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He defines civility to be "1. Freedom from barbarity, the state of being civilized. 2. Politeness, complaisance, elegance of behaviour." To civilize, according to Johnson, is "to reclaim from savageness and brutality; to instruct in the arts of regular life:" a civilizer, is "he that reclaims others from a wild and savage life; he that teaches the rules and customs of civility."

When Johnson published his dictionary, civilization had not become an established word in its modern acceptation. Johnson inserts it, but assigns to it only the legal sense of converting a criminal into a civil proceeding. It occurs in Robertson and Warton; and is used by Burke in his Reflections on the French Revolution. In the Dictionnaire de l'Académie, ed. 1835, 'civiliser' is defined 'rendre civil et sociable, polir les mœurs;' and 'civilisation' is 'action de civiliser, ou état de ce qui est civilisé.'

The preceding definitions from dictionaries are naturally too concise to explain fully the signification of the word; and I will therefore attempt to develope more at large the import of civilization, as it is now commonly understood.

A civilized being opposed to a savage or barbarous state of society, it is necessary that the characteristics of both states should be attended to.

1. The idea of civilization (as we have already seen in the history of the word) is closely connected with the idea of civil government. A community cannot be civilized, unless it possesses a settled form of government, with a regular administration of justice; and unless the powers of government are exercised in a tolerably mild, humane, and enlightened manner. A society in a state of nature could not be civilized. In like manner, if a civilized society relapsed into a state of anarchy, it would cease to be civilized. An illustration of the intimate connexion between civilization and the existence of civil government is afforded by the well-known anecdote of the man shipwrecked upon an unknown shore, who, on seeing a dead body hanging upon a gibbet, thanked heaven that he was in a civilized country. This sight, however little pleasing it might be under ordinary circumstances, was on this occasion consolatory, inasmuch as it implied an administration of criminal justice, and the punishment of malefactors.

If a government is conducted in a violent and ferocious spirit, and its measures are characterized by short-sighted rapacity and gross indifference to the lives and welfare of the people, it would be called barbarian, and it would be contrasted unfavourably with

the governments of civilized countries. Hence, as a country becomes more civilized, its government becomes more enlightened and humane; and possesses more of the characteristic excellencies of a government. On the other hand, a community which retrogrades in civilization (as the Roman empire after the age of the Antonines) deteriorates in respect of its government; it is governed with less wisdom, energy, and equity.

A civilized man may be contrasted with a savage; but civilization is in general predicated of a community, or of a body of men, and not of a single individual.

2. Another important element in civilization is a proficiency in the arts and sciences, and in literature. A savage state of society is particularly characterized by an ignorance of the useful arts; such as writing, weaving, architecture, navigation, agriculture, medicine, war. All historians and travellers who describe savage communities, and contrast their state with civilization, dwell upon their ignorance of the useful arts. Thus Gibbon, in his description of the ancient Germans, after having stated that in the age of Tacitus they were unacquainted with the art of writing, proceeds to remark that "the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection"." Afterwards he adds, that "the ancient Germans were wretchedly ignorant of the useful and agreeable arts of life. They passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty, which it has pleased some declaimers to dignify with the appellation of virtuous simplicity"." In like manner, the change from the savage to the civilized state is in general made to consist chiefly in the acquisition of the useful arts. Thus Prometheus in Eschylus describes himself as having found mankind in a condition scarcely superior to that of the brute animals, and having taught them the risings and settings of the stars, arithmetic and letters, the taming of horses, navigation, medicine, divination, and metallurgy: he sums up his enumeration as follows:

βραχεῖ δὲ μύθῳ πάντα συλλήβδην μάθε,
πᾶσαι τέχναι βροτοῖσιν ἐκ Προμηθέως.

v. 514-5.

So again Lucretius describing, in his 5th book, the progress of mankind from barbarism to civilization, makes that progress

3 Decline and Fall, c. ix. (Vol. 1. p. 282.)

4 Ib. p. 283.

consist in the introduction of civil government, and the acquisition
of the arts. The following is a part of his picture of savage life:
Necdum res igni scibant tractare, neque uti
Pellibus, et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum:

Sed nemora atque cavos montes, sylvasque colebant;
Et frutices inter condebant squallida membra,
Verbera ventorum vitare imbresque coacti.
Nec commune bonum poterant spectare, neque ullis
Moribus inter se scierant nec legibus uti.

V. 951-7.

The progress of civilization is thus described: Navigia atque agriculturas, mœnia, leges, Arma, vias, vestes, et cætera de genere horum Præmia, delicias quoque vitæ funditus omnes, Carmina, picturas ac dædala signa, politus Usus, et impigræ simul experientia mentis, Paullatim docuit pedetentim progredientes. Sic unum quidquid paullatim protrahit ætas In medium, ratioque in luminis erigit oras. Namque alid ex alio clarescere corde videbant Artibus, ad summum donec venere cacumen. When it is attempted to civilize a barbarous or semi-barbarous people, the first means which commonly suggest themselves consist in the introduction of useful arts and mechanical inventions; such, for example, as the use of gunpowder, printing, the mariner's compass, the steam-engine, &c.

