Du développement intellectuel acquis en Asie, sous différents degrés de latitude, par des peuples d’

CHAP. 11: > Of the intellectual development acquired in Asia, under different degrees of latitude, by peoples of the Mongolian species and by peoples of the Caucasian species.

There is no part of the globe on which the influence of places, waters, and the temperature of the atmosphere on nations has manifested itself with more evidence and energy than in Asia. It is there that one encounters, more than anywhere else, peoples who have reached all degrees of civilization, and that one can best observe the action that nations exercise upon one another.

Geographers have divided Asia into five great physical regions. The central region, which embraces an expanse of about twenty degrees of latitude and fifty degrees of longitude, is composed of an immense plateau above which rise mountains covered with eternal snows. The elevation of this part of Asia above sea level is proven less by the measurements of travelers than by the sterility of the soil, by the intensity of the cold that reigns there in all seasons, and by the numerous and immense rivers that flow from it on all sides.

To the north of this vast plateau is a still vaster region; it is Siberia or northern Asia, which extends from the fiftieth degree to the glacial sea. This region, watered by numerous rivers, is as cold and no less sterile than central Asia. The winds that blow there are always icy, because they arrive only after having crossed the Glacial Sea, or after having passed over the snows with which the mountains are eternally covered.

The eastern region merges insensibly with the central plateau, and is itself divided into three parts. The first, which is a broad chain of mountains partly covered with snow in all seasons of the year, extends from the plateau of Mongolia to Korea. To the north of these mountains, the Amur turns first toward the southeast, and then toward the northeast. The soil here appears very elevated, if one judges by the rigorous cold that reigns there. This part of the country resembles northern Asia. The second part of this region is China, which, by its position and the proximity in which it finds itself to the mountains, contains all the climates of Europe. The third part is formed by a prodigious chain of volcanic islands and peninsulas, whose climate is analogous to the part of the continent to which they correspond.

The southern region, which rests to the south of the central plateau, is placed in large part under the torrid zone. Shielded from the north winds by the mountains of Tibet, watered by broad and numerous rivers, heated by an ardent sun, but which is tempered by the winds that come from the side of the Ocean, this region contains the most fertile soil of Asia: it is Hindustan.

Finally, the western region, by the nature of its soil and by the proximity in which it finds itself to Africa, is in large part under a sky even more ardent than that of India. It contains Persia, Asia Minor, and Arabia [290].

The order in which the intellectual faculties of peoples have developed appears to correspond in every respect to the physical nature of each of these principal regions. The numerous hordes that inhabit the central plateau of Asia, placed on an immutable soil, have remained immutable like it. They still live as they always lived, by hunting, fishing, and the milk of their herds. Attached to the vagabond life that the nature of their deserts has made a necessity for them, they despise agriculture, a sedentary life, and especially residing in cities. Nothing so much resembles the men of the first ages, an historian has said, as the Tartars of our own [291].

The peoples who inhabit the north of Asia and the icy banks of the rivers that flow toward the arctic pole are as barbarous as those who inhabit the central plateau. Some travelers have called them the Hottentots of the north; others have compared them to the most savage peoples of America. The Russians, who have succeeded without difficulty in subjugating them, have established a few small towns on some points of these vast lands, and cultivate some cereals there. But they will never succeed in changing either the nature of the soil, or the temperature of the climate, or the direction of the rivers; and as long as nature remains immutable, the peoples will be obliged to preserve their way of life [292].

The northeastern part of Asia, subject to Russia for more than a century, has not emerged and will probably never emerge from the barbarism in which it was at the moment of the conquest. One still perceives in Kamchatka neither gardens, nor meadows, nor plantations, nor enclosures that announce any cultivation, although the land there is very fertile. One finds there not a beaten path, or even a simple trail, on which one can walk without danger. One sees there only a few miserable huts falling into ruin, yurts or subterranean dwellings, and a few beams over which one crosses streams. These are the only progress that civilization has made there; for the industry of the inhabitants is still limited to the art of catching a few wild beasts whose furs they sell, and the fish that is necessary for their food [293].

The coasts of Tartary are so sparsely inhabited that some travelers have thought them to be completely deserted [294]. However, the men who have been encountered there are a little more advanced than the inhabitants of Kamchatka, placed under a colder climate. They draw from hunting and fishing all their means of existence; but they exchange a part of their products for some merchandise from China. These peoples are so few in number, and their objects of exchange are so restricted, that on coasts that have a length of more than two thousand leagues, one would not succeed in completing the cargo of a three-hundred-ton vessel [295]. Their clothing is made of dog or fish skins, and sometimes of nankeen [296]. Their huts are made of fir trunks, and covered with tree bark. The climate there is so cold that snow falls in the middle of summer.

