CULTURAL EVOLUTIONISM. - A theory that interprets human-social events according to the laws of evolution.
I. HISTORY
During the course of the 19th century ethnology developed (and in close connection with it, the history of religions as well) and became increasingly an independent science. It, like the contemporary currents that dominated in philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences (H. Spencer, A. Comte, Ch. Darwin, etc.), had a predominantly evolutionist orientation. Therefore those peoples among whom were found (or even simply supposed to exist) a "primordial communism," "promiscuity," group marriage, cannibalism, the killing of the old, especially of the old chiefs, by the young, infanticide, human sacrifices and in general bloody sacrifices, excesses and even sexual perversities, were a priori considered as the primordial peoples of humanity. This method proved much cruder in the search for the origin of religion, an origin that some thought to find in obscure feelings of anguish and of dream; others (M. Müller) in the worship of the phenomena of nature and of the heavenly bodies; others (A. Comte, J. Lubbock) in fetishism; others (A. Spencer) in the worship of ancestors; others (E. B. Tylor) in animism; others (E. Durkheim, S. Freud, W. Robertson Smith) in totemism; others, finally (more or less K. Th. Preuss, A. Vierkand, etc., otherwise deserving), in magic and in the belief in a universal magical force, in so-called preanimism. This last thesis, not dead even today, was developed especially by the French sociological school of Durkheim. In opposition to all these evolutionist constructions, many representatives of ethnological science, especially from the beginning of the 20th century onward, strove and strive to determine the groups of cultural phenomena both chronologically and, as far as possible, in their mutual causal connections, thus giving the researcher the means to establish objectively which ethnological data are ancient and which recent. Primitiveness, outward simplicity, bestial savagery can also be secondary elements. Therefore the method, once so preferred, falls away, of systematizing the phenomena observed among peoples of nature into series of development ascending or descending according to their degree of perfection, in which series there was no guarantee that their individual parts were in the place that belonged to them according to their own objectively ascertained historical age. Thus it came to be certain that evolutionist schemata have become untenable.
II. THE CONCEPT OF EVOLUTION
The idea of evolution belongs to the historical field; with it, important human-social events were and are understood in their causal connection. This idea stands in opposition to that of regular organic-natural evolution, which predominates especially in the biological field. What is indicated by the idea of evolution in the one case and in the other is completely different, as, for example, the Basel biologist and zoologist Adolf Portmann has also clearly recognized. In this sense he rightly says: «Dominated by this idea of evolution, a conception of progress founded on biology became established. To transfer the concept of evolution from the field of the organic evolution of man to that of activities historically manifested was an error, which led to the most questionable generalizations and hasty conclusions». Now, when the idea of evolution is made to include not only the purely organic and natural world, but also that of human history, while explicitly or implicitly excluding a superior extra-mundane Principle, one has extreme e. Opposed to this is the mitigated one, which recognizes the spiritual and historical human world as standing on its own with respect to the organic-natural one, and likewise evolution, insofar as it may be considered possible, or already really demonstrated, in the organic-natural field, but not as independent of the power and will of an extra-mundane creative Principle. The followers of mitigated e., among whom there are also Christians and Catholics, would in this sense admit, for example, the origin of the human body from the animal kingdom. On this, see further on.
III. UNSUSTAINABILITY OF EXTREME CULTURAL EVOLUTIONISM
1. The psychological foundation for the supposed animal-like beginnings of man's spiritual activity was devised principally by Lévy-Bruhl with his theory of the "prelogical" or "alogical" thought of primitive man. By this is meant a stage in which man was not yet capable of conceiving causal relations. But in affirming this, no one asked how such a man could then have been able to invent even the most primitive tool. Indeed, one may ask how he could have overcome this stage with logical thought, given that psychologically there exists no transition from the one to the other. On the other hand, "prelogical" or "magical" thought can be observed even today in the superstitious ideas and actions of primitive peoples themselves, who nevertheless certainly think logically. The theoretical constructions of the "armchair scholar" Lévy-Bruhl were and are rejected by all the principal ethnologists and scholarly explorers, such as Boas, von Nordenskiöld, Preuss, Sternberg, Lowie, Kroeber, etc. The most interesting concluding act was finally provided by Lévy-Bruhl himself, for in 1938 he entirely retracted his theory of the prelogical mentality of primitives. If, therefore, there is a result of the new ethnology that is established with absolute and universal certainty, it is precisely this: that present-day primitive man, whatever he may be racially and physically, is spiritually a perfectly human being. Furthermore, we note here that all the languages spoken by present-day primitives clearly demonstrate in them the existence of a full spiritual capacity. Ethnologically, therefore, it is impossible for extreme e. to demonstrate the "absence of spirit" in primordial man. Now the question arises: what can prehistory say on this matter?
