CHAPTER Ⅰ THE TYRANNY OF IGNORANCE

In the year 527 Flavius Anicius Justinianus became ruler of the eastern half of the Roman Empire.

This Serbian peasant (he came from Uskub，the much disputed railroad junction of the late war) had no use for“book learning.”It was by his orders that the ancient Athenian school of philosophy was finally suppressed. And it was he who closed the doors of the only Egyptian temple that had continued to do business centuries after the valley of the Nile had been invaded by the monks of the new Christian faith.

This temple stood on a little island called Philae，not far from the first great waterfall of the Nile. Ever since men could remember，the spot had been dedicated to the worship of Isis and for some curious reason，the Goddess had survived where all her African and Greek and Roman rivals had miserably perished. Until finally，in the sixth century，the island was the only spot where the old and most holy art of picture writing was still understood and where a small number of priests continued to practice a trade which had been forgotten in every other part of the land of Cheops.

And now，by order of an illiterate farmhand，known as His Imperial Majesty，the temple and the adjoining school were declared state property，the statues and images were sent to the museum of Constantinople and the priests and the writing-masters were thrown into jail. And when the last of them had died from hunger and neglect，the age-old trade of making hieroglyphics had become a lost art.

All this was a great pity.

If Justinian (a plague upon his head!) had been a little less thorough and had saved just a few of those old picture experts in a sort of literary Noah's Ark，he would have made the task of the historian a great deal easier. For while (owing to the genius of Champollion) we can once more spell out the strange Egyptian words，it remains exceedingly difficult for us to understand the inner meaning of their message to posterity.

And the same holds true for all other nations of the ancient world.

What did those strangely bearded Babylonians，who left us whole brickyards full of religious tracts，have in mind when they exclaimed piously，“who shall ever be able to understand the counsel of the Gods in Heaven？”How did they feel towards those divine spirits which they invoked so continually，whose laws they endeavored to interpret，whose commands they engraved upon the granite shafts of their most holy city？Why were they at once the most tolerant of men，encouraging their priests to study the high heavens，and to explore the land and the sea，and at the same time the most cruel of executioners，inflicting hideous punishments upon those of their neighbors who had committed some breach of divine etiquette which today would pass unnoticed？

Until recently we did not know.

We sent expeditions to Nineveh，we dug holes in the sand of Sinai and deciphered miles of cuneiform tablets. And everywhere in Mesopotamia and Egypt we did our best to find the key that should unlock the front door of this mysterious store-house of wisdom.

And then，suddenly and almost by accident，we discovered that the back door had been wide open all the time and that we could enter the premises at will.

But that convenient little gate was not situated in the neighborhood of Akkad or Memphis.

It stood in the very heart of the jungle.

And it was almost hidden by the wooden pillars of a pagan temple.

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Our ancestors，in search of easy plunder，had come in contact with what they were pleased to call“wild men”or“savages.”

The meeting had not been a pleasant one.

The poor heathen，misunderstanding the intentions of the white men，had welcomed them with a salvo of spears and arrows.

The visitors had retaliated with their blunderbusses.

After that there had been little chance for a quiet and unprejudiced exchange of ideas.

The savage was invariably depicted as a dirty，lazy，good-for-nothing loafer who worshiped crocodiles and dead trees and deserved all that was coming to him.

Then came the reaction of the eighteenth century. Jean Jacques Rousseau began to contemplate the world through a haze of sentimental tears. His contemporaries，much impressed by his ideas，pulled out their handkerchiefs and joined in the weeping.

The benighted heathen was one of their most favorite subjects. In their hands (although they had never seen one) he became the unfortunate victim of circumstances and the true representative of all those manifold virtues of which the human race had been deprived by three thousand years of a corrupt system of civilization.

Today，at least in this particular field of investigation，we know better.

We study primitive man as we study the higher domesticated animals，from which as a rule he is not so very far removed.

In most instances we are fully repaid for our trouble. The savage，but for the grace of God，is our own self under much less favorable conditions. By examining him carefully we begin to understand the early society of the valley of the Nile and of the peninsula of Mesopotamia and by knowing him thoroughly we get a glimpse of many of those strange hidden instincts which lie buried deep down beneath the thin crust of manners and customs which our own species of mammal has acquired during the last five thousand years.

