As I have said, some species are naturally more inclined to multiply, others less so, some destined for several and more diverse countries, others for fewer and less diverse ones. That the human species is more of the latter kind than the former may be inferred by analogy, from it being the most perfect, supreme, and best species in its genus, that is, the animal genus. For we see that in every vegetable, mineral genus, etc., the best species are also the rarest, the hardest to transfer from their native places, etc. The plant I envisaged above, more perfect than all the others, would probably also be the rarest, the most restricted to one kind of country, of terrain in particular. The less perfect ones would be so in proportion. Similarly in the animal genus, again in proportion. The best species would be the [3658] rarest, the most scarce in terms of intrinsic number, etc. (If we wish to count the monkey and savage man, etc., which are closest to man among the best and highest, this would merely confirm my hypothesis.) And as the animal genus is best in terrestrial nature; and the human species is the pinnacle of the animal genus, and hence of all species and genera of terrestrial beings; it follows that it should also be the rarest of all terrestrial species, and the most limited in terms of number and places.
Armed with these arguments, and in the conviction that the propagation of our species which took place was largely contrary to nature, it will be easy to reply to anyone seeking to infer from the qualities of some country or another now inhabited by men, that any such institutions, customs, uses, inventions, etc. etc., not taught or suggested but in fact opposed by nature, and necessarily unknown for a very long time, etc., are, despite nature, necessary to the human species, its life and its well-being. I consider such customs, etc., as like painful or disgusting remedies for diseases, as [3659] natural as the diseases themselves are, which are not natural or occur against the intentions and the general order of nature. Nature did not teach the remedies because it did not want the diseases in the first place. Hence if it concealed, e.g., fire, it did not do so in order that man should have to encounter infinite difficulty in seeking it, infinite danger in using it, etc., because of his nature, but because nature did not want man to live and reside in places where he would have need of fire (and equally not to have to feed himself with what would be inedible, or unsuitable for him, etc., without fire). In this way and with this means I shall be able to refute an infinite number of similar objections to my theory of man, for this method certainly extends to cover an infinite variety of things.
And with regard to fire in particular, which is what prompted this discussion. The fact that in temperate or hot countries, the only ones which nature destined for man where it is indeed clear that the lives of peoples as yet uncorrupted or at least less corrupted by society was and is more natural than elsewhere, and less in need of ancillary inventions and means and customs, [3660] etc., and less effectively contaminated and altered by them (moreover, it is well known, and is emerging ever more clearly from the histories, monuments, and remains of the most ancient memories that are increasingly being discovered and interpreted, that the cradle, and I would add, the proper and natural home, of our species must have been a very hot country); the fact that in hot countries, I repeat, the human species does not need fire in order to live and to live well according to nature (though not according to society, for social life is unable to exist without fire) is seen effectively in, e.g., the Californians, who do not use fire in any way as far as I am aware, living as they do in very hot temperatures which spare them the need for fire, no less than they do the need for clothes, and feeding themselves only on grass, roots, and fruit and on animals which they are able to catch, overcome, and take with their own hands unarmed, and on other similar things, but all raw. But here alongside them and in their midst, the missionaries and other Europeans who have settled there would surely die if they did not use fire. The need for fire does not therefore originate from climates, etc. And incidentally those Californians are physically hundreds of times healthier, stronger, more cheerful in aspect, and certainly happier in terms of morale and inwardly, than are the Europeans.1
[3661] It would not be irrelevant here to forestall the arguments of those who object that many of the uses, inventions, etc., which have caused the corruption of mankind or contributed to it, or which derive from it and increased it, etc., have been shown to be common to all or to a great number of peoples, including savages, including peoples entirely separate and quite different from one another, etc., peoples who until recently were excluded from all commerce with the rest of the world, etc., or common to the majority of peoples, etc. (as the use of fire is), and who seek to infer from this that although such uses, inventions, etc., are opposed by nature, they were nonetheless required by the nature of man, and are therefore proper to it, and that sooner or later nature inevitably discovers them, adopts them, etc. I would answer that all things argue for there being a single cradle of the human species and all nations deriving from a single beginning and having departed from a single country, and all should refer to one single origin. Certainly the whole human race had close relations with each other for a very long time, given the proximity of the places which it gradually came to occupy as it grew and [3662] expanded. Certainly the human