2. Prehistorians (cf. G. Kraft) emphasize with all possible force the fact that in any case, from the cultural-spiritual aspect, man and beast are separated from one another by a deep and insurmountable abyss. The indisputable proofs offered here to the scholar are principally tools, which are not, as was once falsely believed and maintained, a simple projection and imitation of organs, but something specifically human-spiritual, which the beast lacks. The capacity of primitive man (as in general of any man), which is manifested in this, consists in the possibility of causal knowledge and of the conception of general ideas. The tools created by man on the basis of this capacity of his have existed from the beginning, that is, from the beginning of the deluge. They are perfect in their kind already from the beginning; the late Paleolithic changed nothing essential in them. Today we know of no pre-tools, just as likewise no pre-language, pre-art, etc., and much less pre-men. Therefore prehistory too, in full agreement with ethnology, knows only fully and truly human man, and this from the beginning. It is clear that in this way all forms of extreme e. are excluded. That even the principal scholars of physical anthropology (Fr. Weidenreich, W. E. Le Gros Clark, J. Weninger) are beginning to yield to these convincing arguments is demonstrated by the fact that they, in cases where bone finds do not permit a clear conclusion as to whether or not the case in question involves a man, likewise appeal to cultural objects as a decisive factor, as, for example, in the discovery of the Australopithecus of South Africa. Thereby the scholar, whether prehistorian or ethnologist, is given the means to decide with certainty whether in an individual case what is involved is a truly and fully human man. On the basis of all this, one may certainly regard as definitively settled and defined a chapter, much discussed, of the investigation of primitive man. It is certainly significant that it has ended by recognizing unequivocally and clearly the spiritual as the criterion of distinction even for the primordial man scientifically accessible to us.
3. That humanity did not begin with promiscuity or group marriages, but with normal monogamous family unions, has become for decades an almost general conviction among experts. But every ethnosociologist knows that nevertheless the last secrets surrounding the beginning and subsequent development of the family and of the community are by no means fully discovered and explained. First of all, the problem of exogamy arises, that is, the problem of the individual's behavior with respect to the choice of a spouse, a choice that requires particular attention. For this exogamy, if followed and thought through to the end, leads not only beyond the purely natural-human, but certainly and clearly also leads to something that is above and outside the world, a fact which, naturally, cannot be reconciled with extreme e. Considering the various forms of exogamy existing in the life of peoples, one immediately notices that they divide into two main opposing groups. On the one hand there is that form of exogamy which is based on the principle of kinship, primarily, as is natural, that of direct blood kinship. It is all the more easily understandable in that it corresponds perfectly to our European conceptions and customs. On the other hand, there are forms of exogamy by virtue of which entire groups (clon, classes, lineages) are bound not to marry within these groups, but instead to seek a spouse in another clon (systemic), in another class, etc. Here too the prohibition of marriage between relatives holds, but beyond this the more or less artificial law of exogamy of clon, of classes or of lineage applies. Since there has long been no doubt on this point, namely that these latter forms of exogamy are of later origin and therefore secondary, they are no longer of interest in this study. Naturally the question arises here: "how did primitive humanity arrive at this rigid prohibition of marriage between blood relatives, so deeply rooted?". Perhaps from the practical experience that marriages between blood relatives (incest) lead to harmful consequences? This is very unlikely. For everything (consider in this regard especially the unitary fundamental concept of exogamy) indicates that humanity, still in its original homogeneity, introduced these marriage prohibitions. If this had happened at a later epoch, then the great uniformity of the fundamental exogamic laws would remain unexplained. Indeed, there would also have had to be peoples who knew no marriage prohibitions at all. But it is known that this is not the case. The problem therefore remains: how did men already in primordial times arrive at these marriage prohibitions? Various scholars have occasionally suggested that between brothers, or also generally between young people who have grown up together from the earliest age, the impulses that lead to amorous passion or to marriage generally do not develop at all, or at least only with great difficulty. This could explain the custom, the usage and, finally, the law of not marrying blood relatives, therefore primarily brothers. This theory is undoubtedly very fascinating. But it overlooks that it applies only to persons of the same generation. It does not clarify, or does not sufficiently clarify, the fear of marriage between relatives of the descending lines, particularly between parents and children, which is certainly everywhere one of the most deeply rooted repugnances. Here too those elements brought forward by this theory may be operative; indeed the lack of the stimulus may, in general, be even stronger because of the difference