This encounter is not always flattering to our pride. On the other hand a realization of the conditions from which we have escaped，together with an appreciation of the many things that have actually been accomplished，can only tend to give us new courage for the work in hand and if anything it will make us a little more tolerant towards those among our distant：cousins who have failed to keep up the pace.

This is not a handbook of anthropology.

It is a volume dedicated to the subject of tolerance.

But tolerance is a very broad theme.

The temptation to wander will be great. And once we leave the beaten track，Heaven alone knows where we will land.

I therefore suggest that I be given half a page to state exactly and specifically what I mean by tolerance.

Language is one of the most deceptive inventions of the human race and all definitions are bound to be arbitrary. It therefore behooves an humble student to go to that authority which is accepted as final by the largest number of those who speak the language in which this book is written.

I refer to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

There on page 1052 of volume XXVI stands written：“Tolerance (from Latin tolerare—to endure)：—The allowance of freedom of action or judgment to other people，the patient and unprejudiced endurance of dissent from one's own or the generally received course or view.”

There may be other definitions but for the purpose of this book I shall let myself be guided by the words of the Britannica.

And having committed myself (for better or worse) to a definite policy，I shall return to my savages and tell you what I have been able to discover about tolerance in the earliest forms of society of which we have any record.

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It is still generally believed that primitive society was very simple，that primitive language consisted of a few simple grunts and that primitive man possessed a degree of liberty which was lost only when the world became“complex.”

The investigations of the last fifty years made by explorers and missionaries and doctors among the aborigines of central Africa and the Polar regions and Polynesia show the exact opposite. Primitive society was exceedingly complicated，primitive language had more forms and tenses and declensions than Russian or Arabic，and primitive man was a slave not only to the present，but also to the past and to the future. in short，an abject and miserable creature who lived in fear and died in terror.

This may seem far removed from the popular picture of brave redskins merrily roaming the prairies in search of buffaloes and scalps，but it is a little nearer to the truth.

And how could it have been otherwise？

I have read the stories of many miracles.

But one of them was lacking：the miracle of the survival of man.

How and in what manner and why the most defenseless of all mammals should have been able to maintain himself against microbes and mastodons and ice and heat and eventually become master of all creation，is something I shall not try to solve in the present chapter.

One thing，however，is certain. He never could have accomplished all this alone.

In order to succeed he was obliged to sink his individuality in the composite character of the tribe.

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Primitive society therefore was dominated by a single idea，an all-overpowering desire to survive.

This was very difficult.

And as a result all other considerations were sacrificed to the one supreme demand—to live.

The individual counted for nothing，the community at large counted for everything，and the tribe became a roaming fortress which lived by itself and for itself and of itself and found safety only in exclusiveness.

But the problem was even more complicated than at first appears. What I have just said held good only for the visible world，and the visible world in those early times was a negligible quantity compared to the realm of the invisible.

In order to understand this fully we must remember that primitive people are different from ourselves. They are not familiar with the law of cause and effect.

If I sit me down among the poison ivy，I curse my negligence，send for the doctor and tell my young son to get rid of the stuff as soon as he can. My ability to recognize cause and effect tells me that the poison ivy has caused the rash，that the doctor will be able to give me something that will make the itch stop and that the removal of the vine will prevent a repetition of this painful experience.

The true savage would act quite differently. He would not connect the rash with the poison ivy at all. He lives in a world in which past，present and future are inextricably interwoven. All his dead leaders survive as Gods and his dead neighbors survive as spirits and they all continue to be invisible members of the clan and they accompany each individual member wherever he goes. They eat with him and sleep with him and they stand watch over his door. It is his business to keep them at arm's length or gain their friendship.If ever he fail to do this he will be immediately punished and as he cannot possibly know how to please all those spirits all the time，he is in constant fear of that misfortune which comes as the revenge of the Gods.

He therefore reduces every event that is at all out of the ordinary not to a primary cause but to interference on the part of an invisible spirit and when he notices a rash on his arms he does not say，“Damn that poison ivy!”but he mumbles，“I have offended a God. The God has punished me，”and he runs to the medicine-man，not however to get a lotion to counteract the poison of the ivy but to get a“charm”that shall prove stronger than the charm which the irate God (and not the ivy) has thrown upon him.