race was not just corrupt but at a significantly advanced stage of its corruption before any part of the human race, or rather any people, was so separated from the others as to have no relations with them. For among other things, this propagation of the human race, which gradually divided its parts from one another, could not have taken place without it already being corrupt, as I say in the previous thought, and navigation even less so, without which the human race doubtless could not have spread very far, not to the point where all communication between its parts was lost. Therefore, for whatever reason and in whatever way the corruption and denaturing of our species was born and developed, it was one and the same phenomenon, and was born and developed throughout the human race at the same time (at least until a significant stage), in the same way that the human race was one and the same nation for a long series of centuries (albeit a growing one). I would therefore argue that this corruption is a single event, not a multiplicity of events, on the basis of whose number and similarity it might be inferred that this [3663] corruption was natural and inevitable. I would argue that all these inventions, customs, etc., which are found to be common to all or most of the peoples, had a single origin (whether chance, or whatever else the origin might have been), that the immense difficulties by which nature opposed such inventions, etc., were overcome by men on one occasion only, that these inventions, etc., were propagated along with mankind, that the most savage peoples who to date have existed on the most remote islands and the furthest removed from all commerce were already significantly corrupted by the time they traveled there, and carried with them these same inventions, etc., which they share with all other peoples, because all the other peoples derived from the one source and got from the one place and nation those customs and knowledge, etc., not because these came into being as many times as there are or were peoples who possess or possessed them. If the use of fire is common to all peoples, I maintain that its origin was one and one alone. If navigation is common even to many savages and barbarians who from time immemorial until recent centuries [3664] or even recent years have had no relations with civilized peoples, or even to some which still do not have them, I maintain nonetheless that navigation was invented once only, and that all peoples who travel by boat profited from this discovery, and that canoes made from just a hollowed-out tree trunk, and with but the branch of a tree used as an oar to move them, derive from it no less than the most carefully constructed ships and steamers. Certainly those peoples would not be as they are, that is, they would not live in those countries and would not have been separated from the other peoples, if prior to becoming so they had not been familiar with navigation, which was the means by which they departed from them. Therefore, if they were familiar with it prior to separating themselves from the nation from
which they came, the nation itself must have been familiar with it too. Therefore, if this nation was familiar with it, so too was the one from which it came. Therefore, we proceed in the same way from nation to nation until we reach the one from which all others came, that is, mankind when it was still undivided and formed one single nation. The same may be said of all those other discoveries, etc., which, despite being quite marvelous and appearing almost impossible, are still [3665] found to be common to all or virtually all peoples, however uncouth, distant, separate, etc., they may be. (For as far as other discoveries are concerned which are easy and scarcely opposed by nature, etc., we do not have to suppose the same, and it is no wonder that each people, however unsophisticated, was able to come across them, if the stroke of luck which revealed it to them was straightforward and likely to occur, and struck many times and in many places, etc., earlier in some and later in others, but everywhere nonetheless, in as much space of time as those peoples have existed. And no argument may be drawn from this to prove they are natural because of the multiplicity of their origins, for it was quite natural that all peoples that were sufficiently corrupt would discover the same things sooner or later; apart from the fact that such discoveries, etc., straightforward and likely to occur as they are, are never the cause of great corruption or require much corruption themselves, nor are they greatly opposed to nature, nor did they contribute greatly to denaturing our life and our species.)
This is how it is. There is no group of human people which is entirely natural and uncorrupted. All peoples, all human individuals are corrupted and altered, because [3666] all of them originated from one and the same people, which itself was corrupt before it sent them out, or rather before it spread out and divided, nor would it have spread so far or divided up so much had it not previously been corrupted. But this original corruption, which stopped in many peoples and never got past a certain point, and survives to this day like some primitive form of corruption (given that no peoples or men with truly primitive lives can exist, nor can they ever exist given the corrupt origins of all men, as pointed out also in the Scriptures, etc.),1 this corruption, I repeat, depending on natural or accidental or any other kind of circumstances, progressed further in some peoples and in others less far before coming to a halt and becoming stationary (as in Mexico or China). In others it retreated then resurfaced, then continued to progress and still does so, as in Europe.