in age. But one cannot deny that other forces also contribute, namely those of an ethical nature. Precisely the circumstance that parents wish to maintain their authority before their children prevents them from contracting marriage bonds with them; and precisely the reverential fear felt by children toward their parents does not allow the thought of a marriage bond to arise in them. This appeal to the ethical motive is undoubtedly not only correct, but also important. Only one immediately asks: How did the first men arrive at this ethical motive? The peoples that are today ethnolinguistically primitive, among whom the initial and primordial elements are in any case relatively better preserved, have, in general, no doubt on this point. They believe, as in many other things, so also in this, that they were instructed and obliged (directly or indirectly) by the Supreme Being. Just as they universally recognize in the supreme God the origin of their moral duties, so they do also in the present case. Clearly and precisely in this sense, for example, among the primitive Semang, inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, it is said: Lavoid Karè, that is, sin against the (supreme God) Karè, when someone sins either by incest or by adultery. Thus the law of exogamy of blood relatives, a law geographically and temporally universal, leads finally into fields which certainly have a relation to man and to the vicissitudes of the human family and community, but which moreover lead into regions originally extra-human, or rather above man. The ethical motive, which appeared from the very beginning in the marriage prohibitions, makes visible and tangible a bond with a higher world, before which all attempts at explanation by extreme e. must fail.
4. That the peoples called ethnolinguistically primitive and most ancient generally possess their own faith, relatively clear and vivid, in a Supreme Being, is demonstrated by W. Schmidt in the first six volumes of his great work "The Origin of the Idea of God" (Der Ursprung der Gottesidee). The primitive peoples that come into question here are mainly the Fuegians, certain primitive lineages of California as well as of North America and the Arctic and, moreover, certain groups of peoples of southeastern Australia, and finally the pygmy peoples (the Pygmies) of central Africa and southeastern Asia. The thorough comparative research has led to the conclusion that in the religion of all these primitive peoples an important number of concordant fundamental elements comes to light, such as the unity, the name, the nature, the dwelling and the property of the Supreme Being, etc. The scholar who thinks and works historically rightly concludes from this state of affairs that these concordant characteristics must have existed already before the separation and dispersion of these primitive peoples into the various parts of the world. For if one wished to suppose that the ethnolinguistically primitive and most ancient peoples had later acquired and accepted these religious knowledges, such a supposition would run up against serious difficulties. If they had received them later from neighboring peoples, culturally more advanced, one would have to suppose that these possessed in a corresponding form the knowledge of the Supreme Being; but, as is known to every competent person, this cannot be admitted, because no one gives what he does not have. But if the groups of ethnolinguistically primitive and most ancient peoples arrived at the complex of knowledge regarding the Supreme Being only after their separation, that is, on the basis of an independent mental process, then, since this complex of knowledge is profoundly unitary, it would be difficult or impossible to explain precisely this uniformity. Therefore nothing remains but to admit, as the only truly satisfactory explanation, that before the separation and dispersion of the primitive and most ancient peoples there was a common spiritual heritage regarding the knowledge of the Supreme Being. It is clear, moreover, that in this way research arrives of itself, primarily with respect to this knowledge of the Supreme Being, into ever greater depths of time; indeed it pushes more or less into the various primordial times of man.
Here, naturally, the question also arises: whence this primitive belief in God? It is clear that those primitive peoples did not create or think it up for themselves. Nor do they say this of their ancestors. In fact, of these they say that they received from them the tradition of a belief in a supreme God, as of so many other things. But how did those ancestors in turn arrive at it? Is it sufficient here to have recourse to the concept of causality, on the basis of which even the most ancient men could arrive by themselves at the knowledge of an author of the universe, of a most high Lord and Creator? The presently known state of things indicates, in fact, that among the most primitive and most ancient representatives of humanity, alongside the conception of causality and the natural deductions from the totality of the facts of the world to a supreme and good Being, something else may also have had an influence. What else could this something have been, if not some personal Revelation of God to men? Research has only recently begun to occupy itself with these things. It is not to be excluded that in this way the fact of a primordial revelation of God to men may be, if not assured, at least rendered plausible. That here the ethical element, already ascertained above for the primordial human family, must be added, is clear. And this holds even more in relation to the complex of Paradise and original sin, to which attention must now be turned.