One cannot follow the gradations that civilization follows on these coasts from the coldest climate to the temperate climate, because the travelers who present themselves there are repelled by the agents of the Chinese government [297]. The islands located at the boreal extremity of these seas, between the Asian continent and the American continent, have, at an equal latitude, a less cold temperature than either of the two continents. The islanders are stronger, and have more developed intelligence than the inhabitants of these two lands placed at the same latitudes. They are more skilled at forming their fishing and hunting instruments; they have canoes with which they navigate a great distance; they have chiefs who render justice among them, and the population of their villages is quite numerous [298].

The inhabitants of Sakhalin Island, placed at the same latitude as the Tartars of whom we have just spoken, but under a less cold temperature, are very superior to them in intelligence as in physical strength [299]. Although they are not very far from Japan and China, they have never been subjugated. These peoples do not cultivate the land and possess no herds. They find, in hunting and fishing and in some plants that grow without cultivation, their principal means of existence. But they show themselves, in this regard, as skillful as they are provident; they have, next to their huts, storehouses in which they gather, during the summer, all their winter provisions: dried fish, oil, and various plants that they have the art of preserving [300]. They know how to spin the hair of animals; they draw thread from the bark of the willow or the great nettle, and form fabrics from it by means of the shuttle. These fabrics and the skins of various animals serve to form their clothing [301]. Their huts are constructed with intelligence, and covered with dried straw, like the thatch of our peasants' houses in some parts of France. Finally, they showed great curiosity for all the new objects that struck their gaze.

"Our arts, our fabrics," says La Pérouse, "attracted the attention of these islanders; they turned our fabrics over in every direction; they discussed them among themselves, and sought to discover by what means one had succeeded in making them [302]."

The inhabitants of Yesso Island, a few degrees closer to the south, seem to have made a little more progress. Their subjugation to the Japanese excludes foreigners from their country, and leaves them little means of judging them. However, one sees among them some fields of maize and millet [303], which one does not encounter among the peoples of the same race more advanced toward the north.

The islands of Japan, still closer to the south and placed between the forty-first and thirty-second degree of the same latitude, enjoy a civilization so ancient that we are ignorant of its origin. The population of these islands, which is estimated at fifteen to thirty million, had already made very great progress in the arts, in commerce, and especially in agriculture, when the Europeans visited it for the first time.

About ten degrees south of Japan, there are islands where civilization appears more advanced still. The traveler who visited them was not permitted to traverse their interior; but the manner in which he was received by the inhabitants, the cleanliness of their houses and their furniture; the richness of their clothing; the eagerness with which they furnished him all that he asked of them; the disinterestedness with which they gave him the provisions of all kinds that he needed for his crew, announce a people very far from barbarism. It is doubtful whether unknown travelers who presented themselves in a state of distress, in any port of Europe whatsoever, would receive a welcome so hospitable, so benevolent [304].

The peoples who inhabit the cold regions of Asia have therefore never ceased to be barbarous; those, on the contrary, who are placed under the torrid zone or under a temperate zone, have a civilization so ancient that we have no means of knowing its origin. The progress of these peoples dating back to an era more remote than the oldest of our historical monuments, it is impossible for us to know what course civilization has followed among them. Did the faculties of the human mind develop at the same time among the Hindus, the Chinese, the Persians, and the peoples of western Asia; or did one of these peoples precede all the others, and share its enlightenment with them? This is what we are ignorant of and what we probably will never know; but we can affirm at least, without fear of being mistaken, that none of these peoples was enlightened, either by the inhabitants of central Asia, or by those of boreal Asia.

The Hindus appear to have made no progress for nearly two thousand years. It is not a question here of knowing why they have remained stationary; that is a phenomenon of which I may indicate some of the causes elsewhere. I wish only to observe that this people had made immense progress before any of the nations that inhabit the temperate climates of Europe had emerged from barbarism. If we compare those of the products of its industry that commerce brings to us, to those given by French and English industry, it is probable that the latter will appear preferable to us. But if we go back three centuries, we will find a difference that will be no less remarkable, and it will not be in our favor. Finally, if we wish to see a still greater difference, we have only to compare the industry and knowledge of the Hindus to the industry and knowledge of the peoples of Tibet.

