Treatises on ethnology, including some of the best, tell us that man owes his knowledge of fire to the accident of lightning or of a bush fire; that the discovery of a wild animal accidentally roasted in such circumstances revealed to him the possibility of cooking his food; and that the invention of pottery was the result of someone's leaving a lump of clay near a fire. The conclusion seems to be that man began his career in a sort of technological golden age, when inventions could, as it were, be picked off the trees as easily as fruit or flowers. Only modern man would seem to find it necessary to strain and toil; only to modern man would genius seem to grant a flash of insight. This naive attitude is the result of a complete failure to appreciate the complexity and diversity of operations involved in even the most elementary technical processes. To make a useful stone implement, it is not enough to keep on striking a piece of flint until it splits; this became quite apparent when people first tried to reproduce the main types of prehistoric tools. That attempt — in conjunction with observation of the same methods still in use among certain native peoples — taught us that the processes involved are extremely com- plicated, necessitating, in some cases, the prior manufacture of veritable "chipping tools"; hammers with a counterweight to control the impact and direction of the blow; shock- absorbers to prevent the vibration from shattering the flake. A considerable body of knowledge about the local origin of the materials employed, the processes of extracting them, their resistance and structure, is also necessary; so is a certain mu.scular skill and "knack", acquired by training; in short, the manufacture of such tools calls for a "lithurgy" matching, mutatis mutandis, the various main divisions of metal- lurgy. Similarly, while a natural conflagration might on occasion broil or roast a carcass, it is very hard to imagine (except in the case of volcanic eruptions, which are restricted to a rela- tively small number of areas in the world) that it could suggest 34 boiling or steaming food. The latter methods of cooking, however, are no less universally employed than the others. There is, therefore, no reason for ruling out invention, which must certainly have been necessary for the development of the latter methods, when trying to explain the origin of the former. Pottery is a very good instance, for it is commonly believed that nothing could be simpler than to hollow out a lump of clay and harden it in the fire. We can only suggest trying it. In the first place, it is essential to find clays suitable for baking; but while many natural conditions are necessary for this purpose, none of them is sufficient in itself, for no clay would, after baking, produce a receptable suitable for use unless it were mixed with some inert body chosen for its special properties. Elaborate modelling techniques are necessary to make possible the achievement of keeping in shape for some time a plastic body which will not "hold" in the natural state, and simultaneously to mould it; lastly, it is necessary to discover the particular type of fuel, the sort of furnace, the degree of heat, and the duration of the baking process which will make the clay hard and impermeable and avoid the manifold dangers of cracking, crumbling and distortion. Many other instances might be quoted. There are far too many complicated operations involved for chance to account for all. Each one by itself means nothing, and only deliberate imaginative combination, based on research and experiment, can make success possible. Chance admittedly has an influence, but, by itself, produces no result. For about 2,500 years, the Western world knew of the existence of electricity — which was no doubt discovered by accident — but that discovery bore no fruit until Ampere and Faraday and others set deliberately to work on the hypotheses they had for- mulated. Chance played no more important a part in the invention of the bow, the boomerang or the blow-pipe, in the development of agriculture or stock-rearing, than in the discovery of penicillin, into which, of course, we know it entered to some extent. We must therefore distinguish carefully between the transmission of a technique from one generation to another, which is always relatively easy, as it is brought about by daily observation and training, and the invention and improvement of new techniques by each individual generation. The latter always necessitate the same power of imagination and the same tireless efforts on the part of certain individuals, whatever may be the particular technique in question. The 35 societies we describe as "primitive" have as many Pasteurs and Palissys as the others. We shall shortly come back to chance and probability, but in a different position and a different role; we shall not advance them as a simple explanation for the appearance of full-blown inventions, but as an aid to the interpretation of a phenomenon found in another connexion — the fact that, in spite of our having every reason to suppose that the quantity of imagination, inventive power and creative energy has been more or less constant throughout the history of mankind, the combination has resulted in important cultural mutations only at certain periods and in certain places. Purely personal factors are not enough to account for this result: a sufficient number of individuals must first be psychologically pre- disposed in a given direction, to ensure the inventor's immediate appeal to the public; this condition itself depends upon the combination of a considerable number of other historical, economic and sociological factors. We should thus be led, in order to explain the differences in the progress of civilizations, to