Ib. 1447-56°.

In order that a community should deserve the name of civilized, it is necessary that a knowledge of the mechanical arts should be generally diffused throughout it, and that their effects should be visible in the habitations, clothing, implements, &c. of the people over the whole country.

The fine arts and literature are perhaps less characteristic of civilization than are the useful arts. Still, so far as their influence extends, they are inconsistent with barbarism, and tend to raise the people from it. The Greeks in Homer's time had but imperfect civil institutions; their mechanical arts were simple and rude; and they were, in all probability, ignorant of writing.

The mention of roads amongst the marks of civilization is characteristic of the Roman; and is worthy of notice at so early a date as that of Lucretius. Wakefield cites the verses of Tibullus, who makes the formation of long lines of road a mark of the existing state of society, as contrasted with the golden

age:

Quam bene Saturno vivebant rege, priusquam
Tellus in longas est patefacta vias. (1.3.35).
• Compare Lucian, Amores, c. 33, 34,
who in like manner makes the progress
of mankind from barbarism to civiliza-
tion consist mainly in the introduction
and improvement of the arts.

They can, therefore, scarcely be considered to have been a civilized nation at that time; yet the existence of such poems as those of Homer, and the capacity of the people to enjoy them, were both a sign and a cause of progressive civilization.

Generally, it may be said that an advance in civilization is. marked by an increased culture of the understanding, and a higher state of intelligence: whilst ignorance, stupor, apathy, and unreasonable credulity or scepticism, are characteristics of barbarism.

3. Civilization is further distinguished by refinement and gentleness of manners in the relations of private society, and generally by a humane spirit in the intercourse of mankind. According to the verses of Ovid, (which by repeated quotation have acquired the weight of a proverb,) the acquisition of the liberal arts softens the manners, and banishes coarseness; so that refinement and humanity are closely connected with intellectual culture, though not identical with it.

Barbarians are rude and coarse in their manners, and sensual and brutish in their habits. They are moreover quarrelsome, vindictive, cruel, and ferocious. Thus the comic poet describes the animal propensities of barbarians:

οἱ βάρβαροι γὰρ ἄνδρας ἡγοῦνται μόνους

τοὺς πλεῖστα δυναμένους φαγεῖν τε καὶ πιεῖν.

And Tacitus, favourable as is his picture of the Germans, cannot conceal their long potations, often accompanied with bloodshed: (Germ. 22.) Savages likewise are distinguished by their inhumanity towards the weak and unprotected, as prisoners taken in war: for a like reason they in general treat their women as slaves. The existence of a different usage in the latter respect among the ancient Germans, is one of the sparks of civilization which can be discerned in the midst of their primitive rudeness.

On the other hand, a civilized people are distinguished by refinement and gentleness of manners, by the avoidance of all that offends or gives pain in the intercourse of private life. Accordingly, the feelings which have grown out of the customs and ideas of chivalry; the character of a gentleman, and the general behaviour which this character implies; belong peculiarly to civilization. And thus the word civility, which formerly bore the present meaning of civilization, has, in the modern European languages, become synonymous with courtesy.

Humanity, in an enlarged sense, is certainly a characteristic of civilization, though some civilized nations have not possessed it in an eminent degree. In the project for civilizing Africa by means of the Niger expedition, (one of the projects to which the Quarterly Reviewer appears to refer), it was assumed, that if the native tribes acquired the habits of civilization, they would disuse the practice of mutual warfare for the purpose of making slaves. Civilization therefore, in the view of the framers of this plan, was thought (and justly) to imply such an amount of intelligence and humanity as would deter the native tribes from the atrocious wars which they now wage against one another, with the object just stated. The plan would doubtless have been successful, if the native Africans could have been civilized by the means which were employed to civilize them.

If a community possesses the three marks which have been enumerated, it may properly be considered as civilized, whatever may be its moral or religious state. And accordingly civilization is often, if not opposed to morality or religion, at least distinguished from them. For example, it might be said that the upper classes in some of the chief countries of Europe during the last century were highly civilized, but not moral or religious. On the other hand, many writers have celebrated the virtues of savages; and have supposed that the primitive simplicity, which characterizes the state of nature, is eminently favourable to morality. Thus Ovid, while he rejoices that he lived in a polished and luxurious age, probably would not have doubted the stern virtues of the rude times which had passed:

Prisca juvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum

Gratulor; hæc ætas moribus apta meis.

Non quia nunc, &c.

Sed quia cultus adest; nec nostros mansit in annos

Rusticitas priscis illa superstes avis. De A. A. III. 121-8. And writers who would not have shared in the imaginations of Rousseau, have thought that the refinements of civilization are dangerous to some of the virtues". It is however to be remarked that the gentleness and refinement of manners which characterize

7 "Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most

dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes," &c. Gibbon, c. 9. Compare Dante, Parad. xv. 97-135.

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