5. In close connection with the complex of beliefs about the supreme Being stands the very ancient and very widespread tradition of Paradise and original sin. What is involved here is a characteristic piece of information, given by humanity, about its first beginnings and the most ancient events, which as such has until now been known and evaluated in a wholly insufficient manner. However numerous the variants may be in individual cases, certain fundamental elements are always found. These are principally the following: God made men (the first human couple) and placed them in the world (directly or indirectly, that is, through an intermediary being) as perfect men. God instructed them (directly or indirectly) not only in religious matters, but also in profane ones. Nearness to God distinguished the primordial age; justice and peace reigned; men were to live forever and not die. This beautiful "primordial paradisiacal" time (the golden age) came to an end through the transgression of a commandment given by God, which, according to the tradition of some peoples, has sometimes become an error, a misunderstanding or some similar fact. All the traditions, considered as a whole, leave no doubt that physical evil in the world is regarded as a consequence of a preceding moral evil, of an ethical failing. It is generally admitted that with this fact a life of hardships began; death also came upon men, and the Divinity, without wholly abandoning men, withdrew in anger. In a particularly characteristic form this tradition of the primordial condition of man is found among the Pygmy tribes of central Africa, who certainly represent the most ancient human and cultural stratum of Africa. Moreover this tradition, as has already been said, is truly widespread throughout the whole world. That these pieces of information, in their essential points, agree with those of Genesis, as is easy to observe, needs no particular explanation. The traditional narratives of the other peoples of the earth cannot simply be derived from that of the Bible. Rather, the truth is affirmed when all the traditions that refer to it, including the biblical ones, are traced essentially back to a more ancient common source. Now, what does this datum of tradition about the primordial condition of man, about the doctrine concerning Paradise and the fall into sin, mean for the historian?
In the face of the fact that this complex of beliefs has attained such a universal diffusion, and that it, indeed, precisely among the ethnologically primitive and most ancient peoples is for the most part distinguished by particular characteristics (such as, for example, emphasizing the couple of the first men, their formation by God the creator, moral evil, sin as the effective cause of the origin of physical evil, etc.), there can be no other satisfactory explanation for the historian than to admit that this complex of beliefs really goes back to the most ancient times of man.
Naturally the historian does not stop here, but poses himself another problem: how did such a body of beliefs arise among the ancient, indeed the most ancient, men? Were these the product of man's reflection, of his fantasy? Or are they founded on historical facts?
There are no other possibilities of explanation. Human common sense (and the historian is in the end nothing but a man who, by his methodological training, ought to be characterized by a double dose of common sense) certainly cannot be satisfied by anything but the second part of the alternative posed. It is significant in this regard that even those scholars who, like J. Feldmann, F. Hellmich, J. de Vuippens, in the past occupied themselves in a particular way with these traditions of peoples about the primordial state of man, could not admit any other possible satisfactory explanation than the one that discerns in them preceding historical facts.
IV. ORIGIN OF MAN. MITIGATED CULTURAL EVOLUTIONISM
1. By far the prevailing idea, especially among the ethnologically primitive and most ancient peoples, is the widespread notion that a great God, conceived as a person, created humanity (the human pair), giving it a perfectly human existence. The first men are true and real men, not only in the physical-spiritual aspect, but also in the ethico-religious one. The great God is conceived, both before and after the fall into sin, as a power that is at the center of their life and their destiny, and that surpasses and dominates everything. Memories or traces of a possible areligious or pre-religious phase are completely lacking, especially among the ethnologically primitive and most ancient peoples.
2. A derivation of man from the animal does not properly appear anywhere, particularly among the most primitive peoples. Conversely, in several cases it is even said that in those most ancient times (of the catastrophe) men became animals. Thus in Africa, a fact to which Baumann has already drawn attention, men were transformed into apes. Therefore, if one wishes, a kind of Darwinism in reverse.