invoke so many complex and unrelated causes that we could have no hope of understanding them, either for practical reasons, or even for theoretical reasons, such as the inevitable disturbances provoked by the very use of mass observation methods. In order to untangle such a skein of countless filaments, it would in fact be necessary to submit the society in question (and the surrounding world) to a comprehensive ethnographical study covering every moment of its life. Even apart from the enormous scope of the undertaking, we know that ethnographers working on an infinitely smaller scale often find their opportunities for observation limited by the subtle changes introduced by their very presence in the human group they are studying. Wc also know that, in modern societies, one of the most efficient methods of sounding reactions — public opinion polls — tend to modify opinion at the same time, since they introduce among the population a factor which Avas previously absent — awareness of their own opinions. This justifies the introduction into the social sciences of the concept of probability, which has long since been recog- nized in certain branches of physics, e.g. thermodynamics. We shall return to this question; for the time being we may content ourselves with a reminder that the complexity of modern discoveries is not the result of the more common occurrence or better supply of genius among our contem- 36 poraries. Rather the reveise, since we have seen that, through the centuries, the progress of each generation depends merely on its adding a constant contribution to the capital inherited from earlier generations. Nine-tenths of our present wealth is due to our predecessors — even more if the date when the main discoveries made their appearance is assessed in relation to the approximate date of the dawn of civilization. We then find that agriculture was developed during a recent phase, representing 2 per cent of that period of time; metallurgy would represent 0.7 per cent, the alphabet 0.35 per cent, Galileo's physics 0.035 per cent and Darwin's theories 0.009 per cent.^ The whole of the scientific and industrial revolution of the West would therefore fall within a period equivalent to approximately one-half of one-thousandth of the life span of humanity to date. Some caution therefore seems advisable in asserting that this revolution is destined to change the whole meaning of human history. It is nevertheless true — and this we think finally sums up our problem — that, from the point of view of technical inventions (and the scientific thought which makes such inventions possible) , Western civilization has proved itself to be more "cumulative" than other civilizations. Starting with the same initial stock of neolithic culture, it successfully introduced a number of improvements (alphabetic script, arithmetic and geometry), some of which, incidentally, it rapidly forgot; but, after a period of stagnation, lasting roughly for 2,000 or 2,500 years (from the first millenary b.c. until approximately the eighteenth century a.d.), it suddenly pro- duced an industrial revolution so wide in scope, so com- prehensive and so far-reaching in its consequences that the only previous comparison was the neolithic revolution itself. Twice in its history, at an interval of approximately 10,000 years, then, humanity has accumulated a great number of inventions tending in the same direction; enough such inventions, exhibiting a sufficient degree of continuity have come close enough together in time for technical co-ordination to take place at a high level; this co-ordination has brought about important changes in man's relations with nature, w^hich, in their turn, have made others possible. This process, which has so far occurred twice, and only twice, in the history of humanity, may be illustrated by the simile of a chain 1. Leslie A. White, The Science of Culture, New York, 1949, p. 356. 37 reaction brought about by catalytic agents. What can account for it? First of all, we must not overlook the fact that other revolu- tions with the same cumulative features may have occurred else- where and at other times, but in different spheres of human activity. We have explained above why our own industrial revolution and the neolithic revolution (which preceded it in time but concerned similar matters) are the only groups of events which we can appreciate as revolutions, because they are measurable by our criteria. All the other changes which have certainly come about are only partially perceptible to us, or are seriously distorted in our eyes. They cannot have any meaning for modern Western man (or, at all events, not their full meaning); they may even be invisible to him. Secondly, the case of the neolithic revolution (the only one which modern Western man can visualize clearly enough) should suggest a certain moderation of the claims he may be tempted to make concerning the preeminence of any given race, region or country. The industrial revolution began in Western Europe, moving on to the United States of America and then to Japan; since 1917 it has been gathering momentum in the Soviet Union, and in the near future, no doubt, we shall see it in progress elsewhere; now here, now there, within a space of 50 years, it flares up or dies down. What then of the claims to be first in the field, on which we pride ourselves so much, when we have to take into account thousands upon thousands of years .