
continued in
version of the Saxons.
the community. them. The
England They
The words
degradation
in this
and Tacitus says the Germans held them in
and counted their lives
nothing.
a
were
villagers, villici, villani,
are
derived from
were held is incomprehensible to us Herodotus says the Scythians deprived account of some disgusting office they had to
in which
period
of the world.
their slaves of
sight on household;
in their
as
considerable time after the conby far the most numerous class of
for
they
and Plutarch
in his
"
Life of that this famous man used to sell his old slaves at any price, to rid himself of the expensive burden of supporting them to the end It was customary to expose slaves who were sick and of their days.
perform
mentions,
Cato,"
perish miserably on an island of the Tiber. They were frequently employed in chains at the most laborious drudgery; and for
useless to trivial
offences,
and
even
on
mere
suspicion,
were
sometimes put to
death under the most horrid tortures. This terrific picture, which has no be
enlarged
without
complaint so justly urged at freedom compared with that of a
counterpart in modern society, might The slavery of our factory system, the present moment, is almost perfect
exaggeration.
the slave in pagan times. They were commodities for traffic and barter in the market-place, where they were exhibited for sale, and trotted out in the same manner as a jockey shows
off the paces of his horse to the best advantage. They varied in price from ten to twenty pounds sterling and upwards. Plato, who was captured by pirates, was ransomed for about