The civilization of the Chinese is equally very ancient; we can judge some of the products of their industry, since commerce places them at our disposal; but it is nevertheless very difficult for us to determine to what point the intellectual faculties of the mass of the population have been developed in that country. The travelers who recently visited it, and who are those whose accounts could have inspired the most confidence in us, were admitted there only under the most severe surveillance. Obliged to confine themselves to the houses that were assigned to them, constantly accompanied in their excursions by agents of the Chinese government, able to communicate with the inhabitants of the country only in the presence of these agents, it is difficult for them to have acquired much knowledge by themselves; and one cannot believe that men who inspired such mistrust, and who were not able to make a long sojourn in the country, obtained impartial communications on the state and morals of the population. It is equally difficult to judge the interior of China by the reports of travelers or merchants who are admitted to the port of Canton. It has been said, with reason, that this would be to wish to judge the interior of a convent by what one has seen in the parlor. However, as imperfect as our knowledge is in this regard, it is easy to judge that there is no comparison to be made between the intellectual development to which the peoples of this immense country have attained, and the peoples of the same species who inhabit the central plateau or the north of Asia [305].

The Chinese have long had the reputation of being the most skillful people in the world in the art of agriculture. The recent progress that this art has made among some nations of Europe has caused the praises given to the skill of this people by the first European travelers who visited it to be accused of exaggeration. But, admitting that there exists a small number of points in Europe where cultivation is more advanced than it is in any part of Asia, it is doubtful whether one would find a great people that puts more care and intelligence into the cultivation of its lands. Nowhere does one find such numerous canals for the facility of irrigation and transport; nowhere are fertilizers collected with more care; nowhere does one see so little uncultivated land, nor fields better cultivated. At the recent period when Macartney visited this country, each field, according to him, had the air of a clean and regular garden [306]. There is no part of Europe where a prince renders to agriculture honors analogous to those rendered to it, every year, by the Chinese emperors, and where soldiers are employed in the cultivation of the fields, except in the short intervals during which they are on duty [307].

It appears that one does not find in China those great landowners, those rich farmers who conduct vast operations, and who can employ in agriculture the best machines, the finest and best livestock [308]. But, if the lands are a little less productive as a result of a great division, would this disadvantage not be more than compensated for by a more equal distribution of the products? Are not a hundred families living in modest comfort worth more than one family overflowing with superfluities, plus ninety-nine families who lack the necessities? These immense properties that we judge so favorable to agriculture hardly exist except in countries where the laboring population has been despoiled by a race of conquerors. They may be a subject of pride for the descendants of the men who seized them; but how could they be a subject of vanity for the children of those from whom they were stolen? The Chinese, like all European peoples, have been subjected to a foreign race; but, after the defeat, they were neither stripped of their lands, nor attached to the soil. They have not thus acquired the advantages of large properties; but they have not experienced their disadvantages either. One does not see among them, says Macartney, those speculator farmers who seek by monopolies to make a great profit from their harvest and to triumph, by their wealth, over the poor cultivator, until they have finally reduced him to the state of a simple laborer [309].The Chinese lack neither genius to conceive, nor skill to execute; they have a lively mind and a quick conception; they possess the talent for imitation to the highest degree [310]. They are so active and so industrious that, in the Dutch colony of Batavia, they alone exercise all the arts and all the trades [311]. There do not exist in China, as in some European states, large capitalists who have multitudes of workers laboring on their account, and there are very few manufacturing towns. In general, each person exercises his profession on his own account [312]. But might this state of industry be due to the fact that there have never been, in the country, those monopolies that enrich a few individuals at the expense of the mass of the population? Might it be due to other causes that result in fortunes being more equal than they are among us? Travelers are silent on these questions, and I will not attempt to resolve them; I will confine myself to observing that large movable fortunes are often produced by causes analogous to those that have produced most of the large territorial fortunes.

The sciences do not appear to make the same progress in China as in some European states; there are some that are even completely unknown there [313]; but if knowledge there is less deep, it is perhaps more equally spread. One finds, in each city, besides an audience hall where anyone who has a complaint to bring is heard, and a granary for times of scarcity, a library open to all who wish to profit from it, and a college where students are examined [314]. The multiplication of classical works and of writings that belong to light literature keeps the presses in continual activity. Finally, to attain power, honors, and all kinds of public employment, there is no other path than the study of politics, history, and morality [315].

