To many philologists, including some who still hold that the probabilities favour an Asiatic origin of the race, it now seems advisable to adopt a name of less doubtful import, and of late it has become quite usual to substitute for the word “Aryan” the compound word “Indo-European,” or, what is perhaps better, “Indo-Germanic.” Such a word, it is clear, summarises the fact that the Indians in the far East and the Germanic race in the far West have a language that is fundamentally the same, without connoting any theory whatever as to the origin or other relations of these widely scattered peoples. The name thus has an undoubted scientific status that makes it attractive, but nevertheless it is too cumbersome to be accepted at once as a substitute for the word “Aryan” in ordinary usage. Nor, indeed does there seem to be any good reason why such substitution should be made. Words very generally come in the course of time to have an application which their original derivation would not at all justify, and there is no more reason for ruling out the word “Aryan,” even should it be proven absolutely that Asia was not the original cradle of the Indo-Germanic race, than there would be for discarding a very large number of words of Greek and Latin derivation that are familiarly employed in the various modern European languages. Indeed, it may be taken for granted that the generality of people to whom the word “Aryan” is familiar have no such preconception aroused in their minds by the word as it conveys to the mind of special scholars, and in any event where a distinct disavowal is made of any ethnological preconceptions in connection with the word, one is surely justified for convenience sake in continuing to use the word “Aryan” as a synonym for the more complicated term “Indo-Germanic.”
CHAPTER VI
ON PREHISTORIC CULTURE
It has been said that history proper is usually regarded as having to do solely with the deeds of civilised man, but in point of fact the scope of history as written at the present day necessarily falls far short of comprehending the entire history of civilisation. Before the dawn of recorded history man had evolved to a stage in which the greater number of the greatest arts had been attained. That is to say, he was possessed of articulate language. He had learned to clothe and to house himself. He knew the use of fire. He could manufacture implements of war and of peace. He had surrounded himself with domesticated animals. He added to his food supply by practising agriculture. He had established systems of government. He knew how to embellish his surroundings by the practice of painting and of decorative architecture, and last, and perhaps greatest, he had invented the art of writing, and carried it far toward perfection.
With the development of these arts history proper is not concerned, but this is not because the development of these arts would not constitute true history if its course were known, but simply because of our entire ignorance of all details of the subject.
In order to gain a clearer idea, however, of the status of human culture at the dawn of history proper, it may be worth while to glance in the most cursory way at each of the great inventions and developments upon which the entire structure of civilisation depends.
First. Language.
Perhaps the greatest single step ever made in the history of man’s upward progress was taken when the practice of articulate speech began. It would be contrary to all that we know of human evolution to suppose that this development was a sudden one, or that it transformed a non-human into a human species at a sudden vault. It is well known that many of the lower animals are able to communicate with one another in a way that implies at least a vague form of speech, and it has been questioned whether the higher species of apes do not actually articulate in a way strictly comparable to the vocalisation of man. Be that as it may, the clear fact remains that one species of animal did at a very remote time in the past develop the power of vocalisation in the direction of articulate speech to a degree that in course of time broadened the gap between that species and all others, till it became an impassable chasm.
Without language of an explicit kind not even the rudiments of civilisation would be possible. No one perhaps ever epitomised the value of articulate speech in a single phrase more tellingly than does Herder when he says: “The lyre of Amphion has not built cities. No magic wand has transformed deserts into gardens. Language has done it,—that great source of sociality.”
Obviously, then, could we know the history of the evolution of articulate speech it would be one of the very greatest chapters in all human records; but it is equally obvious that we can never hope to know that history except inferentially. When the dawn of history proper came, man had so long practised speaking that he had developed countless languages so widely divergent from one another that they are easily classified into several great types. From the study of these languages the philologist draws more or less valid inferences as to the later stages of linguistic growth and development. But he gains no inklings whatever as to any of those earlier developments which constituted the origin or the creation of language.
Second. Clothing and Housing of Prehistoric Man.
Nothing is more surprising to the student of antiquity than to find at what seems the very beginning of civilisation such monuments as the Pyramids and the great sculptures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. But a moment’s reflection makes it clear that man must have learned to house himself, as well as to clothe himself, before he can have started on that tour of conquest of the world which was so far advanced before the dawn of history. Doubtless the original home of man must have been in a tropical or subtropical climate, and he cannot well have left these pampering regions until he had made a considerable development, almost the first step of which required that he should gain the means of protecting himself from the cold. The idea of such protection once acquired, its elaboration was but a question of time. It is amazing to observe how closely, both as regards attire and building, man had approximated to the modern standards at the time when he first produced monumental or other records that have come down to us.
Third. The Use of Fire.
Quite as fundamental as the matter of housing and clothing, and even more marvellous, considered as an invention, was the recognition of the uses of fire, and the development of the methods of producing fire at will. It is conceivable that some individual man at a relatively early stage of human progress developed and elaborated this idea, becoming the actual inventor of fire as applied to human uses. If such was really the case, no greater inventor ever lived. But the wildest flight of speculative imagination does not suffice to suggest where or when this man may have lived. It cannot well be doubted, however, that the use of fire must have been well known to the earliest generations of men that attempted to wander far from the tropics. Clothed, housed, and provided with fire, man was able to undertake the conquest of all regions, but without fire he dare not have braved the winters even of the middle latitudes, to say nothing of Arctic regions.
No doubt the earliest method of producing fire practically employed was by friction of dry sticks, much after the manner still in use among certain savage tribes. Obviously the flint and steel, which for so many thousands of years was to be the sole practical means of producing fire among the civilised races, could not have come into vogue until the age of iron. The lucifer match, which was finally to banish flint and steel, was an invention of the nineteenth century.