Victor Hugo [pp. 81-90]

Victor Hugo.
of all grades of human-kind, not of the highest only. All races must perpetuate and develop themselves by education, because each
race represents a special department of human nature, and, to obtain its full evolution
and perfect development, not one of its elements, or its special capacity, or its individual energy, can be disregarded with impunity. It is not sufficient, in his eyes, to
multiply rich merchants or clever manufacturers, to build numberless miles of railroads,
to construct telegraphs, telephones, electric
candles, and to secure the endless paraphernalia of luxury: art, literature, poetry, mental and scientific speculations, appear to him
more necessary to civilization. Fraternity,
far from being an empty word, is the embodiment of a real law, and moral progress precedes and does not follow material progress.
"Chimeras," the wise will say, "mere chi meras.'Bah! Le Poete, il est dans les nuages'
the poet, he is in the clouds. Look upon
America; there, as the Caucasian, not to
say the Saxon, advances, the Indian race is
gradually retreating toward complete extinc tion."
This cannot be denied, and we can reckon
upon the eventual disappearance of the few
hundred thousand Indians who formerly
peopled the vast solitudes of North America.
But, on the other hand, can any one, un less he has lost the last vestige of common
sense, admit for one moment, from the phe nomenon of Indian decay, a world-wide gen eralization that inferior races succumb before
the higher, according to the doctrines of
Darwin? Consider other races vastly more
numerous and tenacious, and so extensively
prolific, in spite of their supposed inferiority.
Turn to China or to India. Count their in habitants. Regard, also, the Irish Celts, so
despised by Saxons and Germans, the Celt Latins of France and of Southern Europe,
the Slavonians, who spread all over the east
and the north, as well as the Spanish half breeds extending from Mexico to Cape
Horn. Can any one really believe in their
coming disappearance before an advancing
superior race? If the survival of the fittest,
as understood by many, is a law of human
life, we should expect a Chinafication of the
world. Such must be the conclusion after
a serious consideration of the facts.
But, after all, is not Victor Hugo of the
same school as Darwinistic philosophers?
Does he not attribute to Latins, and, first of
all, to the French, this same superiority,
which he refuses to recognize among Germans or Saxons? No one who reads his
works carefully will come to such a conclusion. Victor Hugo had too broad a mind
to adopt so narrow views of human destiny.
Certainly, he loved France more than any
other country in the world, and frequently
dwells with some complacency upon her
leading r6le in the advancement of modern
civilization. But Germans, as all men know,
contemplate very generally the future Germanization of the world; and Englishmen,
gazing on their vast Empire, draw similar
inferences for their own tongue, as if their
language were already spoken from one pole
to the other-in Africa, from the Cape of
Good Hope to Alexandria, throughout the
Soudan and Congo; in Asia, from India
through Afghanistan to Constantinople; and
in America, from the extreme north to Cape
Horn. Victor Hugo never indulged such
extravagant dreams, or thought of Frenchi fying our planet. "Will there be several
languages in the thirtieth century of our
era? and if but one language, which one? " he neither proposes nor answers such a
question. There is an English, a German,
and a French civilization, and their concur rence is to produce a result greater than
its elementary components: United-Civiliza tions and United-States, nothing more.
Whenever Victor Hugo speaks of Ameri ca, he sees her as a great example set to
Europe. In an address to the Parisian del egates who were sent to the Philadelphia ex hibition, he said: "The future of the world
is clear from this moment, and you are to
outline this superb reality, which another
century will fulfil, the embrace of the United
States of America by the United States of
Europe."
The obstacles which oppose his hope, the
Americanization of Europe, do not escape
1885.]
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