一种氏族民主制与两种人类文明——路易斯·亨利·摩尔根《古代社会》读后存疑

美国人类学家摩尔根的人类学巨著《古代社会》是一本影响至深至远的经典之作，作者在该书中力图考证早期人类的氏族社会中存在着民主的传统，并以所有民族并无优劣之分的前提向读者说明：人类的各种主要制度特别是宪政文化中的民主精神来源于氏族社会，并一脉相承有迹可寻地延续了下来。然而事实是东西方两种文明以几乎截然不同甚至相反的途径发展下来而形成了两种差别很大的文明形态。在摩尔根的书中谈到即将跨入文明社会的高级野蛮社会时，古希腊与古罗马成为了唯一被选择的例证，对于东方各民族的发展轨迹摩尔根却涉及甚少，东方文明中的君主专制体制沿续千年的事实在文中也找不到任何解释，这是一个令人存疑的问题。

A kind of clan democracy and two kinds of human civilizations——Comment on Lewis Henry Morgan''s the Ancient Society

The anthropology works written by Lewis Henry Morgan, an American anthropologist, is an influential classic works. The author tried to do textual research into the democratic tradition existing in the clan society of the early human being and under the precondition that there is not distinction of good and bad among all the nations, reveal to the readers that human＇s various main system, especially the democratic spirit of constitutional government culture, came from the clan society and is inherited. However, in fact, the development of the eastern and western civilizations follows the different and even contrary directions and forms two kinds of different civilization forms. When he talked about the high barbarous society which would enter the civilized society, he cited ancient Greece and ancient Rome as the unique examples but seldom mentioned the development trace of the eastern nations. There is no explanation of the fact that the absolute monarchy was handed down from generation to generation in the eastern civilizations, which is doubtful.