^ The neolithic revolution broke out simultaneously, to within 1,000 or 2,000 years, around the Aegean, in Egypt, the Near East, the 'Valley of the Indus, and China; and since radio- active carbon has been used for determining archaeological ages, we are beginning to suspect that the neolithic age in America is older than we used to think and cannot have begun much later than in the Old World. It is probable that three or four small valleys might claim to have led in the race by a few centuries. What can we know of that today? On the other hand, we are certain that the question of who was first matters not at all, for the very reason that the simul- taneity of the same technological upheavals (closely followed by social upheavals) over such enormous stretches of territory, so remote from one another, is a clear indication that they resulted not from the genius of a given race or culture but from conditions so generally operative that they are beyond the con- scious sphere of man's thought. We can therefore be sure 38 that, if the industrial revolution had not begun in North- western Europe, it would have come about at some other time in a different part of the world. And if, as seems probable, it is to extend to cover the whole of the inhabited globe, every culture will introduce into it so many contri- butions of its own that future historians, thousands of years hence, will quite rightly think it pointless to discuss the question of which culture can claim to have led the rest 100 or 200 years. If this is admitted, we need to introduce a new qualification, if not of the truth, at least of the precision of our distinction between stationary history and cumulative history. Not only is this distinction relative to our own interests, as we have already shown, but it can never be entirely clear cut. So far as technical inventions are concerned, it is quite certain that no period and no culture is absolutely stationary. All peoples have a grasp of techniques, which are sufficiently elaborate to enable them to control their environment and adapt, improve or abandon these techniques as they proceed. If it were not so, they would have disappeared long since. There is thus never a clear dividing line between "cumulative" and "non-cumulative" history; all history is cumulative and the difference is simply of degree. We know, for instance, that the ancient Chinese and the Eskimos had developed the mechanical arts to a very high pitch; they very nearly reached the point at which the "chain reaction" would set in and carry them from one type of civilization to another. Everyone knows the story of gunpowder; from the technical point of view, the Chinese had solved all the problems involved in its use save that of securing a large-scale effect. The ancient Mexicans were not ignorant of the wheel, as is often alleged; they were perfectly familiar with it in the manufacture of toy animals on wheels for children to play with; they merely needed to take one more step forward to have the use of the cart. In these circumstances, the problem of the relatively small number (for each individual system of criteria) of "more cumulative" cultures, as compared with the "less cumulative" cultures, comes down to a problem familiar in connexion with the theory of probabilities. It is the problem of determining the relative probability of a complex combination, as com- pared with other similar but less complex combinations. In roulette, for instance, a series of two consecutive numbers (such as 7 and 8, 12 and 13, 30 and 31) is quite frequent; a series of three is rarer, and a series of four 39 very much more so. And it is only once in a very large number of spins that a series of six, seven or eight numbers may occur in their natural order. If our attention is con- centrated exclusively on the long series (if, for instance, we are betting on series of five consecutive numbers), the shorter series will obviously mean no more to us than a non-con- secutive series. But this is to overlook the fact that they differ from the series in which we are interested only by a fraction and that, when viewed from another angle, they may display a similar degree of regularity. We may carry our comparison further. Any player who transferred all his winnings to longer and longer series of numbers might grow discouraged, after thousands and millions of tries, at the fact that no series of nine consecutive numbers ever turned up, and might come to the conclusion that he would have been better advised to stop earlier. Yet there is no reason why another player, following the same system but with a different type of series (such as a certain alternation between red and black or between odd and even) might not find significant combinations where the first player would see nothing but confusion. Mankind is not developing along a single line. And if, in one sphere, it appears to be stationary or even retrograde, that does not mean that, from another point of view, important changes may not be taking place in it. The great eighteenth century Scottish philosopher, Hume, set out one day to clear up the mistaken problem which has puzzled many people, why not all women, but only a small minority, are pretty. He had no difficulty in showing that the question means nothing at all. If all women were at least as pretty as the most beautiful woman of our acquaintance, we should think they were all ordinary and should reserve the adjective for the small minority who surpassed the average. Similarly, when we are interested in a certain type of progress, we restrict the term "progressive" to those cultures which are in the van in that type of development, and pay little attention to the others. Progress thus never represents anything more than the maximum progress in a given direc- tion, pre-determined by the interests of the observer. 40

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リンク

• レヴィ＝ストロー ス『人種と歴史』について
  

文献

• Race and history / by Claude Lévi-Strauss, [Paris] : Unesco , c1958 [1952]. - (Race question in modern science)
  

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