As for the ivy，the primary cause of all his suffering，he lets it grow right there where it has always grown. And if perchance the white man comes with a can of kerosene and burns the shrub down，he will curse him for his trouble.

It follows that a society in which everything happens as the result of the direct personal interference on the part of an invisible being must depend for its continued existence upon a strict obedience of such laws as seem to appease the wrath of the Gods.

Such a law，according to the opinion of a savage，existed. His ancestors had devised it and had bestowed it upon him and it was his most sacred duty to keep that law intact and hand it over in its present and perfect form to his own children.

This，of course，seems absurd to us. We firmly believe in progress，in growth，in constant and uninterrupted improvement.

But“progress”is an expression that was coined only year before last，and it is typical of all low forms of society that the people see no possible reason why they should improve what (to them) is the best of all possible worlds because they never knew any other.

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Granted that all this be true，then how does one prevent a change in the laws and in the established forms of society？

The answer is simple.

By the immediate punishment of those who refuse to regard common police regulations as an expression of the divine will，or in plain language，by a rigid system of intolerance.

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If I hereby state that the savage was the most intolerant of human beings，I do not mean to insult him，for I hasten to add that given the circumstances under which he lived，it was his duty to be intolerant. Had he allowed any one to interfere with the thousand and one rules upon which his tribe depended for its continued safety and peace of mind，the life of the tribe would have been put in jeopardy and that would have been the greatest of all possible crimes.

But (and the question is worth asking) how could a group of people，relatively limited in number，protect a most complex system of verbal regulations when we in our own day with millions of soldiers and thousands of policemen find it difficult to enforce a few plain laws？

Again the answer is simple.

The savage was a great deal cleverer than we are. He accomplished by shrewd calculation what he could not do by force.

He invented the idea of“taboo.”

Perhaps the word“invented”is not the right expression. Such things are rarely the product of a sudden inspiration. They are the result of long years of growth and experiment.Let that be as it may，the wild men of Africa and Polynesia devised the taboo，and thereby saved themselves a great deal of trouble.

The word taboo is of Australian origin. We all know more or less what it means. Our own world is full of taboos，things we simply must not do or say，like mentioning our latest operation at the dinner table，or leaving our spoon in our cup of coffee. But our taboos are never of a very serious nature. They are part of the handbook of etiquette and rarely interfere with our own personal happiness.

To primitive man，on the other hand，the taboo was of the utmost importance.

It meant that certain persons or inanimate objects had been“set apart”from the rest of the world，that they (to use the Hebrew equivalent) were“holy”and must not be discussed or touched on pain of instant death and everlasting torture. A fairly large order but woe unto him or her who dared to disobey the will of the spirit-ancestors.

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Whether the taboo was an invention of the priests or the priesthood was created to maintain the taboo is a problem which had not yet been solved. As tradition is much older than religion，it seems more than likely that taboos existed long before the world had heard of sorcerers and witch doctors. But as soon as the latter had made their appearance，they became the staunch supporters of the idea of taboo and used it with such great virtuosity that the taboo became the“verboten”sign of prehistoric ages.

When first we hear the names of Babylon and Egypt，those countries were still in a state of development in which the taboo counted for a great deal. Not a taboo in the crude and primitive form as it was afterwards found in New Zealand，but solemnly transformed into negative rules of conduct，the sort of“thou-shalt-not”decrees with which we are all familiar through six of our Ten Commandments.

Needless to add that the idea of tolerance was entirely unknown in those lands at that early age.

What we sometimes mistake for tolerance was merely indifference caused by ignorance.

But we can find no trace of any willingness (however vague) on the part of either kings or priests to allow others to exercise that“freedom of action or judgment”or of that“patient and unprejudiced endurance of dissent from the generally received cause or view”which has become the ideal of our modern age.

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Therefore，except in a very negative way，this book is not interested in prehistoric history or what is commonly called“ancient history.”

The struggle for tolerance did not begin until after the discovery of the individual.

And the credit for this，the greatest of all modern revelations，belongs to the Greeks.