Table of Contents
This page follows Ignatius Donnelly’s chapter “Civilization an Inheritance”, the first chapter of Part III of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Donnelly argues that civilization was not invented again and again in many places. In his view it was handed down from one ancient source, Atlantis.
What civilization is
Donnelly defines material civilization as the sum of inventions and discoveries that let people improve their condition and control nature for their own benefit.
Material civilization might be defined to be the result of a series of inventions and discoveries, whereby man improves his condition, and controls the forces of nature for his own advantage.
Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Part III, Chapter I
Civilization is a set of inventions. Each invention gives people more control over nature.
The road from savagery to civilization, as Donnelly calls it, has many steps, and each is a victory over nature. The bow and arrow was a huge step forward, because early people could now hunt better and still their hunger.
In the same way, the discovery of fire, and then the invention of pottery and metallurgy, were major advances.
Slow progress
Donnelly does not think these advances came quickly. He holds that thousands of years often passed between major inventions. In his view, many “savage races” of his own day had not yet reached these old milestones, which shows how slow the progress of civilization was.
The legacy of Atlantis
Donnelly says that many essential arts and inventions go back to Atlantis, or to the ancient Egyptian civilization, which grew out of Atlantis.
For six thousand years, he says, civilization made no real progress beyond what it had inherited from these sources.
In six thousand years the world made no advance on the civilization which it received from Atlantis.
Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Part III, Chapter I
Six thousand years without progress. Donnelly sees the ancient world as keeping what Atlantis gave it, not adding to it.
The torch of civilization passed from Phoenicia, Egypt, Chaldea, India and Greece to Rome. In arts such as architecture, metallurgy and navigation, there was no real improvement until modern times.
An ancient civilization that did not change
According to Herodotus, the Egyptian priests told him their written history went back 11,340 years before his time. Donnelly adds that this is nearly 14,000 years before his own time, and takes it as a sign of a long and unchanging civilization. In his account, the civilization of Egypt appeared fully mature from its earliest days, with advanced architecture and sculpture. Its religion worshipped one God at first, and was later corrupted into polytheism. See also the account of Menes, the first king.
Egypt at the beginning appears mature, old, and entirely without mythical and heroic ages, as if the country had never known youth. Its civilization has no infancy, and its art no archaic period.
Ernest Renan, quoted by Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Part III, Chapter I
Egypt had no childhood. Renan saw Egyptian civilization as already mature at its start.
Civilization: a shared origin
Donnelly argues that a primitive civilization must have existed for vast periods of time to create and develop the arts and knowledge that later civilizations inherited.
The same traits show up in Indo-European, Egyptian and Chinese civilizations. For Donnelly this points to a shared origin in one very ancient source.
Against the idea of separate invention
Donnelly rejects the idea that different civilizations invented the same technologies and customs on their own.
Instead, he holds that all civilized nations inherited them from one ancient, advanced civilization, Atlantis.
As evidence he points to the many savage tribes that never developed such advances on their own, even with the same needs and chances.
There are two great divisions of mankind, the civilized and the savage; and, as we shall show, every civilized race in the world has had something of civilization from the earliest ages; and as "all roads lead to Rome," so all the converging lines of civilization lead to Atlantis.
Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Part III, Chapter I
All lines lead to Atlantis. Donnelly sees every civilized people as heir to one source.
An inherited civilization
In Donnelly’s view, every advanced civilization goes back to one common source, Atlantis.
He supports this by saying that no savage race developed civilization on its own during the historic period. Even the Romans, Gauls, Goths and Britons, who were seen as barbarians at first, had many parts of civilization that they had inherited from earlier cultures.
Continuity across the Atlantic
The civilizations on both sides of the Atlantic, in the Old World and the New World, are so alike that, for Donnelly, they must share a common origin or have shaped each other directly. The next chapter of his book compares them in detail; see also American evidences of intercourse with Europe or Atlantis.
He rejects as unlikely the idea that different civilizations could arrive at the same inventions and customs on their own.
Key points
- Material civilization defined: the result of inventions and discoveries that improve people’s condition and give them control over nature.
- Slow development: civilization grew slowly over thousands of years, with milestones such as the bow and arrow, fire, pottery and metallurgy.
- Legacy of Atlantis: many essential arts and technologies go back to Atlantis and early Egyptian civilization.
- An unchanging ancient civilization: Egyptian civilization appeared mature from its earliest days and changed little for thousands of years.
- A primordial civilization: civilization must have existed for vast periods to develop the arts and knowledge that later cultures inherited.
- Against separate invention: different civilizations did not invent the same technologies on their own; they inherited them from a common source.
- Inherited civilization: advanced civilizations go back to a common source, Atlantis.
- Continuity across the Atlantic: civilizations on both sides of the Atlantic are strikingly alike, which suggests a common origin or direct influence.