There is, in China, one art whose imperfection has struck European travelers: it is architecture. In general, the houses there have only one story; ministers are no better lodged there than are the servants of great houses among us; the emperor's dwelling, if it were stripped of the gold and ornaments that decorate it, would not be much above a fine barn [316]. This inferiority of architecture may be due to many causes; but there are two that especially deserve to be remarked: these are the taste and the ideas of the conquering caste. When the nomads of central Asia invaded this country, they lodged their horses in the houses of the members of government, and lodged themselves in their tents; this is a circumstance that the vanquished population has not forgotten, and that it still cites as proof of the barbarism of its conquerors. On the other hand, the domination appears so poorly established that the dominators foresee that they may one day be pushed back to the places that were the cradle of their ancestors. With such tastes and such ideas, it would be difficult for the art of building to make great progress. If the Chinese population, instead of having been subjugated by nomads, had been conquered by our clerks or only by their valets, the simplicity of the dwelling of the great would not today shock our embassy secretaries [317].

Persia, like China, has been conquered several times, and it is from central Asia that its conquerors have almost always come. There exist, therefore, on the same soil, two races of men: the children of those who once put it into cultivation, and the children of those who later descended from the mountains to seize it. To the first belongs the ancient civilization of the country; to the second, its modern barbarism.

The soil of Persia is watered by rivers less numerous and smaller than those of China. There does not exist a single one that is capable of carrying a boat, or of serving as a means of transport [318]. The land there is therefore much less susceptible to cultivation, and if the hand of man ceases to conduct the waters that flow from the mountains, it converts into a desert [319]. However, despite the natural obstacles that the soil presents to cultivation, this country once reached the most flourishing state; the ingenious industry of the inhabitants brought water to all the points where it was possible to conduct it. According to the public registers, one once counted in a single province up to forty-two thousand underground aqueducts. However prodigious this number may appear, it has nothing improbable about it, when one sees that, in another province, a space of sixty years was sufficient to destroy four hundred of them [320].

It would be difficult to determine in an exact manner what the industry of the peoples of this country once was, since the most flourishing of their cities have been overthrown, the greater part of the ruins have disappeared from the surface of the soil, and the plow has passed over the place where they existed [321]. However, what still remains of the ancient capital is sufficient to prove to us that the arts there had been carried to a high degree of perfection [322]. The diverse branches of industry that they cultivated in the seventeenth century, and of which Chardin has transmitted to us the description, were more advanced than they were at the same epoch in any part of Europe [323]. The art with which they still work steel, leather, pottery, silk, and various kinds of fabrics, proves that, in terms of skill and intelligence, they are inferior to no people. The respect they have for commerce far exceeds that which is granted to it in most of the states of Europe [324].

Diverse branches of knowledge once made much progress in Persia, and although the ancient and modern conquerors have caused minds to regress there, they have not been able to extinguish the consideration attached to the cultivation of the sciences and letters. The multitude of educational establishments that exist in all the cities, and the wealth that these establishments possess, prove at least the importance that is attached to instruction. At the time when Chardin visited this country, nothing gave more reputation there than to instruct young people gratuitously, and to favor the sciences. If the first minister was at the same time a man of letters, he took the title of chief of the students. The great who had retired from affairs and those whom disgrace had removed from them, often devoted themselves to public teaching. They gave lessons morning and evening to the young people who wished to hear them, and even furnished them with pecuniary means to pursue their studies [325]. The Persians have had poets who have lacked neither imagination, nor grace, and their maxims of morality prove that they know how to observe and to reflect [326].

The part of western Asia whose soil is little elevated above sea level is placed under a hotter temperature than any country of Europe; but it is also perhaps the part of the world that is most fertile in great memories; it is there that industry, commerce, and all human knowledge had made immense progress, before the European peoples who are today the most civilized had scarcely risen above the savage state; Tyre, Palmyra, Babylon, and so many other famous cities that barbarians have destroyed, but whose memory they could not efface, attest that, under the most ardent climates, peoples lack neither activity nor genius.

Thus, on the vast continent of Asia, the intellectual faculties of peoples have developed only under hot or temperate climates. It is true that the first civilized peoples were enslaved; that conquest brought frightful calamities upon all of them, and that several were even completely destroyed. But if we compare, even in the current state, the nations that are placed under a hot or temperate climate to those that are placed under a cold climate, we will find that in general the former are much more advanced than the latter. Human faculties are more developed among the Hindus than among the inhabitants of Tibet; they are more so in the empire of China, than on the coasts of Tartary, in Kamchatka, on the central plateau of Asia, and in Siberia; they are more so among the Persians than among the inhabitants of independent Tartary and of Little Bukharia; finally they are more so in Anatolia than in the mountains of the Caucasus.