Our Oriental Heritage

By Will Durant

History of Chinese Writing with these words: "Were I to await
perfection, my book would never be finished."

That is advice to me.

"I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from
barbarism to civilization."
-VOLTAIRE.

CHAPTER I: The Conditions of Civilization

First, geological conditions. Civilization is an
interlude between ice ages:

Civilization begins in the
peasant's hut, but it comes to flower only in the towns.

Let us, before we die, gather up our heritage, and
offer it to our children.

CHAPTER II: The Economic Elements of Civilization

We must make sparing
use of such terms as "savage" and "barbarous" in referring to our
"contemporaneous ancestry." Preferably we shall call "primitive"

I. FROM HUNTING TO TILLAGE

There is a mute wisdom in this improvidence, as
in many "savage" ways. The moment man begins to take thought of the
morrow he passes out of the Garden of Eden into the vale of anxiety;
the pale cast of worry settles down upon him, greed is sharpened,
property begins, and the good cheer of the "thoughtless" native
disappears. The American Negro is making this transition today.

We shall never discover when men first noted the function of the seed,
and turned collecting into sowing; such beginnings are the mysteries
of history, about which we may believe and guess, but cannot know.

Slowly it became apparent that agriculture could provide a better and steadier
food supply than hunting. With that realization man took one of the
three steps that led from the beast to civilization- speech,
agriculture, and writing.

Cooking broke down the cellulose and starch of a thousand plants
indigestible in their raw state, and man turned more and more to
cereals and vegetables as his chief reliance. At the same time
cooking, by softening tough foods, reduced the need of chewing, and
began that decay of the teeth which is one of the insignia of civilization.

In Tahiti an old Polynesian chief explained his diet to Pierre
Loti: "The white man, when well roasted, tastes like a ripe banana."
The Fijians, however, complained that the flesh of the whites was
too salty and tough, and that a European sailor was hardly fit to eat;
a Polynesian tasted better.

When I have slain an enemy," explained a
Brazilian philosopher-chief, "it is surely better to eat him than to
let him waste.... The worst is not to be eaten, but to die; if I am
killed it is all the same whether my tribal enemy eats me or not. But
I could not think of any game that would taste better than he
would.... You whites are really too dainty."

It anticipated Dean Swift's plan for the utilization of superfluous children, and
it gave the old an opportunity to die usefully.

We must respect one another's delusions.

II. THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDUSTRY

Fire-Primitive Tools-Weaving and pottery-Building
and transport-Trade and finance
-
If man began with speech, and civilization with agriculture,
industry began with fire. Man did not invent it; probably nature
produced the marvel for him

Then, perhaps (for most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice), he imitated the
tools and industry of the animal:

Above all, he made himself a stick. It was a modest invention, but its
uses were so varied that man always looked upon it as a symbol of
power and authority, from the wand of the fairies and the staff of the
shepherd to the rod of Moses or Aaron, the ivory cane of the Roman
consul, the lituus of the augurs, and the mace of the magistrate
or the king.

in all probability weaving was one of the earliest arts
of the human race.

Weaving lead to basketry

Akin to basketry, perhaps born of it, was the art of pottery. Clay
placed upon wickerwork to keep the latter from being burned, hardened
into a fireproof shell

Only three further developments were needed for primitive man to
create all the essentials of economic civilization: the mechanisms
of transport, the processes of trade, and the medium of exchange.

a people may be enabled, by the development of specific
talents, or by its proximity to needed materials, to produce certain
articles more cheaply than its neighbors. Of such articles it makes
more than it consumes, and offers its surplus to other peoples in
exchange for their own; this is the origin of trade.

Our own words capital, chattel and cattle go back through the French to the Latin
capitale, meaning property: and this in turn derives from caput,
meaning head-i.e., of cattle.

III. ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION

Primitive communism-Causes of its disappearanceOrigins
of private property-Slavery-Classes
-
Trade was the great disturber of the primitive world, for until it
came, bringing money and profit in its wake, there was no property,
and therefore little government.

When Turner told a Samoan about the poor in London the "savage" asked in
astonishment: "How is it? No food? No friends? No house to live in?
Where did he grow? Are there no houses belonging to his
friends?" `010238 The hungry Indian had but to ask to receive; no
matter how small the supply was, food was given him if he needed it;
"no one can want food while there is corn anywhere in the
town."

What is extremely surprising," reports a missionary, "is to see
them treat one another with a gentleness and consideration which one
does not find among common people in the most civilized nations. This,
doubtless, arises from the fact that the words 'mine' and 'thine,'
which St. Chrysostom says extinguish in our hearts the fire of charity
and kindle that of greed, are unknown to these savages."

Why did this primitive communism disappear as men rose to what we,
with some partiality, call civilization? Sumner believed that
communism proved unbiological, a handicap in the struggle for
existence; that it gave insufficient stimulus to inventiveness,
industry and thrift; and that the failure to reward the more able, and
punish the less able, made for a leveling of capacity which was
hostile to growth or to successful competition with other
groups.

The characteristic laziness of primitive peoples had its origin,
presumably, in this habit of slowly recuperating from the fatigue of
battle or the chase; it was not so much laziness as rest. To transform
this spasmodic activity into regular work two things were needed:
the routine of tillage, and the organization of labor.

The rise of agriculture and the inequality of men led to the employment of the
socially weak by the socially strong; not till then did it occur to
the victor in war that the only good prisoner is a live one.
Butchery and cannibalism lessened, slavery grew.

It was a great moral improvement when men ceased to kill or eat their
fellowmen, and merely made them slaves.

Inheritance added superior opportunity to superior
possessions, and stratified once homogeneous societies into a maze
of classes and castes. Rich and poor became disruptively conscious
of wealth and poverty; the class war began to run as a red thread
through all history;

CHAPTER III: The Political Elements of Civilization

I. THE ORIGINS OF GOVERNMENT
-
The unsocial instinct-Primitive anarchismThe
clan and the tribe-The king-War
-
MAN is not willingly a political animal. The human male associates
with his fellows less by desire than by habit, imitation, and the
compulsion of circumstance; he does not love society so much as he
fears solitude.

It is war that makes the chief, the king and the state, just as it
is these that make war.