Читать книгу Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading - George Park Fisher - Страница 41

In Eastern Asia the Chinese nation was built up, the principal achievement of the Mongolian race. Its influence was restricted to neighboring peoples of kindred blood. Its civilization, having once attained to a certain stage of progress, remained for the most part stationary. China, in its isolation, exerted no power upon the general course of history. Not until a late age, when the civilization of the Caucasian race should be developed, was the culture of China to produce, in the mingling of the European and Asiatic peoples, its full fruits, even for China herself. India—although the home of a Caucasian immigrant people, a people of the Aryan family too—was cut off by special causes from playing an effective part, either actively or passively, in the general historic movement.

Egypt, from 1500 to 1300 B.C., was the leading community of the ancient world. But civilization in Egypt, at an early date, crystallized in an unchanging form. The aim was to preserve unaltered what the past had brought out. The bandaged mummy, the result of the effort to preserve even the material body of man for all future time, is a type of the leaden conservatism which pervaded Egyptian life. The pre-eminence of Egypt was lost by the rise of the Semitic states to increasing power. Semitic arms and culture were in the ascendant for six centuries (1300 to 700 B.C.). Babylonia shares with Egypt the distinction of being one of the two chief fountains of culture. From Babylonia, astronomy, writing, and other useful arts were disseminated among the other Semitic peoples. It was a strong state even before 2000 B.C. Babylon was a hive of industry, and was active in trade, a link of intercourse between the East and the West. But this function of an intermediate was discharged still more effectively by the Phoenicians, the first great commercial and naval power of antiquity. Tyre reached the acme of its prosperity under Hiram, the contemporary of Solomon, about 1000 B.C. Meantime, among the Hebrew people, the foundations of the true religion had been laid—that religion of monotheism which in future ages was to leaven the nations. Contemporaneously, the Assyrian Monarchy was rising to importance on the banks of the Tigris. The appearance, "in the first half of the ninth century B.C., of a power advancing from the heart of Asia towards the West, is an event of immeasurable importance in the history of the world." The Israelites were divided. About the middle of the eighth century B.C., both of their kingdoms lost their independence. Assyria was vigorous in war, but had no deep foundation of national life. "Its religion was not rooted in the soil, like that of Egypt, nor based on the observation of the sky and stars, like that of Babylon." "Its gods were gods of war, manifesting themselves in the prowess of ruling princes." The main instrument in effecting the downfall of Assyria was the Medo-Persian power. Through the Medes and Persians, the Aryan race comes forward into conspicuity and control. One branch of the Iranians of Bactria, entering India, through the agency of climate and other physical influences converted their religion into a mystical and speculative pantheism, and their social organization into a caste-system under the rule of a priesthood. The Medes and Persians, under other circumstances, in contact with tribes about them, turned their religion into a dualism, yet with a monotheistic drift that was not wholly extinguished. The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus annihilated Semitic power. The fall of Lydia, the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, and the victories of Darius, brought the world into subjection to Persian rule.

The dates of some of the most important historical events in this

Section are as follow

Menes, the first historic king of Egypt … … about 4000 B.C.

Accession of Ramses II. to the Egyptian throne … … 1340 B.C.

Rise of the Babylonian kingdom … … … … … about 4000 B.C.

Reign of Hiram at Tyre, and of Solomon … . … . about 950 B.C.

Assyrian captivity: downfall of Israel … … … … … 722 B.C.

Fall of Nineveh … … … … … … … … … … … . … . 606 B.C.

Babylonian captivity: downfall of Judah … … … . … . 586 B.C.

Reign of Cyrus begins … … … … … … … … … . … . 559 B.C.

Fall of Lydia: capture of Sardis … … … … … … … 546 B.C.

Fall of Babylon … … … … … … … … … … … . … . 538 B.C.

Reign of Darius begins … … … … … … … … … . … 521 B.C.

BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION.—In the history of Western Asia we discern the beginnings of civilization and of the true religion. In the room of useless and destructive tribal warfare, great numbers are banded together under despotic rule. CITIES were built, where property and life could be protected, and within whose massive walls of vast circumference the useful arts and the rudiments of science could spring up. Trade and commerce, by land and sea, naturally followed. Thus nations came to know one another. Aggressive war and subjugation had a part in the same result. The power of the peoples of western Asia, the guardians of infant civilization, availed to keep back the hordes of barbarians on the north, or, as in the case of the great Scythian invasion (p. 47), to drive them back to their own abodes.

DEFECTS OF ASIATIC CIVILIZATION.—But the civilization of the Asiatic empires had radical and fatal defects. The development of human nature was in some one direction, to the exclusion of other forms of human activity. As to knowledge, it was confined within a limit beyond which progress was slow. The geometry of Egypt and the astronomy of Babylon remained where the necessity of the pyramid-builders and the superstition of the astrologers had carried them. Even the art of war was in a rudimental stage. In battle, huge multitudes were precipitated upon one another. There are some evidences of strategy, when we reach the campaigns of Cyrus. But war was full of barbarities—the destruction of cities, the expatriation of masses of people, the pitiless treatment of captives. Architecture exhibits magnitude without elegance. Temples, palaces, and tombs are monuments of labor rather than creations of art. They impress oftener by their size than by their beauty. Statuary is inert and massive, and appears inseparable from the buildings to which it is attached. Literature, with the exception of the Hebrew, is hardly less monotonous than art. The religion of the Semitic nations, the Hebrews excepted, so far from containing in it a purifying element, tended to degrade its votaries by feeding the flame of sensual and revengeful passion. What but debasement could come from the worship of Astarte and the Phoenician El?

The great empires did not assimilate the nations which they comprised. They were bound, but not in the least fused, together. Persia went farther than any other empire in creating a uniform administration, but even the Persian Empire remained a conglomerate of distinct peoples.

ORIENTAL GOVERNMENT.—The government of the Oriental nations was a despotism. It was not a government of laws, but the will of the one master was omnipotent. The counterpart of tyranny in the ruler was cringing, abject servility in the subject. Humanity could not thrive, man could not grow to his full stature, under such a system. It was on the soil of Europe and among the Greeks that a better type of manhood and a true idea of liberty were to spring up.