3. It is clear, then, that on the basis of all this, in the light of ethnological research on primordial times, the schemes of extreme e. cannot be admitted. The traditions concerning the first times in question are based unequivocally on a theistic conception of the world (Weltanschauung). The conception of a supreme, personal God reveals itself as both causa efficiens and causa finalis, the end and goal of all history, especially of human history. To wish here to give an explanation of the universe and of man in an atheistic-materialistic or even pantheistic-monistic sense is absolutely impossible. Whoever, therefore, places himself from the standpoint of extreme e. and in this sense strives to explain the origin of man, cannot in any way appeal to the belief and ideas of the most ancient humanity.
4. But how should the mitigated e. be judged, which, as has been said, would wish to admit the origin of the human body from the animal kingdom? We answer that here the investigative material of ethnology and the history of religions is neither for nor against. In a negative sense, the fact could possibly be explained that the supreme God among the ethnologically primitive and most ancient peoples (Baumann refers in particular to the ancient Pygmy stratum of Africa) is very often presented expressly as the former, the modeler also of the body of the first men. But the problem is (as in the relevant passage of Genesis) whether this should or should not be understood literally. Certainly one must not represent the Creator as a potter, according to the correct observation already made by St. Augustine. If, then, one admits a personal God as creator, as the ethnologically primitive and most ancient peoples of whom we have spoken admit, then one must also admit, consequently, that everything was created and made by Him. This holds also with regard to the body of man, while remaining completely indifferent whether God the creator, in creating it, made a totally new creation, or availed Himself of an animal body, as of a pre-existing matter (materia praeiacens). In this particular question the ethnological investigation of primordial times cannot pronounce decisively, as indeed the Bible also does not. Nay, in agreement with this, finally, is also the well-known fact that the ecclesiastical magisterium leaves the problem open, because, understood in this way, it does not constitute a religious question, but a scientific one.
In saying that the ecclesiastical magisterium leaves men free in the question of the origin of the body of man from the animal, one does not wish in any way to affirm that this origin of the body of man from the animal is a scientifically demonstrated fact. This, according to the conviction of Koppers, is not the case even at present to admit, although certain scholars, even Catholic ones, believe they can or must uphold the contrary point of view. It can be convincingly demonstrated that, according to the present state of research, even in this special problem from the scientific point of view a relative reserve of judgment is appropriate (non liquet), and not the contrary.
V. DIFFICULTIES OF THE DERIVATION OF MAN FROM THE ANIMAL
In the light of present-day research there are serious difficulties in admitting that man derives bodily from the animal. In the light of biology the difficulties are of a twofold nature. It is certainly right to say that in the geological strata, which follow one another in succession, the forms of life manifest themselves ever new and more perfect. But in general it cannot be established how the recent forms depend on the ancient ones. It is true that their genetic dependence is asserted, but generally this is a hypothesis, not yet a scientifically demonstrated truth. The mutations, for example, of the drosophila, obtained in the laboratory, make evolution comprehensible up to a certain point. Nor should it be forgotten that what is at issue here is exclusively microevolution, that is, the development of microscopic organisms; whereas macroevolutions or the developments of large organisms, those that the history of the earth shows, or rather seems to show, are in no way satisfactorily explained. Still less does this hold in relation to the supposed singular macroevolution from the animal to man. A possible derivation of the human body from the animal kingdom clashes, moreover, against great difficulties, inasmuch as man, considered also in his body, appears absolutely, that is, from his very origin, characterized by spirit. The biologists who have studied the question more deeply declare that if one were to admit the derivation of the human body from that of the animal, a complementary hypothesis would become necessary. One could not have arrived at the formation of man by simply infusing a human soul in place of the animal soul into an animal body at its highest development. The entry of the human spirit into such a body would have absolutely required fundamental transformations also under the purely bodily aspect. Even the assertion that the paleoanthropological findings would speak, more or less clearly, of a derivation of the human body from that of the animal encounters, in the light of the most recent research, difficulties to be taken seriously in consideration. Likewise the anthropological theory of the three stages, in the evolution of man, that is from anthropos to neandertalensis and to sapiens, is strongly shaken by the finds of homo sapiens from the early to middle Pleistocene, finds coming from the excavations carried out particularly over the last fifteen years. Indeed, it appears completely called into question, if, as seems very plausible, the "historical" explanation, proposed by A. Portmann and by others, of the variants of form of the man of primitive times, represents an essentially exact interpretation.
