Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 119 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 119 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898.

Indeed, we may therefore formulate and apply to nations at large what Goethe has there suggested; and we shall find it can be arranged in what I may call a pentatonic scale of culture.  You may be aware that all musical scales of all savage and barbarous and primitive tribes are not in the octave, as ours, but in five notes only; they all have one musical scale only, and that is a pentatonic scale; and it is perhaps because they feel that their own minds are based upon some such arrangement as that (although that is an idea which I do not subscribe to, but only suggest); but when we come to look over the whole cycle of culture, as we find it described in the histories of culture—­in the histories of civilization—­we find that they are all efforts to develop one or the other, or several, of five primary ideas which are in the mind of every human being; and when they are developed, then culture is perfect, either in the individual or in the nation or the race.  These five primitive ideas, innate in every human soul, are the ideas of the useful, of the beautiful, of the just, of the good and of the true, and you will not find any savage (provided he is not deficient in the ordinary mental ability of his tribe) who does not indicate an appreciation of every one of these in his own way.  It is the idea of the useful which teaches him his utilitarian arts; which teaches him to build his house; to chip the flint for his weapon; to sharpen the stick to dig the place to drop the seed; and all those we call the arts of utility, the useful arts; and yet you will not find a savage tribe to-day but what goes somewhat above this; because among them all they make also an effort that these tools and weapons of theirs shall have some sign about them of the beautiful; and you will find decoration—­indeed, “the painted savage” is a name we give to the lowest order of humanity; yet this same paint is to make himself beautiful; and so it is throughout all his games and amusements in life—­you will find he is constantly striving at the idea of decoration—­at the idea of beauty; little by little he develops this, until it becomes, in some nations, the joy of their existence and the lesson of the race, as in the ancient Greeks; as in the Italians of the time of the Renaissance.  These are what we call the aesthetic emotions, based upon an innate sense and love of the beautiful:  and we may also turn to the lowest savage—­we shall not find him deficient in justice; on the contrary, among the rudest Australians, without shelter or clothing, you will find that the law of the tribe is well defined and also implacable; and a man who has sinned knows that he must meet it or flee; he knows that there is no avail or recourse beyond the tribal council, and he knows what they will decide in his particular case, because he knows the law and the penalty of its infringement.  And this rude notion of justice develops, little by little, into the great edifice of jurisprudence, the

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Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.