What I am saying is not fantasy. Universal and constant tradition, along with the memories of the remotest antiquity, prove that the origin of the human race was in fact one. See p. 3811.2 These, and reason itself, prove that the oneness of nation in the human race endured, and had [3667] naturally to endure, for a very long series of centuries. This express tradition, these memories, this reason prove that the first corruption of mankind was universal, that is, of all mankind together, and that from a human nation which was already corrupt, already degenerate, already rich in a great number of inventions, etc. (which could only have been the case after a very long period of time), there derived, spread, and separated the various nations into which it subsequently divided (tower of Babel, etc.).
Coming to other facts, we find that the difficult discoveries, etc., which were proper to some nations in particular and were made after the human race divided, albeit very necessary for civil life, albeit such that without them civilization could not have expanded or even reached a stage where it was worthy of the name, were only ever introduced to nations which had had or have relations with one another, and have yet to be introduced to the others, like China and Mexico, etc.—despite their also having reached a certain stage in terms of refinement, however old they may be in the civilized [3668] nations and however remote of origin—or were only introduced there by means of the civilized nations who brought them thither after countless centuries. Which clearly proves that such discoveries, etc., had one and the same origin (whether this was chance or anything else), because they were only ever known to nations which engaged in mutual relations; and that these discoveries were never repeated, for in those nations which were separated from them, even if they were cultured, and over an immense period of time, they never came into being. Hence, if these nations were familiar with them, it was only due to their mutual relations, so that these discoveries, etc., had but one origin, and were made just the once, and came to all nations which are and were familiar with them from this same origin. Therefore, if other difficult discoveries are common to all peoples, even those which are separate, even the most barbarous ones, it must be assumed that they were made prior to these peoples departing the place from which they originally came, and it must equally be said that they too had but one and the same origin.
Of the discoveries, etc., which I have said [3669] are common to only those peoples which traded with each other, there is an infinite number. One example may suffice here. The use of language is necessary for society. Speech is a quite marvelous discovery. Nonetheless, all peoples speak. As soon as men started to form a society, they also began stuttering some form of language. Nature itself teaches speech up to a point, not just to men but even animals; much more to men, though, for it has certainly made them more sociable. As society became increasingly close-knit, and as mutual relations between men increased to the point where they trespassed the limits desired and prescribed by nature, language too necessarily increased, and became more powerful than nature would have wanted. All this must necessarily have taken place before the human race divided. When it divided, man could already talk, not to mention speak. This is proved both a maiori and a minori: both because the burgeoning society necessarily produced the increase in language and because the latter was necessary for the growth in the former, for the human race would not have spread so far if society had not already been very [3670] close-knit, mature, and adult, nor could this have existed without sufficient language, and without such a language the human race would not have spread so far and wide, etc. Thus, however marvelous the invention of language is, it is also common to all peoples, even the remotest and most barbarous.
But is the same perhaps true also of alphabetical writing? This was not necessary for the diffusion of the human race. But it is very necessary for its civilization, it is common to all civilized nations and to all those which were civilized, etc., which were very many in number, it is very ancient, and the mists of time conceal its origin. But precisely because it was not more recent than the division of the human race, no nation that is divided from the European ones, etc. etc., however social, etc. etc., it may be, is to be found that is either familiar with alphabetical writing or which was familiar with it prior to having received it from us. China, which is so cultured, has writing, books, literature, etc., but it does not have an alphabet. The Mexicans had writing, but not even a semblance of an alphabet. And this because the alphabet was invented (as [3671] I have argued elsewhere [→Z 1270–71, 2619–22], and as this discussion may confirm) only once, and this was never repeated, and anyone who did not have and was not able to have news of the alphabet, whether directly or indirectly, from the first nation or nations that invented it, or until such time as they received it from them, never had an alphabet and never invented one themselves (over an immensely long period of time), nor did it occur to them to do so. China had news of it, but did not adopt it, both because of its nature and the difficulty in changing or destroying the nation’s ancient and universal customs which were linked with hundreds of others that would also probably have to be changed (as Chinese writing is with its literature, and hence with its customs, with popular education, etc. etc.); and introducing universally new ones which were too different in terms of kind, etc. etc.
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